Ral's Woman
Page 2

Their alien torsos weren’t that long but their legs were much longer than human legs.
Yoz led her through stone corridors. She gasped when she saw a large window of what appeared to be thick glass. She stared beyond the window into literal outer space.
She saw stars in a black sea. Yoz yanked hard on her chain and it made her jerk forward. Pain shot up her arm.
“Beautiful,” he hissed. “But stare at it later. You will see enough of it to be sick of it quickly. I am sick of it.”
He led her to what looked like an elevator. It was more of a rounded tube. No walls were attached to the platform. Yoz gripped the back of her neck and held on. The platform suddenly dropped out from under them at an alarming rate.
Fear gripped Ariel. She saw the rough rock around them sliding past. She was pretty sure she would tear up her skin if she touched one of the rough rock walls as the floor dropped them lower into the bowels of the asteroid. The man grasping her didn’t release her neck until the platform slowed to a stop. She saw more stone corridors.
Yoz walked off the platform. “Come fast. I am being called.” The man touched his ear. “I am nearly there, Mon.”
Ariel swallowed. She didn’t see any kind of device on the man’s ear, just skin. Then again she’d touched her own ear many times since she’d woken up after she’d been taken. She’d been so stunned by her surroundings at first it had taken her hours to realize when she was spoken to, the aliens’ lips didn’t move correctly to form the words she heard in her ear. She only heard them in one ear and not the other. She’d been informed that they’d implanted something so she could understand their language. Yoz must also have some kind of implanted two-way communication device in his cone-shaped ear.
She saw a large door and Yoz stopped to put his hand on it. Anzons only had four fingers—they didn’t possess thumbs. The door groaned before it opened up and cooler air hit them both. Ariel shivered as the air blasted them. Yoz started walking.
“Hurry or the door will crush you,” he hissed.
She ran to catch up with him. She heard a loud groan and turned her head back.
The door slammed down to the floor with a louder thud. She flinched. The halls were wider here and she heard something that sent fear up her spine again. It sounded like growling.
“It has already begun,” Yoz hissed. Excitement made him speak faster.
They turned a corner and the ceiling disappeared. The corridor ended in a large cavern. She saw more of Yoz’s kind standing there. They were staring below at the cavern floor. Yoz pushed forward shoving at another male alien. Ariel had little choice but to follow since he had her wrist leashed. She saw the bluish aliens staring at her as she walked past at least twenty of them. These aliens wore thick black clothing that looked like hard shells. She saw weapons strapped around their waists.
Yoz moved toward a very tall alien. The alien wore the black shell uniform with weapons attached around his waist. He turned his head and Ariel met a pair of cold yellow eyes. The alien eyed her back, his scary gaze wandering down her body. His gaze jerked to Yoz.
“Strip her down and chain her on the platform.”
Yoz hesitated. “Everything?”
“Is she wearing anything under her clothing?”
“There are small coverings over her breasts and her sex chamber.”
“Leave those on. I don’t want a riot.”
Yoz nodded and jerked Ariel out on a platform. It didn’t have rails. It was a long strip of flooring and then an open round platform like their version of an elevator. This one had two bars coming up from the floor. Yoz jerked her to the center of the platform and pointed to the center.
“Stand and hold.”
She was afraid. “Hold?”
“Do not move. If you fall you die.”
She tried to peer over the platform to below, but Yoz gripped her throat to jerk her head up as he pushed her to the center of the platform.
“Do as you are told.”
She held still and kept her head up. He released her throat, took the leash and yanked it upward so her arm was raised. He touched it to the pole and released it. The leash stayed attached to the bar. He turned and her eyes followed him. He held up his hand and another leash was thrown at him from one of the bluish aliens. Yoz caught it and he gripped her other wrist, wrapping the leash around it as he jerked her arm up, attaching the leash to the other pole. Her arms were above her, spread wide and high.
She could stand fine but she knew she could only move a few inches at most.
Yoz stepped in front of her to stare down into her frightened eyes. “I feel sorry for you.”
She gasped when he gripped her shirt to tear at it roughly—he was strong. She was helpless to stop the alien as the material was torn from her body. He reached down to shove his fingers inside the waist of her skirt. His sharp fingernails shredded the band from the inside out. He yanked her skirt from her so Ariel was left standing in only her bikini briefs and bra. Yoz eyed her with pity. Shaking his head, he walked away from her.
Ariel turned her head to track the alien. Yoz walked back across the strip of flooring to his fellow aliens. The platform she stood on suddenly dropped quickly. She gasped at the falling sensation, fighting a scream. The platform slowed to a stop with a stomach-churning lurch. She had probably dropped fifty feet to the cavern floor in just a few seconds.
She couldn’t help but stare. She saw a group of about eighty males. They were definitely males. She got her first look at what must be Zorn. They looked huge. They had hair all right. She remembered that comment from the aliens. The males had long, thick hair that ran down their backs to their waists. They had hairy chests. She could see that because none of them wore shirts. They had dark brown skin, almost looking deeply tan, and thick, huge muscles.
She saw one in the front the rest. She stared at his face. He looked almost human.
The difference was his nose was flatter and wider than a human’s. He had high cheekbones and thick lips. Those lips opened and she saw sharp teeth. Terror hit her.
They almost looked like what would happen if someone had combined a human with an animal. Her eyes locked on those sharp teeth before she tore them away to stare at another man who moved closer.
The light caught his eyes—bright electric blue. It was a color she’d never seen before it was so blue—they almost glowed. Terrified, Ariel started to breathe faster. She let the sounds around her penetrate her terror. The men were growling like vicious animals. She shut her eyes. She fought the wrist restraints but couldn’t get free of the leashes holding her arms above her.