Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance by Scarlett Rhone Read Free Book Online

quarters, down twisting low-ceilinged corridors lit only by dim overhead lights, and back to the gate Lennai had walked her through earlier.
    It was, predictably, locked.
    The portcullis was shut, the bars heavy metal grating, and Alaina could see another control panel on the other side of the gate. She managed to get one arm through the bars but couldn’t reach the panel, and nearly got her arm stuck for her troubles.
    As she yanked her arm free, stumbling back from the gate, she heard a soft snicker behind her and whirled around. There was a slave girl a few feet down the corridor, and when she moved beneath the lights Alaina could see flicker off her yellow scales.
    “You’ll never get out that way,” the girl laughed quietly. “Nobody ever does.”
    “Is there another way?” Alaina asked.
    The girl drifted closer and Alaina was struck by her face. The yellow scales covered most of it, save for her a pair of shrewd blue eyes. The girl flashed her a smile. “Maybe.”
    “Will you help me?”
    The girl shrugged. “You’re the donara. Why should lowly I help you?”
    “I don’t want to be the donara,” Alaina insisted. “Please. I just want to get out of here. I have literally nothing to offer you, but please help me if you know another way out.”
    The girl made a sad face. “Poor, sad donara. All right. Because I am kind, I will help you be free.”
    Relief flooded through Alaina, and she smiled a little at the girl. “What’s your name?”
    “Nyssa.” She put extra emphasis on the sss in the middle. These creatures, Alaina thought, were all so very snakelike. “I am a cleaner. Come with me.”
    She waved a hand and then turned, ducking back down the corridor, and Alaina had to hurry to catch up to her before she turned a corner. “Thank you, Nyssa. Thank you. Seriously. I just need to get out of here.”
    “You don’t belong here.” Nyssa seemed to agree.
    “No, I definitely do not.”
    Nyssa reached over and poked her in the arm as they walked. “Delicate human.”
    Alaina frowned. “I wouldn’t call myself delicate, but I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be anyone’s prize.”
    Nyssa shrugged. “Many of us would kill to be the donara. If you don’t understand, or don’t want such an honor, then yes, you should be gone.”
    “Well, that I can’t agree with more,” Alaina muttered.
    Nyssa led Alaina through so many twists and turns in the servants’ quarters Alaina felt completely turned around. She was pretty sure that if she had to find her way back to her room, or even to that locked gate, she would be unable to. Everything looked the same. Just the same dark, metal corridor again and again that never seemed to lead anywhere but to another dark, metal corridor. No signs or numbers or anything. Door after unmarked door which might have been other slave rooms, or closets, or airlocks for all Alaina knew.
    She tried, but there were no landmarks, not even stains on any of the pristine walls for her to make a note of, and her sense of direction was no sense at all here. East, West, none of that mattered because there was no sun to dictate it.
    Finally they turned a corner and Nyssa led her to another gate. There was nothing but darkness beyond it, though Alaina squinted, trying to make out the shapes of things.
    “Stairs,” Nyssa told her. “They lead down to the sanitation chamber, which leads out to the incineration bay, which leads to the hangar bay where maybe you could steal a ship.”
    “You’re sure?” Alaina asked her.
    “I am a cleaner,” Nyssa said, arching her eyebrows. “Of course I’m sure.”
    It made sense, Alaina reasoned. Only the communal section of the ship held things like the market and the hangar bay and station-wide resources like sanitation. And if Nyssa was a cleaner, she must have known intimately how all of that worked. Alaina touched the gate, gave it a shake, but it didn’t budge.
    “It’s also locked.”
    “Yes.” Nyssa smiled and held