Adrik (Titans #1)

Chapter 2

“For Christ’s sake!” Ember hissed. “Stop crying.” She shot Nova a dark look and instantly regretted it when Nova tucked her trembling chin and lowered her eyes. Nova, the youngest of their group, was terrified. They all were, but Ember hid it best.

“Who are they?” Kyan asked quietly, pulling Nova into a tight hug.

“Dunno,” Ember clipped out, eyes on the behemoths hauling their cage deeper into their ship.

“More like what are they?” Vashti added unhelpfully.

Ember shot Vashti a look. Vashti shrugged her shoulders in response. Vashti was a fighter like Ember, but unlike Ember, Vashti didn’t have the patience to make good decisions. Impulsive as all hell, Vashti had forced Ember to save their little rag-tag group of prisoners on numerous occasions with her reckless behavior.

Huffing, Ember gave her attention back to the guards and tried appealing to one of the men clad in head-to-toe black. “Please,” she pleaded. “We were prisoners. Will you help us? Humans will pay to have us delivered.”

All women watched to see if Ember’s plea had done any good, but when the formidable figures kept working, Ember shook her head. “Maybe they don’t understand our language.”

“Nobody understands our goddamn language,” Vashti growled.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ember crouched a little. “We’re gonna do what we always do. We’re gonna stick together. We’re gonna have each other’s backs. And if they try taking one of us, then they deal with all of us. Got it?”

Vashti nodded while Nova kept crying, and Kyan stayed quiet. While Nova was the youngest and most emotional, it was Kyan that Ember worried about the most. Kyan had stopped eating the hideous rations their last captors had given them. No amount of prodding by any of them had convinced Kyan to eat, and in a quiet meeting, Ember and Vashti determined that Kyan had given up. Kyan’s slight frame had gone from very thin to anorexic. Kyan had deep shadows beneath her eyes, and her collar bones protruded. She didn’t move or talk much, simply offering comfort to Nova when she could.

It had Ember sucking in a deep breath and turning to the guy pulling the cage. “Food? Water?” She made hand gestures hoping the guy understood, but he just continued pulling instead of responding.

Shooting a glance out of the corner of her eye, Ember forced a smile at where Kyan and Nova were hugging each other, watching her. “They could be friendlies.”

With a quiet snort, Vashti mumbled, “They could be sicko rapists who like the taste of pretty pink human flesh.”

“Vashti!” Ember admonished quietly.

“What?” Vashti shrugged and had the decency to look repentant as she whispered, “I’m just saying.”

“Well, don’t say it,” Ember snapped. “And don’t go getting any wild ideas either. We work together this time!”

Vashti ducked her head and hid her face behind a fall of long blonde rope braids. She hadn’t forgotten the last time she’d ignored Ember’s directives. It’s how they’d gotten captured in the first place.

“How?” Vashti whispered.

Glancing over her shoulder, Ember whispered, “We wait and see if they’re friendly.”

“If they are?”

“Then we get Kyan some help. She won’t last much longer.”

“Mmmm,” Vashti agreed, glancing at Kyan. “And what if they’re not friendly?” She eyed the heavy bars that held them, clearly already decided on their captors.

With a deep breath in, Ember exhaled slowly. “Then we do what we always do. Fight to stay together. Protect each other. Hope for the best and pray for rescue.”

Two seconds later, the cage they were housed in slammed to a halt, nearly sending Ember and Vashti to their knees.

“Watch it!” Vashti shouted, shooting a glare at their nearest captor.

Ember couldn’t differentiate one man from the next because they all wore identical armor with full headgear.

It looked like they had tight black masks covering their heads with shiny black visors over their eyes.

All Ember knew for sure was whoever these guys were, they at least had two arms and two legs, which hopefully meant they had brains as well.

The last… things that had captured them were giant slug-like creatures that Ember could not even communicate with.

The differentiation between this group and the last was significant and terrifying.

Ember knew how rare human females were this far out in space.

It’s why she and the other women had wound up on the last ship.

They’d been extremely valuable cargo.

Rounded up on Earth against their will and sold to a slave ship, Ember fought tooth and nail for release until the slave ship was attacked.

Ember and the other women had been traded twice since then, and each time, Ember learned just a little more.

It’s how she knew how far out in space they were.

On their last ship, they were kept in a cage in the command center.

From what she’d gathered, it was so that the Captain, or whatever they called him, could keep an eye on them.

The deeper in space, the more valuable the women became.

It was the only thing that had kept Kyan from taking her own life. Kyan had been terrified of dying a horrible death, but Ember had been able to convince her and the others that they were now too valuable to just kill.

Eyes sliding to their nearest captor, Ember swallowed hard.

These… guys appeared humanoid, and that had her worried.

If Ember and her women were sexually compatible with their captors, she didn’t know how she’d be able to keep Vashti, Kyan, and Nova from being assaulted.

She didn’t care what happened to herself, and if shit hit the fan, Ember would offer herself up to the crew to protect her friends.

But would she be enough?