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Host: We’d like to welcome a special guest, Bo, current slave and lover to Victor Raghib from Battle of a Thousand Deaths. Thank you for joining us, Bo.
Bo: Pleasure to be here.
Host: First off, I want to say, are you really as nice as you appear on camera? You seem to have no faults and people can’t help but love you.
Bo: That’s so kind of everyone to say, but I’m really no different than anyone else. I don’t put on a special act for the cameras.
Host: I’m not sure that answered the question, but we’ll move on. How do you feel knowing that Raghib is in love with Caden? Do you think he loves Caden more than you? Fans often say Raghib is using you as a replacement.
Bo: I’ve seen those same fans say Caden was my replacement. Raghib and I formed a bond and were lovers long before Raghib meant Caden. But, as someone who has met Caden, I understand his appeal. He’s a truly great guy.
Host: Um, okay, have you done anything to help the people of Raghib’s Kingdom? You must know the people are being overtaxed and are suffering.
Bo: There are people, specialists, who are addressing those concerns. It’s certainly not something a person with my background as a sex slave would know how to solve.
Host: Is it true Raghib is struggling with addiction?
Bo: He has his demons. Any former slave struggles to adapt to a life of freedom.
Host: Is part of that adapting related to the ecstasy reward most slaves receive from their master? Raghib is addicted to that drug and has been spending his kingdom’s money to buy more in the black market.
Bo: Of course, slaves struggle to adjust to a life without a reward system. I mean, I’m high right now. I gave Raghib a blowjob behind stage before coming out here. I needed the ecstasy reward to calm my nerves. If I was a free man without access to ecstasy, I’m not sure how I’d have the courage to do an interview like this.
Host: Raghib didn’t accompany you to the studio today.
Bo: A reward is a reward. I’m happy to have brightened someone’s day and get rewarded for it.
Host: We can edit that out before it airs, right? No? This is live? Of course, it is. Well, I think this has provided our viewers with some insight into Raghib’s Kingdom. Tune in next month for… I don’t know what, but not this. Can we call someone to get this guy?
Game Wardens rule most of the galaxy by a fierce empire built on enslavement and brokered deals. The only means to earn one’s freedom is by playing in the Alien Games. Two slaves go in the arena, the survivor, if there is one, is given their freedom and crowned a king, earning them a small country to rule and slaves of their own.
To make the battle more fun for spectators, genetically enhanced monsters, sahalias, are given to the combatants, but they must found in a scavenger hunt. Five orbs, each hatching into a lizard that will bond with their keeper, are hidden on a random planet. If the competitor finds all five, they have a great imbalance of power over the other, who will have none. The sahalias are created with one purpose, to battle to the death and destroy the other competitor.
*****
Caden works at an all night diner in a small town near the interstate. When a man comes in late at night, asking for access to the roof, Caden knows the man is a bit off. But his ruffian nature and a small bribe makes Caden decide to let him go up.
“It’s a scavenger hunt,” the man says. Caden thinks he’s being helpful when he finds the item, a black orb, but when he touches it, he unknowingly becomes a competitor in an intergalactic competition that ends in a battle to the death. Manipulated and lied to, drugged by the alien Incubus, Raghib, whom he is now allied with, he must train his lizard battle creatures to fight for him on an unknown planet with rules he barely understands.
He has little chance to survive and although he wants to trust, Raghib, who will earn his freedom if Caden wins the battle, he worries he is simply being used. A bit of truth is revealed when one of the Game Wardens takes a liking to Caden, but his alien species is known to eat humans, so Caden isn’t sure if the desire is that of hunger or true romance.
Either way, Caden is nothing but a slave to their alien games.
*****
Caden is free. He won his battle and got what he wanted. Sent back to Earth with his won kingdom given to the slave, Raghib. However, life on Earth, back at the diner isn’t the same after living on an alien planet. He still suffers from withdrawals from the Incubus influence and drugs Raghib forced on him, and nightmares from the horrible battle to the death.
When a woman arrives, the latest competitor in the alien games, she offers him a chance to visit Raghib. All he has to do is be her slave during the games and help her find the orbs. He agrees and finds she is a higher level competitor than Raghib was, the hunt is on a deadlier planet, one covered in darkness and monsters.
Caden is eventually reunited with Raghib and gets to see the kingdom he won. Raghib is more broken from the battle and haunted by the brutality of it than Caden. He has a new lover and is driving his country to poverty so he can buy drugs to forget the pain. Caden turns to the Game Wardens for help, offering to go back in the arena again, with the woman he helped in the scavenger hunt. He is a fan favorite and knows their ratings will improve if he goes in again.
He arranged to go in as her pretend slave, in a role that will have safety features turned on so he will be in no real danger. He thinks its his idea to go back in. Confident he’s messing with the structures in place and trying to leverage the Game Wardens to change the deadly games into a nonlethal form.
However, it was their plan for him to go back in from the start. Caden is still nothing but a slave to their alien games.
*****
Caden’s long-term girlfriend on Earth is pregnant, and Caden is missing. Jenny worries he has been kidnapped and drugged again. A strange woman arrives, saying she knows Caden and where he is. She offers to take Jenny to him, if she helps her… they just need to find some orbs in a scavenger hunt. Jenny agrees, but is careful to not touch the objects. She doesn’t trust this woman.
They find four orbs and encounter the other competitor. The fifth orb is there, and Jenny is forced to pick it up. The other competitor forfeits and Jenny finds herself now in the games, the woman she’d been helping now announced as her deadly competitor.
She is taken to an alien planet and united with a distraught Caden. He confesses that he has a relationship with a man, an alien man, an Incubus named Raghib, and the woman Jenny must fight is Raghib’s daughter.
Caden is in an impossible situation, either his lover’s daughter dies or his childhood sweetheart dies, but there is a rule in the games, a protection for slaves and their offspring, who are viewed as profitable future slaves. A pregnant woman may not enter the arena, instead the sire must.
Caden is again forced to play in the games, but this time he has no sahalias to battle on his behalf, and safety features are not allowed. If Caden is to survive, he must find a way to not be a slave in their alien games.
Enjoy an Excerpt from Book Two
“You were the victor in the arena. You. And you would have made a great leader.” Her face twisted with even more contempt. “But you gave your nobility away to Raghib. You, of all people, should have known better.”
“I don’t understand.”
I saw the flash of rage glimmer in her eyes, then my vision was flooded by the water below us as she thrust me under it. The shock had me inhaling the fluid, which panicked me more than anything. I thrashed and flailed. She pulled me back as I coughed, only vaguely aware that the water had stung my lungs less than water on Earth did.
“I’m from that kingdom you abandoned,” she said. “My people are from there.” She turned my head so I was forced to look at her. “Your Raghib sold our natural resources. Drained our water. Drilled our soil. Left us with nothing but barren land. Not even enough for us to live on, let alone afford the taxes he demanded. We had lush swamps, like this.” She gestured with her free hand while the other still held me, just barely high enough to keep my face from being submerged. “But now, it is a desert. My family sold me, sold their child, to pay Raghib’s tax and buy enough food to keep from starving. So I am here to win my own kingdom so my people can live in a better place. A place not ruled by a drug addict who cares nothing for his people.”
She dunked me again, before I could even consider mustering the air to respond or comprehend what she was telling me. I flailed, swung wildly, and probably hurt myself far more than I did her. She pulled me up again, and I vomited out the water as she tossed me away.
“You don’t even know whose side you are on. Kralasee is a puppet of the Game Wardens. She trains fighters. She is employed by the Game Wardens and works to prepare competitors in the months before they go on their scavenger hunt. And now, they have allowed this, you, their favorite competitor to return. How am I to win?’
“Not killing me would definitely be a good step in the right direction,” I managed to say between coughs.
“Does it matter if I am killed for murdering you rather than murdered in the arena in six days? Death is death.”
“Yes, but one of those options is a guarantee, the other is not.” I regained enough composure to look at her. “I can help you. I will…help you.”
I noticed she didn’t have any of the bands on her arm. She hadn’t found any orbs.
“It doesn’t matter to me which of you wins. I have no intention of going into the arena. So how about I help you find the remaining orbs?’
She did that smiling sneer, and for a moment, I thought it meant she was accepting my offer. She gripped my shoulder and pulled me from the water, pushing my back against a trunk. At least, I hoped it was a tree trunk.
“The more orbs that bitch finds, the better, so don’t offer me your pity.” She gave me a final push, then stepped out of my light, vanishing and leaving me, once again, alone. Only this time, I didn’t have any hope of finding Kralasee’s tracker.
About the Author:
Nina Schluntz is a native to rural Nebraska. In her youth, she often wrote short stories to entertain her friends. Those ideas evolved into the novels she creates today.
Her husband continues to ensure her stories maintain a touch of realism as she delves into the science fiction and fantasy realm. Their three cats are always willing to stay up late to provide inspiration, whether it is a howl from the stray born in the backyard or an encouraging bite from the so called “calming kitten.”
Buy the series, Book 1, Book 2, or Book 3on Amazon or check out the serialized version of the series (US only) on Kindle Vella.
