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A/N: Well, there's nothing to say… I just want to thank you for your reviews!
Chapter 9: "Another small Triumph"
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Bulma paced angrily through the small cabin on the pirate's ship. She had now already been one whole night on this ship, locked in this small room with nothing to do. Well, at first she had plenty of things to do. This place had really been a mess, but now it looked rather decent. Okay, it looked nothing like the rooms Bulma was used to, but as long as she had to stay here, she could live with it.
But after she took care of the mess, she started to become pretty bored… and hungry. She also noticed that she was pretty exhausted. Well, it didn't happen every day to her that she was kidnapped. But after she had looked through the small porthole in her cabin and had noticed that it must already be night, she gave in to her exhaustion and went to bed. She fell asleep at once, just to be woken up by the merciless rumble of her stomach the next morning.
And there she was now, again dressed in the dress she arrived in, because those other clothes Vegeta had shown her were really something for whores. She had never seen something more revealing than those dresses and it would have made her sick, when someone saw her wearing one of those. For the night they were fine, but otherwise…
Whatever, the whole morning she had done nothing else than knocking at the wall, trying to get the attention of the ruthless pirate who had the nerves to kidnap her. In case you need something, just knock at the wall. Yeah, right. Been there, done that. Nothing had happened. She had even yelled at the tops of her lungs, trying to get anyone's attention, but in vain.
She was Lady Bulma, daughter of Lord Briefs and no one dared to ignore her like that and get away with it. "Okay, one more try before I starve to death…" she murmured and stopped pacing. "VEEEGEEETAAA!"
"Stop screaming woman. I'm not deaf," she suddenly heard a voice coming from the door.
She turned around and saw her kidnapper leaning in the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face. "What?… How long have you been standing there?" Bulma asked confused. She had been so engaged in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed that he had opened the door.
"Long enough, woman. I take it, according to your annoying screeching, that you want something?"
"Oh yes, mister… But first of all, my name is Bulma! It should even be Lady Bulma for you! And for your information, I'm starving! I don't know how they treat guests where you come from, but where I'm coming from the hosts actually react when their guest needs something!" she yelled at him.
The next thing she knew was Vegeta grabbing her by her upper arms and pushing her against a wall. "Listen woman, when there's someone who should be addressed by his title, then it's me," he said in a dangerous low voice.
"Yeah, right…" Bulma rolled her eyes, not impressed by him at all. She still thought that she had her trump.
Vegeta gritted his teeth and tightened his grip around her arms, causing Bulma to let out a small shriek of pain. "Be careful what you say, woman. Remember, you're not a guest on this ship. You're a hostage and I think that you have no idea what you're dealing with. You may be right that I can't kill you, but I can very well hurt you. Believe me, I know many ways of making your life a living hell."
Bulma whimpered, feeling tears in her eyes, when Vegeta let go of her arms. She rubbed the places that hurt and suddenly the realization hit her. This man was right. Her trump was that he couldn't kill her, but she never thought of the possibility that he could hurt her none-the-less. She shuddered at the thought what he could do to her. Her thoughts wandered from hitting, torturing to even raping. He didn't even need to do that on his own. She was sure that his men would be more than happy to have again a woman in bed. But didn't he make clear last night that he was trying to prevent even that from happening? But he was a ruthless pirate, a monster that was feared all over the world, so why should he give a shit about if something was happening to her as long as it didn't kill her?
Vegeta watched as the look of superiority on the woman's face was replaced by the look of fear. He noticed that her defenses were crumbling. The fire in her eyes was fading, as he saw that the truth in what he had said hit her. He had crushed the last hope in this woman that she could get away with whatever she was doing. This was exactly what he wanted, wasn't it? He wanted the people to fear him. Everyone, including this woman, should cower in fear for him. He was born to rule, to terrorize those, who were beneath him. That was what he was supposed to do, wasn't it?
He shook his head, not allowing any doubts to come to surface and turned his attention back to the woman. "Are you coming now? I thought you were hungry!" Bulma looked up at him and nodded lightly. "Okay, then follow me."
Vegeta led her along the short hallway to a door at the end of it. He opened it and they stepped inside. Bulma's eyes widened with surprise. That must be his room! It was larger than her cabin and she could look outside through a larger window in the back of the cabin. A curtain separated his bed from the rest of the room. There was also a table about in the middle with some chairs and some kind of office desk at the window side. The whole place was clean and Bulma had to admit that for a pirate, it was rather luxurious. "Sit down," Vegeta demanded, pointing to a chair at the table. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Okay…" Bulma mumbled and sat down on the chair, watching as Vegeta left the room.
Just a moment later he came back, followed by some of his men who carried a few plates. One placed a plate directly in front of her, while the others were placed in front of Vegeta, who had in the meantime sat down across of her. The food on his plates, that meant some bread, something that looked like bacon and eggs, looked really appetizing, but when she looked at her plate, she wrinkled her nose. Instead of getting something decent, it was just some kind of brown-greenish mush with a piece of bread. She poked with her fork in it and then stared at Vegeta. "You want me to eat this?"
Vegeta looked up from his plate, just to see that some of the fire had returned in her eyes. That made him smirk. "Of course. Do you have a problem with it? My men don't complain about the food."
"Just for your information! I'm not one of your men! I wonder why they've not already died of food poisoning. And let me guess, just because you are the almighty Prince you get better food than them."
"Of course. And in contrast to you, my men are strong. They aren't as pathetic as you and your spoiled people. And now eat!"
Hesitating Bulma looked at her plate and then pushed it away, crossing her arms after that. "No. I won't eat this shit. Just god knows what's in there and even if your men don't get poisoned, I don't want to risk that. Then I'd rather starve to death."
Vegeta just shrugged indifferently and continued eating. The whole time he noticed the woman's gaze on him, what somehow made him kind of uncomfortable. "What is it?" he asked annoyed.
"Nothing," Bulma answered smirking. "I just wonder if it's in the Saiyajinblood to eat so much… You must know, Goku and Gohan also have bottomless stomachs. You're the third person I know, who could eat that much."
"We Saiyajins eat so much to keep our strength," he explained to her and turned his attention back to his breakfast.
"And what about this strange hair? As Goku was younger he had often tried to cut his hair, but it always grew back to the same way it was before. Is that also a Saiyajin thing?" she asked with an innocent and sweet voice.
Vegeta growled, really annoyed by this game she was obviously playing. "Will you stop your rambling when you get something to eat from my plate?"
"I don't know, maybe…" She smirked at him.
"Fine," Vegeta grumbled and pushed one of his plates over to her.
"Thank you, Veggie… I knew you weren't as bad you pretend to be." She ignored another growl coming from the annoyed Saiyajinprince and started eating. That was just another small triumph she had over him. Maybe he had really just bluffed in her room earlier. And maybe her stay on this ship would be more fun than she thought.
Later that day, Bulma was again locked in her cabin, Vegeta paced restlessly through his room. What was this woman thinking? Not as bad as he pretended to be! Ha! This woman had no idea whom she was dealing with. He was the Prince of the Saiyajins and he had killed more persons for less. But this was even that what was so strange about this woman. Excluding the incident that morning, she didn't seem to fear him. It seemed like she was longing for a verbal sparring match with him and he could find himself reacting to it, wanting the same. This was unknown territory for him and he had to be careful. A smirk crept on his face. Maybe this woman would be much more entertainment for him than he first thought.
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Okay, that was another chapter!
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