Blade chuckled. “The docile spray is a sedative-hypnotic which stuns, leaving you relaxed and open to suggestion, nothing more. You cannot use it as an excuse. The drugs have worn off. They cannot force you to do anything you don’t want to do.” He nipped her neck. “Any response you feel is entirely of your own doing, Thea.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t want to…”
“Didn’t you?” His mouth trailed love bites down her neck. In sync with the desire ratcheting her heartbeat, his hands slipped down the undersides of her upraised arms caressing her chilled skin. “I want you, Thea. Again.”
She slowly lifted her freed hands and gripped his arms, her fingers flexing in indecision.
Blade smoothed down her tousled hair. “Trust me, you don’t want to go back to your life on Earth.”
“You have no idea what my life was like on Earth.”
“I know enough. I know how dangerous it was.” His lips quieted further discussion. His thigh parted her legs.
* * *
Thea sat on a long bench, shoulder to shoulder with the other women, looking out the wall of windows into black space. Callisto, Jupiter’s reddish-brown, crater-laden moon, slowly zoomed into view. Four solar-paneled satellites hung in orbit, magnifying the sun’s heat onto the surface. As they broke through the thin cloud cover, Thea spotted a city carved into the ground, divided by a grid of canals like a huge archeological site. Outside the city, massive drills ground into the moon’s crust. Train-like vehicles snaked between the construction site and the city.
This cannot be real, she thought for the umpteenth time. But she knew it was.
The leggy redhead next to her leaned into Thea and spoke low. “Atlas told me there’s a thousand men drilling for water beneath the surface.” She sighed. “Can you imagine all those hard bodies drilling between your legs? Makes me wet thinking about it.”
“Who would’ve thought spacemen would be such hotties,” another woman commented.
On the other side of Thea, a full-figured black woman agreed. “Yeah. What a nice change from the dweebs I’ve been fucking.”
“I’ve always wanted to ride on a space shuttle,” a young Asian woman said. “Isn’t this so cool?”
Were they all insane? They’d been drugged, used, and sentenced to a year of sexual slavery on Jupiter’s moon for Pete’s sake. Hello! Reality check!
Thea dropped her head into her hands. How could she get out of this mess?
“Now I’d take either one of those hunks for a mate,” a woman behind Thea exclaimed. “Do you think they’re available?”
Thea jerking her head up, jealousy tearing through her as Blade and Atlas walked into the lounge. Blade belonged to her. His scent mingled with her own. He’d marked her -- pink abrasions covered her neck, breasts, belly, and inner thighs. And she had reveled in his possession. Her nipples and pussy throbbed still from over-stimulation. She’d never been so thoroughly pleasured.
So why was she lumped with this group of women preparing for a new life on Callisto? Convincing Blade to return her to Earth had met staunch refusal, yet up until a few minutes ago, she’d believed he cared enough about her to reconsider.
“I’m not a prostitute,” Thea grumbled.
How many times had she said that now? Every time Blade ordered her to spread her legs she’d balked. She’d swear her innocence and he’d soothe her with a kiss or a touch or the slow lick of his tongue until she submitted.
God, he was incredible. The sex was more than sex. He’d caressed her skin and looked at her as if she were different from any lover he’d had before.
Ach! Stupid. He knew how to push her buttons, that’s all. Curse her weakness for him! And now that the ride was over, he planned on dumping her.
Damn it. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she was jumping on the next ship heading back to Earth.
Strolling between the rows, Blade inspected the women. “We dock in twenty metrons. You will be transported to the immigration office where the men who requested mates will be waiting. Any woman who is mating will be separated from the group at that time. The rest of you will be escorted to the auction block.”
“Auction block!” Thea’s heart jumped into her throat.
Blade looked directly into her eyes, his expression blank. “The bordellos compete for the new detainees. The money goes to improving the colony.” He dipped his head and spoke softly. “I never made you any promises, Thea. By law, your choice has always been to choose a mate or work for a year. Nothing has changed that.”
“I’m innocent!”
A hint of anger sparked in Blade’s eyes. “Your arrest record speaks for itself.”
She’d been undercover! Thea’s heart beat hard. Insisting she was a vice detective in front of all these hookers would be a mistake. First opportunity they had, they’d assault her. Thea’s vision swam. Why had she given in to her fantasies? She hated Blade Kevlar. She hated herself. “I don’t belong here!” she yelled, shooting to her feet. “I’ve been falsely accused and I want a lawyer.” The other women stared at her in shock.
Atlas raised his atomizer but Blade stayed him with a hand on the muzzle. “No.” He looked at Thea with remorse. “Sit down, Stone.” Blade’s eyes begged her to comply. “There’s still time for selecting a mate.”
Thea’s heart skipped a beat. “Are you offering yourself, Magistrate Kevlar?”
Every woman on board waited for his answer with bated breath.
He stared at Thea and swallowed. “No. I have a mission to complete. I don’t have time to coddle a woman.”
Thea’s heart twisted in her chest. Screw you. I have a mission to complete too. “I wouldn’t accept you if you did offer.” She turned her head and looked out the window so he wouldn’t see the hurt in her eyes.
* * *
Blade clenched his fists at his sides as he watched the sentry push Thea onto the auction block. No one else noticed the nervous trembling of her legs or the challenge snapping in her eyes, or if they did, they didn’t care. Her buyer would break her defiance. It briefly occurred to him that he hadn’t tamed her, but then, he really had no desire to do so. Blade thrived on her passion. Emotional and physical.
Why hadn’t Thea chosen a single mate? He would have made sure she found someone who would treat her well. An elite prostitute like Thea would fare better with one man rather than a thousand.
The gathered men whistled and hooted. It didn’t matter who Thea was or where she was from. To them, Thea was just another piece of ass. The other men would never satisfy her hidden cravings and glory in her release, nor would they drown in her green eyes the few setrons before they poured themselves into her womb. They would use her for their own pleasure without conscience, pay the madam, and blow the rest of their pay in the gambling warehouse across the street.
His chest tightened at the injustice of it, an injustice of his own doing.
God, he hated giving her up. Her games of innocence sparked excitement back into his life. Shit, his cock hadn’t been revved up this much in eons. Blade didn’t want to think about how she made his heart pound every time he saw her. But what else could he do? He had no room for Thea in his life. Finding his sister had become a time consuming quest, taking Blade not only through treacherous territories but zipping through time. If he thought Zara could handle herself, he’d stop chasing her down, but she’d run off without a good-bye and reports indicated his sweet little sister had turned to prostitution, a pleasurable career if one chose it willingly. Knowing his adventurous-minded sister, Blade couldn’t believe prostitution was what Zara wanted to do with her life. Something terrible had happened to her, he was sure of it. Saving Zara had to be a priority.
Thea Stone was a major distraction.
If Thea was lucky, a rich man might purchase her as his mistress and treat her well, but there were very few men who could afford a Callisto whore. Ninety-nine percent of the women were purchased by whorehouses that could recoup their investment over time. Jealous
y roared within him. Whether it was one man or a hundred who lay between her legs, he damned them all to hell.
Thea belonged to him. What had he done? He looked up and watched her face the crowd proudly.
* * *
“Look at those tits.” The auctioneer lifted the glowing tip of an electrified rod toward the mounds pushed up by Thea’s bustier. She stepped back and glared at him. The auctioneer laughed. “She’s a little jumpy.”
Asshole. If he got nearer…
A woman in a plain navy cloak raised her hand and called out two hundred guinos. The men laughed uproariously. Embarrassed, Thea’s spine straightened a notch.
Oh, she’d made a monumental mistake choosing the auction block over a mate. She’d figured escape would be easier in a crowd than under the sharp eye of one person, but she hadn’t counted on the humiliation of standing semi-naked before a large crowd while they ogled her and determined her worth.
“Come on now.” The auctioneer waved the rod down her body. “She’s prime flesh.” He poked her thigh and an electric shock made her jump.
Grinding her teeth, Thea caught the side of the metal rod in her hand. “Do not prod me again.”
His back arched as he guffawed loudly. “Oh, ho! Do you hear that, my friends? She’s a hot one!” He laughed again.
“Three hundred guinos!” someone called out.
“Save your money,” Thea called back. “I won’t spread my legs for any of you.” She stood erect, her face composed.
The auctioneer grinned and shook his head.
“Do I hear three-ten for the feisty whore?” he called.
A red haze marred Thea’s vision. Without thinking, Thea wrested the zap stick from the auctioneer’s hand and whipped it against his body. “No one calls me a whore.”
The crowd released a collective gasp.
The man yelped and jumped back. Two burly guards leapt onto the platform, grabbing her weapon away with brute strength. One yanked Thea’s hands behind her back and cuffed her in wide magnetic bands.
“You bitch!” the auctioneer spat. He lunged for her and she kneed him in the groin. The man doubled over. Groans of empathy wove through the crowd. The auctioneer lifted his bowed head and glared at her. His hard gaze threatened murder.
“Don’t touch her,” said a soft voice. “The rules strictly forbid violence to a person on the auction block. No one wants damaged goods.”
The auctioneer twisted toward the elegant woman standing by the auction block steps and groaned. He slowly stood erect, cupping his balls. His face mottled with anger. “Pandora, you tell Kevlar my percentage increased to thirty percent on this bitch.” He released his balls with a grunt, then shouted into the crowd. “Is there a bid for three hundred ten guinos or not?”
A huge man shouldering a bazooka-like weapon shouted out, “Three-ten!”
The price slowly rose, ten guinos at a time. Thea regarded each bidder warily. They looked like men and women who would not only break her spirit, but her bones. The woman called Pandora moved deep into the crowd, then stood next to Magistrate Kevlar, and bid four-twenty.
Damn him. It was Blade’s fault she had to endure this public sale. Thea wondered if the penalty for gutting a magistrate outweighed the satisfaction of the crime. Yet gazing at the tick in his jaw, Thea sensed his displeasure seeing her standing before this rowdy crowd.
Her throat clogged. She’d stupidly believed Blade’s obsession with her would make him reconsider his penal sentence and free her. No. She was just another woman, a prostitute sold for a tidy profit.
The auctioneer prodded her again, and then the jerk made a ribald comment about her trembling flesh. After the second time, she quit squirming, bearing the painful jolts of electricity with teeth-grinding forbearance. Still the bids slowly rose. The blinding lights beat down on her head and perspiration slid down her body. The heavy cuffs chafed her wrists. The auctioneer sneered at her discomfort, drawing out the bidding more than necessary.
“Scumbag,” she mumbled at him.
He snickered and called out, “Five hundred? Who says five hundred?”
The bidding dwindled down to three players: Bazooka Man, a shrewd-eyed madam, and Pandora. Thea prayed the elegant lady had deep pockets. She looked the most compassionate and the easiest to escape.
Bazooka Man dropped out at five hundred eighty, thank goodness. The crowd grew restless.
“One thousand guinos,” the harsh-faced madam called out.
Murmurs ran through the crowd and all eyes turned to Pandora. “One thousand ten.”
Guffaws and gasps surrounded them. When the auctioneer looked at the other woman bidder, she pinched her lips and shook her head. It was over. Without a thought for her new buyer, Thea scanned the crowd for Blade, but he’d disappeared.
While money exchanged hands, a guard led her through the crowd to a two-person capsule parked a half block away. He opened her door for her. Thea turned her back to him and looked over her shoulder with a contrite smile. “Would you mind taking off the cuffs? Unless you call me names, I promise I won’t attack you.”
“The auctioneer deserved to be zapped,” the guard said, releasing the magnetic link. “He shouldn’t have --”
With a twinge of remorse for lying, Thea stomped on his instep and spun out of his reach, bolting straight for the space dock where she’d spotted an entire arsenal of weapons during the Decree’s landing.
Running full force, she glanced back at the guard, relieved he wasn’t making up any ground. The weapons containers were stacked outside an unmarked building, open and unattended, as if the crew unloading them had tired and gone to lunch or the auction. Thea snagged the first weapon she saw and took cover behind a huge crate. She needed time to figure out the firing mechanism.
The weapon had been in her hand for all of five seconds when a blaring alarm sounded. Thea ignored it. The guard stopped in his tracks several yards away. Thea darted for the nearest spaceship and ran into an invisible wall.
Shit! She fell back on her rear, the gun at her side. Regrouping quickly, she looked back toward the arsenal. No one but the guard was in sight, and he didn’t move. He stood watching and waiting while the siren squealed.
She looked down at the symbols and dials on the weapon, picked one and fired at the clear wall. Stupid! The laser ricocheted back at her, hitting the ground and bouncing at another clear wall behind her, and then above her, the light stretching and increasing speed. She was trapped in a Pong laser game. Thea dodged the light, but…
She’d blown it. Thea lay sprawled on her back stunned by the laser light, looking up at Jupiter in the light gray sky. Damn it!
The guard shut down the invisible walls and the laser light dissipated. The ear-splitting sirens ceased. He picked up the gun she’d dropped, made an adjustment on the grip, and tossed it back into its container. “You could have killed yourself.” He helped her sit up. “And then what would I have done?”
Oh, poor baby, she thought hazily.
He collected her weak body and walked Thea back to the two-person vehicle where Pandora waited, tapping her foot impatiently. “Blade said you’d be a handful.” The guard settled Thea in a seat, and then helped Pandora into the small space. She directed the vehicle’s computer as it cruised between buildings. “Running away is a serious offense and infuriates your owner.”
Too bad. Thea looked out the bubble window. They arrived at the entrance to a subterranean dwelling called Healing Waters. Despite the spiritual name, Thea knew immediately they had entered a bordello. The numerous women drifting about, wearing next to nothing and too much perfume, teasing the men sniffing around them like hunting dogs on the scent, gave it away. The large room was decorated with mirrors, fountains, and comfortable couches. A large picture window looked out at a canal where slow moving barges filled with men floated past.
“This is the Viewing Room.”
Thea didn’t have to be told the view was inside, not out. And yet one man stood at the window ga
zing at the spaceport in the distance, his stance wide, hands clasped behind his back. Thea admired his firm butt and muscular thighs encased in snug black pants. A red sash was tied around his trim waist and a billowy white shirt accentuated the breadth of his shoulders, giving him the look of a pirate even though his dark hair was cut short.
As if he sensed Thea’s perusal, he turned and stared. Thea did a double take. A shiver brushed across her shoulders. Blade.
His shiny black hair had been trimmed above his ears and his mustache and beard shaved clean, revealing a jagged scar on his upper lip which accentuated his masculinity. His dark eyes danced as they met her questioning look.
Then Blade’s gaze skipped over to Pandora and he gave her a brief nod.
“Magistrate Kevlar wants you,” the madam whispered in Thea’s ear.
Thea forced her attention away from Blade’s arresting face, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what he wants.”
“You’d better care. You belong to him now.”
Chapter Four
“Hell, no!” At the madam’s confident smile, Thea’s jaw dropped. No. He couldn’t have bought her.
“Yes. You do.” Pandora’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “A last minute change of heart. Blade asked me to handle the transaction. A magistrate cannot bid on his own detainee.”
Thea narrowed her eyes in fierce deliberation. If he intended to treat her like his dirty little secret, he had another think coming. “He’s made a big mistake.”
Pandora’s smile broadened. “I’m sure you’ll give him a run for his money. Now go to him.”
Her heart thumped madly. If she went to him, he’d give her that cocky “you can’t resist me” look that drove her mad -- because it was true. Damn if his roughly hewn charm didn’t tug on her heart, pulling her deeper into his web. But Thea held him in her power too, it seemed. He’d bought her for himself. The egotist thought he owned her now. The thought made Thea smile. Silly man. She’d make him pay for dumping her on this desolate rock.
Bonds of Justice: Blade’s Decree Page 3