I nodded. “I have been. Thought we could do some talking.” I looked for Arin in the background or somewhere near Bowman, but he wasn’t there as far as I could tell.
“About what?”
I had to keep things casual, but I also couldn’t lie to gain access to him or his home. “A few of Arin’s friends were worried about him when he left so suddenly. They asked me to check up on him. Perhaps I could take you both out to dinner?” Then I’d find a way for Bowman to invite me back to his place.
Bowman laughed. “Is that so? It’s a good lie, peacekeeper, but I think you and I both know why you’re here.”
My stomach dropped. “And why’s that?”
“The boy told me about how you wanted him, but he’d never let you. My thinking is that you realized what he’s good for when I was taking him away, and now you want some time with him to yourself. Or you want one of your own. When I got him, he was cheap. They aren’t worth much at that age, but training them isn’t hard to do at all. It’s actually far easier the earlier you get them. They break in nicely then.”
I tried to hide my disgust. “I’m sorry for the deception. That’s exactly why I’m here. He’s a slave, so if you tell him to do something, he has to right? Even if it’s being in bed with another man?” I felt like I needed a shower. Even just saying the words was enough to disgust me.
“Two hundred credits and he’s yours for an hour. He was a whore on Wish. It’s not so different here.”
“Done. When can I see him?”
Bowman laughed at my feigned eagerness. “He’s with a friend of mine until four. Any time after that is fine. No, actually. Come at six. Stay for dinner. I haven’t dined with a peacekeeper before. It might give the neighbors something new to talk about.”
“I’ll be there,” I promised him. Bowman sent me his address. “Good.” Then he was gone and I was left looking at a blank screen again. I needed to update Em and Corbin. Then I would likely go be sick.
Corbin answered the call I sent out, even though I was trying to reach Em. “What did you learn?”
“He’s here, on Solarium. He’s in Mesa too, which makes this easier. It’s worse than we thought, though. Bowman has turned him into a whore.”
Corbin pursed his lips. “Like an aspasian you mean?”
I wished I’d meant that. I shook my head. “Like an actual whore. I doubt he gets to keep any of the money he makes and he likely has no say in who he’s with. I have him for an hour tonight. It was the only way to get Bowman to agree to let me see him.”
Corbin looked murderous. “Damn your stupid code. You need to kill Bowman. Men like him….” Corbin shook his head and walked away from the holoscreen, which gave it up to Em.
“He’s too angry about all of this to be much good to anyone right now,” Em explained. He glanced back at Corbin, then returned his attention to me. I could tell he was worried about him. “I don’t blame him either. Everyone here is upset over what happened. Most of them blame you for turning him over to his master. I’ve explained that it’s the law, but you tell a bunch of guys who absolutely adored him that he’s been turned over to a man who abused him since he was twelve and it’s a wonder they didn’t form their own search party to hunt Bowman down themselves. And you. You won’t have many friends here when you get back, so be prepared to do a lot of explaining and smoothing things out before anyone here lets you back into their beds.”
I’d expected as much. “I need to go get ready for tonight so that I’m at Bowman’s on time. When I have another update for you, I’ll send you a message.”
“Good. I’ll pass along to the aspasians that you’ve found him. They’ll be happy to hear that. Monroe has been in an especially bad mood. He blames himself for not stopping you.”
He didn’t need to be doing that. “There wasn’t anything he could have done.”
Em shrugged and leaned forward, bringing him closer to the holoscreen and blocking out most of what was behind him. “I know that. You know that. But to Monroe? He feels like he’s just as guilty for what’s happening to Arin right now as Bowman is. He blames you too, though, so don’t think he’s a martyr or anything like that.”
It seemed everyone was blaming me, even though handing him over had been the only legal thing to do at the time. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Em nodded. “Keep us up to date. Bye.” He turned off the call, and I sat back. I needed to get my head in the game and think of Arin as just another man if this was going to work out for both of us tonight. My plan was to pretend that Arin was so very amazing that I needed him in my life as my own personal whore and then buy him from Bowman. If Bowman still had some kind of emotional attachment to Arin, I might have tried to talk to him and get him to see reason and get him to understand how wrong it was to keep Arin as a slave. But now that I knew he was selling him off to his friends to use, I was sure that conversation wouldn’t have done either of us any good. It might have even pissed Bowman off and ruined any chance I had of using my backup plan of simply buying Arin for myself. If that plan didn’t work, though, I didn’t have a third option. Em had been right. I wasn’t going to be able to kill Bowman for what he’d done to Arin, because none of it was illegal. I hated that about myself right then.
RIGHT ON time I was at Bowman’s doorstep. I was freshly showered, shaved, and had changed into some clothes that were easy for me to work in.
When Bowman opened the door, he eyed the neutralizer at my hip. “Are you planning to use that tonight?”
“Only if I need to.”
Bowman smiled at me. “I’ve never known someone who would use a neutralizer during sex. That’s interesting. Well, come inside. We’re having a light dinner of cheeses and meats, along with some sweet wine I bought down the street at the market earlier today.”
“Will Arin be joining us for dinner?” I asked him as I followed him inside his immense home. I tried to keep my question casual.
“No. I gave him a round of sedatives already. He should be ready for you in a half hour or so. And before you start to question my ways, believe me, you want that boy to be medicated. It was much easier to keep him under than to keep him tied up at all times, though I’ve had to do that sometimes too. It’s a wonder anyone was able to get him to behave at all on Wish. I have no idea how it was done.”
I didn’t mention that Arin had always had a choice within Asiq of who he would be with and when. I was fairly certain that it wouldn’t have helped matters in any way.
We sat down to dinner at a dining table that could have seated fifteen. I dutifully drank my wine and tried to pretend I was looking forward to having Arin for myself for an hour. “Are there any rules when being with him?”
Bowman waved his fork at me while he continued to loudly chew his food. “You can’t actually hurt him. No broken bones or the like. And you can’t try to kill him. Other than that, I don’t much care. A slap or two here and there is good for him, I think. He needs to learn that there are consequences for what he did when he ran away, and being nice to him isn’t going to get that done.”
I tried to keep eating after that, but I was quickly failing. I wanted no part in this, and I hated that every piece of what Bowman was doing to Arin was all absolutely, completely legal and there was nothing that I, or any other peacekeeper, could do to stop him. I wanted Em’s code right about then. As a bounty hunter, his rules were much looser than mine when it came to who he could and could not kill. I envied him that luxury while I sat there next to Arin’s rapist and thought of all the ways I could shove my fork through his neck and make him bleed out on his expensive-looking carpet.
“It’s time,” Bowman said.
I pulled out the credit chip without a word. He checked it on his holoscreen, and then he gave me a nod. It was all there. He’d been paid for my hour with Arin. “He’s upstairs. First door on your right. Remember what I said. Don’t break him. If he starts to wake up and give you trouble, let me know, and I’ll dose him again.”
“Yes. Go on now.”
I hurried upstairs. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find there, but a naked, semiconscious, Arin, who was bound at the wrists by rope wasn’t it. His eyes were barely open as I closed the door behind myself.
He started to turn over, as if he knew what was coming and this had always been programmed into him, but I wrapped a blanket around him and held him still. “Arin? Are you awake enough to recognize me?”
He slowly nodded. The movement was jerky as if he had very little control over his own body. “Resan. Here to fuck me.” He started to wiggle out of the blanket, but I stopped him with a firm hand on his hip.
“No, here to save you,” I corrected him.
He sighed and went still under my hand. “No saving. Not anymore. Make noise, or he’ll know.”
I looked away from him as I started bouncing on the bed in what might have been a rhythm similar to sex. Not any that I’d ever had, but the noises only had to fool Bowman. “Are you okay?”
Arin closed his eyes completely, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to answer my question. I’d been stupid to ask him that anyway. He definitely wasn’t doing well there. No one would be.
I continued to bounce on the bed. I felt ridiculous as Arin lay there motionless next to me and I made noises that I hoped would pacify Bowman. I didn’t want him coming up to investigate and find me still completely dressed.
“I will get you out of here,” I promised him.
When Arin opened his eyes again, he was able to actually focus on me. “You’re the reason I’m here at all.”
I nodded. I knew I was. “I’m sorry.”
Arin shrugged and sat up. Even though his hands were bound, he managed to get the blanket around his lap. Then he started moaning. He didn’t sound fake at all. Or even like he’d practiced these sounds. He sounded like he’d been having sex for so long and often enough that he knew exactly what he sounded like when he was in bed with someone. It made me blush to hear those noises coming out of him. He seemed unfazed as he picked at his fingernails.
“Grunt or something. Act like you’re coming,” Arin quietly told me.
I looked away from him as I faked those noises. When I turned back to him, Arin looked like he was trying not to laugh. “I don’t have a lot of practice fake coming.” I stopped bouncing on the bed. If we were supposed to be done having sex, then I didn’t need to pretend to be screwing him anymore.
“Clearly.” He got up from the bed, and I looked at the wall instead of at him. “You can look,” he said. “My body is no longer my own. It’s just a thing, and I have no more modesty.”
His words made me angry. “Because of what was done to you.”
He shrugged. “If a man rapes a boy, he’ll be charged. If a man rapes a slave, no one cares. The slave puts up with it because they know eventually their service will be over. If a man marries his slave to keep him as his property forever and then rapes him nearly every day for years, no one cares until that slave gets away. I was supposed to be free at fifteen. Ten years of service is what my parents sold me into. I was married six months into being Bowman’s property. Slaves can’t consent to being married. I wasn’t even permitted to sign the documents.”
I could only hang my head in shame. I’d victimized him all over again by giving him back to Bowman. “I’m sorry.”
“When he asks you about your time with me, and he will, tell him I was mostly unconscious. He doesn’t know that I built up a tolerance to his serum even before I ran away. Now it hardly has any effect at all.”
Which meant that he was aware of everything that was done to him. “I will get you out of here.”
Arin sat back down on the bed next to me. Then he stretched out in much the same position as he had been when I’d come in. He looked relaxed, despite the tension I could see in the lines of his face.
“No, you won’t. You won’t kill him or allow him to be killed, so you won’t do anything but go back to Asiq and leave me here. Eventually either he will die or I will, and then it will be over for me.”
He turned on his side, and I touched the little scar at the base of his spine. It was rough and obviously not done with precision or skill. “I fought back with it,” Arin quietly explained. “We have prehensile tails. I fought back the first time he tried to rape me. Having my tail cut off hurt more than anything else he’s done to me or allowed anyone else to do to me since then. It was the beginning of the end for me.”
I rubbed his back, and he closed his eyes. He evened out his breathing as I heard someone coming up the stairs. I messed up my clothing a bit and hoped I looked like I’d just had sex as Bowman came into the room without knocking. Arin had far more practice at this than me. He appeared to be completely unconscious.
“How was he?” Bowman asked me.
“Good. I want to buy him off you.”
Bowman laughed. “You couldn’t afford him.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “Try me.”
“Two hundred thousand credits.”
I knew Arin’s freedom was worth it. But I also knew that I didn’t have anywhere near that total on me. I might be able to get it, but it would take me a few days and a lot of borrowing from friends.
“I can’t afford that.”
Bowman grinned at me. “I know. You had your fun with him, though, and I’m sure he was worth it. Now get out.”
“What if I could get that much to you later this week?” I tried.
Bowman hesitated. He frowned as he looked down at Arin and then back to me. “Three hundred by the end of the week and he’s yours.”
That was easily more than his house was worth, and it was one of the nicest that I’d seen on Solarium. “A minute ago it was two hundred,” I grumbled.
“Yes but now you’re making me wait to get paid. Three hundred thousand by the end of the week, and the boy’s yours. I can afford to get ten more slaves, younger and prettier than him with that many credits. I would suggest you do the same. He’s not worth that much. But you seem infatuated with him for some reason, so that’s his price. Take it or leave it.”
I rested my hand on Arin’s hip. “I’ll take it. How will I know that he won’t be harmed between now and then?”
Bowman shrugged. “You could stay here with us. If you have half now, I’ll keep it as a deposit and not rent him out until you have the other half.”
I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t have even that much on me right now because it meant that Arin would have to endure another few days of this abuse and torture. “I don’t have that either, but I’ll get you the full amount by the end of the week.”
“It’s a deal, then. Now you may leave.”
I patted Arin’s hip, then showed myself out. I needed to talk to Em, Corbin, Monroe, and everyone else I knew. I needed to call in more than a few favors too if I was going to be able to get that much money together in time. There was no other option, though. I tried not to think of other boys being put in Arin’s same situation once he was gone. I couldn’t let my mind go there. I had to focus on getting Arin out and not on what else was happening around that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Arin
“THE PEACEKEEPER wants you,” Bowman told me that night as he got dressed and I lay on filthy sheets and pretended none of it mattered. “Though I have no idea why that would be. Do you?”
Being asked a direct question was rare, and I didn’t have a good answer for him. “Not at all. He certainly had his choice of aspasians back in Asiq.” He’d been through most of them too.
“Whores,” Bowman corrected me. We were more than that. I had been more than that, once. An aspasian was a companion. We did more than just have sex. We danced with our clients. We held them. We listened to their jokes and their depressing stories about the family members they’d lost touch with, and we wou
ld tell them to try to reach out again if they wanted to have them back in their lives. That used to be my job. The sex was part of it, but not all of it. As a whore, all I was good for was sex. Bowman’s reminder hurt, but it was only one more cut of a knife against my already deeply scarred skin. One more cut didn’t matter any more than the last one did. There was no use getting upset about it.
“A whore,” I agreed with him, because I was expected to. Agreeing with him was a matter of survival. I told him he was right. I kissed him when he wanted to be kissed. I had sex with him, and I moaned, and I didn’t fight his friends when they were with me too. I wanted to be free, but I wasn’t ready to die for my freedom, and I knew there was only so much I would be able to get away with if I ever did decide to fight back. I wasn’t twelve anymore, but I wasn’t a match for him in strength either. I was still too soft, too weak. I was still a slave with an ingrained need to obey my master at all costs. It was a lesson I’d learned as a small child, and it stuck with me even now. I’d been an aspasian once. I’d had choices once. I’d had friends, and I’d enjoyed sex for the first time in my life in Asiq. Bowman had been able to erase all of that so quickly.
“You’ll come to the market with me tomorrow. Help me pick out your replacements. I think I’ll start with two this time and build up from there. You all wear out so quickly, but with two I could keep them fresh, and when they had to be rested, I could always come back and see you. Would you like that, my little whore?” Bowman asked me. He ran his hand down my throat, pressing his thumb into my windpipe just enough to remind me that I was his and he could do what he wanted with me. If he wanted me dead, I would be. If he wanted to lay my body across his front yard for everyone in Mesa to see, that would be fine too. Killing me was technically illegal, but no one would have bothered to come after Bowman for that. I was a slave. I had no rights, and I should have forgotten what freedom meant a long time ago.
I nodded numbly and tried not to think about the children he would be bringing there to be with him. I would see them, though. Until he killed me or sold me, I would be around them. I would hear their screams, and I would see their tears. I remembered those first few nights. I’d been so afraid, and Bowman had been nice at first. I’d been given sweets. I knew now that those small gifts were there to make sure I wouldn’t fight back as much. They were supposed to buy the little parts of me that he took at first. A kiss that lingered too long. A hug that should never have happened. I was a child needing comfort and security, and he preyed on that as any predator would. And now he was in the market for more children, just as weak and vulnerable as I was.
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