by Corin Cain
But if the Aurelians don’t do a thorough-enough investigation?
Then, I’ll take over – whether they like it or not. It’s going to take more than three Aurelian warriors to keep me from finding out what happened to my little sister.
“Did I hear everything?” I demand, as I sit down. “You said the owner of The Rhino is connected to a group of space-pirates who follow the same patterns as the ones who took Lilac, right? Who is this owner, then?”
Kitos clears his throat. “Alleged connection. It’s based on rumor. The Aurelian Database is in-depth, but there’s no primary source in this case. We don’t even know the identity of the owner of The Rhino – we just have that lead.” He shrugs. “At this point, it’s like finding a platinum mine in an asteroid field. Understood?”
A platinum mine in an asteroid field.
Otherwise known as a one-in-a-million chance.
I’ll take that chance, though, and be grateful for it.
“How long until this prisoner hand-off?”
Hadrian looks at me deeply with those brown-tinted eyes of his, considering his words.
Those brown eyes have dulled significantly – but I know they’ll never go back to the slate-grey hue they were before he’d become Bonded to me.
“We’ll have just over twenty-four hours on Salcus before we’re due to rendezvous with the other triad,” Hadrian eventually tells me.
“So?” I demand. “What’s the plan?” I look at the two Aurelians – Hadrian, with the brown tint to his eyes, and Kitos with that light green. “That triad is going to see what you’ve done. The guilt is literally in your eyes.”
Hadrian doesn’t answer for a moment. His eyes shift ever so quickly to Kitos, then back at me. My gut tells me something is up. My gut also tells me they’re having a telepathic communication in secret – discussing some facts about this situation they don’t want me to know.
There’s a slight pang of guilt running through Kitos’ aura, and that’s all I need to feel to know whatever comes out of his mouth is going to be bullshit.
Kitos finally sits down opposite me.
“We’re going to use goggles to hide our eyes,” he explains. “The other triad won’t suspect a thing. We’ll take the prisoners, get the repairs we need, and get off the planet as soon as possible. Then we’ll do what Daccia promised. We’ll send in our resignation and confession. Afterward, we’ll scour the universe for your little sister, no matter how long it takes.”
Lies.
I can feel it. There’s something off about Kitos’ story. My instincts are telling me that they’re silent conversation was about whether to tell me truth or not – and my instincts are now telling me they settled on half-truths and lies instead.
Hadrian nods. “We’ll have plenty of time after the triad leaves to investigate The Rhino and follow up. There’s no rush.”
I don’t dwell on my suspicion. I can’t – not right now. Not while they can read my emotions through the Bond. I will think this through alone, though, right before I sleep tonight. I’ll consider everything I’ve learned while muting the Bond between us – so they think my aura is silent because I’m asleep, not because I need to think deeply and privately.
There’s something about the timeline they’re proposing that doesn’t add up – or maybe it’s their nonchalance about it. With the crime they’ve committed, and the severity of it in the eyes of the Empire, you’d think they’d be terrified of meeting other Law Enforcement agents face-to-face. If evidence of their crime is revealed – like their damned, colored eyes, for example – it’s going to be a serious problem.
But then again… I’d almost given up on making any progress on my little sister’s disappearance. If they can help me find her… Or learn what happened to her…
“Okay,” I tell them. “I won’t need to go alone, then. But the moment we set down, I want us all to investigate that bloody place.”
Kitos laughs. I’m always surprised when Aurelians laugh. They never normally show this side of themselves to outsiders. Most displays of emotion are considered a weakness in their culture – especially in front of a female.
“The moment we set down is midday, planet time,” Kitos warns me. “You don’t investigate a place like The Rhino until the sun goes down, at the very least.”
“Is the sun ever up?” I glance over at the viewport as we approach the surface of Salcus. The planet is a desolate sight – unfettered capitalism gone mad.
The atmosphere of the capital city is dark – covered with clouds of shroud and smog. Sometimes, I really do think humanity is better off under Aurelian rule. What kind of humanity would turn their own planet into such a polluted nightmare?
But the dark, cloudy, dirty planet suits my mood. I’m ready for this. I don’t even feel grief anymore. I just feel… ready.
I feel tense and balled-up, ready to pounce. It’s a good feeling. It’s the feeling of impending action, whereas before there’d been only confusion and chaos.
"You're going to have to play the part." Hadrian looks at me with his once-cold, slate-grey eyes. Now they're ignited with heat, the brown faded but still clearly visible within them.
“The part?”
Hadrian grins, showing his perfect, shining teeth. I get the feeling that he’s a wolf… and I’m a tasty-looking lamb to him.
“The part,” he continues. “What kind of Aurelians would visit The Rhino – where you can buy a woman’s time?” His eyes narrow. “Or, if you take a fancy to her, the woman’s very life?”
Oh.
Now I understand what he means.
The only Aurelians who’d enter a place like The Rhino would be Rogue Aurelians – exiled from the Empire, and unconstrained by the laws forbidding slavery – or undercover agents very obviously pretending to be such.
If Daccia, Kitos and Hadrian intend to play the role of Rogue Aurelians…
…they’re going to have to have at least one pleasure slave in their possession.
I shiver. Anyone who sees me with these three towering, alien men will know I’m their little slut – their toy, their possession…
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m not doing it.”
I say the words, but I know they’re a damned lie. I am going to do it. I know it’s the only way for me to get inside that club without arousing suspicion. I’ve been naked so many times in front of strange men that I should have developed a resistance to the embarrassment of it.
I wince, and I detect through the Bond that they know I’ll eventually acquiesce. After all, what choice do I have?
“Okay,” I reluctantly hiss. “What will I have to wear?”
Kitos licks his lips. His aura becomes… harder. More in control. I sense that unexpected streak of delicious cruelness come forward.
“Well,” he muses, eyes flashing, “if I owned a pleasure slave, I wouldn’t let her wear anything.”
That cruel streak is surging high in this tactician’s aura. He enjoys the idea of humiliating me in front of an audience. For a second, I find the idea oddly… delicious.
I’d always felt shame to be exposing my body for mere money. It made me feel cheap and tawdry. But to do it for a man’s pleasure? To shame myself for the needs of Kitos? A gorgeous, sexy man that some part of me is eager to please?
Fuck! What the hell am I thinking about? Why would I care about Kitos’ pleasure?
The Bond thrums in my mind. I gasp out in sudden arousal as it reaches into me – finding that part of me deep inside that craves the idea of pleasing Kitos. The Bond isn’t making me feel this way – it’s just taking a desire I didn’t even know I had, and it’s drawing it out into the open.
A sudden mental image flashes in front of my eyes. I suddenly imagine myself on a leash, completely naked, walked around – paraded like a show pet by the three Aurelians.
Everyone who saw me would imagine me on my knees, crawling to each one in turn whenever they snap their fingers. Satisfying them with my mouth, like th
e eager little slut I am.
Hadrian’s eye are drawn down to my body, and I feel naked before him; even in my frumpy prison uniform.
“Not me,” the big man growls. “I wouldn’t want any other man to see my property. I’d hide my slave away in a pleasure dress – showing just enough to boast her beauty without revealing all her assets.”
Kitos shares the wolf-like grin of his battle brother. His arousal is suddenly pouring through the Bond. I can feel it flooding through the link between us, inflaming my own needs.
“You’re right,” he murmurs, eyes flashing. “Perhaps I wouldn’t want anyone to see her… assets.” He turns to look at me. “I’d hide your nipples behind clamps, and your asshole behind a plug.”
I gasp at the thought. My cheeks turn red as my own arousal betrays me. I suddenly stand up, knees wobbly, and the big wooden chair clatters behind me as I storm out of the mess-hall.
The worst part is that I should be angry – but I’m not.
I wish I was – but, instead, all I am is turned on. I guess something about me will always be ignited by the presence of these three sexy, Greek God-like warriors, no matter how high the stakes.
Will I ache for them when they’re executed in front of a crowd?
Will I ache for them if they’re put in a jail cell for the rest of their lives?
Can I trust my newfound power to dull the Bond, or do I need to turn them in?
“Wait, Allie!” It’s Kitos’ voice, calling after me. “Come back! We were just having fun!”
I whip around. “This is not a joking matter.”
Hadrian nods slowly. “You’re right, Allie. It’s not – but when you spend a hundred years clearing out Scorp nests, deep underground, and you watch men you grew to love get cut down in front of it…” He snorts bitterly. “Well, you develop what you humans call ‘gallows humor’. You joke about inappropriate things. We apologize.”
I turn and raise my eyebrow. I’m genuinely surprised. I wasn’t expecting an apology from Hadrian, of all people.
Even more so, his words hit home. I can’t even imagine the horrors this triad of honorable warriors must have gone through during their hundred years of service to the Empire. It had to make stripping for disgusting men look like a cake-walk.
It’s also… difficult for me to remain angry that the Aurelians ache for me so strongly. They’ve been searching their entire lives for a woman like me.
Not like me. Only me.
Wait a second… I know what happens when Aurelians search for a mate – how their species normally conducts themselves.
They say they ache for me – that they’d do anything for me…
…but do these three guys have a harem back home?
The sudden pangs of jealousy that hit me are embarrassing. I shouldn’t care. I’m thinking of destroying these men, not settling down with them...
However, if I had been considering a future with them – which is what I need them to believe – it would be only natural for me to ask, right?
“Hadrian… Kitos… Just how many women do you have waiting for you back on Colossus?”’
Hadrian snorts.
“None.”
His answer is so quick – so unequivocal – that I don’t need the power of the Bond to know he’s telling me the truth.
“We chose career advancement and delayed building our harem,” Hadrian continued. “Domestic pleasure makes an Aurelian turn into a doddering fool before his time. Soon… but we hadn’t yet…”
Kitos laughs bitterly.
“We had a plan. The promotion we were going to get would have secured us enormous manors and the pick of the litter of human females.”
Then, Kitos snorts.
“But I’m not bitter. No women I’ve ever been with has satisfied me, Allie. They were all like ghosts compared to the real thing. It’s just strange going from thinking your world and life will go in one direction, and then suddenly seeing it diverted completely off course.”
I know exactly what he fucking means!
A week ago, if you’d told me I’d wind up on an Aurelian ship, about to touch down on a garbage planet like Sulcus, I’d have booked the first space-craft off the planet first.
But what was the direction of my life, anyway?
I’d thought I’d be stripping for the greedy eyes of men for the indefinite future. I thought I’d probably spend the rest of my life hiding out, on the run, and barely scraping a living.
Instead, I’m now plotting the horrific betrayal of three honorable, bold and sexy warriors – all of whom profess to adore me, and all of whom imagine I’m eager to become their supplicant little housewife and breeding slave.
Suddenly, I’ve made my choice.
The only way I’ll ever be free of these men are if they’re executed. I can’t trust that whatever ability I have to “mute” the Bond will be enough to escape them.
It makes me feel terrible to even consider this horrific, shameful course of action – but I didn't consent to have them blossom in my mind. I didn't consent to have them linked to me for all eternity. I didn't want to see Daccia's boyish grin, or ask to experience the thrills of Kitos' dark, dominant side. I never requested to feel the devotion of warriors who one second treat you gruffly, and the next worship you like a goddess; and the very reason for their being.
I know I'm not a good person. I don't need to be. I just need to be a strong person.
The second I've gleaned everything these aliens can tell me about my sister’s disappearance, I need to turn them over to that other triad of Aurelian Law Enforcement agents and get the fuck off the planet. Or, alternatively, I can remain there – hidden in plain sight. I can blend into this rough, polluted frontier world. I can disappear into its dark underbelly.
And I’ve never been better prepared to do it.
I don't just have my concealed weapons back. I don't just have the highly-lethal electro-shock emitter concealed in my arm – which can be used once a day to kill even a three-hundred-pound man, or the shift-blocking device in my other arm.
I've now got something better.
The Bond.
I experimented with it when I woke. Normally, I could do thirty pushups in a row. Being an exotic dancer forced me to keep myself in good shape.
But this morning, I did a hundred pushups – without even breaking a sweat.
The rumors about the Bond are true. I'm suddenly stronger than the average human male – and the average man looks down on a woman as being weaker than he is.
If it now comes down to it, I could survive or even thrive among the dog-eat-dog underworld community here on this crime planet, because the one thing that had held me back before – my physical weakness compared to men – has been overcome.
That's what freedom is, isn't it?
The freedom to live. The freedom to die. The freedom to do either, on your own terms.
I'm pulled out of my thoughts by the rumble as our Reaver begins to break the atmosphere. I stumble as the artificial gravity adjusts to compensate, and Hadrian catches me in his huge arms.
I'm pulled against his massive chest, and even over the roar of the ship plunging through the burning atmosphere – I hear Hadrian’s heartbeat.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
It's so slow.
So regular.
And I'm going to be the reason it fucking stops.
But I won't let myself be a slave to any man – even these three gorgeous, towering warriors.
As I think that, the ship stabilizes. Daccia is piloting us expertly down to the smog-shrouded city below. I pull myself out of Hadrian's arms and press my face against the viewport.
Below sprawls the hellscape of an industrial city.
Skyscrapers loom above the clouds of black and yellow smoke, but it’s clear that most of the city inhabitants are living and working beneath that dense, choking shroud. In an age in which automation is so cheap and robotics are so accessible, th
e wages of a human worker have been driven so low that only those willing to work for less than the cost of maintaining robots and automation are hired.
I've seen the horrors produced by this kind of capitalism before. It never ends well. Some of those downtrodden workers will turn to theft to keep their bellies from gnawing with hunger.
Others to even worse crimes.
I truly believe that abiding by the standards of human morality is a luxury that requires at least the basic necessities of comfortable survival. When you're dying of hunger, you'll take from those weaker than you – it’s survival of the fittest.
I realize now that this is how I need to think. This is how I have to be, if I am ever going to survive out there in the cruel, uncaring universe all by myself.
I'm tired of being the one who gets everything taken from them. Whether it was those space-pirates taking my sister, or Spur taking the lion’s share of my hard-earned wages, I’ve always been the one left to survive on the scraps bigger, stronger men have left…
It's time for me to start getting what I want.
I demand: "Where are we staying?"
Hadrian cocks his head. "A surprisingly good hotel. Aurelian Credits go a long fucking way on a shithole planet like this. Thank the Gods for a base per diem!"
His tone is a little too haughty for my liking.
I sneer: "The reason your Aurelian Credits go so far is because most of this world is living in poverty – so the people who own the hotel we're staying in can actually make a profit."
Hadrian fixes me with those intense eyes, tinged with the deep, chestnut brown.
"Would you prefer to sleep in the slums, your ladyship?"
Ha! I've slept in the slums before. I’m not too good to do it again.
However, I would very much not prefer those slums to a soft, downy bed – even if I don’t get the self-righteous satisfaction from it.
I break eye contact with Hadrian, but I'm seething inside. There's something about Hadrian in particular that constantly gets on my nerves – in the same way a girlish crush somehow always gets under your skin. Yet the most infuriating thing about Hadrian is that he has a point. I'm glad to finally be in a position I which I can be the one enjoying a small luxury – like a comfortable bed – instead of always being jealous of those who have more than me.