Her swear words failed her.
The insufferable man smiled and shrugged. “It is the Way.”
Not her way. She couldn’t help watching as yet another tribesman lowered himself over one of the women and began plowing into her. That she reached up and wrapped her rope-tied hands about his neck, as if to pull him closer, was odd.
“That’s...” The rest of her angry words were cut short by Torgeir lightly slapping her face.
Shocked, she rocked on her feet, desperate to get away but her hands were tied. She tugged and twisted, only to feel the ropes at her wrists tighten.
“Panties, remember? Unless you want that to be you?” He waved at the sexual exhibition but she refused to look again. He bent until his mouth was adjacent to her ear. “Good. This is sensible. Watch and be good.”
That his warm breath on her ear had stirred her made her shudder again. She shouldn’t react so when a man had her bound. That she’d moistened below was appalling when she was in the middle of an orgy-like disaster. All she had to hope for was that an alien lord be true to his word? She was doomed.
“Now, Lord Kalfa.” Torgeir slapped her ass. “How much for her?”
“Her?” Bear man laughed and spun around to settle into a big chair at the top of the table. “Why? She’s spoken for, though I was planning on having some fun with her first.” He leaned forward and examined her thoughtfully. “I want to see if these Earth women are as good as people say they are.”
Oh crap. He didn’t mean good at gardening. Her breaths came faster and her heart was racing too.
Torgeir clamped his hand over the back of her neck.
“This girl? Maybe. What did you say they’d pay you? Fifty thou? I’ll pay seventy.”
“No. I promised her.”
“To an outsider? Seventy-five.”
“Not enough.” The man stroked his beard. “You seem keen.”
“What do you expect? I’ve been off working as a Preyfinder for years. Now I’m free to do as I please, I please to buy and fuck women. Sell her. I will give up the Om I hold over you and I’ll give you seventy.”
“The Om?”
She could hear surprise in bear man’s voice. His eyebrows rose to his hairline and remained there for some seconds. The room seemed quieter too, as if a shockwave had rippled outward. An Om must be worth something to them.
This was going to work, but she’d paid over so much more than this. She tried to grace Torgeir with an extra strong glare but couldn’t turn within the arc of his hand.
At least he was doing what he’d said he would – buying her. But...what if he did desire her? The large hand at her neck, the rope at her wrists, and the pulse of blood there because he’d tied it too tightly, all these reminded her of how impossible escape would be if Torgeir turned on her.
At last Kalfa stirred and gestured. “Wrap her eyes. She has an insolent look about her. Eighty. If you give up the Om and you fuck her here and tell me if she’s any good.”
She should run. Torgeir seemed to sense this and his fingers clamped in.
“Eighty? No. No watching me fuck her.” Casually he pulled her over, shoved her face first onto the table, and dragged down her underwear while he kept his palm planted on her lower back. Before she’d managed to do more than gasp a few times, he was tying the panties over her eyes. “There. Now, where were we?”
Today was a day for sensible cotton panties and she’d worn black and lacy. How silly to be mortified about that – from the cool draft, it was likely she was revealing all of her private area to anyone who bothered to look.
“At eighty. You know this other man, this foreigner, he wants her bad. I think he’ll go higher.”
With his hand on her neck, Torgeir kept her pinned though now and then his finger strayed and he stroked her ear lobe. “You’d sell this succulent female to an outsider? You can’t.”
Succulent!
He slapped her ass again. Squirming only resulted in him holding her down even firmer.
“She’s mine.”
“Not yet.”
“You don’t want the Om?”
What was this Om?
The sound of her heartbeats drummed harder every second. The chair Kalfa sat in squeaked, as if he adjusted position while he thought about what to do, with her. This could not be happening.
If she told them she was almost a cyborg, Kalfa would let her go. Or he might kill her. The Sicar people hated borgs. She wasn’t one really, but he might still do it. Revulsion might make him release her or she might be killed. She didn’t know. The theoretical small print on their Way was so convoluted that no one raised outside of their system was sure of anything, one hundred percent.
Torgeir might be so disgusted he’d let her be sold too. That was the most likely result.
Ella sighed, shut her eyes beneath the cloth of her panties, feeling her lashes brush the lace, and she said nothing. Despair rose in her until it seemed her heart would wither into a knot of useless scarred flesh before this day was done.
Chapter 2
That Kalfa hesitated was to be expected. The man knew his intent. The Om had been an honorable debt and obligation held between their two families for generations. They were friends despite it, perhaps because of it, as it had drawn them together knowing neither family would raid the other’s lands.
Without the Om holding Kalfa back, he would be free to raid. They both knew who would win.
He had nothing and no one loyal. Five of his Rakkel warriors had accompanied him off-planet, to the foreign stars and systems, to fight the war against the Bak-lal. Only he had returned. They’d stayed loyal but had died in small engagements and battles, one by one. Warrior’s deaths and none had blamed him. Though he regretted their passing, it had been their choice and they were now safe in the realms of their gods.
Being away had meant the remainder of his warriors had left his holding. Too long away, but he’d known that. Nearly half his life. The manager he’d left to take care of his lands and structures had done well, considering.
At a whimper, he glanced down at the little female laid out across the table. Well, not so little. She squirmed enticingly under his hand, reminding him of the raids of his youth when they’d taken females. A pity. He smiled to himself, imagining those times, when a captive like this would be stripped, collared, and tied to his bed at the snap of his fingers. Old ways and he was returning to the new.
Besides, she was an outsider and didn’t understand. Her shivering probably meant she was frightened but he had no way to communicate or calm her except to stroke her neck with his thumb.
He’d been looking for an honorable way to return the Om. This way both of them, he and Kalfa, retained credos. Buying her was only an excuse – one he’d pounced on when the opportunity arose. Simply giving the Om away would be despicable.
Kalfa slapped his thigh. “You’re certain of this, Torgeir? She’s worth it?”
He looked up and used Lord Kalfa’s personal name also. “Yes, Jagna. I’m certain.”
A lesser man would’ve taken the Om when first offered.
“Then I accept. Take her and go. You have a day to be clear of my lands.” He added quietly, “I am sorry to see you go.”
He inclined his head as Jagna did so. After the day had passed, anything could happen – including being attacked. “I will transfer the moneys when I reach Besk.” Both of them knew the money was trivial to Kalfa, if not to him.
His lands were empty. His true family was dead and long gone after the plague that had ripped through the outlands two decades ago. While grieving, he’d decided to join the Concer forces to fight the Bak-lal. He’d seen so much out there, on other worlds circling other suns, things that Jagna and his men would never understand unless they too ventured beyond Sicar. He’d seen things that’d opened his eyes, his mind, even his heart, he believed.
The Way had stifled him as soon as he stepped on the surface of Sicar.
He
tugged the cloth from the girl’s eyes.
She turned her head to the side and whispered, “Thank you.”
“You are welcome. You’re mine now, so it’s for me to say whether your eyes are covered or not. Come.” He took his hand from the girl’s neck and encouraged her to stand, then drew her with him as he marched to the doors. The long plait of her dark hair lay across one shoulder and he stopped a second to rearrange it so it fell down her back.
Pretty. He liked how it looked there. What a good handle that would make to hold her still. Perhaps that was how her lover liked her to wear her hair.
Despite her obvious fears, she had her head up and appeared to be cataloguing everything in this room. Clever little trader. Information was knowledge to traders. Her masters should be happy, whoever they were.
When at last they exited this underground citadel of Kalfa’s and emerged into the fierceness of the sun, he paused again to inhale. Dry, dusty, hot air. One of his last breaths on this planet. He had his long bag of weapons, his clothes and sundry items, a girl he owned for a little longer, and ninety thou he hadn’t had yesterday.
Perhaps the pretty girl was worth more than that at auction. He needed money badly.
“Come.” He jerked on her plait then indicated his lime-spotted qualarfa stallion. They’d have to ride together to Besk. Her ship would be there. So were the auction yards.
Once he’d saddled the qualarfa, she turned her back to him and jiggled her tied hands. “Free me.”
“Not yet. When we are off the Kalfa lands. I don’t want them to think I am too lax or I might lose my head early.” He hoisted her up onto the beast, to the front of the saddle area.
“That’s ridiculous,” she muttered, glaring down at him.
“Is it?” He mounted behind her and took up the reins. His thighs nudged in behind hers and her ass was inches from him. This ride would be interesting. “What is a true pity is that a good Sicar warrior keeps his word. Certainly, I do. I will free you when I say, but not before.”
She harrumphed as if disappointed. “I think my fingers must be going blue.”
He checked, feeling them for coolness also. Women had such fine fingers. “They aren’t blue or cold. Wriggle them.”
She did so, and the sight of her lashed-together wrists and her fingers down there, wriggling and barely inches from his groin made his cock stir.
“Good. You are so lucky,” he murmured, then he clicked his tongue to stir the stallion into a smart canter.
“Lucky? You call all this lucky?” She jerked her chin toward the citadel.
“Yes. Lucky. I could have caught you back there in the coldroom with little effort and given you to Kalfa. I could have said a secret word to make our agreement void so that I could keep you myself after all, to sell or to be my slave. I didn’t.”
“What?”
He grinned at the dismay and incredulity in her voice, then he leaned in until his lips were an inch from her ear. “Not all of us are honorable to Outsiders. I need money. Lucky, you’re so very lucky.”
Torgeir wrapped his arm about her waist, pleased at the feel of her softness then he began to hum a battle song he’d learned from a dying warrior on the planet Gerrelt...or was that the moon of Lun? So many strange, new places and more out there to discover.
He had an armful of delightful, if spirited, female and he was free for the first time in his life to do as he chose. The woman was a reminder of his decision to tread a more civilized path where slavery was but a memory. He needed nothing more than the stars and a ship to ride among them.
And some money. Ships were damn expensive.
If he wasn’t so nice, he could have sold her.
Her luscious ass jiggled against him again and his cock swelled. Every breath brought him her feminine scent, for it lingered in her hair and at her nape. Torgeir cleared his throat. Really, if he was still taking slaves, he would have kept her. He would’ve dragged her off the mount, made her sit on her knees on his rug, facedown, flipped up her little skirt, and taken her, here, now.
The old ways had their benefits.
Chapter 3
“What’s your name?” he asked her yet again.
The horse creature cantered smoothly under her thighs. Now and then the motion jarred her backward and against this warrior’s groin. The hard bulge of his cock was obvious.
“Ella,” she said, grudgingly. What information was safe to tell him? To distract him she asked a question of her own. “This creature, is it a horse of some sort?”
“I don’t know horses. It’s a qualarfa stallion. A male. From my travels, many planets have similar four-legged animals. Tell me more. We have a long ride. Where are you from?”
She set her lips in a line. Her hands were tied and she was at his mercy but she wasn’t inclined to cough up information just to amuse him when she wasn’t certain of his intentions. His little threats about selling her were ominous. She shut her eyes.
Be calm.
“Not talking?”
“I will talk when you free me.”
He snorted and wrenched her in closer. “Silly female. You think that would make me change my decision if I was going to sell you?”
Anger flared. “No, but I figured it might frustrate you, and that’s a plus.”
“Annoying a man who has you captive is stupid.”
True. She fumed, hating to be shown her error. “I’ll talk when you free me.”
“I don’t like ultimatums or women who annoy me. Who are your employers? If you’re this annoying to them, I can imagine they’ve beaten you a few times.”
“What? No! The Spiriton Trader Corp doesn’t beat employees.” The pressure at her ass seemed even more obvious and she added dryly. “Could you not hold me so close?”
“Is there a please with that?”
Ella sighed. “Please.”
“It’s not possible. You will fall off, if I let you go. Be good.”
“Untie me and I can hang on myself.” Duh.
“Did you not understand the part about my head being removed if I release you early? I would beat you. You feel good against my cock anyway. I’d stop this horse, tie you to that prickly Nagar tree over there, beat you, then fuck you until you pleaded for more.”
The almost leafless tree was a stark black presence at the base of a red cliff to the left of the trail. Rocks kicked up under the stallion’s hooves as it took a few, slower steps. While she was still gaping at his words, he went on.
“But first I’d beat your ass red, blue, purple.”
“You can’t...” She hauled her squeaky protest short.
“Has anyone ever made your ass purple?”
“Is that...was that meant to be funny?”
“I was just annoying you, Ella.”
She bit her lip, to make herself not reply to that.
“Let’s agree that I won’t beat you, if you promise not to try and get my head cut off.”
A second later, what he’d said sank in. Had that been a joke? A smile sneaked in. He was absurd and rude, but somehow his stupid sense of humor had relieved her anxiety. The idea of him fucking her had been planted too though. She swallowed and pushed away that image.
The man was a big, male presence that she couldn’t ignore. Scary and sexy and yeah, even more scary, yet she was becoming convinced he would free her.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“Accepted. I know you must come from Earth – where the Bak-lals were finally defeated. Kalfa wouldn’t try and sell you as an Earth woman if you weren’t one. The women of your world had some magical powers that helped us win. You must not have this sort of power, or it’s weak and useless, else you would’ve freed yourself. So, why does someone wish to pay for you? The price was large. You know this?”
“Yes, I know that and yes, I am from Earth.”
She’d been given three fifty thou of the universal currency when they’d finished with h
er at the hospital and told her she could become a citizen of the universe. She’d spent some, trying to see where she fit in, retraining. Learning. The unit was the basic currency of their money. Eighty thousand units to buy her. You could buy a small house most places, with that.
Money slipped through your fingers while you gazed at the wonders of this universe. She’d found that out while living on a single planet and the journey there from Earth had been gratis on a warship of the Concer Command. Now, much of her money was gone. A lot of it to Kalfa and this man behind her. She had no clue what had happened to her fellow traders. If they fired her and left her on this planet, she’d never earn enough to go elsewhere.
Despair leached in and she felt nauseous.
Ella shook her head. “I don’t know why anyone wants me.” As a slave. She couldn’t bear to say that. “Do you know if my shipmates survived?”
“They did. Kalfa freed them. It was only you he kept, and the Carmagga women. It makes me think he knew you would be there.”
“Two birds with one stone,” she said to herself.
“A saying of your kind?”
“Yes. Means, umm –”
“Doesn’t matter. Someone may have betrayed you. Be careful when you return to your ship.”
She stared ahead, past the qualarfa’s green-spotted ears. That was disquieting but also she wondered why he cared.
“Thank you. I will.”
A few hours later they stopped in the shade of a copse of more of the straggly, shiny-leaved trees that favored the ferocious climate here. He turned her away from him. When she heard him draw his knife, her heart picked up speed, but he put his hand to the ropes binding her, and he cut her loose.
“Thank you,” she said again, finding it strange how often she was thanking him.
“You’re welcome, little female.”
Oh now. Him calling her that and the last pressure of his hand about her arm, just above her wrist, it sent a warm thrill shimmying through her.
Heat wasn’t what you needed on Sicar, desert planet. She brought her hands to her front and began to massage them, head down, thinking about how crazy it was to be affected sexually by a warrior from Sicar. It was like...like ambling through a bull ring and admiring the sky. Or something. Torgeir confused her.
Cyberella: Preyfinders Universe Page 2