Human Pet Prison (Possessive Aliens #7) - Loki Renard Page 0,14

leave you in solitary, and they make themselves the center of your world by turning up occasionally, being your only source of sanity. Stockholm syndrome, ancient humans used to call it.

I have my methods for dealing with this. I sing myself the song which does not end. It has the advantage of not ending, so it doesn’t so much mark time as consume it.

It just goes on and on, my friend…

I am humming to myself when the light comes back on. It could have been an hour since he left, or a day. I don’t know. I’m hungry and I’m sore. The human mind usually doesn’t know how to orient itself to captivity. It struggles against it. It fixates on it. That is why ancient humans used to imprison one another as punishment.

I have had more practice at being captive than most. This alien will not break me, no more than any of the aliens before.

* * *

“I like the song. Repetition is soothing.”

He’s back.

He has food and water. I can’t eat or drink while tied down on my back though, not unless he feeds me.

He feeds me.

He sits down beside me, his massive alien frame dwarfing me. These scythkin are huge. And sharp, though the blades which run down the ridge of his back retract into a smooth surface which could almost be mistaken for human, if humans had facial bone structure sharper than knives, and eyes of supernova green. Being seen by him is like being observed by something tectonic.

Scythkin are an abomination of a species, a vicious, dominating, merciless race of aliens whose only interest is laying waste to all existence and turning the planets they conquer into personal brood sites for their violent matriarchs. They are beasts of control. They are masters of mayhem. They are living devils, alien incarnations of all that which a decent human finds abominable — and one is spooning soup into my mouth.

“Good girl,” he croons as I swallow.

I’m not being good. I’m just not going to waterboard myself with soup by trying to stop him. Sometimes you have to capitulate so you can resist. If that sounds like a cop-out, I don’t give a fuck.

This soup is actually really tasty. The food in my last place wasn’t very good. They said it was nutritionally balanced, but it always tasted like ground dirt.

“Is it made with the blood of your enemies?”

“If my enemies are the tomatoes in the kitchen, then yes,” he says.

Is there anything worse than a captor with a sense of humor? One who leaves you tied down in heavy chains for hours at a time, perhaps. He is both.

“What do I call you?”

“Warden,” he says.

“Warden what?”

“Just Warden. Watt is my broodkin, but he doesn’t have the temperament for breaking rebellious humans.”

“I mean, what’s your name, Warden.”

“My name is Warden.”

“What?”

This conversation is going nowhere. Just like me.

“Are you going to loosen these chains? If I don’t get to sit up soon, the back of my head will flatten out and I’ll be misshapen.”

“That doesn’t sound like something that would happen,” he says. “I know you are a liar, human. A liar. A thief. A terrorist. A murderer…”

“I know you are, you said you are, so what am I?”

That retort works in any situation, and has since I was five. The irony of a scythkin of all creatures attempting to lecture me for taking lives is astounding. I am sure he has been part of the destruction of many worlds, the innocent and the beautiful wiped out in the scything motions of his wicked body.

Now he holds me captive, his cruelty implicit even in his kindness. For now he feeds me, but we both know he will not play the kind host much longer. The discomfort of chains and captivity is intentional, and growing by the moment.

“Let me up,” I say. “I need to use the bathroom.”

He looks down at me with that impassive expression and I know before he even says it that he’s going to use absolutely everything as a bargaining chip.

“If you want to use a bathroom, you’re going to have to show me respect.”

“If you want me not to pee on your floor, you’re going to have to let me up.”

That’s what we humans call checkmate.

At least, until he shrugs.

“Your fluids will not inconvenience me, human.”

Asshole. He knows It would be a humiliation to lose control of my body. He’s forcing me to make a decision between pretending to respect him, and making a mess of