Cyberella: Preyfinders Universe (2 page)

To conceal her nervousness, she spoke. “Are we going anywhere soon? I’d rather get this –”

“Turn.” He made a circle with a finger.

Frowning, she turned. The knife was slim and sheathed, and tucked where he couldn’t see it, under the skirt.

When she was facing away, he said, “Stop.” Then he approached.

Without thought, her fists clenched. She made herself relax them. When his hands touched her waist though, she stiffened.

“Be calm. I’m just inspecting you.”

“For what?” she asked, teeth gritted.

“Weapons.”

His hands slid over her, everywhere. A man handling her like this made her jumpier than a colt but she stayed mostly still.

“You’d get worse if a true slave. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t. Be still. I have to get a little intimate.”

When he slid a hand between her thighs, she jumped again and muttered her curses under her breath, knowing what was about to happen. He found the knife where she’d tucked it upside down into the side of her underwear, pulled it free, and tossed it away. The small
smack
when it hit the stone floor echoed the drop of her heart.

“That was not good. Now I
know
I can’t trust you. Put your hands at your back so I can tie them. What’s your name, girl?”

“You don’t have to do that.” Trembling was stupid but it happened anyway.
Count. To. Ten.
She calmed. “I won’t do anything. It was just insurance.”

“Do what I said or I will make you. If you misbehave, you will endanger me as well as yourself. Now!”

Fuck.
Slowly, she put her hands behind her and felt him lash them together.

He turned her around and put his hands on her shoulders. “Your name?” While she struggled to decide whether to answer, he studied her body, her breasts even. She flushed hot but managed to hold his gaze, keeping her chin defiantly lifted. “You’re younger than I thought? Age too. Tell me both. Planet of origin. That too.” As if to lessen the aggressiveness of his questions, he paused then added, “I’m Torgeir Rakkel.”

Before she could answer, the door was blocked by another man. He entered. Three more filed in after him. All of them were big and armed with sharp things and mean glowers.

She swallowed.

“Caught her?” The first, a bearlike man with a red beard, chuckled. “I should’ve known. You were always good at tracking, Lord Rakkel.”

Lord? Torgeir Rakkel wasn’t some minor tribesman but one of their leaders. He’d be sworn to uphold the old ways. She went to step back but he only smiled and caught her arm.

If he’d lied to her, she was in trouble. So much fricking trouble.

“Yes.” He didn’t look at her though his grip tightened on her arm. “I sniffed her out, followed her hot little female trail. I’d say she’s in heat.”

The laughter from the men made her cheeks even hotter but she opened her mouth to retort.

At that, Torgeir leaned in and murmured, “Don’t talk unless you want your panties in there as a gag.”

Her eyes almost bugged out from the effort of stopping herself. How had he known?

Talking was not a good idea. Or maybe he just wanted her to think that? She still didn’t know if he’d told her a big lie to get her to surrender. Tears threatened to spill, but she held them off by force of will.

The long, embarrassing walk to the dining hall, with her hands bound and these men laughing over her plight, kept her mind swirling with fear and hope.

The journey with Duggy and the other trader, Finch, had been straightforward until they’d arrived at the Carmagga holding. Before they’d done more than climb from the cart, a horde of warriors had charged in, shooting, killing the opposing men. They’d thrown down and restrained those who didn’t resist, which had included her and the whole trading column. That was standard operating procedure when accidentally involved in native disputes. The widowed Lady Carmagga and her sister had also been captured. It was a lightning raid and she’d imagined some hostage taking and ransom, but being unrelated parties the traders should be set free.

That hadn’t happened. They’d been brought here and she’d been informed of her up-and-coming sale as a slave to some interested people with a special Earth girl order list. Hence, her escape.

This alien, Torgeir, he must be true to her. He must. Lord or not.

When they pushed open the double doors to the dining room, she faltered.

The two women were being raped, systematically from the looks of the gathered men, while held down on the tables. Though there were no screams, only grunts and moans, writhing limbs and pumping male bodies, all the usual signs of passion, the women were bound and held down. This must be rape.

She delayed, walking slowly, as bear man stalked to the head of the biggest long table and Torgeir led her onward.

Again, he whispered to her. “It’s okay. Not what it seems. This is what happens when unmated and propertied women come into the hands of men who have taken their land. Lord Kalfa has been eyeing the Carmagga lands for a decade.”

She thought of speaking but only did a fiery wide-eyed glare. Okay?

“It’s truth. Once they bondmate with a man of Kalfa’s they will be the same as married. A few days at most, statistically, then it will be done.”

Her swear words failed her.

The insufferable man smiled and shrugged. “It is the
Way
.”

Not her way. She couldn’t help watching as yet another tribesman lowered himself over one of the women and began plowing into her. That she reached up and wrapped her rope-tied hands about his neck, as if to pull him closer, was odd.

“That’s...” The rest of her angry words were cut short by Torgeir lightly slapping her face.

Shocked, she rocked on her feet, desperate to get away but her hands were tied. She tugged and twisted, only to feel the ropes at her wrists tighten.

“Panties, remember? Unless you want that to be you?” He waved at the sexual exhibition but she refused to look again. He bent until his mouth was adjacent to her ear. “Good. This is sensible. Watch and be good.”

That his warm breath on her ear had stirred her made her shudder again. She shouldn’t react so when a man had her bound. That she’d moistened below was appalling when she was in the middle of an orgy-like disaster. All she had to hope for was that an alien lord be true to his word? She was doomed.

“Now, Lord Kalfa.” Torgeir slapped her ass. “How much for her?”

“Her?” Bear man laughed and spun around to settle into a big chair at the top of the table. “Why? She’s spoken for, though I was planning on having some fun with her first.” He leaned forward and examined her thoughtfully. “I want to see if these Earth women are as good as people say they are.”

Oh crap.
He didn’t mean good at gardening. Her breaths came faster and her heart was racing too.

Torgeir clamped his hand over the back of her neck.

“This girl? Maybe. What did you say they’d pay you? Fifty thou? I’ll pay seventy.”

“No. I promised her.”

“To an outsider? Seventy-five.”

“Not enough.” The man stroked his beard. “You seem keen.”

“What do you expect? I’ve been off working as a Preyfinder for years. Now I’m free to do as I please, I please to buy and fuck women. Sell her. I will give up the Om I hold over you
and
I’ll give you seventy.”

“The Om?”

She could hear surprise in bear man’s voice. His eyebrows rose to his hairline and remained there for some seconds. The room seemed quieter too, as if a shockwave had rippled outward. An Om must be worth something to them.

This was going to work, but she’d paid over so much more than this. She tried to grace Torgeir with an extra strong glare but couldn’t turn within the arc of his hand.

At least he was doing what he’d said he would – buying her. But...what if he did desire her? The large hand at her neck, the rope at her wrists, and the pulse of blood there because he’d tied it too tightly, all these reminded her of how impossible escape would be if Torgeir turned on her.

At last Kalfa stirred and gestured. “Wrap her eyes. She has an insolent look about her. Eighty.
If
you give up the Om and you fuck her here and tell me if she’s any good.”

She should run. Torgeir seemed to sense this and his fingers clamped in.

“Eighty? No. No watching me fuck her.” Casually he pulled her over, shoved her face first onto the table, and dragged down her underwear while he kept his palm planted on her lower back. Before she’d managed to do more than gasp a few times, he was tying the panties over her eyes. “There. Now, where were we?”

Today was a day for sensible cotton panties and she’d worn black and lacy. How silly to be mortified about that – from the cool draft, it was likely she was revealing all of her private area to anyone who bothered to look.

“At eighty. You know this other man, this foreigner, he wants her bad. I think he’ll go higher.”

With his hand on her neck, Torgeir kept her pinned though now and then his finger strayed and he stroked her ear lobe. “You’d sell this succulent female to an outsider? You can’t.”

Succulent!

He slapped her ass again. Squirming only resulted in him holding her down even firmer.

“She’s mine.”

“Not yet.”

“You don’t want the Om?”

What was this Om?

The sound of her heartbeats drummed harder every second. The chair Kalfa sat in squeaked, as if he adjusted position while he thought about what to do, with her. This could not be happening.

If she told them she was almost a cyborg, Kalfa would let her go. Or he might kill her. The Sicar people hated borgs. She wasn’t one really, but he might still do it. Revulsion might make him release her or she might be killed. She didn’t
know
. The theoretical small print on their
Way
was so convoluted that no one raised outside of their system was sure of anything, one hundred percent.

Torgeir might be so disgusted he’d let her be sold too. That was the most likely result.

Ella sighed, shut her eyes beneath the cloth of her panties, feeling her lashes brush the lace, and she said nothing. Despair rose in her until it seemed her heart would wither into a knot of useless scarred flesh before this day was done.

That Kalfa hesitated was to be expected. The man knew his intent. The Om had been an honorable debt and obligation held between their two families for generations. They were friends despite it, perhaps because of it, as it had drawn them together knowing neither family would raid the other’s lands.

Without the Om holding Kalfa back, he would be free to raid. They both knew who would win.

He had nothing and no one loyal. Five of his Rakkel warriors had accompanied him off-planet, to the foreign stars and systems, to fight the war against the Bak-lal. Only he had returned. They’d stayed loyal but had died in small engagements and battles, one by one. Warrior’s deaths and none had blamed him. Though he regretted their passing, it had been their choice and they were now safe in the realms of their gods.

Being away had meant the remainder of his warriors had left his holding. Too long away, but he’d known that. Nearly half his life. The manager he’d left to take care of his lands and structures had done well, considering.

At a whimper, he glanced down at the little female laid out across the table. Well, not so little. She squirmed enticingly under his hand, reminding him of the raids of his youth when they’d taken females. A pity. He smiled to himself, imagining those times, when a captive like this would be stripped, collared, and tied to his bed at the snap of his fingers. Old ways and he was returning to the new.

Besides, she was an outsider and didn’t understand. Her shivering probably meant she was frightened but he had no way to communicate or calm her except to stroke her neck with his thumb.

He’d been looking for an honorable way to return the Om. This way both of them, he and Kalfa, retained credos. Buying her was only an excuse – one he’d pounced on when the opportunity arose. Simply giving the Om away would be despicable.

Kalfa slapped his thigh. “You’re certain of this, Torgeir? She’s worth it?”

He looked up and used Lord Kalfa’s personal name also. “Yes, Jagna. I’m certain.”

A lesser man would’ve taken the Om when first offered.

“Then I accept. Take her and go. You have a day to be clear of my lands.” He added quietly, “I am sorry to see you go.”

He inclined his head as Jagna did so. After the day had passed, anything could happen – including being attacked. “I will transfer the moneys when I reach Besk.” Both of them knew the money was trivial to Kalfa, if not to him.

His lands were empty. His true family was dead and long gone after the plague that had ripped through the outlands two decades ago. While grieving, he’d decided to join the Concer forces to fight the Bak-lal. He’d seen so much out there, on other worlds circling other suns, things that Jagna and his men would never understand unless they too ventured beyond Sicar. He’d seen things that’d opened his eyes, his mind, even his heart, he believed.

The Way had stifled him as soon as he stepped on the surface of Sicar.

He tugged the cloth from the girl’s eyes.

She turned her head to the side and whispered, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome. You’re mine now, so it’s for me to say whether your eyes are covered or not. Come.” He took his hand from the girl’s neck and encouraged her to stand, then drew her with him as he marched to the doors. The long plait of her dark hair lay across one shoulder and he stopped a second to rearrange it so it fell down her back.

Pretty. He liked how it looked there. What a good handle that would make to hold her still. Perhaps that was how her lover liked her to wear her hair.

Despite her obvious fears, she had her head up and appeared to be cataloguing everything in this room. Clever little trader. Information was knowledge to traders. Her masters should be happy, whoever they were.

When at last they exited this underground citadel of Kalfa’s and emerged into the fierceness of the sun, he paused again to inhale. Dry, dusty, hot air. One of his last breaths on this planet. He had his long bag of weapons, his clothes and sundry items, a girl he owned for a little longer, and ninety thou he hadn’t had yesterday.