The Pet Project: Unnatural Selection--a Kept In Alien Captivity Romance Read online

  For an overwhelming moment, my fingers had dug into the ridiculously developed muscles of his arms and all I could think was Good gosh, Tranq is super polite. I knew he was nice to me, but with nothing to compare him to, I presumed every decent male must be. The new male didn’t seem mean, but he clearly cared about his pleasure and wasn’t giving a thought to mine, whereas Tranq was Mr. Manners about sex. My experiences prior to this moment had been Tranq politely asking me if he could touch me, if I wanted him inside me. And then he’d ask if he could enter me. I’d just assumed this sort of extensive, gentle questioning was the same sort of whispers I’d seen other couples partaking in before they… well, coupled.

  At my frightened noise, Avox had tempered his intensity right away though. He pulled back, really saw my face, and apologized, gentling his whole approach. He immediately turned to soft touches and quieter kisses and caresses, reassuring me. Getting me ready, getting me interested in him. And he was worth being interested in. He introduced me to teeth-clattering, powerful sexual desire, and he showed me that he could handle me with attention and skill. He only started out roughly because he’d been overcome with the excitement of being given a female. He’s a primal creature who had never been given a mate before. He was eager, but he took the time to correct himself before any harm was done. After analyzing that first encounter, my confidence about my answer buoys. “He didn’t attack me.”

  “No? Are you sure? Fighter-types are pretty famous for raping their conquests, and you hesitated there.” The mean male’s eyes are slightly squinted, and his smile is a cruel slant. “Maybe I have this wrong. Maybe you like it rough. Go ahead and tell me now. I can fuck real rough.”

  His body tenses like he’s just waiting for my affirmative.

  I don’t move. For a moment, I don’t even breathe. When he doesn’t move either, I search his eyes. He’s too far away to see their odd color, let alone his intention. I can only see that all of his attention is on me and he could literally be on top of me before Keeper could intervene. What if Keeper thinks I want it rough with this new male? Avox and I have given each other bites and bruises before, both of us conditioned to the heated brand of excitement that overcomes us now when he returns (often victorious) from a fight.

  But I don’t know this male like that.

  I’m not excited for this male like I am when Avox and I playfully wrestle before we make love.

  The mean male’s smile has disappeared. He’s just watching me now, and the silent intensity is equally alarming.

  I inhale through my nose so slowly and shallowly you can’t tell my chest even rises unless you were staring at it. But if I thought my sudden stillness would go unnoticed by the bully I’ve been locked into a cage with, I’m not paying enough attention to him.

  “Scared?” he taunts. “Finally, you’re getting smart.”

  Arranging my words carefully, I lick my upper lip and force my tone to sound calm. “Why are you trying to frighten me?”

  He’s in my face before I can process that he’s moving. The grey is gone from his eyes; they’ve melded into a dangerous, snapping shade of green. They flash with furious sincerity. “Because you should be afraid.”

  At a loss for what to say to this, my mind wildly casts about for any topic to keep him talking, preferably a safe one. “Dog is a stupid word to use as an insult, you know.”

  His eyes flicker once before he searches both of mine. He doesn’t lean back from me, but his voice is more controlled when he answers, “A dog would think that.”

  I can feel the heat radiating off of his body, and it makes my skin prickle. And I swear I’m not interested in sex at all, not with this male, not anymore, but having him hanging over me in such a dominant fashion is causing my lower half to turn warm. “Stop it!” I demand, meaning the effect his nearness is having on me, but I connect my demand to our conversation. “It shouldn’t even be offensive. It should be the least offensive term ever. You shouldn’t wield it to aggravate people.”

  His voice is very dry. His breath is surprisingly pleasant. Like a special spice that is made of fire-flavored tree bark. “You always do what you should, don’t you?”

  I ignore him. “Dogs were good.” And they were. They were said to be faithful, wonderful creatures.

  His brows jump the barest fraction, clearly unimpressed. “Again… says a dog.”

  “Oooh,” I fume, scooting back far enough from him so that I can whirl around and give him my back. Not for breeding—just a very clear I don’t want to even see you gesture. Keeper is watching and he’ll know what this means. He’ll know I’m upset. I don’t do this very often with Avox (and actually… I’ve never had cause to give my back to Tranq in irritation—he’s a wonderfully easy male to live with) but when I am taking a break from Avox’s company because I’m feeling irritated with him, Keeper always knows. And it doesn’t make him happy.

  Not that he punishes us—he doesn’t. He’s…

  Disappointed. And fine, maybe it makes me a dog, but I don’t like to disappoint him.

  I’m not sure what to do about the current situation though. I’m disliking this new male so intensely that I don’t want him near me now, let alone inside me—and I certainly don’t want to create a child with him. I had sworn earlier that I love all my babies and I do, but I’d worry about his, about the temperament of any baby he helped create. Of his miserableness spreading.

  He stays a wall at my back. I wish he’d leave and go back to guarding his stupid sleeping box and his food. Our silence crackles between us but neither of us breaks it.

  The tension gathers in presence between us, a tangible, uncomfortable, itchy-biting thing, and just when I start to think I can’t take it anymore, I’m thrown from all thoughts of the mean male entirely by a familiar but worrying cry.

  “MAAAAAAAH!”

  It’s Molly, my youngest baby. She sounds like she’s crying.

  I’m up and at the bars immediately. My fingers are hooked through the metal weave of the fence, my nose poking out one of the holes, my eyes straining to see my children. But I can’t. Because the garden has been designed to give this cage privacy. “Molly!”

  I tell myself to calm down; she has to be fine. I haven’t been gone long, and she has two capable caretakers available to her if she needs them.

  “She’ll be all right,” Tranq calls back reassuringly, voice raised enough to carry past the shrubbery acting as a block between us.

  “She’s only upset because she’s never seen you taken away,” Avox adds, his voice tighter than Tranq’s.

  “Imagine how upset she’d be if she saw her mother getting bent over,” the mean male offers, his tone light but his words hitting like acid—and he says it loudly enough I have to wonder if Avox and Tranq hear him. I wonder if my children hear him.

  I whirl on him. “You shush!” I order sternly, giving him the same face I give my babies whenever they try to act out. It isn’t often (and never by Quinn, my ever easygoing baby by Tranq) but with all the practice from minding Avox’s daughters, by now, I should have the ‘You behave!’ look perfected.

  And maybe I do, because the mean male shuts his mouth and takes me in—and his eyes leave my face and really sweep down my body.

  I nearly cover myself with my arms at the shocking flare of his sudden interest. I manage to suppress the urge, and I turn my back to him again, forcing myself to ignore him. My voice comes out a little shaky, but I call back to my daughter. “I’m right here, sweetie. You play and be good and I’ll be back soon.”

  “Unless our captor keeps you in here until I fuck you. If that’s the case, I can make you sit here for forever.”

  My molars grind together. Keeper won’t leave me in here. But he hasn’t whistled any commands or reassurances recently, which seems odd. I turn my head enough to study the panel blind, because sometimes you can see Keeper’s shadow, but in this light, I can’t. The idea that Keeper isn’t watching over me fills me with an unfamiliar sense of panic.
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  I’ve never been alone before. Health check-ups, baths, breeding, birthing—Keeper is always there to monitor me.

  Keeper has always made sure I’m protected and content.

  I snatch up my dress and drag it on with jerky movements.

  “What’s the hurry?” the mean male asks.

  If Keeper isn’t monitoring us—which is unlikely—then he’ll observe us soon. He’ll take me back to my babies and my mates—my wonderful, wonderful mates who are nothing like this angry male.

  Keeper won’t leave me in here for much longer. He enjoys watching all of our antics and keeps us as his entertainment as well as his companions. He’ll take me out soon, for a walk if nothing else. He walks me and my babies faithfully. Which, admittedly, does make us sound like a bunch of dogs. Curse this mean male for making me feel uncomfortable about the way I view the alien who gives us everything we need. I keep my face turned toward the cages where my family is waiting for me. Where they’re worried about me, because my girls aren’t old enough to understand why I’m here.

  I appreciate beyond measure that Keeper placed this new pen with this new male in a spot where we’d have privacy from the three little sets of innocent eyes. But now that I’ve met this male, I have to wonder if Keeper didn’t only set this male apart for privacy, but if because he somehow had an inkling of how awful this Ornamental is.

  Probably. Avox is taken out on a semi-frequent basis to be pitted in fights (a form of entertainment for keepers), and he always returns with stories, and he says that keepers talk. They buy and trade and swap humans, and I can just imagine that this male’s last keeper told our keeper that he’d better keep this Ornamental separated, because he may be decorative on the outside, but he’s jagged and dark and barren-souled on the inside.

  I keep my eyes trained on the separating hedge, but no more sound travels from my family’s pen, and I hope it’s because everyone’s settled and not because they heard this male’s words, and are listening, angry or upset, to see if he says more.

  As if on cue, he does say more. “Listen to that quiet. You’re a good bunch of dogs, aren’t you?”

  “Shut up,” I mutter to him, wanting to shout, but not wanting my family to hear, and also not wanting to provoke this male to anger. He isn’t chained. He could hurt me if he wanted to. Keeper would punish him terribly, but still, this male is clearly not nice and feels no love for Keeper so it follows that it won’t bother him to bring Keeper’s wrath. I don’t think Keeper knows how awful this male is or he never would have left me in here with him, never.

  My thoughts stop dead as my eyes shoot wide—because Ava scampers around the hedge I’m staring at, loose and in full view of this pen, and waves to me.

  I yelp—because I’m shocked that she’s out—

  “Did you just bark?” the mean male says to my back.

  —and I’m scared, because how did she escape? And do her fathers not know that she’s loose? They must not or they’d be shouting, and what will Keeper do? He’s never punished us for escaping, but we’ve never done it either.

  Tangentially, I’m extremely relieved that this male hasn’t initiated sex with me because we’d be in the middle of an act otherwise, and I don’t want my daughter to see.

  Relief pillows me when Keeper suddenly strides around the hedge just behind Ava. Whew! She hasn’t escaped. He’s taking her for a walk. In each arm, he’s carrying Quinn and Molly. To Ava, Keeper gives a sort of amused ‘See there?’ gesture, tossing me a smile as he calls, “Chipp-chip, you wanted to see your dam. Come see her.” He lets the other two down, and they crowd the bars, babbling with excitement that they’ve been turned loose for a walk through the garden.

  Maybe the mean male moves, because my three very excited offspring’s chatter at finding me hiding in an unfamiliar place in the garden stops. All three of their stares fix behind me.

  “Mom! Why does his face look like that?” Ava whispers—or she believes the level she asks this in is a whisper.

  “Because he was bred to look like he does,” I explain.

  But the Ornamental male talks over me, his voice sharp, supplying his own answer. “Because our captors like to create freaks!”

  My three startled children draw back, and when they do this, they instinctively huddle into Keeper, trusting him to shield them.

  Keeper is no longer smiling, and his gaze is hard on the Ornamental. One of his hands strays to Ava’s head, brushing over her hair, reassuring her, reassuring all of them as they crowd under his arms like eaglets huddle under an angry parent’s wings—and it’s very much like a this-world’s eagle’s piercing stare that he levels on the cause of the upset. “Schweep cheee chikk woooo kippidee.” Translation: “You will treat females respectfully, or you will be punished.”

  I turn, finally looking back at the Ornamental. I’m surprised (and relieved beyond words) to find that he’s affixed a loincloth over himself to spare my daughters from learning too much today.

  He doesn’t look at all sorry that he frightened them with his answer though. He looks defensive and angry. He shows his teeth—not a smile, more like a sneer, but with gritted teeth. It’s a ‘You haven’t made me sorry yet’ sort of look.

  My gaze swings back to Keeper—and I notice that my girls do the same, looking up at him with rounded eyes.

  Keeper produces the controller that delivers unpleasant sensations to the bearer of a behavior collar, and he presses a button.

  The Ornamental gives a full-body twitch, but he doesn’t let his venomous expression change.

  Keeper tilts his head.

  The Ornamental’s body jolts harder. His expression twists to a grimace, but it isn’t a repentant look he’s wearing.

  “Wcheeet,” Keeper says. (“Okay.”) His finger lifts off of the remote’s trigger. He seems to consider the Ornamental more thoughtfully. His eyes then shift to me. “Reeep leep.” Come here.

  He opens the door and I rush for him and reunite with my girls. Keeper’s arm leaves Quinn’s little back only long enough to drag me in for a brief but comforting group hug.

  I tense right back up when the Ornamental speaks.

  “Look at you, so obedient. He tells you to come and you do it. Good girl.”

  I burrow my face into Keeper’s arm, hoping he never brings me back here to attempt a breeding. I do not want this male.

  Keeper sighs, his hand finding my upper back and drawing his fingers through the ends of my hair. Then he presses my girls to my front and steps back, moving away, moving towards the mean male’s pen.

  He strides into the Ornamental’s pen and calls, “Reeep.”

  The Ornamental raises his square chin, his glare of contempt severe enough to nearly set the world on fire. But he doesn’t move.

  Keeper gives him one more chance. “Reeep.” He doesn’t wait for the male to disobey—the moment he gives the command and it isn’t immediately obeyed, he presses the negative stimulation button on his controller, a strong enough blast to drop the mean male to his knees.

  Keeper takes the temporarily stunned male by the back of his collar and pulls him to his feet, marching him out the door and past us. He stops him at a tree beside the hedge, where a stout chain is affixed so a trusted male can enjoy some roaming time.

  Keeper attaches the chain to the Ornamental’s collar.

  I draw my daughters back out of the chain’s reach.

  Keeper notices, and the look he turns on the Ornamental is strongly disapproving.

  Keeper doesn’t like that I’ve been made afraid of the new male. He beckons me to follow him—well outside of the Ornamental’s reach—and my girls rush forward more eagerly than the ladylike pace I set forward at, spilling towards him like a clumsy litter of pupp—

  Er, like the exuberant children they are.

  Keeper is pleased at their immediate response (and mine, even though I follow at a more dignified pace), and he fills us with treats as he moves to lead Tranq and Avox both out on lengths of chain
s.

  “This is new,” Tranq comments, because although it’s normal for them to be chained in the garden, they aren’t walked together. Avox can be too territorial of me. He sees Tranq as a rival to battle; meanwhile, Tranq doesn’t fight back.

  Today, though, I am not the object of their attention, and Avox is not acting dominating or possessive of me. Guarding our girls with Tranq seems to have put him in a whole different mode; he’s not bristling at a bewildered Tranq. He’s eyeing the Ornamental’s scowling face with great distrust, and he calls all three of my daughters saying, “Ladies, why don’t you come play on this side?” He indicates the grassy spot on the other side of the path, even further away from the tree the Ornamental is chained.

  “Don’t worry,” the Ornamental calls to Avox with a baiting smile. “Your captor won’t let me fuck your pretty little girls until they’ve at least had their first bleeding.”

  Tranq’s usually smiling face carves into extremely disturbed lines. “What’s with this guy?”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Avox warns in a seething tone.

  Keeper glances between the Ornamental and Avox and Tranq. He may not follow our every word, but he’s reading expressions well enough, and he doesn’t look pleased.

  As for the Ornamental… “I think he’s just saying that to be mean,” I tell them. “He’s angry,” I whisper, attempting to keep our conversation a little private.

  Avox grunts. “He sounds like a dick.” He doesn’t whisper. He doesn’t care if the male overhears him.

  Tranq makes a disgruntled noise though. “Little ears…”

  “Sorry,” Avox sighs and glances around at our three offspring. Thankfully, the girls are thrilled to have all this interesting activity happening. Both of their fathers are watching over them, both out on garden time in close proximity—and they have me back and we’re all in the garden together and they’re dancing around like they’ve never so much as played on the grass before.