“Hell no!”

Margie’s indignant yelp hung in the air. Jeval glared at her and her hands went to her hips, her foot tapped at the floor, and she glared at him, her temper rising with each passing second. Her teeth sank into her lips and her throat worked as she managed to get a few words out, “Why me?”

Jeval slapped a hand down on the back of his neck. His tone was surly. “I don’t like this either.”

“Oh, I bet you don’t! You aren’t the one who gets to pretend to be a sex slave!” Her temper flared again, and a glint of wickedness lit her eyes. “Though you could be. I mean, why not? I could dress you up in a cute little collar and some shiny pants and haul you—”

“Woman, stop!” His roar held outrage, and for some reason that struck her as funny, but it didn’t help her anger to abate.

“Oh no I won’t! For all I know you will sell me off to some…some critter!”

“Critter?” His eyebrow lifted, and so did his upper lip. “Did you just say critter?”

Her chin came up. “I did. I worked in your hall on Orbital, remember? There were plenty of critters there.”

“Not going to argue that one with you.”

“Good!”

They stood there scowling at each other. Margie’s eyes surveyed his lean and tall body and that unbidden desire hit her all over again.

He said, “Listen, if I didn’t have to do this and with you, I would absolutely refuse. The truth is we need information, and we need it fast. The Federation is planning something major, and we need to know what it is. They’ve declared martial one rule over every planet in the universe. Even this one.”

Her mouth fell open and hung ajar. “You can’t be serious! They have no rights here! This is a private planet. It’s a private system. The resources are so few because the planets are so small that they’d be a mere drop in The Federation’s bucket. Why on earth would they bother with us?”

Jeval said, “That’s what we need to find out. They’ve broken every promise to every system, and yet they still have loyal supporters and followers. At some point, someone is going to have to come up with some information that breaks The Federation’s back in its stranglehold on this universe. I don’t know that we will gather anything of any real importance, but we have to try.”

Margie looked down at her feet. “Okay. I can see your point. But why in the hell do I have to pretend to be your sex slave?”

His voice was soft; it probed at all of her senses. “Would you prefer to actually be my sex slave?”

“Keep it up,” she muttered, “and I will slap you right across the face.”

It actually wasn’t a bad idea. He always seemed to bring out the worst in her. She always found herself torn between the desire to punch him and the equally ardent desire to throw her arms around him and press her body close to his. He was the most bothersome creature she had ever met, and he had a way of getting under her skin and rubbing against every emotion she had ever possessed. Not to mention he also had a way of making her body go hot, flushed with desire every single time he shot a glance in her direction.

Pretending to be his sex slave?

That was a recipe for disaster.

She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why can’t I pretend to be your assistant or your wife or something of equal footing?”

His hands came up in a gesture of helplessness. “The places we have to go don’t respect those things. Most of them don’t even respect women. That role is the only one you can take on because I need you to talk to the women. They won’t open up to a woman who’s not undergoing the same situation that they are. They will confide in you if they think you too are a slave and unable to speak to me.

“Also, when it comes to sex, all creatures have a tendency to talk more than they should. So those sex slaves that you will be meeting will know things, things they should not know. Things that they will never say in front of me or in front of a woman who is a mate or spouse or an assistant.”

He had a point. Dammit! The whole idea made her uncomfortable. She had come close to actually becoming a sex slave at one point. And she hadn’t met that fate because of him and his brothers. They had rescued her from that slaver ship and that horrible fate. She owed them a large debt, whether she wanted to or not, and she had to repay it.

She had worked as a gurley on Orbital, in a dance and gamble hall that he and his siblings had owned there. She had earned quite a few credits and had paid a huge chunk of her safe passage from those credits. For a while, she had thought she would be okay.

Life on Orbital had been good, but very expensive. The pleasure planet charged for everything—even air! Her earnings had let her pay her debt to the brothers and live well, drinking real water and being clean, and she had not really minded the dancing—even if there were times it left her feeling like she was just an animal in a cage.

She’d just begun to dream of a future. She’d heard that there were large expat communities of humans across the universe and that many of those expats lived in large worlds where the living was cheap. She had hoped, she had, that once her debt was paid, she could find a way to live more cheaply on Orbital then retire from the gurley life and head off to some far-flung land where she could just spend her life in peace and with some semblance of ease.

She’d been so close. So very close. But once The Federation had discovered where a lot of those credits had come from, they had immediately issued an order to take the siblings into custody for treason and the crimes of wrecking and war. They had had to flee that pleasure planet in order to survive The Federation’s order. So her debt had remained unpaid for the large part.

Her dream had died, but it had been resurrected by the trip to Revant. At first glance, it had been something she had not wanted.

It was primitive, though it was rapidly gaining and making strides. But that first day, when they had touched down, the sheer beauty of it had paled in comparison to the fact that there was nothing and nobody there.

She had been so afraid of being there, and now she was afraid of leaving the place that had become the home she had always dreamed of, even before she had known she could dream of such things or what they even were.

She tucked a strand of her shining hair behind one ear and said, “Okay. I’ll do it. But I won’t like it.”

His eyes, large and wide and as blue as the sky, danced with a sort of amusement. “I didn’t expect you to.”

She grouched, “I still don’t know why we can’t make you act as a sex slave. I’m sure you could charm the hell out of the female sex slaves and probably even a few of the male ones if you really put your mind to it. I’m sure they’d really take a liking to you.”

His face took on an indignant and outraged expression once again. His chest puffed up. His hands went to his hips. His eyelids slanted downward. “You do know that I’m not going to excuse you from this no matter how many insults you hurl at me or how many pokes you take at my manhood?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, her eyes traveled down his attenuated and leanly muscled body, right to his crotch. There was a chubby and plump outline there, one that she had seen before. He was so well-endowed that even the baggy trousers that he wore could not completely disguise the fullness of his member. A hot blush stained her face, and she jerked her eyes upward again. “Who says I’m trying to poke at your manhood?”

Oh, God. Had she just said that? She had! Things just kept getting worse by the second!

He said, “Good to know.”

He strode out of her hut, and as he went, she couldn’t help but notice the way that his tunic top rested just above his narrow waist and right above the firm and tight swell of his enviable ass. How he managed to keep an ass like that was beyond her. It was perfect, all muscled and full and…

God dammit!

That she had long been attracted to him was no secret to her, and she was fairly certain that it was not a secret to him either. The real question was how in the hell she was going to pretend to be his sex slave and do that around a large crowd of people while still ignoring the attraction that was so blistering hot that it often made her skin feel as if she were being exposed to not one, but several, suns.

Her long raven-black hair swung around her as she paced up and down the confines of her hut. She had a lot on her mind. The woman who had been sentenced to be sent back to Old Earth had been screaming for most of the day, her voice ringing through her hut’s thin walls and out into the world. Her daughter, a young and sincere woman who did, in fact, work hard, and who often tried to hush her mother’s complaints, was on edge. Mostly because she had been refused admittance to the hut. In fact, her things had been taken from it and then placed in a nearby hut shared by two young girls around her own age.

The punishment was harsh, and Margie was still conflicted about her part in that woman being sent back to the war-torn planet from which she had come.

She knew it had to be done. But she regretted her action and escalating the situation. She should not have spoken. And if she had spoken, she should not let the situation get so out of hand that the brothers had interceded.

Jeval was cruel, sometimes unconscionably so. He would not think sending that woman back was unkind. He would see it merely as a tool to prevent open hostility between the two very different sects of humans there on the planet. It was actually that and nothing else, but that decision didn’t take humanity into account. It took into account only the greater good.

She stopped, her head lowering between her shoulders. The crown of her head met the cool stone and mud wall of the hut, and she sighed, her shoulders drooping low as yet another scream from the hut, situated very near hers, rang out.

Margie said, aloud, “I don’t have to do this with him. I could refuse. Here, all can refuse. I have the right to say no. But I also have the right to bargain. If he wants this for me, he has to rethink that decision. Perhaps the threat and the day’s imprisonment will be enough to make that woman rethink her position.”

Could that be possible? She supposed it could be. It was worth a try anyway. She didn’t want that woman’s death on her conscience any more than she wanted to refuse to go along with the rather outlandish plot that had been hatched around her and created for her. She did not want to question herself as to why she wanted to go and do that so much.

It was a stupid thing to do. She was probably going to get her silly self up and killed, or something even worse!

If she had learned anything over the years of living on Old Earth and in the Below, it was that treachery abounded and that nowhere was safe. She had learned the hard way that people would do anything to save themselves, even jettison off those that they claimed to love the most.

What if he deserted her at the first sign of trouble?

Would he leave her there to fend for herself on a strange planet among strange creatures? Would she stand a chance if he did?

She had to consider that. If it came to a point where he had to get out and she was not in his immediate vicinity, he would absolutely choose to leave her behind in order to serve the greater good. In order to serve the planet he and his siblings had labored centuries to have and the people upon it.

Margie knew about his past.

He had been born on Revant, that long-gone planet. In his veins ran the blood of kings of his kind. His people were warriors and gifted with strange gifts. He and his brothers had taken up where their father and mother had left off, wrecking ships in order to preserve their people’s way of life on a planet outside of Federation grasp and rule. They had been attacked by the parasitic race known as the Gorlites and, with full Federation cooperation, they had been sold off to the highest bidder.

The highest bidder just happened to be a mining colony also run by The Federation’s cronies. They had lived underground, breaking their backs and bones and spirits year after year after year to produce the fuel for The Federation ships. They’d broken rock with their bare hands and bled all for the things that came from below that surface of that hot and lifeless place where they had been imprisoned, and for money to line the pockets of the greediest of all—Federation and mining officials who cared not one damn bit where their slave force came from, or how many died there in those dark and lonely mine shafts.

Jeval would do anything to protect this planet and his people. Even the humans that were not of his bloodline but who were now upon the face of that world and who he considered his subjects.

A long shiver worked its way through her body. Subjects. Yes, that was exactly how he considered those who also resided on the planet.

His other siblings insisted on democracy, but not Jeval. She had often seen him gazing at her fellow humans with a look of mingled contempt and amusement that spoke volumes about how he felt about them as a race. He had no love for them because he thought them weak and silly creatures. He did know, however, that the planet needed to be populated.

His race lived centuries, sometimes ten or more of them. He was only five centuries old, and had a long life ahead of him. Did he plan to, at some point, overthrow his sibling’s regard for democracy and fairness for all people? What if he became, at some point, a despot?

Or was she judging him incorrectly because she did not really know him at all? She didn’t know anyone who could say that they really knew him well, other than his brothers, and they guarded each other with some real zeal.

That attraction she had for him was so real but why it was there was what she couldn’t figure out. Sure, he was attractive, but so were many of the human denizens of the planet, and even some of the other beings there. It was not just his attractiveness—the physical part of it anyway.

There was something about him, something enigmatic and fleeting that always made her want to look closer, get to know him. Find him below that always guarded expression on his face and that defensive posture he always carried himself with too.

It was hard to tell if that was even a front or just his personality. He was like the sea, possessed of so many depths, and with only a glimpse of those depths able to be seen from the shallowest surfaces that he exposed to those around him.

More shivers worked their way through her body. Those tremblings were of fear. She did not want to die. She didn’t want to go with him and engage in this crazy plan that was no plan at all. She wanted no part of this in truth, but the truth also was that she had no choice; she had never had a choice.

From the moment he had appeared in her doorway and told her what had been decided, her choice had been taken away from her.

The choice was an illusion. Maybe it always had been. There was no way she could say no, not knowing how necessary her part in it was.

If she did, she would be dishonoring the ones who had saved her and helping The Federation claim the planet on which she now resided. She’d been under Fed rule before. It was awful and unfair, a yoke around the neck of all citizens, even those with the wealth and privilege that had allowed them to live in better circumstances.

There was no other thing to do but sharpen up her wiles and go along for the trip, do her best to glean some intel from the others she’d meet, and hope they could somehow stave off The Federation.

The Federation would come calling eventually; intent on taking the small system that Revant Two resided within. The Federation would never be satisfied until it had achieved full power and full control over every single living thing and planet in the universe, and took from it whatever it could do to ensure its own wealth and power.

The Federation would kill for total power and wealth too.

She knew that.

Everyone knew that.

The Federation had taken much from her. Now was her chance to take something from them.

And that was something she could absolutely not refuse a chance at doing.