by Jess Granger
She let her head fall forward, pretending to faint, even though it wasn’t too far off the mark. Every cell in her body screamed as it came alive for him.
He brought his hands lower around the backs of her shoulders and kneaded her weary muscles. She fought to breathe as the comforting touch drove her mad with relief.
His hands skimmed over the bare skin of her collar bone, tracing along the edge of her wound.
She preferred the hard touch. Force was something she was used to while sparring. Touch was a means of control, of power. The light touch was something different, something she could barely understand.
She had no control here. Her life was in his skilled hands, and his touch tortured her. It teased her and awoke something powerful and primal.
She felt caged, trapped, but so damn alive she had to fight not to roar like some wild cat in heat.
What was wrong with her? She shouldn’t be thinking like this. She should not be turned on by this. It was so wrong.
His fingers danced along the sides of her breasts, and she moaned low in her throat. His warm palms slid over her nipples in a soft and modest caress.
By Fima the Merciless, he was killing her.
And it felt so good.
It had to be the drugs. She’d gone completely out of her mind. She shouldn’t want his touch. It should repulse her.
Forgive me. His whispered words echoed in the deep parts of her mind.
A shiver raced down the backs of her legs as his gentle hands drifted over her stomach.
His intentions became suddenly clear.
He had tried to get out of touching her, he was doing everything in his power to keep his touch light, and he wanted her forgiveness for touching her at all.
He respected her.
Shakt.
And what was worse?
She trusted him.
Great Ona, if this was a test of her will, she was failing miserably.
His hands sank lower, until the tips of his fingers brushed the top of her thigh and drifted toward the juncture of her legs. Her body responded with a blaze of damp heat. The pulse of her need thrummed in her head, her heart. She was no virgin. In her youth, bold and secure in her place among the Elite, she had commanded a lover. But the rules had been different. She had control. She touched him. He did as he was told.
Now helpless and in the hands of a man who ignited everything in her, her body recognized what it wanted, what it needed.
Her heart stopped. She inhaled but couldn’t exhale as his powerful fingers pushed between her legs.
Ona, forgive me. It was her turn to beg.
Her mouth dropped open as his fingers remained still. She still couldn’t push the air out of her lungs. She expected his thick fingers to work into her, feel her, but he remained so still. She realized he wouldn’t do such a thing, and instead of being relieved she wanted to throw him on the floor and take her pleasure from him as if he were a simple object for her lust, but deep in her heart, she knew that wasn’t possible.
She pulled against her chains.
Shakt!
She gasped and tried to pull away from him. She couldn’t take the stillness in his hand another moment. She wanted far more. She had never wanted anything like this.
She felt her pulse deep in that place as it throbbed against his hand. She dangled from her chains, limp and weak as he pulled his hand away. He reached behind her and slid his hands from her lower back, over her buttocks and down the backs of her thighs and calves, bringing him down on one knee before her.
Her ecstasy tore through her like beautiful torture, and she let out her breath in a hard rush of air. She could feel the heat of his breath on her stomach, then lower as he touched his forehead for only an instant to the soft swell of her lower abdomen.
His position reminded her of a pilgrim before a holy shrine, seeking forgiveness. There was nothing to forgive. She didn’t want him like this. She wanted him fierce, raw. She wanted him over her, in her, never beneath her.
If he ever chose to worship her, she’d be a sacrifice screaming beneath him, not a shrine.
She had been a shrine too long.
“What do you think?” the Kronalen asked. “Does she smell good enough to taste?” Cyrus stood and pulled away from her but not before her imagination placed his mouth on her most intimate place. She fought back a low groan as she hung in the chains.
The icy air of the compartment closed in around her, filling the void where his body heat had soaked into her skin. She could still smell the rich, dusky scent that had clung to his bed. She tried to hold on to that as tightly as she held her breath.
“She is acceptable, but there is no way to prove she is untouched as you say,” Cyrus answered.
“You’re just trying to talk her down. You know she is quality. I won’t take less than sixty,” the Kronalen insisted. Yara cracked open her eyes, needing to see him, though she couldn’t recognize him.
Cyrus paced with slow, deliberate steps across the room. “You’ll accept a macro-capable I.S. Cruiser modified for smuggling for the Azralen and the boy.”
Yara’s gut dropped to the floor as she hung limply from her chains.
His ship?
He would trade his ship?
What was he thinking?
“Does it fly?” The Kronalen sounded skeptical.
“Don’t insult, trader, or your head will feed my bears.” Cyrus sounded cool, in control, not like he was trading away his home for a woman he barely knew.
Something wasn’t right.
Why had he gone after her?
It didn’t make any sense.
“I want another ten for the boy,” the Kronalen pushed.
“He’s worthless. You would dispose of him. However, he might be useful as bait and practice for the Azralen. You will give me the boy as a tribute to my patience.” Cyrus’s voice gave her chills as he spoke about both of them as if they weren’t human. The Ankarlen manner of speaking without ever referring to oneself to foreigners only made the cold denial of their humanity more distressing.
She knew it was an act, but the thought that anyone could actually dehumanize another in such a way terrified her.
She tried to stay calm. Yarini, her ancestor and the guardian of justice, would protect them. They had to make it out of this.
“I could still sell the boy on the blocks,” the Kronalen insisted.
“The crowd will laugh. He barely lives,” Cyrus insisted. “His price wouldn’t cover the auction fees.”
“Fine,” the Kronalen acquiesced. “Transfer the command codes to this ship. I’ll confirm its condition with my man there and pick it up on my way back through Gansai.”
Yara’s relief almost made her faint as she hung from the shackles. She watched the Kronalen hand over the control pin for the slave bands to Cyrus.
She was safe.
The men exited the room, and the lights finally turned out, plunging them into near darkness. The chains went slack, and Yara collapsed to the floor.
She opened her eyes wide, but drifting pink and blue spots from her burned retinas dominated her blurry field of vision.
“Are you okay?” Ishan asked.
“I’m fine,” she answered, which was far from the truth. She’d never been so tormented in all her life. But she wasn’t about to share that with the boy. She was unharmed, but she had a lot of questions.
And she was going to get some answers as soon as they were safe. She wouldn’t let Cyrus back away.
“I’m sorry they touched you. I couldn’t help,” he mumbled.
“It’s okay, Ishan,” she soothed. “We’re free.”
11
THE DOOR HISSED OPEN, SLICING THE NEAR DARK WITH THE LIGHT FROM THE corridor. Ishan scurried away, hiding deeper in the shadows of the dim room. “Carry her,” Cyrus ordered to the other man posing as a slave. “Boy, you follow quick.”
Yara felt the burn of embarrassment as the heavy-chested Hannolen man wrapped her quickly in
a thin bit of cloth, then lifted her into his burly arms. Cyrus removed her chains, leaving the cuffs on her wrists and ankles locked together. They had to maintain the slave deception until they were safely out of this proverbial mud pit.
Yara closed her eyes and tried to fight off the lingering dizziness from the tranquilizers. As they left the Kronalen ship, a crush of noise rose up and swallowed them. Yara tried to stay conscious as they left the shipping docks and entered the auctions.
Yara opened her stinging eyes. Fires burned on long posts, casting the thick fog in a creeping orange glow.
People, naked and starving, huddled together in cages, the adults shielding children in the centers of the groups like wild sheep at the slaughter.
Voices of hawkers and hungry crowds carried over the muffled cries from the cages, while the sickly sweet odor of filth and humanity clung to the blanketing fog.
Yara had never seen actual slaves in her time during the war, and the sight made her gut clench.
The man holding her stiffened. With her head resting on his chest, she could hear his heart beating with a sharp, erratic rhythm. He was Hannolen, and these were mostly his people.
By the swift blade of Yarini, she would help fight this. When she ascended to the throne, Azra would fully join the war, not for their own gains and experience. They would not hold back. They would help end this depravity.
She swore it.
Cyrus and his friend picked up their pace as they crossed over the wide wooden bridge that spanned the pits. Mud from years of foul feet caked the span, muffling footsteps as the misery from the auctions below rose up like a tormenting specter. They moved swift and steady as if their fear would betray them and chain them to the nearest hawking block. As soon as the sounds of the auctions faded, and the fog around them thickened, Cyrus stopped and yanked the wig from his head. He tucked it in his belt, hastily rubbed his head, then turned and pulled out a cutter from the bracers he still wore beneath the Ankarlen robes.
The cutter made short work of the cuffs binding her wrists and ankles together. Yara almost cried in relief as Cyrus pulled their heavy weight away from her raw wounds. As soon as the slave bands circling her biceps were off, she’d be free.
“Give her to me,” he ordered as he held out his arms to her. “Take the boy. He’s exhausted.”
Yara gratefully circled his warm neck with her arms. “Thank you, Cyrus,” she whispered, but stopped short as she looked him in the eye.
Even in the dim light, they shone pale and gloriously green, like the leaves in the canopy of Azra. She had never seen such green eyes on an Earthlen. His skin had been stained darker, and his face reshaped. It all looked odd on him, except for his eyes. Somehow, they seemed natural and suited to him.
“Thank you,” she murmured again and let her head rest against his shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here, Pix.”
He pressed his cheek against the top of her head, then strode with purpose toward a pale glow and looming shadow in the fog. He had her. As soon as they got the bands off her, she’d be safe, and he could finally rest his weary conscience.
Crewmates filed out from the ship, carrying blankets and steaming mugs. Cyn waved them off as he ascended the cargo ramp.
“Whose ship is this?” Yara asked as Cyn gently placed her on her feet. His hands shook with relief as he steadied her. She looked around the cargo bay.
“Xan’s the captain here. I never would have been able to find you without him or the boy enslaved with you. They saved your life.”
Her expression softened as she looked toward Venet, who fussed over the Hannolen youth like a mother tiger. Xan remained close at the boy’s back, leaving Cyn to deal with Yara.
He took a deep breath as the rending pain in his heart lessened. The visions of Yarlia screaming as the mudrats carried her away slowly pushed back into the recesses of his mind. He hadn’t been able to save his first love, but he had saved Yara from the same fate. Now he had work to do.
Those slave bands had to come off before they poisoned her any further.
“Take them up to Med,” Xan ordered, pulling off the tunic. He threw a long overcoat on his bare shoulders and replaced his eye shades, immediately transforming his appearance from a slave guard to a pirate captain.
“Are you strong enough to walk?” Cyn asked Yara as he took her hand. It felt cold in his palm. She clutched a thin blanket wrapped under her arms and over her breasts.
Damn his memory. Now that he knew exactly what her breasts looked like, he’d never forget a single detail about them. They had the power to taunt him now, even when he couldn’t see them.
He could barely process what had happened. It was almost too much sensation. His shame and guilt ate at him. But he couldn’t deny the power of the feel of his hands smoothing over her soft skin.
It was wrong. He had no choice. He did everything in his power to keep from touching her shamefully.
Insecurity pecked at his mind like a vengeful imp. Did she blame him for what he’d had to do?
She looked up at him and squeezed his hand. He had to look away as they boarded a lift.
“Cyrus?” She leaned to the side, so she could meet his gaze. She shifted her fingers so the slender digits wove together with his. “Let’s get these things off me.”
The lift slowed to a stop. He nodded and led her the rest of the way to Med.
Xan’s medical bay may not have looked like much, with the worn beds and the industrial racks holding supplies and medical equipment, but it was certainly clean and functional. Xan’s crew had seen their fair share of war wounds and spilled enough blood on this floor.
The lights had been dimmed to the faintest glow, while Venet ran a diagnostic tool over Ishan’s eyes.
“How does he look?” Xan asked, keeping his shades on even in the near darkness. Venet pinched her lips together, not a good sign.
“We’ll fix him up,” she assured in a way that left Cyn with a bad feeling about the boy’s prognosis. But there was little he could do to help. Maybe if he brewed more kiltii water, it could help heal the boy’s eyes. It wouldn’t hurt to try, but there was nothing he could do about it now. His only kiltii vine was back on his ship. No, it wasn’t his ship anymore.
He just hoped Maxen had enough proof to arrest the Kronalen bastard for flesh trading as soon as he entered Gansai’s atmosphere. Once the bastard was arrested, his property would be “salvaged” and taken by the circle, including Cyn’s ship. He’d been able to send Maxen a quick message to strip the ship and store his possessions until he returned, but he’d never see the Black Serpent again. It was pirate law.
“Have a seat.” Cyn returned his attention to Yara as he helped her up onto one of the beds. He pulled the control pin for the slave bands out of his pocket.
“No,” Yara insisted as she placed her hand over his. “Get them off Ishan first.”
“Yara . . .”
“Please.” She gathered the thin blankets tighter around her chest as the lights in the sickening bands flickered.
Cyn sighed and handed the control pin to Xan. “Who knows how long he’s had those on. Be careful,” Cyn warned. “We can’t exactly go back for another one or our cover’s blown.” He grabbed a programmer for the pinchers in his face and flicked it on. Slowly he dragged the glowing yellow bar over his cheeks and eyes. The pressure released from the pinchers, but the relief was tempered by the stinging pain of the needles pushing back out through his skin. He carefully pulled each bloody spine out and dropped it in a shallow dish.
Yara offered him a bit of cloth, and he pressed it to the miniscule puncture wounds dotting his cheeks and brow.
“You look better,” she admitted.
“Thanks.” He dabbed at the wounds, then let the cloth drop. “I just hope the skin dye wears off.”
“How did you change your eyes?”
He looked up at her, confused. “Huh?”
“How did you turn your eyes green?”
Sh
it, he had forgotten about that. He hadn’t gone without his contacts in over a decade. For a second he had forgotten that his eyes were naturally green and not black. “Contacts. Ancient Earthlen tech. I should take them out.”
“I like them,” she admitted, “even if they aren’t real.”
He brought his gaze to hers, unsure of how to respond.
“We’ve got a problem over here,” Xan called. Cyn turned away from Yara to help with the boy. Venet carefully extracted the needles from one open band while Xan leaned over the other.
“These bands are so old, the connector to the release key on the command pin is corroded. The bastards hardly ever take these damn things off people. The first one was nasty, and this one is worse.” Xan moved to the side so Cyn could take a look. The boy stared at him, not saying anything, but his fear shone clearly on his face. It didn’t take much to set off a slave band to kill.
Venet smoothed a hand over the boy’s greasy hair while maintaining pressure on the raw wounds of the boy’s upper arm. Cyn carefully took up the command pin, lodged in a small port just beneath one of the injector lights of the band on his other arm.
Cyn tried to activate the connection enough to give the voice command to release, but no matter how he worked the pin, it wouldn’t connect.
“Xan, do you have a nanoscope?”
“Yeah.” Xan handed him the palm-sized viewer and a syringe. The boy flinched.
“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” Cyn inspected the syringe. Once he injected the gel into the port, the nano components would automatically arrange their projection structure, sending images to the viewer of the interior of the slave band. He injected a tiny amount into the port, conscious of the risk of setting off the band.
The screen on the viewer glowed, giving him a good look at the broken connector. If he came at the connector from a slightly skewed angle, he might be able to make enough of a connection to get the thing off.
With steady hands, he made the connection and issued a sharp command to release. The band opened with a hiss, and the boy exhaled loudly as Xan pulled the terrible needles out of his arm.
“Thank you,” he whispered with a hoarse voice. “What happens now?”