Chapter 15
POV Melissa
“You didn’t buy me, a Faleu bought me, f–for a year.” I shake my head, panicking now that the words are out and my fears have been confirmed. It’s hard to breathe.
“No, female. You’re mine forever, that was the deal, I paid 30 million brons for that, for you and for Unob.” The voice of the hologram is robotic and lifeless, but Kaleo’s voice is firm and full of emotion.
It feels like I’m going to fall, except I’m already on the floor, so the most I can do is lean my head against the wood behind me and close my eyes to try to hold back the dizziness.
For seven years, I wore the white kitty mask and threw everything on the account of “Kitty,” the human who did pole dance. All the shame, all the disgust, were for her. It was like I wasn’t even me sometimes; I was just… a machine, just someone desperately trying to please strangers who paid for me.
Before Kitty, I worked in factories, doing repetitive movements to assemble spaceship parts because the aliens said there were things “only human fingers could do.” And before that, I carried heavy loads and stood for hours and hours to pay off the debts of the woman who raised me.
All of this wore me down in extreme ways, and it wasn’t easy to swallow the idea of having to keep selling my time, my life, even giving a child to someone–a child I always dreamed of having. A piece of my body.
But it was only for a year. After that, I would figure out how to fix everything with money. And now that I’ve found out it’s not just “another year,” I just want to scream. To run off without a destination and ignore everything because I can’t take it anymore.
I’m at my limit.
“A Faleu named Kaleo Kin bought me, h–he lives in… in… Faleia, which is a–a hot planet, just like Earth! It’s like… the… Hawaii.” I stumble over my words, mumbling what Unob promised me after saying I wouldn’t have a place on his ship anymore.
The wrinkle between Kaleo’s thick, dark eyebrows deepens just like it did before when he was talking to the woman, and I realize my mistake, which worries me doubly.
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Chapter 15
As devastated as I am by what’s happening to me, I don’t even know what kind of alien Kaleo is. I don’t know if he understands what it means to cry, what it means to be desperate, I don’t even know if he’ll have a fit of rage because I said a Faleu bought me.
“No, Melissa, I gave Unob a different name so he wouldn’t know my true identity. I am Kaleo Ni and…” Right then, the hologram freezes, and the female voice stops echoing, which only increases the panic inside me, making my eyes fill with tears and turning
Kaleo into a blue blur.
“You’re my female, I have the documents, if that’s important to you. We’ll live here, on Selvaria, my planet, and…” Then the damn hologram comes back, only to stop working
entirely.
Kaleo immediately starts messing with it, clicking on the image of the translator projected in the air, trying to fix the damn thing. But now, the anxiety hits me hard and fast. The realization that Unob sold me to a planet that seems almost medieval, with a cold I just can’t handle, fills me with panic. And it’s not even for a year or two, but
forever.
WITH DOCUMENTS AND EVERYTHING.
Fear and desperation are making me sweat more and more, and soon it feels like my throat is closing up, and I won’t be able to breathe anymore.
Before I can think any more about what I’m doing, I stand up, and it doesn’t take much for me to realize that I’m leaning against the door of this room. And if everything here is so similar to Earth, the living room door might lead outside.
I grab what seems to be the doorknob, which actually looks more like a dry, old bone, pull it, and the door opens immediately. But just as quickly, I’m hit by a freezing gust of wind
that feels like a hurricane.
My face burns as if it’s on fire, when, in fact, it’s the complete opposite, and even though my eyes hurt terribly, I finally see what’s outside.
So this is the planet I landed on, Selvaria. The sky isn’t light blue, it’s gray, filled with clouds, and there’s no sun, just three balls in the sky that must be moons. Around me, there are no other houses, just trees that look very much like pines, sinking into a black dirt ground, full of puddles and rocks.
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Chapter 15
There’s nothing around, no one to help me leave. We’re in the middle of a cold, eerie forest.
But before I freeze to death, a warm hand rests on mine, and while Kaleo growls at me and says more things in his deep voice, he pushes the door closed, throws the hologram to the ground, and forces me to lean back against the door, shoving me by the shoulder against the wood with speed.
“What are you doing, little wife?” The damn translator starts speaking in its awkward way, even though Kaleo is growling at me. “Why do you want to leave? It’s too cold out there for you, you need to stay here, in the heater I installed for you.”
“No! I–I’m not your little wife‘! I–I’m not yours!” I try to push him away, but I think my panic is making me braver than a 1.55m tall human should be.
This male is enormous in the truest sense of the word. His face is large, with a thick beard that’s not exactly uniform, his dark blue neck is thick, his shoulders are wide and very muscular, with scales on them. He’s at least 2.30 meters tall and strong enough to lift me and throw me around however he wants, just like when he grabbed me in that stone bathtub.
So even if I scream and tremble like a chihuahua, there’s nothing I can really do.
“Ayáth, Melisha!” he pleads in his real voice, with his hands sliding over me to keep me in place. One of them rests right in the center of my chest.
But looking down, all I see is a hand so large it rests on my breasts, which only makes me more shivery. The presence of this alien is so strong, and his scent too.
“You don’t understand. I–I’m not supposed to be here!”
“Ayáth!”
I don’t know what “Ayáth” means, and the translator doesn’t seem to know either, but from the tone he uses, I believe it’s something like “calm down.”
But how could I calm down when I just found out the guy I worked with for seven years sold me to live on a planet that could freeze me to death?!
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