Wild Beast: A Rough Sci-Fi Romance
My quarters do not look as though they are aboard a spaceship. There are holographic generators creating what looks like the interior of a cave deep underground. There are ferns and glow worms, and a little stream trickling through the background. None of it is really there, besides the furnishings that are blended into the illusion. A large pile of furs at the rear makes up the bed where I can already see her naked form spread for me in my mind’s eye.
“Whoa,” Penelope gasps. “This is… amazing.”
“Make yourself comfortable. This is your den now too. It is your home.”
She turns toward me. “Volt, this is amazing. But I have wanted nothing other than to go home since I was left on the planet.”
“This will be your home. You will be happy here.”
* * *
Penelope
He is so certain of that, but he is a stranger to me, and a recently violent one at that. I cannot simply settle down here with Bilbo and become his mate. Yesterday I did not know he existed. Today he has mated me, announced his intention to breed me, and taken me captive. Volt may not see the reason for my reticence, but that is because he is clearly a beast and a madman.
Bilbo makes a careful circuit around the room. He tries to nibble on what looks like a bit of foliage growing from the den wall and makes a sound of goat-y consternation when it disappears inside his mouth.
This is a fascinating and strange place, but it is not home.
“Why do you want me here?”
“Because you are my mate-bonded. I felt something when I was inside you. I felt a connection. Did you not feel anything, human?”
I felt an orgasm more powerful than any I have ever experienced. I felt pleasure and I felt excitement. I felt soothed and I felt held. But did I feel an eternal fated connection? I felt like I was fucking a monster. That’s what I felt.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t need to know,” he says confidently. “I know enough for the both of us. Get some rest. You and your little creature. I have a ship to command. I will return for you soon.”
With that he leaves me locked up.
“Bilbo, this is crazy,” I sigh. “What have my hormones gotten me into?”
I slept with him because he was hot and because every bit of my being told me to. I was on sexual autopilot, following my most basic instincts. Now I’ve been taken captive by a vicious alien captain who has fallen head over heels in love with me. Or something.
I should never have gotten into Kurt and Steve’s ship. I should never have been lured by the promise of riches. My fate was never to be rich. It was apparently to be tossed around the universe at the general mercy of whatever most dangerous beast takes an interest and/or pity in me.
“I’m feeling sorry for myself, Bilbo,” I tell him.
“Maahahhahhhhhaaaaaaaa!” The tone of his response tells me that he is feeling sorry for himself too.
“We need to get out of here. He might change his mind and decide to eat us both.”
“Bleheh,” Bilbo agrees.
But getting out is not going to be easy. For one, the room is not as it seems. The illusion surrounding us makes it impossible to see anything useful, like maybe a switch marked Pull Here to Escape.
I am assuming that the captain’s quarters do not have a single way out. Most captains live in fear of mutiny, or invasion, or just general chaos breaking out in their ships. That means most of them have a quick exit that leads to an escape shuttle of some kind. Maybe Volt of the Vulpari species is different, but I somewhat think not.
My search begins on the opposite side of the room from where the main door is. When I try to touch the holographic illusions, they shimmer and fade for a moment, allowing me to see through to the walls beyond. We are in the equivalent of a plane hangar, a big empty room with nothing real inside it. This might amuse Volt, but I find it kind of creepy, especially after having spent so long living with the wild things. I know dirt is supposed to feel soft under my feet and sort of crumble up into my toes if I curl them. I know plants have a scent, as does water. This sterile facsimile of the wild is as convincing to me as a five-year-old’s drawing.
“There!” I spot a button on the wall. These things are always easy enough to use, they have to be. In an emergency a captain does not have time to bother with complex security measures. He wants to be able to hit a button and go.
Which is exactly what Bilbo and I do.