Hostage

The alien eyed her glittering jewelry as she placed it carefully on the bed sheets, a diamond necklace crafted from white gold that had belonged to her mother, along with matching earrings. These aliens certainly seemed to appreciate ornamentation, that was a quality she liked.

"Put these in the drawers over by the dresser, and do keep your claws away from the fabrics," she chimed, gesturing to the piles of clothes. The alien did as she requested, carrying the garments gingerly on flat palms, placing them gently in the dresser.

"When these are empty, return them to the storage room," Rebecca ordered, and the alien waited patiently beside the bed as she removed the last of her affairs. She retrieved her tablet computer from the bottom of one of the boxes, she had enough movies and books on here to keep her amused for the duration of her stay thankfully, though she wouldn't let her father forget the boredom he would surely be exposing her too any time soon. She missed the glitz and glamour of Earth, parties with her friends, the attention of jealous rivals and eager suitors. She hated coming on these long voyages, practically a prisoner in her cabin, but her father did not trust her to behave herself at home and knew that she would heed the words of no sitters or guardians.

He couldn't keep it up, he would have to cave and let her be her own woman eventually, she was of age and she had the legal right, but she had to admit that he was holding out longer than usual on the subject. She doubted she would be able to send messages to her friends, these aliens wouldn't have wireless extranet in this backwater. She sat on the edge of the bed and attempted to check her messages.

Noticing that she seemed to be finished, Beltza started to move the chests back into the store room.

"When you're done with that, get me something to eat," Rebecca demanded, not looking up from her screen as she waved her hand at him. "Something with sour cream, this damned heat has parched my throat. Blinis with salmon maybe, understand?"

Beltza bowed, and spoke in his course voice.

"Yes, my Lady. Will there be anything else?"

"Oh, so you do have a tongue? No, that will be all, you may leave me now."

"It will be as you say." He left and closed the door softly behind him, while Rebecca lay on her bed to tap at her tablet computer.

Beltza returned a short while later with a tray of food, as Rebecca had requested, and she sat up eagerly as he approached her bed. He leaned down so that she could reach the tray, it was covered in blinis topped with a sliver of smoked salmon and a dash of sour cream, her favorite snack. She took one between her thumb and forefinger, raising it to her lips and taking a bite.

"Adequate," she said, wiping a blob of white cream from the corner of her mouth with her finger. "I blame my father for failing to provide sufficient instructions, but these will do. Set the tray down and leave me now."

She waved Beltza away dismissively, turning back to her tablet computer and finishing the rest of her snack. He seemed a little taken aback by her reaction, had she offended him? It didn't matter, he was ordered to obey her, his feelings were not her concern. He placed the tray on her bedside table, then seemed to wait for her to speak to him again. Rebecca raised her eyes from her tablet and shooed him again with a wave of her manicured fingers.

"Off with you, do I need to repeat myself? Is your English poor?"

Beltza bowed submissively and slunk away, his tail flicking back and forth as he opened the door and left the room to stand outside. He was obtuse, he reminded her of a Martian nanny she had had when her father had been working in the Martian docks. She had been a tall, lanky woman who had grown up in low gravity and didn't speak a lick of English, Rebecca couldn't abide it.

She selected another blini and popped it daintily into her mouth. They were actually quite good considering that the alien chefs had probably never seen a salmon before, never mind learned how to prepare one, but one had to use a firm hand with the help to keep them in line. She lay back on the bed, holding her tablet above her face and starting an episode of her favorite drama show as she picked at the tray of food.

The next morning she awoke to the clanking of dishes, Beltza was setting up breakfast for her on her bedside table. She recognized her father's own china and silver cutlery, did the Borealans not have their own? They looked savage, perhaps they still ate with their bare hands, how unsavory. She rose to a sitting position groggily, rubbing her eyes and rearranging her silk nightgown as Beltza stood to attention.

"Ugh, what time is it? Who told you to enter my room and disturb me?" Beltza looked conflicted and lowered his eyes to the floor, his furry, black tail flicking back and forth again.

"Apologies, my Lady. I was ordered to bring you...breakfast." He had trouble getting his tongue around the unfamiliar word, and seemed to slur a little in general. She appreciated that learning an alien language must be difficult, but it was the responsibility of her hosts to provide her with a servant who was qualified and articulate. She sighed and swung her legs out from beneath her sheets to dangle over the edge of the bed and examined the meal. Two fried eggs, broken of course, toast that seemed to have been unevenly cooked over an open flame judging by the burn marks, and hash browns that surprisingly looked properly prepared. She was irritated at being woken up, and she snapped at the alien who seemed to recoil as she berated him.

"What's this mess you've brought me? Take it back and do it again. These eggs should be intact and the bread should be toasted evenly so that the color is consistent, understand?"

"I...am sorry my Lady. I did not prepare the food, it was-"

"I don't want to hear excuses, you are my caretaker, are you not?" The alien seemed hesitant to answer, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the carpet. "Answer my question."

"Yes, my Lady." He struggled to gather up the dishes and return them to the tray, fumbling with the small cutlery in his oversized hands. They were as large as damned dinner plates and tipped with curved claws.

"It is your responsibility, see that it is done properly this time." He bowed his head, and made to leave. "And in the future, don't wake me up or bring me food unless I request it of you, is that understood?"

"Yes, my Lady."

He returned some time later, and Rebecca was happy to see that the aliens could at least get a breakfast right when properly incentivized. She ate while Beltza stood nearby, hovering nervously. She had to admit, if there was one thing she liked about these Borealans it was their strict adherence to the pecking order. This one had been informed that she was an important guest, and he treated her with the fear and respect he might show superiors of his own kind, Rebecca could appreciate that attitude.

Beltza seethed with barely controlled anger, his tail flicked from side to side in an expression of conflict and irritation as he watched the minuscule alien eat. The Lord Patriarch had granted this whelp Alpha status for the duration of her stay in the Elysian spire, Beltza was to obey her as if the orders came from his very mouth, but she had only been on the planet for a matter of hours and she was already testing the limits of his patience. Beltza was not an off-world soldier, he was a royal guard to the Patriarch and his family, and as such he had not undergone integration training on the Pinwheel station in order to learn the skills necessary to interact with humans. He had been briefed on the basics, and had assured the Patriarch that he could tolerate a certain level of impertinence and audacity, self-control and discipline were part of military life after all. But to have this frail creature, that looked as if it might come apart at its frilly seams were he to grip it too tightly, treat him like some kind of idiot slave was driving him to distraction.

He flexed his claws as she ate her meal, she was so small, so fragile. Humans were short to begin with, how they made effective soldiers Beltza couldn't imagine, but this one was some kind of juvenile which only compounded her lack of stature.

He didn't understand the Patriarch's obsession with the humans and their technology, Beltza couldn't see the purpose of the human spaceships his ruler was expending precious resources to sink his gilded claws into. Let the enemy come to the ground if they wanted to fight, Beltza reasoned, to destroy an enemy from the comfort and safety of an armored ship in orbit was an act of cowardice. An unearned victory would sour the taste of 'raises the hair'.

The idea that females would be smaller and weaker than males was an odd enough concept, and he hadn't believed it until he had seen the two genders side by side, what evolutionary path could have resulted in that being a survival strategy? To be both female and juvenile resulted in a creature so small that it would hardly make more than a mouthful were he to eat it. He had caught fish far larger than this human girl in the lake. As tiny as she was, she was oddly...developed. Her figure was uncomfortably familiar, both their species shared similar sexual features.

She seemed to be clueless on the subject of Borealan social norms and etiquette, every word out of her mouth, every gesture was as a grave insult to him. Were she a fellow Borealan he would have given her some good scars to teach her a lesson in manners, and as she shoveled food into her pink-lipped mouth with the strange silver eating implement, those primal instincts gnawed at the back of his mind.

The desire to discipline was overpowering, but the Lord Patriarch forbade it. He had explained that humans were so fragile that even a scar given in punishment might be a mortal wound to them. He was not to lay so much as a claw on her or he would face the Patriarch's wrath in person. It was that threat that kept him in line, as satisfying as it might be to carve her pale flesh, the Patriarch's fury would stay his hand.

It was not his place to question, only to carry out the will of his Alpha, and for the next few days this human girl would bear that title.

Rebecca snapped her fingers, waiting impatiently for Beltza to enter the room. She called his name when he didn't hurry.

"Come along Beltza, I've finished my supper, take away the dishes."

"Yes, my Lady." He walked across the room to where the girl was perched on the edge of her bed, curling her golden hair with an iron. As he was collecting the dishes, she reached out a hand to grip his silky forearm. He froze, ears flattening against his head as she ran her slim fingers through the downy fur.

"You're just like a big cat, aren't you?" Beltza tried to compose himself, it had taken all of his willpower to save from swiping her head clean off her narrow shoulders for the unsolicited contact, in Borealan culture she might as well have called his manhood into question and challenged him to a bout.

"What is a...cat?" Beltza asked, struggling to control the anger in his voice, but she seemed unaware of the threat signals he was giving off.

"A furry little pet humans keep, they're adorable, I have one myself. The resemblance is uncanny you know, of course they're far smaller than you are." She seemed fearless, even in the face of an apex predator as large and as visibly armed as he was. Her bravery bordered on stupidity, had she never known fear or pain? Was it possible to live a life while encountering no danger or hardship of any kind? The idea bemused him, but he couldn't think of any other explanations for her inexplicable behavior. After the initial shock of her unintentional challenge, he calmed and allowed her to 'pet' his fur, as she put it. She seemed fascinated by his physiology, and he couldn't deny that her strange features had him curious too.

Her body was smooth and hairless, besides on the top of her head, her skin was the same color and looked to be a similar texture to that of a pale Equatorial. Beltza had black fur on his forearms and lower legs, which seemed to interest her. His torso, upper arms and thighs were as smooth as her skin was, of course, but it was concealed beneath his red armor.

"Is your whole body furry," Rebecca asked, "or just the parts that aren't covered?"

"The parts that aren't covered," Beltza replied, hovering over her bedside table with a pile of dishes in his clawed hand. "If you please, My Lady, I must take away your dining implements."

She released her hold on his arm and shot him a strange look.

"Very well, as you were."

Rebecca was bored, she had exhausted her supply of media already, and her father was taking his damned time returning with the replacement ship. It had been days, and she was becoming sick of the food they were bringing her. The wealthy merchant had left crates of fine food that he knew would be to her liking, however the aliens were poor at preparing it, the spire chefs being unaccustomed to feeding picky humans. She frequently had to chastise Beltza and order him to take the food back to the kitchen along with instructions on how to accomplish the task properly. How to boil an egg, how to spread caviar without just spooning lumps of it onto a slice of baguette, they couldn't even prepare a caesar salad which basically just consisted of slicing vegetables. She regretted not demanding that her father's cook leave the yacht to stay with her, though how might the fussy Italian react to being locked in a kitchen with the giant aliens? She chuckled as she imagined him in his tall, white hat, red-faced and screaming at Borealans who couldn't so much as butter bread properly.

She passed some of the time by trying on clothes, she had brought these from Earth and hadn't worn many of them yet, she was a staunch believer in novelty and refused to be seen in the same outfit twice. The aliens had provided her with a full-length mirror and so she put on her own fashion shows, having Beltza stand nearby and hold piles of garments for her as she paraded in her glamorous and often revealing gowns and dresses. Her father didn't much care for the way she dressed, but while many of her outfits left little to the imagination, she assured him that whatever she wore was tasteful and above all at the height of Earth fashion. She missed attending glitzy parties with her friends, the way the boys in the clubs and social venues tracked her with their eyes, the way they would shower her with praise and gifts just to get a few moments alone with her. Without male attention she felt like a flower wilting in darkness.

Beltza seemed curious enough, she was not afraid to change in front of him, he was an alien after all and should have no interest in her. However she had noticed his eyes playing over her exposed skin whenever she stripped down to her underwear and pulled a fresh outfit from the pile, it was hard to tell why he was looking, but where was obvious. Was she an alien freak to him, or an object of desire? Let him look, she thought, he can look but he can't touch. Teasing the alien might be a good way to pass the time, he was bound by strict orders to obey her and seemed as obedient as a dog.

Serving as caretaker to this human was torture, every day she became more brazen and more belligerent, like some feral kitten who had never tasted the claws of its parent. Society on their mother world must be strange indeed if this frail, impotent creature considered herself to be as a Matriarch, behaving as if her place as his Alpha was earned or deserved. Borealans ruled by strength and ferocity, though only a wise and beloved Alpha would see his reign last for more than a few winters, those who led their pack poorly would fight so many challengers that even the strongest Alpha would be whittled down eventually. The Lord Patriarch was one such leader, he had brought prosperity and strength to Elysia, and thus no Borealan would seek to challenge his leadership. Beltza respected him as a rightful and noble ruler, and would follow his orders to certain death if it would serve the pack, but giving the honorary title of Alpha to this human girl was a miscalculation.

Their kind seemed to live as beasts without structure or hierarchy, they insulted and challenged without even being aware of their actions. Despite the rigid pyramid that was the Borealan social system, a superior could order an underling to obey the orders of another as if they came from his own mouth, thus the instinct to dominate the weak and the outrage of insubordination were bypassed. It created a parallel, temporary hierarchy in order to accomplish some task or complete a project that required someone who was not the most physically imposing, or the best fighter to instruct others.

A meek engineer ordering far more imposing laborers to build a bridge or a dam was one thing, but he would understand that his position was tenuous, temporary, and not to be abused. This human girl had no such apprehensions, knew no boundaries, and her ceaseless provocations were wearing him down.

Beltza's frustration and growing anger were compounded by her teasing. Borealans were not a particularly modest people, revealing clothing was common and there were sexual undertones to basically every interaction. Battles for dominance often ended in copulation, the desire to procreate with a defeated challenger was overpowering and doing so ensured that only the strongest and most dominant genes were passed on to the next generation. Weakness, vulnerability, these were as aphrodisiacs to the strong, and in Borealan society the weak were smitten with their superiors, desiring to serve them in any way that was required of them.

As a high ranked member of the royal guard, Beltza had fought his share of battles. He was covered in the scars of women he had unsuccessfully challenged in his youth, taking his losses with a submissive eagerness that still made his heart flutter to this day, despite his elevated social position. The youth of a Borealan was filled with conflict. Victories, losses, it didn't matter how the blood was drawn as long as it was followed by rough, uncompromising sex. It had all felt like a game in those days, it wasn't until one reached adulthood that the need to climb the ladder became urgent, each new rung signifying a higher status and a higher quality of life along with it. A Borealan must always seek to improve his position, because to stagnate would mean putting himself at the mercy of those below him.

This girl had no scars, her smooth, milky skin was like a canvass begging for the crimson brush strokes of his claws. He longed to teach her, to punish her maddening insubordination by drawing fresh blood and flooding her with his seed until she learned her place and begged for instruction. But the Patriarch said that he must not, no matter how much she provoked and teased, that was not their way and the fragile creature might break if he were to do as his instincts demanded.

And so he steeled himself as the little alien paraded before him like a morsel of meat dangling from a hook over a fire, oblivious to his waning resolve.

"Beltza! Come here!"

He ground his teeth, opening the heavy wooden door to her room and entering to stand obediently before her. There were items of alien clothing strewn about the floor in heaps, she was so messy and disrespectful of her abode, it was all that he could do to attempt to retrieve her used dishes before she simply discarded them on the nearest available surface. Rebecca was lounging on her bed, wearing a revealing nightgown and a pair of long, white socks that ended at her thighs. She was reading some manner of paper media, leafing through the pages, and didn't even raise her eyes when she spoke to him.