The Sister Who Pushed Me, The Fate That Swallowed Her Chapter 02

The Sister Who Pushed Me, The Fate That Swallowed Her Chapter 02

Our lives were in the hands of space pirates, but that didn’t matter. To the wealthy New Terran elite on board, shifter pirates were still beneath them.

Last time, the Interstellar Alliance had eventually come to our rescue.

They got picked up by a Federation starship and settled on a Federation planet.

I got left behind. Drifting through open space on a pirate cruiser, nothing around me but black in every direction.

I told myself the Alliance would come for the pirates eventually. That someone would get me out of Derek’s hands.

Then news broke about what happened when the humans reached the Federation.

The Federation president told every human woman to choose at least three guardian-mates.

Sloane called them savages to their faces.

She refused. Told them she’d only accept one man, lifelong monogamy, nothing less.

The Federation elite didn’t punish her for it, even though she’d humiliated them in public.

They gave the women six months to pick their guardian-mates at their own pace.

Sloane used to call me on her holo-comm. She’d brag about all the gifts the powerful men were showering her with.

I told her to stop accepting them.

Even back on New Terra, you didn’t take expensive gifts from a man you had no intention of being with.

In interstellar society, where the ratio was one woman to every ten thousand men, accepting gifts meant you were accepting a courtship.

These beings lived five hundred years. They might look twenty, but most of them had already been alive for a century or two.

They could see right through Sloane’s greed, no matter how loudly she insisted on exclusivity.

They tolerated her games because they were desperate for mates. That was all.

But Sloane thought I was jealous. She had more gifts than she could count, and she assumed that was what bothered me.

When the Alliance finally ran out of patience, Sloane’s talk of monogamy became a joke.

They put her in a reproductive facility.

Any man who could pay the price bought the right to breed with her.

I lost contact with Sloane after that. I promised Derek another child, anything, if he’d rescue her.

Derek didn’t want to. But he wanted more children badly enough to raid the wealthiest planet in the sector and take it.

He used that as leverage, negotiated with the Federation president, and got Sloane out.

Sloane repaid me by putting a knife in my chest at my own wedding.

Back in the present, I pulled my knees to my chest in the corner and drifted in and out of sleep all night.

Someone shoved me awake. I opened my eyes, and there was Derek, looking like a man who’d gotten everything he wanted.

“Derek.” I made my voice as small and obedient as I could.

It worked. He liked hearing his name like that.

“Sloane wants you.” Derek said it over his shoulder, already walking away.

I scrambled to follow.

One night, and she already had the energy to order me around. Good. That meant she could survive more than I’d thought.

Last time, one night with Derek had knocked me out cold for a full day.

But when I opened the door, Sloane looked like a broken doll. My legs almost buckled.

There was barely an inch of undamaged skin on her.

Snake-shifter bite marks everywhere. Deep puncture wounds, some of them still raw.

Someone had applied a healing salve on them, and the scabs were already forming. But underneath the thick musk in the air, I could still smell blood. Human blood.

Once Derek was gone, I grabbed a nutrient shake and held it to her lips.

“Get that away from me.” Sloane forced her eyes open, glaring. “I want chicken noodle soup.”

“Sloane, this is a pirate ship. They don’t have anything like that.”

She didn’t believe me.

“You’re lying.” Her voice came out hoarse and broken. “You’re jealous because I have your man now, so you’re punishing me.”

I almost laughed.

“If piracy paid that well, every shifter in the galaxy would be doing it.”

In our last life, Sloane had lived on a Federation planet with every comfort. She thought everyone ate like that. They didn’t.

Even the most basic New Terran food was a luxury out here, something only women who’d married the elite got once in a while.

I watched the truth land. Her face twisted.

“Kneel!” The word ripped out of her.

I stared at her, cold.

“I said kneel. And feed me.” Each word ground out through clenched teeth.

I didn’t move.

“I didn’t do this to you.”

Sloane’s laugh was all contempt. “You think you have a choice?”

Before I could say another word, she screamed his name. “Derek!”

The door flew open. Derek slithered in, his heavy tail dragging against the metal floor.

“What is it?” he snapped.

Sloane’s face crumpled into something pitiful.

“Audra’s jealous because I’m yours now. She keeps saying awful things to me.”

Derek turned those reptilian eyes on me. My blood went still.

I could have tried to explain. But a male shifter would always take his mate’s side. Always. There was no version of this where he believed me.

Not even Derek could override that kind of biology.

His tail whipped across the room and slammed me into the wall.

The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. My vision blurred.

Sloane looked at me, crumpled against the wall, and something bright and ugly lit up her face.

Then, slowly, her triumphant smile died.