Chapter One

 

For a sex slave, there were worse gigs than Prium’s Intergalactic Lounge, aka sex emporium.

Mina stretched, arching her back and pushing her hips in the air before giving the fluffy blue tail in her ass a wiggle. She had seven males of three different species watching her window as she wriggled around behind the laser glass for their entertainment.

The work at Prium’s was nonstop, which some might find tiresome, but after five years closed up at Durhock’s, she found the stimulation invigorating.

No, not the sexual stimulation. That part had never done anything for her. Personally, she didn’t see what it was about sex that made males lose their minds.

One of the males watching rubbed his hands over his own man-nipples, and she took the cue and squeezed her breasts, lifting one to lick the nipple. She’d had years of training in turning males on.

The time Mina had spent as Durhock’s pet wasn’t overly taxing, though. All she’d had to do was obey his every command and look beautiful naked. Wear the collar, stupid fluffy ears pinned in her hair and a tail plug in her ass when he had guests. Service them when he’d ordered it. Service him when he’d demanded, but that wasn’t often. He’d had so many sex pets, they were mostly for display.

Show cats, the human slave, Leti, used to call them.

Leti. Veck, Mina missed her. She didn’t know what happened to her friend after her Bangardian master Durhock—the idiot—choked to death eating a piece of dried fruit. They all were auctioned off with the rest of his belongings. All she knew was Prium bought her for his sex emporium two lunar cycles ago, and there she was.

She caught the eye of one of the males and crawled slowly forward. Come into my cell. Some slaves preferred to dance and prance around alone to being selected for use by a customer, but not her. The more interaction she had with other beings, the greater her chance of figuring her way out of this place. She needed information, and she wasn’t going to get it rubbing her own lady-flower behind the laser screen.

No, she couldn’t have asked for a better place to be than Prium’s. Locked away in Durhock’s home, she’d never had a chance of escape, no hope of finding out anything about her species, if any of them still existed. But here? Hundreds of beings came and went every planet rotation. She’d personally serviced forty already, which meant she’d heard all the news of the galaxy.

She already confirmed she wasn’t the only Zandian left alive. According to the Ocretion businessman who’d left that morning, Prince Zander survived and had amassed a small contingent of other survivors on a pod parked in Ocretion airspace. Maybe she was too optimistic, but she believed if she could get herself there, she’d be welcomed.

Her father had been the king’s Master Warrior, after all. That had to count for something. She’d lived in the royal palace before the Finn invaded. She remembered Prince Zander, already a handsome and skilled warrior in training with her father at the time of the invasion. And her father had probably died defending the king and queen.

So, now all she needed was to break out of the emporium and hitch a ride to Ocretion airspace. Which most would say was impossible, but if she’d learned anything from her father, it was focus and determination. There’s nothing you can’t do, he used to tell her and her younger sister, Talia. Decide what you want, or what needs to be done, and never let your mind wander from that goal.

She wouldn’t imagine her father’s opinion of her means of getting to her goal. Trading her flesh for knowledge. For opportunity. She couldn’t let the twist of shame free from the pit of her stomach. Someday, when she was free, she could take it out and examine it. For now, she’d do what she needed to do.

And she’d already made it one step closer to freedom. No, two. After careful study, she may have figured out a way to short out the laser wall that kept her caged. All she needed was a Zandian crystal.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen one since her planet was invaded by the Finn when she was just eight solar cycles.

The male she’d been attempting to lure in fisted his cock, watching her.

She licked her lips and sat back on her heels, curling a finger to beckon him in.

I can suck that cock for you, ugly Ocretion. Come in here so I can seduce you into taking me with you. Straight to Ocretia. Or her airspace, anyway.

 

~.~

 

Erick doubled back twice before landing his ship. Some vecker had been following him. He wouldn’t put it past the Finn to hire every mercenary in the galaxy to tail Zandians now that they knew Prince Zander had armed himself.

For now, he thought he was clear. Even if he wasn’t, they weren’t going to find anything out from his visit to Prium’s Intergalactic Lounge, the swanky sex club on the neutral planet of Aurelia, which was one of the reasons he’d chosen to stop there.

The club featured every flavor of copulation in the galaxy with just about any species.

Don’t want to participate? No problem! You can watch. At least thirty sex rooms had an invisible laser wall open to the lounge. He didn’t know what type of customer requested those rooms. Did it cost more to have your activity on display? Or did you get a discount? He’d never asked. Exhibitionism wasn’t his thing.

Prium’s was the place he stopped to let off steam during breeding season. When his biology raged at him to find a female and plant her with his seed. Too bad there weren’t any Zandian females left to implant.

At least, he’d believed there weren’t until two short planet rotations ago when two stunningly beautiful females had arrived in the palatial pod, leaving every male there senseless with lust. Which was why he’d chosen to get the hell off the space pod.

The females weren’t available, anyway. Talia, Master Seke’s daughter, came already mated to the warrior Tomis, and Eslyn seemed to be in relationship with three other criminals brought in from Zandia. Although judging by the rumors, she wished to shed herself of those males, which left every warrior in the pod clamoring to take their place, offering to share her like her previous mates had.

Sharing wasn’t Erick’s style, though. Even though he’d never had a relationship, he knew that instinctively about himself. He’d be a possessive vecker. If he had a Zandian female, he’d fight every male in the galaxy for her.

A stray nelot—one of the furry mammals usually kept as pets on Aurelia—curled around his ankles, blinking up at him. He bent and scratched its ears. “Sorry, I don’t have any food for you, little one. Zandians don’t eat often.” Only once every ten planet rotations, to be exact. Unless they were parted from Zandian crystal, the stone at the core of their planet, which gave them energy. The valuable gemstone behind the Finn’s invasion and massacre fifteen solar cycles ago.

The electronic doors sparked and zapped as he stepped through, but since he had no weaponry, he entered unharmed. The moment he entered, his muscles tightened with the anticipation of release.

Veck, he’d never needed to blow off steam more.

He’d just lost 750,000 steins of Prince Zander’s money.

In the years since the Finn took their planet, Erick had earned or helped Prince Zander earn millions through investments and business dealings. Wealth the Zandians desperately needed to wage war to regain their precious home. Wealth they’d used to buy airships and weaponry.

But he’d just come from his meeting with a broker empty-handed, his investment gone.

“Forgive me, Master Erick,” Behn, the pock-faced Eglentian broker who had put together the deal for three galactacarriers had said, twisting a giant Zandian crystal ring on his finger. Erick had traded him that crystal solar cycles before in another deal. “At this point, all I can tell you is that the deal has been delayed.”

Delayed his ass.

Although Behn had hidden it well, Erick recognized signs of his distress. The trickle of sweat running from his ear to his high ruffled collar, the ring twisting.

Erick’s fingers had twitched over the handle of his sword. He may be Prince Zander’s business and trade advisor, but he’d been warrior-trained by Master Seke, right along with the rest of them. No Zandian had gone unschooled except the very elderly, no matter what their role in the palatial pod was. They had a planet to recover and precious few of their species left alive.

Losing the bid to take back Zandia was unthinkable.

In the end, he’d left Behn alive, taking the crystal ring and an ancient Venusian talisman from his desk as collateral. It wasn’t Behn’s fault the seller had swindled him. Erick had left him with dire threats about recovering his funds. Not that he had much hope of ever seeing that money or the three galactacarriers.

The loss was a huge blow. They had precious few resources to win their planet back. It was a shame he preferred not to shoulder. He needed to salvage this situation because reporting his failure to Zander was not an option.

But until he eased the throb of his cock, avidly campaigning for him to storm the pod upon his return and spread the legs of one or both of those new female inhabitants, he wouldn’t be able to think.

So, Prium’s it was.

He skipped the lounge, pulsing with a hypnotic reverberation designed to lower one’s inhibitions. It didn’t help the heaviness in his loins. He went straight for a bidding room, where he could view holograms of the available females and purchase an hour or two with one.

Prium, himself, was behind the counter, and when he saw Erick, he sauntered over. Tall, slender, and pinky-white skinned, with pale, almost silver eyes, Prium, like most Aurelians, possessed an austere beauty. Even the males appeared feminine, with long, delicate fingers and elongated skulls. He wore a flowing, fur-lined robe in pale yellow and had intricately embroidered slippers with curling, pointy toes. “Welcome to Prium’s, Master…”

“Erick.”

“Master Erick. Yes, welcome back. I have just the female for you today.”

Something about the way Prium said it, or the assumption behind the words, made the back of Erick’s neck prickle. His hand drifted to his sword belt, but, of course, he’d stowed all weaponry in the ship. Excrement. He hated being unarmed.

“No trust me, you’ll love my newest acquisition,” the glamorous pimp drawled.

Erick had a personal rule about never believing any being who said trust me, so he kept his face impassive and waited. Why had he been targeted by Prium for this sales pitch? He wasn’t a frequent customer, nor a heavy spender. Something about it felt off, like a setup.

Prium launched a hologram, and it all became as clear as Zandian crystal. Not a setup. Ice flashed through his flesh, followed by prickles of heat. His fingers cranked closed into fists.

Prium has a Zandian female.

It took every ounce of control not to throw himself at the peddler of flesh and choke that smug look right off his face.

A Zandian female being kept as a sex slave?

Over his dead body. He would vecking kill Prium for dishonoring one of his species. Never mind the fact that enslaving a Zandian was illegal because his species was recognized by the United Galaxies.

But he’d negotiated hundreds of deals. Knowing better than to show any emotion, he gave the hologram a bored glance. “Interesting. Where did you find her?”

The hologram rotated, and prickles raced down his arms. Though her hair had been bleached to a human shade of reddish blonde, he recognized the female.

Taramina. Seke’s other missing daughter.

“Her name is Mina. I bought her in a lot of slaves from a private collection. Aurelian. The previous owner used them as pets.”

Oh no. He did not vecking say that.

Erick swallowed down his rage. His nails bit into the flesh of his palms, but he forced a calm he didn’t feel to radiate from his shoulders, his face. Plastering on a bored countenance, he said, “All right. I’ll give her a try.”

“No privates with this one. You can only have her in a mainstage cell.”

Every cell in his body revolted against that idea. He needed to get the female alone. Not to veck her—he couldn’t touch Seke’s daughter, not unless he wanted a quick death at the hands of the Master at Arms.

“How much for a private?” Now, he looked too damn eager. Damn, he hadn’t wanted to show his hand.

Prium’s generous mouth stretched into a toothy smile. He hadn’t been fooled to begin with. “Stage cell only. She’s one of my top exhibits.”

Vecking hell.

“Fine. Why don’t you show her to me?”