Feel­ing bet­ter about her sit­u­a­tion, Cas­sidy hur­ried down the wider shaft. She opened the first box she came to and dis­cov­ered small cool­ing con­tain­ers in­side. Wish­ing she had more light to see by, she fum­bled one open and sniffed. Some­thing hinted softly of berries, and she cau­tiously licked the frozen sur­face of what­ever she’d found.

  She moaned her de­light. Gelato, no doubt straight from Italy. The frozen treat was heav­enly, and Cas­sidy lost no time in de­vour­ing the en­tire pint-sized con­tainer.

  The worst of her hunger sated, she ex­plored and nib­bled her way to a full stom­ach. Brenda’s stash con­sisted of mostly sweets and salty snacks, but Cas­sidy didn’t mind. She had no way to heat or cook food. At least she wouldn’t starve try­ing to wait the Kalquo­ri­ans out. She also found a case of fruit-fla­vored sparkling wa­ter, so the most im­por­tant is­sue of hy­dra­tion was cov­ered.

  As Cas­sidy chewed on a piece of sugar-coated Turk­ish de­light, an­other woman’s scream ric­o­cheted through the ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem. She cringed at the aw­ful sound. What was hap­pen­ing to the oth­ers?

  Un­til now, Cas­sidy had kept hid­den deep in the main shaft af­ter the dan­ger­ous Li­don’s near cap­ture of her. She’d been too fright­ened to in­ves­ti­gate what had be­come of the other women.

  Were the Kalquo­ri­ans tor­tur­ing the as­pi­rants and sis­ters right now? Worse still, were the women be­ing raped by the de­viant aliens?

  Fear of the in­vaders, the need to do some­thing to help the cap­tive women, and mor­bid cu­rios­ity warred for con­trol over Cas­sidy. An­other des­per­ate cry echoed through the shaft, de­cid­ing her. She had to find out if she could help the oth­ers es­cape. At the very least, should she be lucky enough to es­cape the Kalquo­ri­ans’ in­va­sion, it was her duty to re­port ev­ery­thing that had hap­pened on Eu­ropa to the au­thor­i­ties.

  Think­ing about the au­thor­i­ties made Cas­sidy won­der for the mil­lionth time what had be­come of her grand­fa­ther. Her stom­ach churned un­easily as she spec­u­lated over his fate. Of course she didn’t want him hurt. In his own way, Patrick Hamil­ton had seen to Cas­sidy’s wel­fare. He had cared enough to do that, at least. But at the same time, he’d ma­rooned her on Eu­ropa. He would have mar­ried her off to an old, old man, an equally un­pleas­ant form of in­car­cer­a­tion. It had ap­par­ently never oc­curred to the gen­eral that per­haps Cas­sidy had her own wants and cares. Even if it had, she wasn’t sure that any of that would have mat­tered to him. He ruled ev­ery­one with an iron fist, troops and fam­ily alike. When they didn’t bow to his or­ders, bad things hap­pened. Things like her fa­ther’s death, a few years af­ter mar­ry­ing a woman Patrick Hamil­ton had not ap­proved of. When Cas­sidy’s wid­owed mother Jackie Hamil­ton re­fused to marry Colonel Tucker as Grand­fa­ther had wanted, she had strug­gled to make ends meet on her flight at­ten­dant’s salary. Some­times they ended up with the power turned off in their tiny apart­ment. The gen­eral had not of­fered one sin­gle penny to help them out, though he of­ten con­tacted them to see how they were do­ing. Over and over again, he’d at­tempted to make Jackie re­con­sider his friend the colonel as a suit­able spouse.

  Then the fi­nal blow had been dealt; Jackie’s trial and im­pris­on­ment, which led to her death from tor­ture and be­ing over­worked. Cas­sidy, with no one else to turn to, had been given no choice but to rely on her se­vere grand­fa­ther for sup­port. He could have sent her to the best schools, paved the way to the sci­en­tific ca­reer she’d yearned for. In­stead, he’d sent her to Eu­ropa, where she knew more than the sis­ters who taught ba­sic read­ing and math to the youngest girls.

  The old hate and fear heated in Cas­sidy’s chest. Per­haps Patrick Hamil­ton was up­right and true in his be­liefs. Per­haps he was as close to Godly as any­one Cas­sidy had ever met. She still de­spised him.

  You im­pris­oned me, old man. Now you’re get­ting a taste of it. Eye for an eye and all that.

  Cas­sidy knew her thoughts were far from re­spect­ful. Maybe God should strike her down for be­ing un­grate­ful to her grand­fa­ther, but she sim­ply couldn’t sum­mon her bet­ter na­ture to the fore. It was her mother whose sin had de­stroyed ev­ery­thing, but the gen­eral could have been kinder. Cas­sidy had her faults, but she was not a wan­ton slut like Jackie had been. Just be­cause she couldn’t re­sist look­ing at dirty pic­tures and oc­ca­sion­ally touch­ing her­self, she was not an evil per­son. Cas­sidy had de­served bet­ter than what she’d been given.

  Think­ing ugly thoughts, the young woman re­sumed her jour­ney to the in­fir­mary. As she’d con­sid­ered her re­la­tion­ship with her grand­fa­ther, more in­ter­mit­tent screams had drifted through the con­duits. Cas­sidy needed to know what was hap­pen­ing to the oth­ers.

  As she passed an­other as­pi­rant’s cell, the sounds of moans and weep­ing froze her. Some­one was in there. From the sounds, it was an Earther woman.

  Cas­sidy knew the noise came from Tina’s cell. Tina was her age, a quiet red­headed beauty liked by ev­ery­one. The other as­pi­rant’s voice rose in des­per­ate sup­pli­ca­tion, her tone plead­ing. A deeper voice an­swered her in a sooth­ing tenor.

  Her heart pound­ing, Cas­sidy en­tered the shaft that led to the cell. Tina’s words be­came more dis­tinct as she crept closer.

  “Don’t, please don’t. It’s a sin.”

  Soft sounds fol­lowed. An­other, low-voiced mur­mur.

  “I can’t. They’ll ex­e­cute me for this!”

  The other voice faded in and out, the speaker keep­ing to barely above a whis­per. “No one … safe, my Matara … give your­self … your de­sire.”

  “For the love of Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses, I beg you. If they come for us—”

  “You said … to leave Earth and … taken to safety.”

  “You can’t guar­an­tee that!”

  Her ears ring­ing with Tina’s sobs, Cas­sidy eased her way close enough to peer into the cell. A scent rem­i­nis­cent of cin­na­mon teased her nos­trils. She wrin­kled her nose in con­fu­sion. Now that she thought about it, hadn’t she smelled some­thing sim­i­lar com­ing from her own cell just min­utes be­fore?

  Her eyes widened as the room be­low came into view. Tina’s bed had been moved to the mid­dle of the floor, and the young woman lay naked on it. Her milky body shim­mered in con­trast to those of her cap­tors, mak­ing her seem ethe­real. She was a nude an­gel shin­ing in the midst of shad­ows.

  Kneel­ing on ei­ther side of the bed were two nude Kalquo­ri­ans, each one hold­ing Tina’s wrists pinned next to her head on her thin pil­low. Mus­cled arms wrapped around her thighs, hold­ing her open for a third naked alien who crouched be­tween her legs. Their skin was star­tlingly dark next to Tina’s, who was as pale as Cas­sidy ex­cept for the scat­ter­ing of freck­les on her shoul­ders and nose.

  One Kalquo­rian, his nar­row face ea­ger, slowly licked the side of Tina’s neck. The sin­u­ous ac­tion cleaned small rivulets of blood com­ing from two small punc­ture wounds. The alien on the other side, his ex­pres­sion ten­der, stroked the as­pi­rant’s small round breasts, trac­ing the pink are­o­las with a fin­ger­tip. He bent to tease the hard­ened nip­ples with his tongue.

  The third, his mus­tache and goa­tee lend­ing his face a dan­ger­ous air, fon­dled her devil flesh. Tina’s pu­bic hair was as shock­ingly red as the hair on her head. Mois­ture glis­tened on the parted rose-col­ored lips of her sex. Her hips rose to greet the man’s touch even as she whim­pered, “Please, please God, for­give me.” Her breath came in harsh gasps.

  The Kalquo­rian’s fin­ger en­tered Tina, and she jerked with a cry. “No for­give­ness is re­quired,” he said, his voice sooth­ing. “This is what your beau­ti­ful body was made for.”

  His fin­ger slipped in and out, slick with her juices. Tina’s moans filled the cell, and Cas­sidy’s sex clenched at the sight. For one wild mo­ment, she wished she could trade places with her friend, es­pe­cially when the Kalquo­rian added a sec­ond thick fin­ger to the sweet as­sault.

  “No,” Tina groaned, even as her body be­trayed her. The Kalquo­rian play­ing with her breasts sucked one mound deep into his mouth. Her head lolled on the pil­low, her eyes un­fo­cused. The third Kalquo­rian cap­tured her mouth with his.

  “Yes Matara,” the main Kalquo­rian said, pulling his fin­gers free of her wet core. He grabbed his two sex or­gans, press­ing the tips to her ori­fices. Cas­sidy’s eyes widened and her breath caught. He was go­ing to put both in her.

  The man’s hips rocked, and the bul­let-shaped penises pierced Tina’s wom­an­hood and anus. The turgid flesh dis­ap­peared into her lit­tle by lit­tle, the man tak­ing his time as he de­filed the help­less Earther. When the Kalquo­rian kiss­ing her pulled back, Tina’s mouth curled in a eu­phoric smile. She sighed, and the sound was pure bliss.

  Only once did her ob­vi­ous plea­sure fade. Mo­men­tary pain brought a low wail from her lips, and the aliens mur­mured apolo­gies. The two hold­ing her pris­oner soothed her with ca­resses and kisses. The man im­pal­ing her with his iron flesh whis­pered, “It is all right now, my beauty. The pain of the first time is brief and will not trou­ble you again.”

  Tina’s gri­mace faded, and rap­ture again took her over. She ac­cepted the aliens’ kisses ea­gerly. Her moans took on a joy­ful tone as the Kalquo­rian moved in and out of her. Their flesh made wet sounds that prod­ded Cas­sidy’s womb to flex with de­sire.

  Cas­sidy watched it all, saw Tina’s body tense just be­fore her wild cries an­nounced an ec­stasy she could only won­der at. The Kalquo­rian cor­rupt­ing her tensed as she bucked wildly be­neath him, his mus­cles bunched and veins stand­ing out an in­stant be­fore he roared his own re­lease, rut­ting hard against her slight body. When they qui­eted, he traded places with one of the other Kalquo­ri­ans.

  It hap­pened all over again. The alien en­tered Tina, his ini­tial move­ments slow and care­ful, grad­u­ally build­ing to a frenzy as pas­sion over­took him. Tina moaned and gasped, her elated ex­pres­sion telling Cas­sidy she wel­comed the sin. She screamed anew as her im­moral flesh be­trayed her once more, her cries a bright coun­ter­point to the Kalquo­rian’s howls of com­ple­tion.

  Then the third man took his turn de­spoil­ing the girl, with the same re­sults. Noth­ing Cas­sidy had seen in The Kama Su­tra had hinted at this tem­pes­tu­ous riot of flesh pen­e­trat­ing flesh, the wild­ness, the fury of the sex act. She was left stunned and aching, aroused and fright­ened all at once.

  As the group calmed from their wicked play, Tina’s moral­ity re­turned. She sobbed and re­sisted as two of the men gath­ered her in their arms while the third, the last who had taken his plea­sure with her, rum­maged in a hard-shelled pack. He brought out a pouch, much like the mil­i­tary emer­gency food ra­tions Cas­sidy had seen Earther troops carry. He tore it open and waved it in front of Tina’s face.

  He said, “You will eat now.”

  She shook her head, strug­gling against her cap­tors. Through her tears she cried, “I won’t. Let me go.”

  The man who’d stolen her vir­gin­ity nod­ded to his com­pan­ion, hold­ing Tina’s head still to his chest. The sec­ond man brushed her red hair from her neck. His head reared back, and Cas­sidy shud­dered to see long, thin fangs ap­pear be­hind his square teeth. He darted for­ward, and sank the fangs in Tina’s neck near the first set of punc­ture wounds.

  Tina’s high-pitched wail brought tears to Cas­sidy’s eyes. The girl sounded lost in the abyss of Hell.

  There’s noth­ing I can do. Damn it, I can’t help her! God, how could you do this to us?

  Af­ter a few mo­ments, the Kalquo­rian re­leased his bite. Nar­row streams of blood ran down Tina’s throat, and he licked the fresh punc­tures clean, as he had the first set.

  Tina re­laxed in the arms of her cap­tors, and when the Kalquo­rian of­fered her the food pouch again, she ac­cepted with a con­tented smile, let­ting him feed her.

  “You are a good girl. You did very well, Tina,” the alien praised. “Af­ter you have eaten we will be­gin again, and it will feel even bet­ter than be­fore.”

  Cas­sidy’s senses were in over­drive, threat­en­ing to cor­rupt her just as thor­oughly as Tina had been. Over­whelmed by aching de­sire, she set­tled in the vent shaft to watch for a bit longer.

  Chap­ter 4

  Tra­nis walked into the con­vent’s in­fir­mary. The sight of nearly two dozen naked Earther women bound to the beds and sus­pended in the air by hover cuffs stopped him short. See­ing the help­less fe­male bod­ies of ev­ery size and shape took his breath away. He knew even more were be­ing kept in an­other build­ing, await­ing their turn at re-ed­u­ca­tion. His form­suit be­trayed his sud­den ex­cite­ment, ex­cite­ment shared by the other dozen Kalquo­ri­ans in the room. The spicy scent of their arousal hung heavy in the air.

  With the ex­cep­tion of Li­don and De­gorsk con­fer­ring in the mid­dle of the room, the rest of the men en­gaged in var­i­ous forms of plea­sur­ing the groan­ing women. In some cases, mouths and hands worked to arouse the Earth­ers. In oth­ers, turgid Kalquo­rian flesh slipped in and out of trem­bling wet sexes. The ex­pres­sions of the women re­ceiv­ing such at­ten­tion were eu­phoric. Their throats trick­led traces of blood from the tell­tale punc­tures of the Kalquo­rian bites that sent an in­tox­i­cat­ing venom into their bod­ies.

  Look­ing at the other women, those not bit­ten, took Tra­nis’ en­joy­ment of the scene away. Those un­drugged fe­males seemed afraid and hor­ri­fied in turns as they watched their fel­low con­vent in­hab­i­tants suc­cumb to lust­ful in­ter­ludes with their cap­tors. It made the Dramok’s stom­ach turn over to see their faces. All the re­ports he’d read told Tra­nis that the Earther gov­ern­ment and Church had poi­soned the Earther fe­male minds against nat­u­ral bi­o­log­i­cal plea­sures. That some even ab­horred it. He’d not been able to fully un­der­stand how such a thing could hap­pen, but it was ob­vi­ous the find­ings had been cor­rect.

  It even made Tra­nis feel guilty that the women were be­ing taught to en­joy mat­ing. Was the Em­pire’s psy­chi­atric board cor­rect in its as­sess­ment that they should be co­erced into such ac­tiv­i­ties? True, the women who were un­der the in­flu­ence seemed quite en­thralled with love­mak­ing right now, but how would they feel once the in­tox­i­cant wore off? Would they con­tinue to look upon sex with long­ing and plea­sure, or would they re­turn to view­ing it as a stain on their souls?

  Tra­nis swal­lowed. He had not con­sid­ered just how enor­mous the mat­ter of claim­ing women for Kalquor was, not un­til this mo­ment. Not un­til he saw the fear in the faces of those he’d cap­tured.

  How­ever, the cap­tain had the ut­most trust in De­gorsk to do what was right, both for Kalquor and for the Earther women. To shore up his wa­ver­ing con­fi­dence, Tra­nis took a few mo­ments to watch two Nobeks at­tend­ing to one of the women.

  She hung in the air, hover cuffs stretch­ing her choco­late brown limbs in an X-shape. One of the men was on his knees and licked her se­cret flesh with long, sin­u­ous strokes. The sec­ond Nobek spanked her trem­bling ass with an open palm. The sharp cracks punc­tu­ated her ea­ger moans as she writhed help­less in her bonds. “Yes,” she said with ev­ery stroke of the tongue, ev­ery strike of a hand. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Tra­nis watched un­til her breath caught and her body tensed. Her cries of com­ple­tion were sweet and high. Tra­nis al­most groaned to hear it, the beau­ti­ful song of a woman pleased. Noth­ing else in the uni­verse could com­pare.

  His ears still ring­ing with the de­light­ful sound, Tra­nis joined his clan­mates. They too sported erec­tions, the bulges at their crotches push­ing at the ex­posed stretchy fab­ric of their ar­mored form­suits.

  “You’ve wasted no time start­ing the Mataras’ re-ed­u­ca­tion,” Tra­nis said to De­gorsk.

  He looked once more at the few women not be­ing se­duced. Most of those were strapped im­mo­bile to the beds. A cou­ple wore ex­pres­sions of arousal, but most lay with their eyes screwed tightly shut, tears creep­ing from be­neath their lids. Again, Tra­nis was as­sailed with doubt as guilt stabbed deep within his gut.

  Why didn’t these women see the plea­sure that the ser­vice of his men gave the oth­ers? One only had to look at those bliss­ful ex­pres­sions and hear the cries to know sen­sual de­lights were noth­ing to fear. How deep did the ter­ror go? Could it be re­versed?

  De­gorsk’s an­swer in­ter­rupted Tra­nis’ thoughts. “I saw no point in de­lay­ing the lessons in be­ing plea­sured. The trans­port that is com­ing for them is still some dis­tance away.”

  The usu­ally merry Imdiko sounded un­com­fort­able. “What’s wrong?” Tra­nis asked softly, though he could guess.

  De­gorsk sighed. “Un­less they’re bit­ten, the women seem to view sex as some­thing hor­ri­ble to con­tem­plate.”

  “We knew that go­ing into this.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know it was this fuck­ing bad. They beg us not to touch them even as their bod­ies re­spond to pet­ting. They swear we are damn­ing them. They don’t seem to un­der­stand that all we want to do is serve their needs.” The medic shook his head. “I don’t know how to con­vince them that they’ll find happy lives with clans who will place them at the cen­ter of their ex­is­tences. I heal bro­ken bod­ies, not bro­ken minds.”

  “You do your best with what the board has told you to do,” Li­don said. “Fol­low their rec­om­men­da­tions. They’ve had some ex­pe­ri­ence with the first Earther Mataras. You’ve had none.”

 

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