Ensnared Bride by Yamila Abraham Page B

were gone.  
    The exit was through a door beside her station which led to a key-coded elevator.   She had no idea where the door she was now opening led to.   Her hand trembled around the doorknob.   Leaving the workroom was forbidden.
    Stupid fucking aliens.
    She entered a dark corridor that had concrete walls and exposed light bulbs lining the ceiling.   Her stomach began to twist.   She wasn ’t supposed to be here and had no idea where to go.  
    Monica knocked on the first metal door on one side of her.   “Serat?   Please forgive me…um, serat?”   It was locked.   She moved on toward the next door.
    A low murmur of voices made her look to the far end of the hall.   That door was cracked open with light spilling out.   She headed for it.   As she grew closer the voices of Ducra and Javintore became audible.
    “The morons!   They were unreasonable,” Ducra said.  
    “Deliberately,” Javintore said.   “They were never going to buy the robots.”
    “That’s what you believe?   Why would they go to all this trouble then?   Why would they risk angering us?”
    “I don’t know.”  
    The egg parted at a seam girdling its middle.   A red glow spilled outward.   Monica ’s brow twitched.   It does tricks?  
    She got to the door and ignored the stupid thing to collect her nerves.   Her slender hand pushed the metal door open.
    “Serat…please forgive me.”
    Ducra leaned forward to scowl towards the door.   “Who is that?”
    Javintore was seated in front of the door with his cowl off.   He had gleaming tresses of blue-black hair that spilled in sultry wisps over his shoulders.   He met Monica ’s eyes then his gaze dipped over her body.  
    She didn ’t want to imagine what he saw.   What she could see of her own body was filthy and emaciated.
    She entered the room holding out the platter.   “Please forgive me, serat.”
    Ducra ’s scowl evaporated into a neutral expression.   “A gift?”
    Javintore snatched it off the platter.   “It’s a cluster bomb!”
    Ducra shoved past Monica in a desperate bolt for the corridor.   “ Korroth! ”
    Monica found herself unable to move.   Javintore threw the egg to the far end of the conference room and shoved her.
    “Run, girl!”
    She forced her legs to work, but got only two steps before gigantic arms scooped her off her feet.   Her mind was unable to keep up with what was happening.   The alien sprinted with her clasped tightly against his body.
    He ran fast enough to catch Ducra at the end of the corridor.   Javintore thrust Ducra into the workroom.   She tumbled on the concrete floor.   The other two slaves looked up from their stations in shock.  
    Javintore slammed the metal door closed behind them just a moment before the ear-ringing boom.   The metal door bowed toward them, barely holding to its hinges.  
    He set her down.   Monica ’s shaky legs could barely support her and her ears were ringing.   She looked up to see the handsome alien’s angry grin.  
    He laughed softly.   “You desperate fool.”
    Monica gaped at him.  
    “It wasn’t…I didn’t…”  
    Ducra yanked her by a clump of her brown hair.   The muscular female slapped her off her feet.  
    When her head hit the ground she blacked out.

Chapter 3
     
    Monica lolled awake in the floor of elevator leading up out of the bunker.   Javintore picked her up and carried her into the government building on top.   She ’d been sure it was nighttime, but sunlight streamed through the high windows.   She saw the tops of skyscrapers outside of them.   Several were black and caved in from the invasion.  
    This was Cincinnati, right?   She was unsure.   She ’d grown up in Ohio and the aliens took her only a short distance to the slave camp.    
    A Hax-Rah woman, significantly smaller than Ducra, walked up to them.   Javintore began to speak to her in some alien language.
    “I’m sorry, Mek-lord.   I had to take out my Kras-din chip