Page 4 of Sold to the Nalgar
Tall, far taller than any human she had ever encountered. Lithe bodies encased in skin-tight black suits that reflected the sterile light, turning them into liquid shadows. They moved with deliberate grace, silent and unnervingly fluid. And their faces…
Blank.
Smooth, oval plates of polished obsidian, gleaming and utterly featureless. No eyes, no mouths, no nose. Just void. Cold. Watching.
It was wrong. All of it. A violation of everything she knew to be true.
Cecilia's mind reeled, teetering on the edge of sanity. Her breath hitched, a ragged, desperate gasp.
Not human.
The thought didn’t compute. Couldn’t. This wasn’t science fiction. It wasn’t possible. Aliens weren’t real.
And yet, there they were.
She screamed again, a raw, animalistic sound of pure terror. “No… what is this?! What are you?! Please, please… this can’t be real!”
The figures didn’t answer. One of them glided closer, moving across the floor with unnatural ease.
In its hand, a slim, metallic device.
A needle.
Her body thrashed, a desperate, futile struggle. “Don’t… Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”
She pulled until her shoulders ached, the restraints biting into her flesh. Helpless. Trapped.
The figure stopped at her side. She couldn’t see eyes, but she felt it watching her, an alien scrutiny that chilled her to the core.
The needle plunged into her thigh.
She gasped, her back arching against the cold metal, then went still, all resistance draining away.
A rush of something cold flooded her bloodstream, instant, icy, paralyzing. Her limbs grew heavy, the muscles slackening, unresponsive. Her vision blurred at the edges, fading into soft, shapeless grey.
“No,” she whispered, the word barely audible. “No. Please…”
The ceiling spun above her, the harsh light folding into shadow, twisting into monstrous shapes. Her thoughts slowed, slurred, then collapsed, one by one, into the void.
And then…
Darkness.
CHAPTER 4
The chamber was a sanctuary of black, carved from seamless stone, warmed by slow-burning plasma veins that pulsed through the walls like molten blood. Silence reigned, undisturbed by the outside world. The only light came from the flickering red glow of the hearth and the faint shimmer of the holographic display suspended before him.
Zarokh sat motionless, the center of his private universe. He was garbed in his customary black: woven targarin fiber, soft to the touch yet battle-worthy, regal in its unadorned simplicity. Across his brow rested the circlet of Vaelian, made from a metal as rare as starlight, unbreakable as his will, a crown forged in silence, as all true power must be.
The holo-display flickered, then resolved.
And there she was.
The Nemok scientist's voice droned in the background, clinical, detached, a litany of data and dosage reports. He tuned it out, a buzzing annoyance.
His eyes were fixed on her.
Strapped down, unconscious, her limbs pale and delicate against the harsh restraint bands. Her chest rose and fell inshallow breaths, a fragile rhythm in the sterile environment. She wore the gauzy examination shift, a whisper of fabric that revealed more than it concealed, barely covering the swell of her small, pert breasts, the soft inward curve of her waist, the subtle flare of her hips.
