Highest Bidder: 1 (Mercy)

by Lexxie Couper

  No! he cries, reaching for her. You can’t. His hands slip through the misty shape she’s rapidly becoming and his heart screams. No.

  Naya’s lips feather his own, a final kiss. A gentle farewell.

  I must, and you understand why. It is one of the reasons I love you, and one of the reasons you love me.

  Naya! he calls, desperate to hold her to him, but she’s just a wisp. Smoke. Particles of reality floating in a dream. Naya, no!

  My soul, the wind whispers.

  My heart, the blades of grass cry.

  Dreylan drops to his knees, the soil hard and brutal. He looks for his love.

  But she is…

  Gone.

  Dreylan sat up, the sheets of his sleeping station tangled around his legs. He peered into the darkness of his rental unit, his heart already knowing what his eyes were learning.

  Naya Kistara was gone.

  Chapter Six

  “Blowjob to blow your mind,” the Slessorian hooker covered in poorly inked tattoos called from her service booth. “Special offer for you, cowboy, two orgasms for the price of one.”

  Dreylan ignored her, and everyone else on Level 7. He had to find Naya. Now.

  He pushed through the crowd. Or rather, the crowd melted away from him. Which was a good thing. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with fuckwits.

  An image of Naya, as insubstantial as mist, flashed through his head and he scowled.

  Dream invaders didn’t have dreams the way other beings did. For invaders, dreams were meant to be entered, not experienced. But not for Dreylan. And he had never spoken of his erotic dreams of Naya. That he was able to dream at all would be viewed as an abnormality. He’d heard of others of his kind having their minds invaded and wiped by the Ezilian government for merely mentioning the possibility of experiencing a personal dream. The horrific fate of those invaders was a cautionary tale with a profound lesson—one did not confess to dreaming without invasion unless one wanted his mind utterly destroyed.

  Dreylan had been half convinced the dream memories of Naya were the product of an over-traumatized mind. The things he had done inside other people’s heads…the mental exertion it took to work such malevolent chaos… It would not have surprised him if his dreams were the first signs of his failing sanity.

  Until he’d seen Naya standing on the dais in the slave markets, that was.

  And now Naya—the woman of dreams he never should have experienced—had left him.

  He clenched his fists, his knuckles popping at the brutal pressure. His dream of her last night still haunted him. She’d told him that she hadn’t changed, but was that true? Why would it be? Why wouldn’t she change?

  For the same reason you dreamt about her? Twin souls? Soul mates?

  He didn’t know. Riephia lore was lost to time and Old Earth’s self-destruction, yet an itch of doubt niggled at his consciousness. If she had changed, would she know it? And wouldn’t his ideal mate be the type of person to put the needs of the many over the needs of herself?

  If that was the case, wouldn’t Naya feel compelled to fulfill her duties as New Earth’s emissary? Wouldn’t she deliver herself to Ipari to be his bride, as the GU contract specified? Dreylan’s ideal mate would sacrifice herself for those weaker than she, those who were vulnerable and most in need of help.

  Is that what was happening now? Had Naya transformed into everything he wanted, only to believe she must give herself to another?

  A growl tore from his throat and he balled his fists.

  Gods, he was going insane. He needed clarity, confirmation where none could be had.

  He needed answers.

  He needed to find Naya. Not just to crush her body to his and make her scream with pleasure, but to get those answers.

  “Tar—”

  He pulled his blaster and leveled it at the man blocking his path before his name finished barking from the man’s lips.

  “For fuck’s sake, Tarq!” Mak held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t fucking vaporize me yet, okay?”

  Returning his weapon to its holster, Dreylan glared at his ex-partner. “What are you doing here, Mak?”

  “Premier Ipari sent me to find out the status of your purchase.”

  “Bullshit. For you to be here now, you’d have had to leave the premier’s office only a few hours after I did.”

  Mak grinned sheepishly. “Yeah.”

  Dreylan ground his teeth. “Ipari really is a bastard.”

  “Yeah. And that sub-orbital wanker really doesn’t trust you.” He chuckled. “Wonder why?”

  With a grunt, Dreylan pushed past Mak, continuing to the docking bays. Naya no doubt was trying to procure a flight off Port Mercy. He had to stop her.

  “So, where’s the riephia?” Mak asked, jogging to catch up.

  A ghost of an image flickered through Dreylan’s head—Naya fading to wispy smoke. He fixed his stare on the looming docking stations and kept walking.

  “Where is she, Tarq?”

  “Why?”

  “I have to take her back to the premier.”

  Dreylan barked a mirthless laugh, shooting his ex-partner a look. “You honestly think you can take something from me I’m not willing to give?”

  Mak grinned. “No.”

  “So why are you really here?”

  “Hey, if my old partner’s about to declare war on the premier of the free worlds, I want to be on the winning side.”

  “What makes you think I’m declaring war?”

  Mak’s smile grew gleeful. Malicious. “Aren’t you?”

  Dreylan didn’t answer. He continued to the docking bay, Mak following like a faithful Felinia. A quick check of the docking platform’s vessel logs confirmed Dreylan’s gut fear. Naya was gone. On a Falcon-class ship piloted by one Kylun Echo, heading for GU quadrant 1 alpha. Batrium Nuun’r Prime. GU Headquarters.

  Which could only mean she was heading for Ipari’s offices.

  Fuck.

  The sharp buzz of Mak’s com bit into Dreylan’s building agitation. He turned to the Terran and scowled again. His ex-partner pulled the small device from his jacket and studied the encrypted display, a frown pulling at his eyebrows. He lifted his head. “The SOB is wanting an update.”

  Dreylan’s lips pulled away from his teeth in an empty smile. “Let’s give him one.”

  He strode through the docking level, reaching his ship before Mak did. The gangway lowered and he climbed aboard, sitting at Fier’strom’s com station. “Ipari still maintains his personal link?” he asked, not needing to look over his shoulder to know his ex-partner had joined him in the cockpit.

  “Yeah.”

  Dreylan nodded. “Good.” He activated the long-range com. Static crackled through the connection for a sharp burst, followed by a voice he knew and despised so deeply.

  “Who the fuck is this?”

  “You know, Ipari, for a man of such high office, you really sound like a half-breed Zondarian.”

  “Where’s my bride, Tarq?”

  “Naya is not your anything, Premier.”

  The man laughed, the sound smug. “So the merciless Dreylan Tarq has fallen in love. Or is it lust? Regardless, the riephia is mine, and you will hand her over to Peace-Keeper Wylsen immediately.”

  “Don’t you want to know what I learned in her dreams, Ipari?”

  Silence followed his question. Stretched through the infinite reaches of space for a moment before… “Tell me.”

  “I learned you’re a power-hungry bastard.”

  “I thought you knew that already, friquc.”

  Dreylan smirked. “There’s an old Ezilian saying. A friquc is so named by one even lower.”

  “Where is my bride, Tarq?” the premier snapped, irritation strangling his words.

  “A true leader wouldn’t blackmail an entire race to save a vulnerable planet, Ipari,” Dreylan snarled. “A true man wouldn’t need a riephia to stroke his pride either. I’m giving you one chance to do the right thing. Approve New
Earth’s inclusion in the GU without enslaving their riephia.”

  “Why the fuck would I do that? I gain another planet to contribute to the GU’s coffers—which I have complete access to, by the way—and a wife who will become exactly what I want the second I stick my dick in her cunt. What man doesn’t lust for a woman who meets his every desire?”

  Dreylan narrowed his eyes, an icy calm falling over him. “Approve the petition, Ipari, without Naya, or you will regret it.”

  Ipari laughed, a genuinely surprised sound. “What are you going to do to me, Tarq? Oh, I’m so scared I’m pissing myself.” He snorted with contempt. “There’s nothing you can do. There is nothing anyone can do to me. I’m the premier of the GU.”

  “There’s plenty I can do. One last chance.”

  The man laughed again. “You’re as impotent as a New Earth eunuch, Tarq. I took your wife, your job, your reputation. You couldn’t uncover proof of a relationship between me and the Mentuans before I destroyed your career. How do you propose to harm me now?”

  Dreylan flicked Mak a quick look. His ex-partner stood beside him, one hand resting on his blaster, the other on the com link’s activation button, his eyes unreadable. “I don’t need proof to know what you’re capable of. You allowed the Mentuans to enter GU space,” he said. “You allowed them to kill everyone aboard Aimyl’s shuttle.”

  “An unfortunate accident,” Ipari said, the indifference in his voice making the statement all the more hideous. “My campaign for the office of premier was expensive. I made sure the peace-keepers stayed away from certain sectors and the Mentuans agreed to pay me a small commission on any ‘product’ they procured in GU space. Aimyl wasn’t meant to be aboard that vessel. The raid wasn’t meant to turn violent. ’Tis a pity. I had so looked forward to fucking your wife.”

  Dreylan’s icy calm almost cracked. He clenched his fists, imagining the man’s neck under his fingers. “You deserve to suffer.”

  A smug chuckle wafted through the com-link. “Maybe, but I won’t. Now hurry up and give the riephia to that fat fuck Wylsen before I give the order to blow Spaceport Mercy out of the sky.”

  “You won’t want her anymore. She’s no longer a virgin.”

  There was a static-filled pause. And then, “Good. I can’t think of anything better than fucking the woman forever imprinted as yours. There’s a sense of destiny being fulfilled.”

  Like Death claiming a soul, Dreylan smiled. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Ipari.”

  He killed the com link, a tingling tension spreading through his body. Turning to Mak, he gave the peace-keeper a steady look. “Did you get that?”

  Mak nodded. “Every word. Recorded for prosterity.”

  Dreylan’s jaw bunched. “Good. How long until nightfall on Batrium Nuun’r Prime?”

  Mak gave the PDA on his wrist a quick scan. “Half a solar cycle. Why?”

  “You know that war you mentioned?”

  Mak nodded again.

  “It’s about to begin.”

  * * * * *

  He lifts his head, staring into the mirror. The face staring back at him is his own, Pretorik Ipari, but somehow not his own. The wind assaults his face like fingers of ice, delving into his cheek, his eye sockets, slipping into his mouth, down his throat…and a skull stares back at him from the mirror, a grinning skull with flayed flesh and weeping—

  He blinks, looking at himself again. No skull, no skin hanging from stark white bones in bloody flaps. His gut twists. Odd.

  Turning from the mirror, he crosses his office, approaching the bed under the far window. Someone is lying on it, stretched out straight beneath a sheet.

  A moan fills the silence, soft and throaty. His heart quickens and his skin prickles. He knows that moan…

  Except the last time he heard it, the sound was pleasure-filled. Now it sounds like death.

  His feet continue to move him to the bed, one footfall after another. The thumping of his heart turns to a deafening canon and he tries to stop. He doesn’t want to see who’s on the bed.

  Another moan licks at his ear, the sound dry and fluid at once. Like blood trapped in breath. His feet continue to move, taking him closer to the bed, to the corpse…

  Gods yes, it’s a corpse. It’s decaying and rotten—

  It’s Aimyl, the person waiting for him beneath the sheet.

  Pretorik.

  The bloodstained sheets billow from the bed and he catches a glimpse of the corpse stretched on the slab.

  Aimyl. Beautiful, alive Aimyl reaches for him. Tarq’s wife reaches for him and her flesh is dead. Rotting.

  Come fuck me, Pretorik. I’m waiting for you.

  His throat clamps shut and he tries to stop walking, but his feet won’t let him. They keep moving, one footfall after another. Forcing him closer, closer. The stench of death sinks into his lungs, death and ozone. The screams of a thousand dying slaves stab at his ears and he flinches. Disruptor flashes blind him and shadows writhe away from the pyre, sliding against his face, clammy fingers of nothingness that seek his heat, revealing she who awaits.

  Rotting flesh. Bloated. Charred and stripped of life.

  Pretorik, the soft, husky voice calls from full lips glossed in fresh blood as the shadows claim the bed. Pretorik. My cunt waits for you. Come stick your cock in my pus-filled—

  He opens his mouth. He needs to get away. He needs…he needs…

  He needs to stick his cock in her dead, weeping sex and—

  Pretorik?

  Aimyl Tarq steps out from the shade of the ancient Ioki tree, the twin Mendovian suns streaming through her hair, turning the thick honey tresses into a golden cloud. A small frown pulls at her eyebrows, turns her beautiful face to a picture of haunting perfection. What is wrong, Pretorik? she asks, walking to him through the long grass, her flesh hanging from her face in flaps, her eyeballs dangling from their sockets on ropes of veins and arteries. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.

  She slips her arms around his waist and snuggles into his body, her coldness seeping into him. The distant chirps of the crik-crak beetles tickle his senses. He smiles, pulling in a deep breath, enjoying the woman’s softness. His cock twitches. As soon as he can convince her to leave that fucking Ezilian she’s married to, he’ll fuck her. He’d hoped she would spread her legs for him today but all that the romantic, isolated picnic has achieved so far was a stiff cock and throbbing balls.

  He grabs her ass and hauls her closer to his body, dropping his head to the delectable curve of her shoulder and kissing the smooth skin there. She tastes rotten, and his cock twitches again. He charts a path up her neck with his lips, tracing the shell of her ear with the tip of his tongue, nipping at her earlobe with his teeth.

  Aimyl giggles and squirms against his body, rubbing her glorious breasts to his chest and her pussy to his burning erection.

  He chuckles. She is a prick-tease and he loves it.

  He grinds his cock to the soft curve of her mons, sucking harder on her neck.

  He doubts Tarq ever made her feel so fucking horny.

  She buries her fingers in his hair, into his scalp, the fleshless digits drilling into his skull as she moans, the sound dry and fluid at once. Like blood trapped in breath.

  His tongue rolls over her neck, peeling away a layer of putrid skin, filling his mouth with her decaying flesh…

  And he is in the office again, staring at the shape on the bed, hidden by the sheets and shadows.

  No, not a bed. A pyre. A funeral pyre. Why is he looking at a hidden body on a funeral pyre?

  Pretorik, the shape beneath the bloodstained sheets calls, arms lifting under the shroud, reaching for him. Pretorik Ipari. Come stick your fat, flaccid cock in my—

  He blinks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Frowns at the small fleck of red on his cheek. What is it? He lifts his fingers to his face and scratches at the small spot. How did he get blood on his face? Why are his fingers gouging into his—

  Pretorik. The body shifts on
the bed and a wave of putrescence assaults him. The sheets billow on the icy wind, wind that feels like fingers sinking into his eyes, forcing him to look at the charred chunk of flesh and shattered bone, singed hair and rotting skin.

  You fucking killed me, Pretorik!

  The naked woman rises from the slab…bed…pyre…bloated eyeballs drooping against flayed cheekbones, bare breasts full and heavy and delectable. Blood trickles from each nipple, twin lines of red oozing over the flatness of the corpse’s belly, slipping over the sallow curve of her sex.

  He stares at the dead woman’s cunt and, gods no, his prick grows hard.

  You want to fuck me, Pretorik Ipari? Aimyl walks toward him, naked and decaying, stinking of death and sex. You want to fuck me? She rakes her nails over her glorious body, up her belly, over her breasts, gouging into her flesh. Then fuck me now—

  The Mentuan slaver grins, the glob of freshly spat saliva glistening on the palm of his outstretched hand. Done. For every item captured in GU space, you will earn ten thousand credits.

  The spit squishes against his flesh, as if alive and vile. His stomach churns at the clammy fingers of Tarq’s wife caressing his balls. He smiles back at the Mentuan. Ten thousand credits per slave? Nothing will stop his campaign now. Now he will become premier and—

  Fuck me, Pretorik.

  Aimyl presses her lush body to his, smiling, the sun sparkling in her eyes. As soon as I leave Dreylan, we won’t have to be satisfied with just foreplay. I’ll let you fuck me, Pretorik.

  She stretches up onto tiptoe and presses her lips to his, and she tastes of death and betrayal and his future.

  Gods, he wants her. Like nothing else. Wants to put her fucking husband in his fucking place. How dare Tarq not bow to his superiority?

  How dare he!

  The Mentuan slaver raises his glass of mulled wine and smirks over its rim. You will be rich, Ipari. Rich enough to buy anything you want.

  He only wants one thing. To put Dreylan Tarq in his place. To seduce his wife away from him and fuck them both, one with his dick, one with his power. Yes, he wants—

  Aimyl slides her body against his, arms wrapping around his waist, imprisoning him in her embrace.