“What we want is lunch,” he growled and the two of them broke into trollish laughter.
“Please! Leave me alone!” The girl stumbled backwards and the one behind her caught her by the shoulders, causing her to cry out in pain and fear. She tried to kick him but he only stepped back a pace and laughed, still holding her tightly.
“To think that fool of a Kindred paid forty thousand credits for her and then just left her to fend for herself,” his friend remarked. “This may be the most expensive meal we’ve ever eaten.”
“And the tastiest!” The other Torgian licked his chops, saliva dripping from his rows of gleaming fangs. “Do you want her head or her feet?”
“The feet, I think. They’re crunchy. We’ll save the head for last and split the brain,” the other replied.
Up until now, Need had been watching in a kind of trance. Now he realized he had to get moving—if he didn’t, these bastards were going to eat the girl alive, right before his eyes!
Stepping out from the shadows of the building where he had been standing, he came striding over to the Torgians, drawing his blaster as he went. He shoved the blunt muzzle of the deadly weapon into the thick neck of the one closest to him, just to one side of its fin.
“Let her go,” he growled. “Or this ‘fool of a Kindred’ will fucking kill you both!
The girl is mine.”
As he spoke the words, he realized they were true. He couldn’t just buy her and then wash his hands of her. She was half naked and helpless, damn her. Wounded from the fucking stick the slaver had used on her and disoriented—stranded on a strange planet. If he left her to her own devices she’d only be eaten or raped or both.
You bought her, Need, whispered a grim little voice in his head. You own her now—you’re responsible for her. At least until you can get her back where she came from.
The idea made him savage and he shoved the muzzle of his blaster even harder against the Torgian’s thick skull.
“Let her go,” he repeated. “Unless you want your friend to have your brains for his breakfast.”
“All right—all right.” The Torgian holding the girl by her shoulders let go and held up his scaly hands.
“We didn’t know you still wanted her,” the other one whined. “You left her alone, Kindred!”
“A mistake I don’t intend to repeat,” Need growled. “Now get the fuck out of here before I vaporize you both!”
The two of them scrambled away, their eyes rolling fearfully in his direction as they hurried across the marketplace.
Need stalked angrily over to the girl, who was still standing there, clutching his shirt to her chest. She looked up at him, her dark, gold-flecked eyes filled with uncertainty.
“My Lord?” she whispered.
Need sighed. He would have to break her of calling him that, somehow. In the meantime, though, he had to get her back to the ship.
“Come on,” he told her. “We have to go.”
She didn’t ask where they were going, only followed meekly along as Need led her through the marketplace—or he thought she was until he turned his head. Then he saw that she had fallen behind, maybe because she was still hobbling as though she was in pain. Angrily, he strode back to her.
“Damn it,” he growled. “Can’t you keep up?”
“I…I’m trying, my Lord.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Please, I’m sorry…”
“Here.” Need had no more time for this. Leaning down, he swung her up into his arms.
The girl gasped but made no move to get away. She trembled in his arms as Need carried her through the crowds, headed for his ship.
His thoughts were resentful as he stomped along, not looking at the girl in his arms. Damn it, this was more than he had bargained for! He’d only meant to buy her and set her free—he hadn’t expected to have to take care of her afterwards. Now he had a female he wanted nothing to do with—how in the Seven Hells was he ever going to get rid of her?
I’ll take her back to wherever she was taken from, he told himself.
Hadn’t the slaver been boasting that she’d been snatched from some private finishing school in the Trell’wick system? Need had never heard of it but he could look it up in the star charts on board the ship.
Surely it can’t be that far—hopefully somewhere in the same galaxy we’re in now. I’ll be rid of her the minute The Dark Star gets anywhere near her home planet.
He would get rid of her as soon as he could, he promised himself. He wanted nothing to do with any female—least of all the one trembling in his arms.
Four
Why was he so angry? Lan’ara let her eyes flick up to study his face occasionally as he carried her, though she took care not to look too long. For such a big man, he had fine features—a hawk-like nose and high cheekbones, not to mention those strangely beautiful, metallic bronze eyes.
He was the kind of man all the girls at Twyleth Tigg had hoped would buy their contracts—tall and muscular and handsome and strong. Lan’ara had hoped so herself, but at the Ball of Beauty she had been singled out by a much different kind of man.
Of course, Senator Pouncenblast was a very important man—and an extremely rich one. There were rumors that he owned his own private island on Genu Six—the planet he represented in the Galactic Senate. He had even promised to make Lan’ara his Primary Bride.
“For the one I have now doesn’t suit me anymore,” he’d told her in an offhand manner, as they danced around the ballroom. “She’s getting too old, don’t you know, and hasn’t born me an heir, though we’ve been married three whole cycles. No…” He had shaken his head. “She won’t do anymore. You, my lovely Lan’ara, will be my Primary Bride and if you bear me an heir right away, I’ll promote you even higher—to First Wife! Won’t that be exciting?”
Lan’ara had smiled and tried to act excited, though inside her heart was sinking. She didn’t know how old Senator Pouncenblast’s current Primary Bride was, but he himself could not be less than eighty-five cycles and he had the sagging jowls and liver-spotted hands to prove it.
Though she found his touch on her as they danced repulsive, Lan’ara had been trained too well in the Twyleth Tigg way to let the emotion show in her eyes or to flinch away when he reached for her. Instead she smiled brightly and made light banter, flirting delicately in a way that was designed to flatter a man’s ego and make him think she found him the most fascinating person in the room.
A girl could do a lot worse than a Galactic Senator, she told herself. And anyone who didn’t walk away from the Beauty Ball without an avowed patron to buy their contract would automatically be sold to the Flower House—a high class brothel run by the same Board of Directors that managed Twyleth Tigg Academy. There, a girl was forced to please many men, not just one, so it was better—far better—to find a patron at the ball.
Lan’ara had spent the night playing up to the elderly Senator and her ruse had worked. By the end of the ball, her contract was spoken for and she was assured a spot as Pouncenblast’s new Primary Bride at the end of her schooling—which was only six solar months away.
Of course that was before the pirates came, Lan’ara thought with a shiver.
It was the very night before they were all to be delivered to the men who had bought their contracts. Everyone had packed their things and each of them had been given their shots—to give immunity for the new worlds they were going to, the Nurse at the academy told them. Lan’ara had gone to sleep in a strange mixture of relief and regret—she didn’t love the Senator or relish the thought of giving him her virginity—but at least he’d promised her a safe and easy life which was much better than the Flower House.
But she’d been woken not by the sound of the Morning Chimes, but the shattering of glass and the screams of other girls.
Pirates from the Je’gaba system had come for them. They had blasted through Twyleth Tigg’s security bubble, shredding it as though it was made of paper, and taken every last girl.
Well, t
he ones that hadn’t tried to run, anyway.
One girl—Tawnie—had tried to go out the window and a pirate with a mechanical eye had shot her—splattering her brains all over the tasteful pink curtains that fluttered in the mild night breeze.
The rest of them had come quietly after that—what choice did they have, Lan’ara wondered? She had spent the next several nights shivering with her friends and classmates in the freezing hold of the pirates’ ship until many of them had been transferred to the slaver, who had sold her on the auction block.
Lan’ara closed her eyes, trying not to think of that—trying not to remember the way she’d been humiliated and hurt—forced to show her body to the jeering crowd. And the way that awful stick with the cruel, knobbly end had jammed itself inside her…
No! No, I won’t think of it. I won’t think of it ever again! she told herself fiercely.
But though her mind was willing to bury the trauma, her body wouldn’t let her forget quite that easily. Her shoulders still ached miserably—feeling strained and stretched, as though the rough way she’d been handled by the slaver’s assistant on the auction block had pulled some vital ligaments in her upper joints. Her arms felt limp and weak and almost useless, which worried her deeply.
But it wasn’t her shoulders that hurt the worst, Lan’ara reluctantly admitted to herself. It was the place between her legs where the knob of the stick had pressed inside her. The delicate flesh stung like fire there—as though she’d been torn. And she ached inside too—a deep pain like a rotten tooth that wouldn’t go away.
What did it do to me? she wondered. Did it take my virginity? Is there anything left of my maidenhead?
This was an important question—or it had been in her past life. The high-powered men who bought themselves brides and concubines from Twyleth Tigg expected a verified virgin who would bleed on her wedding night—or her taking night—depending on her new status.
Of course, there were other ways to verify virginity. The awful stick that had been used on her at the auction block was one. There were more modern ways too—Lan’ara had learned all about them when she and the other girls were told what they could expect upon reaching the homes of the men who had bought them.
There were meters and probes that could tell if a girl had ever had male seed inside her—those didn’t rely on the state of the maidenhead to verify if a girl was untouched or not. They were also considered more accurate, since a simple surgery could restore a lost maidenhead—if a girl knew where to go and had enough credit to pay for it, which Lan’ara didn’t, of course.
For a moment, Lan’ara wondered if Senator Pouncenblast would still want her now that the stick had torn her open—then she pushed the thought away.
She wasn’t going to be the Senator’s bride anymore. Not now. Now she was owned by the big, grim-faced Kindred who was carrying her through the dusty marketplace like she was a burden he was doomed to bear.
But he doesn’t seem to want me either, Lan’ara thought, risking another look at his handsome face, which was set in lines so stern it looked like it had been carved from granite. He seems angry to have me, for all that he bought me and spent so much to get me!
A plan began to form in her mind. If the Kindred didn’t want her, maybe he would take her to Genu Six and deliver her to Senator Pouncenblast instead. The Senator hadn’t paid her full Bride Price yet—only half the contract was paid at the Beauty Ball and the other half at the time of delivery.
Lan’ara didn’t know how much had been paid for her, but surely forty thousand credits would be nothing but a drop in the bucket to a man so obscenely wealthy he owned his own island. He might be just as happy to pay the second half of her contract to the big Kindred as to the Twyleth Tigg Academy, since the academy was no more.
But of course, that depended on whether the big Kindred would be willing to help her in any way, she thought, feeling a surge of despair. And depending on how the Senator verified virginity, it might also depend on her maidenhead and the state of the place between her legs. But even if he used the seed-meter which told if a girl had ever had male seed inside her, he surely wouldn’t want her when she was torn and bruised and wounded.
“No man wants used or damaged goods!” Lady Telga, the Sexual Instruction teacher had constantly lectured them at the academy. “You must preserve your virtue and virginity for your husband or master to be! Else you’ll end up in the Flower House, spreading your thighs for any male with enough coin to buy you for the night!”
Lan’ara had taken her warning to heart—she wanted nothing to do with the Flower House. Far better to service one man—even an ugly, old one—than to service dozens or perhaps even hundreds of them over and over again until she herself was too old and worn out to be considered beautiful anymore and was cast aside into a life of abject poverty and disgrace.
But what will happen to me now? she wondered, glancing up at the Kindred again. He still looked angry and he was also certainly very strong. He’d been carrying her for over a quarter of an hour without showing any sign of weariness, though Lan’ara definitely fell into the “pleasingly plump” category in the Twyleth Tigg Academy catalogue.
What would happen if he decided he didn’t want her again? If he chose to leave her here, on this strange planet, instead of taking her with him? But even if he took her, it wasn’t like her future was secure, Lan’ara admitted to herself. She didn’t even know what he did for a living. For that matter, she didn’t even know his name—nor did she dare to ask. Not when he was so angry. She would just have to go on calling him “my Lord” as they had been taught to call men to flatter them at the academy.
The big Kindred seemed tireless. Before Lan’ara knew it, they had reached the spaceport on the outskirts of town. It was a vast, paved circle divided by glowing holo-lines into wedges like a pie. In each wedge was a ship—some big and some small. The floating holo-lines moved and adjusted in order to accommodate them so that some of the wedges were narrow and small and some were huge. Within them, Lan’ara saw all kinds of ships—both shiny and new and others which were battered and worn from years of interplanetary travel.
Up ahead was the hulking freighter of the slave ship that had brought her here in the first place. One dull gray, scarred side still bore the fresh marks of one of her fellow captives—a girl with dark green skin and long nails. Nails that she’d broken scratching and scrabbling against the side of the ship as the slavers pulled her out and shot her because she’d tried to escape the moment the hatch was open.
“I’ll show you what we do to deserters, girlie,” the slaver had snarled and the next moment the girl, whose name Lan’ara had never learned, had a gaping hole in her guts and was sinking to the side of the ship, her eyes gone blank and dark.
The memory—still so fresh and awful—overwhelmed her for a moment, especially when she saw the green stain on the ground beside the slave ship.
The girl’s blood had been green too.
The big Kindred turned and for a moment it seemed to Lan’ara that he was headed right for the slave ship. A sudden awful thought gripped her—what if he’d decided to take her to the slaver who had sold her and ask for his money back? What if he’d decided she wasn’t worth the huge amount of credit he’d paid?
Cold sweat ran down her spine and her stomach clenched in fear.
“Please, my Lord,” she begged in a low voice, speaking to the big Kindred for the first time since he’d swept her up into his arms. “Please don’t take me back to them! I swear I can make you happy—I promise I can please you! I’ve been trained in every way to satisfy a man—I’ll be sure you get your money’s worth, I swear it!”
“What?” The Kindred looked down at her, a frown of confusion stamped on his stern features. “What are you talking about, girl?”
“The slaver!” Lan’ara nodded frantically at the battered hull of the ship, marred by white scratch marks and the puddle of green blood, now almost dry. “Please don’t take me back to the slaver!�
�� she begged, her heart pounding.
“Why in the Seven Hells would I do that?” he demanded, scowling at her. “When I just spent every last credit I had buying you from that bastard?”
“I thought…” Lan’ara swallowed hard, trying to push down the tears that were stinging her eyes. “I thought maybe you’d regretted your decision. That you…that you were going to ask for your money back.”
“Of course I fucking regret my decision,” he growled, making Lan’ara gasp in fright. “But I’m not taking you back,” he added, apparently seeing her terror. “Goddess above, girl—you don’t have to fear me sending you back to that fate. Didn’t I tell you I’m a Kindred and we don’t mistreat females?”
“I…I didn’t know. I just thought…” Lan’ara’s heart was still pounding so hard it was difficult to think. “Forgive me,” she said at last, bowing her head. “I was foolish. It’s just, seeing the slave ship so close…”
“You thought I was taking you back,” he finished for her. “Well, we’re only close to it because this ship beside it is mine—or the ship I work on, anyway.”
He nodded to a sleek black middle-weight cruiser that dwarfed the slave ship. Its vast black side was as shiny as a mirror and Lan’ara could clearly see her own disheveled appearance reflected there.
“That’s The Dark Heart, captained and owned by Captain Glo’ll. I’m First Mate and Navigator.”
Just then, a hulking shape appeared in the shiny black side of the ship.
With a little gasp, Lan’ara twisted her head around and saw the three-headed monster that had been bidding on her—the one who had asked the slaver to hurt her with the stick and had talked about making her bear his heir—standing right behind them!
He was glaring at her with all three heads.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, stiffening in the Kindred’s arms. “Oh, no!”
But the big Kindred didn’t seem perturbed to have the monster so close.
The Kindred Warrior's Captive Bride: A Kindred Tales PLUS Length Novel Page 4
