Stealing Coal by Laurann Dohner Page B

the
    biggest, strongest man she’d ever laid eyes on. She hadn’t really believed him when
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    Laurann Dohner
    he’d said it before, chalking it up to a plot to gain her trust, but she didn’t think that
    way anymore. “You’re so big.”
    “Our females are strong and I didn’t wish to kill them when we fought. They would
    attack me in groups, restrain me, and give me drugs to confuse my mind. When they
    ran out of drugs they operated to damage the implants in my head that allowed me to
    control my physical responses. They would torture me until my body complied. I could
    withhold any responses to the things they did to me until they damaged my implants.”
    Mute, Jill gaped at him.
    “The implants allowed me to deaden parts of my body. We were created to work
    for humans and the physical labor could be very painful at times. They didn’t want that
    to slow progression of our duties and the abilities to ignore any discomfort were
    deemed important. There were also risks of us being captured and they needed us to be
    impervious to pain if our captors attempted to torture company secrets from us. Of
    course we wouldn’t have been as useful for some of the tasks they’d assigned us if
    they’d just stripped us of all our nerve endings. It also became a way to punish us. They
    could remotely activate and deactivate the chips as needed by our supervisors. They
    would shut off the chips to beat us as punishment and make us suffer the resulting pain
    for days until we healed.”
    Tears filled Jill’s eyes, momentarily blinding her. “What the hell did they do to
    you?”
    “The females or Earth Government?”
    She’d always thought she’d gotten a raw deal in life with losing her mother so
    young, having to be raised by an aunt who kept her in seclusion from other people for
    her protection, and then learning what kind of man her father had been. Of course her
    years with her ex-husband had been a nightmare but he’d fed her, kept her clothed, and
    hadn’t dared inflict much bodily harm except for the times he’d forced sex on her. Even
    then, while it hadn’t been enjoyable in the least, he hadn’t purposely caused her
    physical pain. He’d been more about terrifying her with threats to keep her under his
    control.
    “Jill?”
    “I’m just sorry you’ve had such a hard life.”
    He studied her. “It has made me stronger and more determined to survive.”
    She could relate to that. “The women…” She paused. “Did they really hurt you and
    humiliate you?”
    He took a deep breath and then leaned in closer but didn’t touch her. “It depended
    on which female had use of me. The worst thing they did to me was damage my
    implants and force the donation of my sperm. I am happy good came out of it from the
    flourish of children produced to advance our race but it saddens me that I wasn’t
    permitted to know them. The females deemed me a slave and kept the children away
    from me at all times for fear that I might harm them. They feared I was capable of that
    since I didn’t want to be used in that manner but I never would have done that. They
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    Stealing Coal
    are a part of me physically and therefore I would have done anything to protect the
    children from harm.”
    Questions filled her mind—so many she didn’t know where to start. Coal spoke
    before she could ask any of them.
    “I had to be secured flat on my back on a bed for them to torture as needed. They
    realized quickly that great bodily harm would make my body tense and cause
    adrenaline spikes that gave me erections. Earth Government had taught us how to
    inflict great pain while leaving no lasting physical damage. Once the pain became too
    much and they got the physical reaction they wanted, they would mount me until they
    got my seed. Every time they would come inside the room where they kept me I’d
    know hopelessness and dread of what would happen. Occasionally they had to allow
    me up to avoid sores forming where my skin never