Breeding Ground Part 21

That reminder got him to quit laughing. "What was in that weapon?" he demanded. He was quiet for a moment as he glared daggers at her and then, "Speak!"

"Nothing you would understand." Alex concealed the inward wince she experienced from his show of anger. Her voice came down in timbre. "I have no desire to kill you, but if you don't release me my men will kill all of you without hesitation."

He wrapped his reptilian fingers around the bars of the cage, the talons from every finger jutting chillingly close to where she sat. The cage wasn't large at all-maybe just long enough to fit one of his own race inside of it. Having menacing pikes loom so closely served as a deadly reminder of its small size.

"You keep saying your men. Do you think me a fool, little one? Takuri do not permit their males education, let alone weapons," he hissed. His expression was one of superior knowing. "We have studied your kind and brought them to heel for thousands of years. We know your ways, human."

"I am not one of them."

"Cease s.h.i.+elding your body-my body-from me. Lie down on your back and spread your legs."

Alex blinked, momentarily thwarted by the change in topic. And then, his words sinking in, her heart rate soared. "Never," she rasped.

"Now," he growled. "You are mine and I wish to see what you have to offer me."

She was frightened, but the chill in her voice was unmistakable. "I'd rather die."

"So say all Takuri...at first."

"And I repeat again, I am not one of them."

His gold-slit gaze wandered up and down the nude body she was trying so desperately to s.h.i.+eld from him until it landed on her face. "There are but two races, little girl, Xandi and Takuri. Your sssscent is a foreign one and your coloring exotic, but this much I do know-Xandi you are not."

"Nor am I Takuri," she protested. "You wouldn't believe what I am." She sighed, a little bit of fight going out of her. "I don't even know what I am anymore."

Silence.

"You speak in riddles," he murmured. "And I don't have a care for it." His gaze locked with hers. "I will deal with you later, human. For now I order you to sleep."

He made to walk away, pausing long enough to threaten her. "Unless you enjoy your current 'home' and its nonexistent amenities, I suggest that you be more obliging toward me the next time I pay you a visit."

Her eyebrows slowly formed an inquisitive arch.

"When I enter this chamber on the morrow, spread your legs, play with your lovely p.u.s.s.y, and beg your king-G.o.d to f.u.c.k you."

Alex's heart began thumping madly. "Never," she vowed again.

His eyes glittered in mocking amus.e.m.e.nt. "So say you now."

Malik sat in silence in his formal dining chamber, uncertain as to what course he should take. He slowly sipped from the chalice of xandor blood and considered what had just transpired in the dungeon.

He had never-never-met an unmesmerizable Takuri female before. He hadn't even known such a thing existed. But this one? She had told him she was no Takuri. He wasn't about to admit it to her, but she had nigh unto convinced him upon their first meeting.

So much for mesmerizing her, then sending her back out amongst her people.

At least three times Malik had tried to mentally summon Alexandria into doing his bidding, but she hadn't responded to any of the attempts. And, as he had previously admitted to the mortal queen, she did in fact carry a unique scent. Then there was the issue of her hair and eyes...

By the G.o.ds that had awoken him, Malik had never seen hair and eyes the color of those. The hues were as foreign and exotic as they were beautiful. Her hair was a truer gold than the gaze of full-blooded Xandi, her eyes unlike any color he could name.

The dreamstate had taught Malik many things about Alexandria the Great, but it hadn't so much as alluded to the things he'd learned this day. Unmesmerizable? Had he not witnessed the phenomenon himself he never would have believed it.

Emptying the chalice, he swallowed down the remainder of the xandor blood. During his first reign, his mortal reign, xandor blood had always been able to give him a rush unlike any other type of elixir. At least one thing hadn't changed, he thought with a frown.

"Bring me another chalice," he ordered a nearby servant without glancing up. "Now."

"Perhaps you should kill her and be done with it, my lord," Ghazi said softly. The most trusted of his warriors, the G.o.ds had put Ghazi to sleep when Malik had died his first death. He had awoken not long after Malik. "If she cannot be mesmerized then-"

"She claims that her 'men' will come find her." His head came up slowly. Now in his man form, he was able to raise his eyebrows bemusedly. "And kill us."

Ghazi snorted at that. "Lies. We both know that."

"Do we?" Malik's smile evaporated. "She killed that Xandi warrior. And, what's more, she bespoke of the possibility of more such weapons."

Ghazi stilled. "Do you believe her?"

"I do not know." Malik stood up. s.n.a.t.c.hing the proffered chalice from the servant's grasp without so much as looking at her, he quickly drank down the xandor blood and handed back the ornamental cup. "But I do know I can't kill her until I exact more information from her."

"My lord?" Ghazi stood up, his eyes searching the king's grim face.

"I never wanted this so-called honor," Malik rasped. "Eternal life? Watching all those we come to know grow old and die? The G.o.ds can keep their immortality."

Ghazi's eyes widened. "You don't mean that bit of blasphemy..."

"Yes. Yes, I do." Wearing nothing but the traditional thigh-high leather skirt and boots of Tongor, it was easy to see his muscles tense. "This war has raged on for tens of thousands of years-longer than that if the ancient scrolls can be believed. And now we're to accept as true that all Takuri will compliantly lay at our heels simply because we have captured their queen?"

"The mages said-"

"The mages said nothing!" Malik bellowed, teeth gritting. "The clerics read into their words that which they wish to see. Nowhere is it written that by killing or keeping Alexandria the Great that our race shall prevail."

"Surely you do not believe that their kind shall win the war?"

He shook his head. "I will not let that happen."

"Then?"

Malik frowned as he prepared to walk away. "I needs must figure out how much of the human queen's words are truth and how much is naught but bl.u.s.ter. And in order to do that..."

"She needs be brought to heel."

Malik walked off. From over his shoulder he growled, "She needs be brought to my heel."

Alex spent the remainder of the night feeling this close to losing her threadbare grasp on sanity. She had dreamt of this cage, this dungeon, and of him, for months. Now she was here-captured, naked, and enslaved.

It was no dream.

Drawing her knees up, she clasped her arms around them and slowly rocked back and forth. Long, golden curls, usually confined in a bun at the nape of her neck, flowed to mid-back, tangled and disheveled. Her green eyes were wild, her heart rate much higher than it should have been.

Alex believed in science and logical reasoning. A longtime avowed atheist, she had only given credence to the tangible and explainable. But how could she reasonably explain away what she had experienced all those months? Dreams were nonsensical flights of fantasy...