His Broken Human (Alien Overlords 2)

I chuckle and lift her off slowly. Her inner walls are gripping and pulsing against me with the aftermath of her orgasm. It would have been nice to lie with her and enjoy every hot and molten moment.

Still without pants, she starts working at the wall, doing something with wires and other components she pulls from the pockets of her somewhat discarded pants. She never goes anywhere without a set of tools secreted on her person.

“What are you doing?”

Jax looks back over her shoulder at me. “I’m getting you out.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don't think they’re going to let you live long, even if they don’t intend to kill you right away. The politics in this place are toxic. I don’t like the way Tusk looks at me. Rath is stupid if he thinks Lyric is safe in the palace. Tusk doesn’t want a human in the palace. So we're out of here.”

I marvel at her, and all she seems to be able to achieve. I have allowed myself to believe in the strength of these rock walls, while she viewed them as being little more than an inconvenience.

“How is it that you seem to have more influence over this palace than I ever did?”

She gives me a pitying look with her little eye. “I had to learn to work the systems. You had the misfortune to think you controlled them.”

Sassy little thing. She’s not wrong, though.

“There are still tunnels," she says as she works. “They don’t lead outside the city walls, but they lead to the shadier spots of Megaris. Places you’ll live happily, if that dive you like to visit is anything to go by.”

“There are tunnels from the palace to the middle of the scummiest areas of Megaris? How has the palace not been invaded?”

“Good question. I suppose you have to ask yourself why scum class humans would want to find themselves in a korabi dungeon. The desire gradient goes one way for this particular set of underground passages. Besides. They're very secret.”

I can accept that explanation, I suppose. “You want us to hide under the nose of the traitor? Skulk around with Rath looking for us in every crevice?”

“Hiding under the noses of tyrants is my speciality," she winks. “Come on. The patrol will be around soon, and they’ll notice you missing.”

She opens up the wall, and by that, I mean the rock itself slides away. It’s another secret door. I know the palace is full of them. My ancestors were paranoid, and for good reason. I never imagined there would be one in a cell, but I suppose that it makes sense. Tyvian mentioned this was the only enclosure that could hold me. If it is the only cell capable of holding a king, one of my ancestors must have decided he wanted a way out of it.

Walking out of the cell feels almost too easy. The door sliding shut behind us is very satisfying. I assume that there will be some consternation and panic when they discover I am missing. I do hope so.

I also hope that the too easiness of this does not indicate a trap. Sometimes, too easy means things are about to go very wrong. Other times, too easy indicates the blessing of fate. There is a false equivalence between that which is hard and that which is worthy, I muse to myself as I walk free from my own dungeon. From this moment forth, I am determined to no longer dash myself against the decrees of fate. I will follow my heart. And I will lead Jax. Just as soon as she finishes showing me the way through the tunnel.

We emerge in a particularly rough sector of Megaris. The first thing I see as we slip up through a sewer grill is a dog eating the remains of a human foot. The dog does not seem concerned by the origins of its dinner, though its hackles rise as we approach out of necessity by way of getting past.

“We need to get you a disguise,” Jax says. “We need to paint that skin, and we need to cut and color that hair.”

“Cut my hair?”

“Yes. Please don’t be a diva about it.”

“Diva!” I laugh at her impudence.

“Come on. I have a place we can stay. At least, I think I do. Scum property tends to be squatted on and in regularly.”

The ‘place we can stay’ is only a ten-minute walk from the sewer grate. It is a shack which makes the cell I came out of look like a palace. It sits between two buildings, in an awkward sort of crevice. The entire structure is made of reclaimed materials hammered and screwed together with individually fashioned fasteners.

The interior is barely large enough for me to stand up and lie down in. The floor is the asphalt of the pavement. There is a metal drum with a fire in it, which I suppose will allow us to cook, and a pile of old boxes on the other side of the shack, which I at first took to be a fire hazard, but now realize are supposed to be a bed.