Straik gets out from behind his desk and begins pacing. "This looks bad enough as it is. I can't show up on Homeworld with a long-missing ship piloted by human slaves. It will be a blemish my family name will never recover from."
And that means he'll never get into their good graces ever again.
Oh boy. I am about to make his day so much worse. I lean forward, rubbing my hands together. "Is now a good time to tell you guys what the cargo is?"
"It's silks, right?" Straik leans forward on his desk, his hands splayed atop it. There's a desperate look on his face. "Tell me that it's silks."
"Wrong," I tell him gleefully. "It's more keffing humans. A shit ton more. A hundred and thirty-two more."
Straik's bellow of anger echoes down the halls.
19
JADE
I wake up in a strange, soft bed, with a hangover and no idea how I got here. Oh fuck. This is karma, coming back to kick my ass.
Alarmed, I sit bolt upright, my eyes wide as I look around. The large room is totally unfamiliar to me. I'm in space, clearly, but I don't know this ship. I don't know why I'm in a double bed in a very messy room, or why the sheets smell like a masculine sort of soap. I sniff the blankets, curious. What's the last thing I remember? I try to recall. My mouth tastes like something sweet. I squint at the bright lights around me, pushing my hair back out of my face. All around me on the floor and the bed are wrappers to protein bars, the kind we have in our ship.
For a dreadful moment, I worry someone's eaten all of our supplies and we'll starve to death on the edge of space.
But then I remember…the man. The one with the allergic reaction and bright blue skin and the silly, roguish smile. Adiron. I sigh, because something tells me this is his place. I swing my legs over the side of the bed—
—and immediately tumble to the floor, woozy with a hangover. My stomach churns and I lie still for a long moment amidst the wrappers and dirty clothes, waiting for my queasiness to pass. He got me drunk, I realize. Just sat there and smiled and gave me some sort of juice cocktail that knocked me on my ass. With a groan, I vaguely remember other things, too. Like trying to unbutton his shirt, and trying to lick his neck, and grabbing his dick.
Not a good look, Jade, I tell myself. Not a good look at all.
Slowly, I ease back off the floor and rub my eyes. There's a familiar-looking indention in the wall, and I move to it and slap at buttons on the wall panel until it activates. A door folds back, revealing a small lavatory with a shower, a bath tub, sink and toilet. The sink is cluttered with various things—does this man not know how to put ANYTHING back in its place?—but the tub and shower are clean, at least. I eye them wistfully. We've been very conscious of our water supply back on the Star and we've been sparing with bathing as a result. I'm tempted to get in and use up all his water, but with my luck, he'd show up while I'm buck-ass naked and offer to scrub me down.
So, yeah, no.
I rinse my mouth out with a few handfuls of water from the sink and splash my face. At least I'm still dressed. That's a plus. I eye my slave girl outfit and it looks as intact as ever. I touch the crotch of my panties and it's dry, so thank god for that. I knot the oversized borrowed shirt—his shirt, which I'm still wearing—at my waist and then return to the main quarters.
No sooner do I sit down on the bed than my captor, Adiron, saunters in. He grins at me, looking thoroughly pleased. "Jade. You're awake."
"You're no longer swollen," I return as a greeting. I should scream at him, demand to know where the others are, but he's in a good mood and I need to play into that.
"Yeah, Kaspar said my ugliness was making him lose his appetite, so I got a few histamine shots from med-bay. I'm back to being only somewhat dashingly handsome." He mock-rubs his jaw, preening. "Do you like?"
"Am I going to get thrown into the brig if I say no?"
He shoots a finger-gun at me. "I'll change your mind. Give me time." Whistling, he kicks aside a pile of laundry on the floor and heads toward the bathroom I just came out of. The door tries to automatically shut behind him, but a discarded tunic gets in the way and the thing doesn't close. I watch in consternation as he strips off his pants and climbs into the shower, naked. This is…super awkward.