by Renee Rose
I moisten my cracked lips with my tongue. I can’t decide if my response means I’m afraid or excited.
Afraid. Definitely afraid. Warriors like these are probably bounty hunters. They’re after the price on my head.
And that may be true, but as they come closer, tingles run across my skin. Must be the damn breeding hormones. I’m never excited by males.
But maybe I just hadn’t met the right species before. Because when they stop in front of me, my nipples tighten, breath shortens. Apparently purple aliens with horns are exactly my type.
One of them inhales deeply, his nostrils flaring.
The other one reaches out and slides his thick fingers under the animal hide strap that binds my neck to the post. My eyes fly wide and I try to suck in a breath against the increased constriction. But then he yanks it away from me, tearing it from the post and throwing it to the ground. I drag in a lungful of air and cough.
The Aurelian trader lifts the same gun he used on me and points it at the male’s chest. “Get back! You can’t set her free.”
Neither Zandian moves. They don’t flinch at the sight of the gun, nor do they lift their hands in surrender. “Your slave was choking,” my liberator says mildly. He has a deep voice that does strange things to my knees. “You should take care with how tight you strap them. No one will buy a dead female.”
The trader scoffs and pinches my cheeks, drawing my bleeding lips together. “This one wouldn’t die so easily.” He shows them the bite mark I left on his arm. “She’s a liineor.”
I have no idea what a liineor is, but I assume it’s some wild beast from this planet.
The Zandians don’t move, but the upper lip on the leaner one starts to curl. He says something under his breath in their language, and his friend nods. Neither of them have taken their gazes from me.
At first glance, I thought their eyes were brown, but now I see they’re purple, like their skin. Or have they grown more violet? The leaner one takes a long, slow perusal of my body. “How much?” He sounds only half interested, but that could be part of the bargaining game.
I can’t decide if I want their interest. I shouldn’t. These males are dangerous. Very dangerous. They’re trained to kill, and they appear highly intelligent.
So I should be hoping they mosey away and find some other vendor to hassle.
But instead I find myself praying they buy me. For no reason other than that I can’t stand the thought of them walking away.
The larger one lifts my tangled hair from my shoulders and peers at my neck. His fingers brush my bare shoulder. He’s so close I smell the scent of his skin—masculine and clean. He drops the locks back in place and says something to his friend in Zandian.
Fuck.
They are smart. He just saw my real hair color but he’s playing it cool.
“Where did you get her?” he asks. He has a square, hairless jaw and a cleft chin that probably makes every female in the galaxy drool when he goes by.
The trader lifts his chin. “It doesn’t matter where.”
“So you don’t have her file? She’s not legally yours?” the leaner one asks.
Oh fuck. They’re asking way too many questions. The next thing you know, they’ll be checking my barcode. I twist my neck to the side and lean forward, catching the “V” of skin showing above the Zandian’s tunic with my tongue. I flick once. Twice.
He catches me by the hair and pulls my head back, gazing down at me with amusement.
“I think she likes you,” his friend observes with a chuckle.
He’s holding my hair in a fist too tight, but I don’t think he means to hurt me. He’s just too strong, or unaware how much weaker my species is. He leans down and brushes his lips across mine. At the same time, his free hand cups my mons.
I jerk, more from surprise, than anything. And because every other time a male has grabbed me there has been unpleasant.
But it isn’t this time. He rubs the pad of his finger lightly through my folds and I’m stunned at how wet I am.
His horns stiffen and lean in my direction while he watches my face, his nose almost touching mine, amethyst eyes burning.
I pant, heat curling like smoke through my belly.
“One hundred fifty stein,” he says. He removes his finger from my pussy. I’m itchy and hot. Needy for his touch to return.
“Three hundred,” the vendor counters.
“One seventy-five. Final offer.” He releases my hair and takes a step back.
“Two fifty.”
His friend scoffs. He shrugs and walks away.
The fucking vendor lets them go. Three steps away. Four. Five. “Two hundred,” he calls to their backs.
They stop but don’t turn. They seem to be in conversation with each other.
“One ninety.”
It takes the broad one two long strides to return. His friend pulls out a burlap bag full of coins while he digs his fingers under the strap around my chest. He rips it off, as if thick animal hide is easy to snap.
I wince as the blood rushes down my arms like a million insect stings. He rips off the strap around my thighs and I crumple, unable to hold myself up. In a flash, I’m swooped up over a broad shoulder.
The Zandian claps a large hand down on my ass. “Come on, little slave. We know just the place for humans who like to escape their masters.”
From the Authors
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HIS HUMAN SLAVE - EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
Zandian Breeding season.
That was the last consideration in his mind before liberating his planet from the Finn.
Breeding season.
Zander sat at the round platform, looking at the faces of the elders he respected most, the ones who had risked their lives to save him when the Finn invaded Zandia and wiped out the rest of their species solar cycles before.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious,” Daneth, the only Zandian physician left in the galaxy said, tapping his wrist band. “You are the best male representative of the Zandian species, the only one left of the royal bloodline, and, more importantly, the only one young enough to produce healthy offspring. If you go to battle without first procreating, our species will die with us.” He gestured around the room at the other members of his parents’ generation.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes in exasperation. “And exactly which female do you think I will produce these offspring with? Last I heard, there is no Zandian female under the age of sixty left alive.”
“You will have to cross-breed. I purchased a program and entered your genetic makeup. It uses all the known gene files in the galaxy predicts the best possible mate for breeding.
He raised his eyebrows. “So have you already run this program?”
Daneth nodded.
He looked around the table, his gaze resting on Seke, his arms master and war strategist. “Did you know about this?”
Seke nodded once.
“And you approve? This is foolish—my time should be spent training with the new battleships we bought and recruiting an army, not—” he spluttered to a stop.
“The continuation of the species is paramount. What is the point of winning back Zandia if there’s no Zandians left to populate it?”
He sighed, blowing out his breath. “All right, I’ll bite. Who is she? What species?”
Daneth projected an image from his wrist band. The image of a slight, tawny-haired young female appeared. “Human. Lamira Taniaka. She’s an Ocretion slave working in agrifarming.”
A human breeder. A slave.
Veck.
Zander didn’t have time for this excrement. “There’s been a miscalculation.” He waved his hand at the hologra
m.
“No, no mistake. I ran the program several times. This female bested every other candidate by at least a thousand metapoints. This female will produce the most suitable offspring for you.”
“Impossible. Not a human. No.” Humans were the lowest of the social strata on Ocretia, the planet where his palatial pod had been granted airspace.
“I realize it seems an unlikely match, my lord, but there must be some reason her genes mix best with yours. The program is flawless.”
“I thought you might suggest someone worthy of formal mating—an arranged marriage with royalty of another species. Not a breeder. Not a pet.” Humans were not mates, they were slaves to the Ocretions. An inferior species. He hadn’t had much to do with them, but from what he understood, they were weak, fragile. Their lifespan was short, they did not recover from injuries quickly. They spread disease and died quickly. They lacked honor and fortitude. They lied.
Zandians—his species—never lied.
“I was not seeking a lifemate for you, I found the best female for producing your offspring. If you wish to find a mate, I will search the databases for the female most compatible to your personality and lifestyle preferences after you have bred. But this is the one you must breed. And now, during the traditional Zandian breeding season.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. The breeding season didn’t matter. For one thing, they weren’t on Zandia—weren’t affected by her moons, or her atmosphere. For another, he wouldn’t be breeding with a Zandian female coming into cycle.
But Daneth was like a sharkhound on a hunt—he wouldn’t stop until the stated goal had been reached. He’d been his father’s physician and had served on Zander’s council as a trusted advisor since the day they’d evacuated Zandia during the Finn’s takeover. He’d been only fourteen sun-cycles then. He’d spent the last fifteen sun-cycles working every day on his plan to retake his planet. He’d settled in Ocretia where he’d amassed a small fortune through business and trade, making connections and preparing resources, training for war.
“I will take care of everything. I will purchase her and bring her here until you impregnate her. Once it’s done, you can send her away. I’m certain you’ll be satisfied with the results. The program is never wrong.”
“She’s human. And a slave. You know I don’t believe in keeping slaves.”
“So set her free when she’s served you.” Lium, his tactical engineer spoke.
“A slave will have to be imprisoned. Guarded. Disciplined.”
“She’s beautiful. Would it be such a hardship to have this woman chained in your bedroom?” This from Erick, his trade and business advisor.
Beautiful? He looked again at the holograph. The female looked filthy, with dirt covering her hands and cheeks, her unkempt hair pulled back and secured at her nape. But upon closer inspection, it seemed Erick was right. She was pretty—for a human. Her tangled hair was an unusual copper color and wide-set green eyes blinked at the imager that had captured her likeness. A smattering of light freckles dusted her golden skin. She wore drab shapeless work garments, but when Daneth hit a command to remove the clothing and predict the shape of her naked body, it appeared to be in perfect proportion—round, firm breasts, wide hips, long, muscular legs. His horns and cock stiffened in unison.
Veck.
He hadn’t had that reaction to a female of another species before. He’d only grown hard looking at old holograms of naked or scantily clad Zandian females from the archives.
For the love of Zandia.
He didn’t want a human. He wanted the impossible—one of his own species, or if not, then a female of a species that was superior to his own, not inferior.
“Why do you suppose her genes are best? What else do you know about her?”
“Well, there’s this.” Daneth flashed up a holograph of a human man, dressed in combat gear, a lightray gun in his hand, blood dripping from his forehead. “He was her father, a rebel warrior who fought in the last human uprising before her birth. He may have even led it.”
“Hmm.” He made a noncommittal sound. His species were warriors, why would he need the human genome for that? “What about her mother?”
“Not much to be found. She’s still alive—they’re together now, working on Earth-based plant and food growth production. Keeping their heads down, is my guess. The data about her father isn’t in the Ocretion database file. My program gene-matched to give me that information. I’m surprised the Ocretions don’t do more gene study.”
“I’ll probably split her in two the first time I use her. Humans aren’t not built for Zandian cocks.”
“The program can’t be wrong.”
He sighed. “Is she even for sale?”
“No, but you are a highly-esteemed royalty and unofficial ambassador from Zandia. I’m sure she can be purchased for the right price.” Daneth referred to his position on the United Galaxies. Since the Finns were not recognized by the UG due to their genocidal practices, Zander served as the Zandian ambassador. Not that it did much good. No one on the UG was willing to put their resources behind him to overthrow the Finns.
He made a grumbling sound in his throat. “Fine. But don’t spend too much. Our resources are needed for recruiting soldiers.”
“Your offspring are top priority. Even over the war plans,” Seke said. The male didn’t speak often, and when he did, it always had a definitive ring to it, as if his word was the last and only word.
“As you wish. I’ll breed her. But if she doesn’t survive the first coupling, her death is on all of you.”
Daneth chuckled. “Humans aren’t that weak.”
~.~
Lamira crouched beside the row of tomato plants and flicked a bug off the leaf before anyone saw it. The Ocretion foremen always wanted to spray the plants with their chemicals at the first sign of any bugs, even though it had been proven to harm the plants.
Her stomach rumbled. The tomatoes looked so juicy. She longed to just pluck one and pop it into her mouth, but she’d never get away with it. She’d be publicly flogged or worse—shocked. The fresh Earth-based fruits and vegetables they cultivated were only for Ocretions. Human slaves had to live on packaged food that wasn’t fit for a dog.
Still, her life was far better than it might be in another sector, as her mother always reminded her. They lived in their own tent and had little contact with their owners after work hours.
It might be worse. She could be a sex slave like the sister she’d never met, her body used and abused by men every day. After the Ocretions took her sister, her father had led a human uprising, which had resulted in his death. Her mother, pregnant with Lamira, had been picked up by slave smugglers and sold to the agrifarm. Her mother had been careful to hide her beauty and taught her to do the same, keeping mud on her face and hair and wearing clothes that were too big. They hunched when they walked, ducked their heads when addressed, and kept their eyes lowered. Only in their own ragged tent did they relax.
“You, there—Lamira.” A guard called her name.
She hunched her shoulders and looked up.
“The director wants to see you.”
Her heart thudded in her chest. What had she done? She was careful, always careful. By the age of seven her mother had taught her to distinguish what was real—what others knew—and what was claircognizance. She’d learned to keep her mouth shut for fear she’d slip up and say something she knew about someone without having been told. Had she made a mistake? If she had, it would mean certain death. Humans with special traits—anything abnormal or special—were exterminated. The Ocretions wanted a population they could easily control.
She dropped the bushel of tomatoes and walked up to the main building, showing the barcode on her wrist to the scanner to gain admittance. She’d never been in the administration building before. An unimpressive concrete slab, it felt as cold and dreary inside as it looked from the outside. One of the guards jerked his head. “Director’s office is that way.”
The gray concrete floors chilled her dirty bare feet. The director was a fat, pasty Ocretion female with ears that stuck straight out to the sides and cheeks as paunchy as her belly. Beside her sat a male of a species she didn’t recognize.
“Lamira.” The director said her name, but didn’t follow with any instructions.
She stood there, not sure what to do. She tried for a curtsy.
The humanoid male stood up and circled her. He appeared middle-aged and stood a head taller than a human, but unlike the doughy Ocretions, he was all lean muscle. Two small horns or antennae protruded from his head. “She’s in good health?”
The director shrugged, looking bored. “I wouldn’t know.”
The male lifted her hair to peer under her ponytail. He lifted her arms and palpated her armpits. His skin was purplish-peach, a nice hue—an almost human color. His interest in her seemed clinical, not sexual, more like a doctor or scientist.
“What is this about?” she asked.
The male raised an eyebrow, as if surprised she’d spoken.
The director touched the fingertips of her four-fingered hands together. “They are not house-trained, the humans we keep here. They’re mainly used for outdoor agricultural work.”
House-trained. What in the stars did that mean?
He cupped her breasts and squeezed them.
She jerked back in shock.
“Stand still, human,” the director barked, picking up her shock-stick and sauntering over.
Lamira froze and held her breath. She hated the shock-stick more than any other punishment. She’d heard if you get shocked enough, permanent paralysis or even death may result. In her case, she feared she might say something she shouldn’t while coming out of the daze from it.
“I’ll take her. We’ll require a full examination to ensure her good health, of course, but if everything seems in order, I will pay for her.”
The director folded her arms across her chest. “Well, we weren’t planning to sell her. I understand Prince Zander has a lot of influence with the United Galaxies, but—”