The Bid

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Did you enjoy your rest?”

  Vejhon jerked upright in bed at the sound of her voice. She was setting a tray onto the table acting as center point of the conversation area, the same location Najir had used for the previous plate of food. The platter was the source of those amazing smells, he realized quickly, but he tried to school himself so she wouldn’t be able to read how strongly he desired what she had brought. She’d proven herself an accomplished torturer, he thought bitterly, and the control of a prisoner’s food was a classic manipulative tool.

  “Come, Jhon,” she invited with a sympathetic little smile. “I’m not here to harm you in any way. That unpleasantness is over with. It will never be repeated so long as you are within the protection of this House, and I am hoping that will be for a long, long time.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” he bit out sharply. He swung up onto his feet and paused when he realized there was no one there to protect her from him. He was free to approach her, to touch her…

  …so long as you don’t combine it with laying hands on me with the intent to hurt me.

  Vejhon reached to rub at the metal around his arm that she had called her safety measure. A neurotransmitter, perhaps, engineered to cause pain as a deterrent so a slave wouldn’t harm his master. But…Vejhon had bucked incredible pain before and managed to kill enemies by the handful in spite of it. And it wouldn’t take much to disconnect her spine from her brain. Only a few seconds.

  He approached where she was and watched with amazement as she actually turned her back on him to begin setting out the covered dishes she’d brought. It was too prime an opportunity to waste, and he was too well trained a warrior. His brain was already calculating how to use her hand to activate the door across the way even after she was dead. Guards could be dealt with, and in the darkness he could find a million places to hide in a city. Vejhon’s entire body shifted into automation. The quick length of his stride covered the distance in a heartbeat and his hands reached out to grab her by her head.

  He barely saw her move, her speed was so remarkably unexpected. She swung her arm back, capturing his wrist and squeezing the painful wound on it mercilessly as she came around with her second hand and flat-palmed him in the ribs so hard he felt his body jolt up off the floor. He automatically countered, the warrior in him taking over and certainly not caring about anything but his goal. She’d taken him by surprise because he’d underestimated her. He wouldn’t double the error.

  He grabbed her by her hair and jerked her cleanly off her feet by it. The power he used to drag her back against himself sent her spine crashing into his breastbone.

  And that was the end of it.

  Vejhon learned the instant he touched her in violence the power of the deterrent she had affixed around his arm. The pain that launched through every molecule of his body was so extraordinary, it was almost fascinating. It lasted only a few seconds, probably because that was all it needed to render him completely unconscious.

  Hanna was held captive by her hair as the Goliath behind her seized from the feedback of pain and then fell backward onto the floor. She landed with a grunt on top of him, her back to his chest, and took a moment to gasp for breath before cursing loudly to the empty room.

  “You stubborn son of a bitch!” she growled in frustration.

  She’d known that, though. And she’d expected this, too. Hanna rolled around on top of him, straddling his belly on her knees as she leaned over him and smacked him lightly in the face. He jerked at the slight stimulation and she braced her hand on the floor by his head as she waited for him to come out of the stun. It acted harshly and quickly, but it also didn’t last long. It was meant to give just enough time to bind the slave safely, but she wasn’t going to do that. She didn’t even want to use the damn deterrent, but Najir had insisted and she realized he was right.

  Case in point: one unconscious, pigheaded alien male.

  “Come on, wake up,” she coaxed in a singsong voice as she smacked her fingers lightly against his cheek again.

  His eyes flickered open, revealing that beautiful green-yellow coloring and, as close as she was, the fact that his pupils were more ovoid than round. She was distracted by that just long enough to be taken by surprise when she felt his hands clamp around her rib cage.

  “Get off!”

  He threw her off of him, sending her tumbling on knees and elbows over the carpet. To her credit, she ended up in a spry roll and rounded up into a crouch. Not a bad trick in a dress, he had to say. She also got honorable mention for the fact that his ribs were on fire from her strike earlier.

  Vejhon got up and, letting his frustrated anger propel him, he crossed to the wardrobe and jerked out a pair of pants to replace his inadequate towel. If he was in for a battle with her, he was damn well sick of fighting naked. Especially when she insisted on climbing all over him! It was damn dirty pool for her to sit over him like that when she knew she wasn’t wearing a single damn thing under that dress. It was a short wrap of silky blue fabric that almost matched the powder-soft tone of her skin, and reached no farther than mid-thigh on her. Needless to say, he’d gotten a good feel of the warmth and softness of her bare sex as she’d sat astride him. He forgave himself for the instant push of heat in his blood because of it. Like bathing, food, and all the rest, it had been a long time since he’d had a woman, something else he’d been used to having with a measure of regularity before his incarceration.

  Besides all of that, he was growing increasingly confused. He felt no remnants of the pain used to knock him unconscious, and a glance at the steam coming off the food she’d brought told him he hadn’t been out for very long at all. What kind of a deterrent was that? Effective for a minute or two, perhaps, probably long enough to drug or shackle a violent slave, but she had done neither.

  He watched her warily as she rose to her full height, finally taking time to look beyond the curvaceous swells of her body and the femininity of her wardrobe. He quickly began to see more. Long, powerful major muscle groups that flexed into definition as she walked. The grace and reflex of someone who had trained a very long time, perhaps her entire lifetime as he had, to defend herself.

  And that meant she had either a cause or a need to do so. Very few could make the type of commitment it took to be a lifetime warrior just because they craved it. Often it was need, like self-protection…or cause, like revenge against aliens who were destroying your home, that drove them to the top of perfection.

  But she was the powerful head of a respected House in this culture, surrounded by guards and others who would protect her. Why would she feel the need to train herself to such an extreme? And protect her from what? The only danger he could see was himself, and he’d only just recently become an issue.

  “Are you going to sit and eat with me or would you prefer to roll around on the floor some more first?”

  The way she arced a single, slim black brow as she squared off with him with one hand on a curved hip, a smile he could only label taunting toying over her dark lips, was just shy of a challenge. She wasn’t afraid of him, and it was just dawning on him that it had nothing to do with the band around his arm.

  “Do you own even an ounce of self-preservation?” he asked her gruffly. “How do you know this thing isn’t beatable?” he asked, flicking a finger at the band.

  “Oh, everything is beatable,” she agreed, “and if anyone can defeat that band it will probably be you.”

  “Why aren’t you afraid of me?” The demand was out before he could check it, and he gripped his teeth together when he heard the frustration in his tone. She didn’t mock him as expected, though. She’d walked to the table and finished her task of removing trays and arranging them like a buffet.

  “Who says I’m not afraid?” she countered.

  “You don’t radiate fear. I have a sense for it and you don’t give it off, not even when fighting.”

  “People fear different things, Jhon. You’re talking about fear of pain and fear of death.
I don’t fear those things for myself, it’s true. My fears are quite powerful in other areas, though, I assure you.” She ran her jewel blue eyes over him briefly. “Perhaps that knowledge will please you enough to sit and eat with me.”

  She took a seat, smoothing her dress along her body first, and indicated the seat across from her over the table. He had to admit he was surprised she offered him the distance. He had almost expected her to have the audacity to pat the chair nearest her in invitation.

  Not wanting to stand around looking indecisive, Vejhon quickly took the offered seat. He ran his eyes over the alien foods, searching for familiarity. Before he had even finished his survey, she was drawing up a curved plate and serving generous portions of meats and what looked like root vegetables smothered in glazes and sauces. Then she leaned over the table to offer him the serving. She met his eyes as he hesitated, then reached onto the plate for a round something and popped it into her mouth. She chewed and cocked a brow, again a silent challenge.

  “Not poisoned. No aphrodisiacal or stimulant drugs. Just borta, odji, and grigi meat, as well as some huss, frita, and porta roots. I chose these because…they tend to be favorites of nonindigenous people on this planet.” She grimaced. “Slaves,” she corrected herself, tilting her head and sighing. “Please, try some.”

  Vejhon took the offered plate and picked up a utensil for eating. He dug into the food as quickly as he thought his stomach could tolerate, casting increasingly curious glances at Hanna. She served him something to drink, folded a linen, and handed it to him. Then she sat down and began to serve herself.

  If he had been confused before, now he was completely mystified. What sort of master waits on her own slave? And it didn’t even look as though she’d given the act much thought. It was as comfortable on her as though she were serving an honored guest. This alien female never seemed to stop changing. She altered in aspects more often than a tumbling gemstone and he had no idea what to make of her multiple personas. If she was playing a game with him, the infrastructure of it was completely lost on him. She had laid an irrefutable roadwork of dominance earlier, and then slammed the door shut on it in the next breath.

  This is what you would have known every single day, as often in the day as your owner pleased, had you been bought by another, she’d told him.

  Which implied she would not be inclined to repeat the act often. Or at all. Vejhon was finally beginning to understand the gist of the message she and Najir had been trying to pound into his head. She would never force him to perform for her again. She would never demand his humiliation in that way again. He would not have been so lucky elsewhere, and she had made very certain he would appreciate the difference. Or so she would have him believe.

  But he was still a slave to her, damn it! If she wasn’t going to toy with him in her bed, then she had something else planned out. Vejhon forced down the twang of disappointment he felt when he realized she wasn’t interested in him as stud material for whatever reason.

  Insult, he corrected himself hastily, not disappointment. It was strictly his flawed male ego at play. He should be grateful he faced a fate other than becoming a whore. If there were levels of slavery, whoring was low on the ladder.

  “Why am I here?” he asked at last, setting his plate aside. “You say I’m a slave. What will my purpose be?”

  Hanna laid aside her utensil slowly, keeping her eyes lowered as she formulated a response that would be honest without revealing too much. “You are here because I need you. This household needs you.”

  “So you want to make me a house servant?” he bit out.

  “No, Jhon, no…” She sighed long and slowly before finally meeting his eyes. She had no idea how the frank clarity and color of her eyes impacted him. It’s why he had come to believe the things she said to him when normally he trusted no one else. “Your talents would be wasted as a house servant, Jhon. I’m not like some of these foolish women in these Houses”—she motioned toward the darkened city vaguely—“who hunt slave markets for warriors just so they have beautiful muscle waiting on them hand and foot. Your muscle has a purpose other than the way it catches my eye.”

  The statement was extremely revealing. Not just the realization that she probably wanted to use him as a warrior, but she had complimented him and admitted an appreciation for his body. It was the first proof he’d had of her interest other than what he had surmised from the stroke of her eyes.

  And that was when he realized he had begun detaching her from her actions upon his arrival in this room. She’d completed the entire performance speaking in a narrative, as if it would all take place separate and apart from her. Except, he hadn’t been listening at the time. He hadn’t been able to get past the concept of being a slave and the rage that had come with it for months, to the point where he had been self-conditioned to react with it.

  Regardless of that, he reminded himself, no matter what her intentions, it had been her orchestrating his humiliation. It had been her uninvited touch on his body. It was she who’d injected him until…

  Vejhon’s hands curled into tight fists and a storm shadowed his eyes.

  “Don’t think you can play nice with me and it will make what you did better,” he snapped abruptly. “Nothing can. And nothing can change the fact that you bought me as a slave and it is something I will detest and protest with every fiber of my being.”

  “Sweet unbelievable mercy!” she exploded in temper, surging to her feet as she paced sharply away from the table and then back again before facing him. “What will it take? Hmm? Breaking my neck as you just tried to do? Will that make you feel balanced? Will it restore your manhood against me? Tell me, what do I have to do to counter the evil I have done to you? Because believe me, I already know I owe you something for it.”

  Vejhon blinked, too stunned to do much more than stare up at her and try to absorb her tirade. Every word out of her mouth gave him power over her, and she was throwing it down before him and almost begging him to pick it up and use it against her. If she was trying to hold her position of mastery over him, she well and truly sucked at it.

  There was a kind of amusement to that, but it faded quickly when he clearly saw the light of inspiration enter her eyes. Fascinated, he watched as she marched across the room with obvious purpose.

  “Door, locked.” She announced the command aloud, and sure enough, Jhon heard bolts shoot home in the door across the way. Instantly on alert, he surged to his feet and hurried into her wake as she began detaching her hair circlets and tossing them onto the bed. Her hair unwound into a thick black cape that covered her shoulder to shoulder and brushed in sensuous little ripples down the whole of her back, thighs, and calves.

  Then she reached into that cursed chest and withdrew something quickly. She threw it at him and he fumbled to catch it as she turned her back to the wall that had held him captive.

  “What are you—?”

  He choked off his query when she reached for the hem of her dress and shucked it off in a swift motion, letting the garment fall carelessly down the sheet of her hair behind her where it hit the floor. She kicked it away from herself without hesitation. She reached for the lower length of her hair, draping that half of it over her shoulder like a fur stole, resting her back against the wall, stretching out her arms and bracing her legs.

  “Restraints, please. For a female.”

  Sure enough, restraints snapped out of the wall and locked around her wrists, her biceps, her ankles, and her thighs. They tightened, drawing her securely upright against the wall.

  Vejhon looked down at the stimulant ring she’d thrown to him, the vile thing sitting in his palm like a sleeping scorpion, just waiting to be woken so it could sting.

  “There. Now. Will this do? Measure for measure? You can do exactly what I did to you…more even, if you think it will help.”

  “Except you can give the command to release yourself whenever you like,” he said automatically, although his voice was a bit numb with continuing
disbelief over what she was trying to offer him.

  “Voiceprint restraint release, Vejhon Mach.” There was a responding beep. She cocked that brow again, the challenge ringing so clear now. “Speak your name and you will have control over the restraint release.”

  “Vejhon Mach,” he said, unable to help the impetus of the moment and the opportunity for payback it was offering.

  There was an answering beep, and without missing a beat she gave another command. “Delete restraint access for Hanna Drakoulous.”

  “Warning,” a disembodied voice replied. “Access deletion is for primary authority. Restoration of access can only be restored at central workstation. Are you sure you wish to delete primary authority access for restraints?”

  “Correct. Delete primary authority access to restraints.”

  “Deleted.” The response was punctuated with a last beep. Hanna turned her sharp blue eyes onto Vejhon.

  “The central workstation is upstairs. You now have total control over the restraints. There is nothing I can do. You have the ring as well.”

  “I also have a band around my arm, if you recall,” Vejhon retorted.

  “That prevents you doing violence to me. This isn’t violence. Do nothing with the intent to cause me dangerous harm and you will suffer no feedback. Fortunately for you, this is only a violation. Would you care to continue?”

  Jhon couldn’t believe she had done this. It was certainly too good to be true. The ruthless militant in him seethed with exultation at the commanding advantage and the opportunity to counterstrike. On the other hand, the part of him that had so recently been a victim sent a twinge of distaste running through him.