Page 7 of Bound to the Marak

The other bidders shrank back as he passed. Even the guards stationed along the walls avoided looking directly at him. No one followed. No one dared.

He was alone.

Because he didn’tneedanyone.

Her heart thudded harder. She stared at him, trying to make sense of the fear and fascination crawling up her spine. She couldn’t see his face beneath the hood. Only a faint gleam of a mask: dark, smooth, and featureless except for a thin vertical line down the center.

He had spoken one word.

And now she was his.

She didn’t know who he was. Or what he was.

But she knew this: whatever he wanted her for… no one would stop him.

Not here.

Not in this place.

Not ever.

Five

The corridor stretched out like a vein in a living machine.

Leonie’s bare feet pressed against the smooth, hard metal floor, every step sending a faint pulse through her soles. The floor was warm—too warm—like it held a heartbeat, and it trembled ever so slightly, as if the entire station was breathing. She flinched at the sensation but said nothing. There was no one to complain to. And even if there was… would it matter?

The discomfort of the metal biting into her heels, the way her toes curled instinctively at the sensation—it all added to her growing sense of wrongness.

She shouldn’t be here.

She shouldn’texistin this place.

The corridors were cavernous—vaulted high above, built to accommodate creatures of a hundred different shapes and sizes. Some slithered. Some stalked. Others floated. She caught glimpses of them through archways and intersecting passages—outlines in shifting light, conversations in voices that scraped and buzzed and sang in alien cadences. Signs flickered overhead, lines of fluid symbols flowing across glowing panels. None of it made sense.

Her wrist bore a band now. It glowed faintly with blue light and pulsed in time with her heartbeat. A restraint, perhaps, or a tracker. But it wasn’t what held her in place.

Fear was the real leash.

She walked beside the masked figure—his dark robes flowing silently with each step, a living shadow that seemed to command the very air around him. Two silent drones flanked them, drifting like vultures made of glass and chrome. Her cage was long gone. She had been released from it, yes… butfreedomwasn’t what she’d gained.

Eyes followed her from every corner of the corridor.

Dozens of them. Hundreds.

Some curious. Some amused.

But many gleamed with hunger.

Leonie could feel the weight of their gazes, crawling over her exposed skin like ants. The thin, silky fabric clinging to her body was more like decoration than clothing—alien material that shifted unnaturally with her every movement, too perfectly fitted, too revealing. She folded her arms over her chest, instinctively shielding herself, head lowered.

Her cheeks burned with humiliation. She didn’t want to see their stares. Didn’t want to know what they were imagining.

They passed through an open plaza, where crystal towers rose like frozen lightning bolts. Light refracted in fractured beams, scattering rainbow glints across the polished floor. It might’ve been beautiful under other circumstances—breathtaking, even—but the moment soured instantly.

A group of aliens lounged near a circular drinking terminal. Bipedal, squat and fur-covered, their postures slouched with drunken relaxation. Their eyes, small and gleaming, tracked her the moment she entered the plaza. One lifted his head and let out a low, garbled howl—a sound that reeked of intoxicated aggression. His thick paw pointed at her.

The others laughed. Barked. One mimicked a whistle. Another made a lewd gesture that didn’t need translation.

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