Adina

The next hour passed mostly in silence. Adina settled down with Belinda’s psych and
history file, she didn’t even notice when the windows darkened as they left Earth behind entirely.
She finally noticed when the ship turned towards the belly of the Milky Way, and the
great band of gas and stars caught her gaze for a long, long time.
“It’s incredible,” she whispered. “You can barely see any stars from Earth’s surface
now.”
“It is like this every night on Lukrim,” Tahum said.
Adina stood up to lean into the window. All she wanted to do was get even the faint glow
of the instrument panels out of her peripheral vision so she could really see everything outside.
Tahum lay a steadying hand on her waist as she pressed her nose against the weird, warm
Lukrimian glass of the window, and she didn’t even notice when the door hissed open behind
them.
“What the hell?” Mike asked. His voice was very loud in the quiet room. It made her
jump, and Tahum’s hand was the only thing keeping her from tripping over herself as she spun to
face the door.
“Mike, have you seen this view?” she asked, gesturing behind her.
Her husband’s eyes glanced past her, then over to the alien to her right.
Tahum was expressionless as he looked at Mike, who was growing redder by the second.
Despite having to lean against the door to take weight off his leg, Mike was clearly trying
to straighten up to his full height. “Look man, I’m not trying to put you on the spot, I just want to
know what you want with my wife.”
Adina couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open. That was exactly what he was doing.
Embarrassment held her frozen in its icy grip as she alternated between it and heated rage. Now?
He wanted to play stupid games now, in a starship’s cockpit after they’d already left Earth?
Tahum was going to fire her so fast she wasn’t even going to get to see Lukrim. And she
doubted that telling them she’d murdered her husband after divorcing him would get her re-
hired.
Mike
Mike wanted to feel angry. He knew resentful defeat should be ruling his mind and body
right now, but all he could feel was the haze of a good fuck coiling deep within his belly. All he
wanted to do was take a nap.
The walls of the ship hummed, and outside the window, the stars blurred into a swirling
maelstrom that made him a little sick to look at it. They had made the jump between Earth’s
system and the edge of Lukrimian space. Two more would take them into the Lukrimian
starsystem and their new home.
He couldn’t say that his earlier bitterness was gone, but watching his wife and the
Lukrimian together had been one of the hottest things he’d ever done. Just the memory of it had
him wanting to rub one out.
He would have, but with Belinda also in the passenger area, he didn’t dare.
 He glanced around to see where she was--lying down, perhaps? He wouldn’t mind a nap
himself.
A small noise came from a seat in the very back row and he wandered back to look. The
woman was curled into a small ball, clutching the jacket she hadn’t let go of since they’d
boarded the flight.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked, crouching down next to her.
He wasn’t expecting the flinch at the sound of his voice, but she shook her head and he
took the opening. “What’s wrong? Nerves?”
“I can’t do this,” she gasped. Tears started rolling down her face.
“I get you,” he said soothingly. “It’s a big change, leaving Earth. But I bet when we get to
Lukrim we can all stay in touch and help each other adjust--”
“No,” she heaved out. “This--marriage!”
“What do you mean?” he asked quietly. He wasn’t sure if Tahum was listening, but the
Lukrimian coming in and trying to take charge of the situation probably wouldn’t help if Belinda
was this paralyzed over mating with two of his kind.
“I thought I could do it to get off Earth. Everyone said I was prime material for them.
Young, pretty baby making material. I grew my hair out for this, you know?” she asked, holding
her fingers two inches away from her head. “It used to be out to here.”
“I don’t think they mind short hair,” Mike said, confused. “I know the men can be a little
dominant but I don’t think they’ll care if you want to cut your hair--”
Belinda let out a little moan. “Not like that,” she said. “I’m not--I don’t like them. Men.”
Oh. Oh.
Tahum
The cell on the Ralothian ship was small and dark. Tahum hated every inch of it, from the
windowless walls to the slightly sticky floor. He could only guess what had been spilled upon it
and left to spoil.
Worse yet, he was alone. Mike had been dragged to another cell down the hall; Tahum
could hear him yelling even through the metal walls, but the women’s whereabouts were a
mystery.
Their shuttle was still attached. The Ralothians had decided that it was too rich of a prize
to destroy, so they were still clinging to the Lukrimian ship like the leeches they were until a
larger ship with a bay could arrive to transport it for them.
Everything outside the cells was quiet, and he was busy prying at the short chain that
attached his binders to the opposite wall from the door when it hissed open.
He spun, expecting a Ralothian come to gloat or worse, and he tensed, wanting to give as
good as he got. Instead Belinda stood in the door, wild-eyed with blood on her face.
“Get in here,” he said quickly, grabbing her arm and pulling her in. The door closed but
didn’t lock, letting him know that the Ralothians hadn’t realized she was missing--yet.
“What happened?”
“I stabbed him,” Belinda whispered. She was pale and shaking.
 “With what?” Tahum asked, reaching for the Ralothian personal datapad she held in a
white knuckled grip. There was blood ground into the metal.