Chapter One
Delta
She gave him an icy stare.
Not the easiest thing to do while stripping her shirt off. But she was determined not to let the disgusting alien see how frightened she was.
Dead black eyes, empty of all emotion, ran up and down her body. He was covered head to toe in a dull gray cloak the same color as the cargo bay of his beat-up transport cruiser. His skin was gray, too, judging from his face and hands, the only parts of his body visible. So his reaction was all the more shocking when she pulled off the tunic of her work uniform and he got his first glimpse of her naked breasts.
The mouth in his gray face opened, and a skinny, shocking-pink tongue ran over his blue-gray lips.
Delta shivered. The four-foot tall creature may have been from an alien world, but lecherous males were the same all over the Universe.
“Take off your lower garment.”
That’s what the Tellex chip imbedded in her skull right behind her left ear told her brain. What she heard was a series of hisses and grunts, ending with Garez’s pink tongue wiggling out of the hole in his gray face as though he’d partially swallowed a huge worm.
She couldn’t bear to look at him any longer, so she fixed her eyes on a row of steel-gray rivets in the hull. The Tellex chip didn’t translate the low growl he made when she stepped out of her trousers, but she didn’t need one. She’d learned to interpret the sounds of male arousal all by herself.
The creature pointed. “More dark hair. But not long and shiny like on her head. Short. Thick.”
The slave trader came closer, and she tried not to flinch when he stretched out a gray finger and probed the mass of tight curls between her legs. “She has a pleasure portal here.”
She’d tried to block out the others in the room, but it became impossible to pretend they weren’t there when rough hands seized her from behind. Two of Garez’s guards.
She struggled, but she was no match for them. Though small in stature, the aliens were incredibly strong. Delta fought down a flash of rage. She hated feeling helpless, but she knew she had to go along, pretend to accept meekly whatever treatment Garez meted out. She’d endure this humiliation to conserve what little strength she had left until an opportunity to escape presented itself.
The old Delta would have lashed out, kicking and punching the minute they touched her. She’d have fought the aliens, even though she had no chance of winning since they outnumbered her ten to one. But, for weeks, she’d subsisted on barely enough rations to keep her alive, giving half her food to Jisa. The female from Draconis M-34 was pregnant, and she needed every ounce of nourishment she could get to keep both her and the litter she carried alive. Jisa and Garez’s other captives weren’t part of her crew, but she couldn’t shed a lifetime of stepping up and taking leadership. Besides, in this alien world, females had to stick together.
Garez waved a hand, and the guards holding her spun her around with her back to the room. One shoved her head down, bending her over, while the other grabbed the cheeks of her ass and spread them apart.
More hisses and grunts from the leader. “Another pleasure portal for your master. That makes three, counting the one in her face.”
Bent over with her back to the room, she couldn’t see Lord Axum’s envoy. But she heard him. High-pitched whining noises drilled into her head, thankfully drowned out when the translation began.
“Three pleasure portals is hardly a novelty. My lord owns some who have four or five. But I’ll grant you, the patch of hair might amuse him. I’ll give you six bibasa.”
“Six! I risked my life boarding the Earther space pirate’s vessel. He could have killed me and my entire crew instead of selling her to me as he promised. After all, we know nothing of these aliens who call themselves humans. They may not be an honorable race, like you Borvaani. I need at least twenty bibasa.”
Garez’s voice dropped conspiratorially, as if the men holding her wouldn’t be able to hear every word. “I’ll give you a bill of sale for thirty-seven. Present it to your master, and you can pocket the difference.”
She heard a sharp intake of breath from the alien on her right side. Delta had no idea what a bibasa was equal to back on Earth, but based on the surprised reaction from the alien gripping her bottom cheeks, she guessed that Garez, the gray slave trader, was aiming for a huge payoff on this transaction.
“The moment I saw her, I thought of Lord Axum.” Garez went on with his pitch, anxious to close the sale. “She’ll be the star of his harem. No one in the entire Krion Sector owns a human. Most of the known worlds have never even seen one. This Earther’s rear portal is much tighter than that of the females in the rest of my inventory. Come here. Feel for yourself. Why, I can barely get a finger in...”
Delta bit off a cry as a cold slimy digit probed the tight pucker of her ass. Her plan of feigning meek subservience disappeared as years of training kicked in. She lashed out with one foot, sweeping the legs from under the alien holding her head down. Momentum carried her around, and she drove an elbow into the midsection of the one spreading her bottom cheeks apart then wrapped both hands around the scrawny neck of the slave trader.
A white-hot bolt of agony shot through her, sending her to her knees. Garez moved a metal cylinder from her chest to her temple, and she screamed as pain flooded her head.
“You stupid cow!”
“Stop.” Lord Axum’s envoy stepped in, knocked the cylinder away from her head. “My lord prefers females who are unsullied as additions to his harem. One who fights like this rather than submitting to you is not likely to have allowed others access to her rear portal. He will enjoy the challenge of conquering this female. Dress her and prepare her for the journey.”
The crushing pain eased, leaving behind a pounding ache. Delta replayed the envoy’s last words in her head. She’d been in so much agony she hadn’t processed anything translated by the Tellex chip. It sounded as though the representative from Borvaan planned to purchase her despite her display of defiance.
She tried to get to her feet, but Garez moved the metal cylinder to a spot on her neck below her right ear. She felt a sharp stabbing pain. The room went dark just as the floor rose up and smacked her in the face.