Highest Bidder: 1 (Mercy) (2 page)

He crossed the room without another word, taking up watch against the opposite wall.

She closed her eyes, forcing her heart to return to its normal pace. Gods, what was she going to do? What
could
she do? He’d left her untouched, but who knew what the slaver would do the next time he entered the room.

She’d led a sheltered life. Growing up in the Temple of the Gods, spending every day being prepared to be the perfect wife by eunuchs who both revered and reviled her. Through no fault or plan of her own, she was a creature born to a sexual destiny, raised by men who chose to destroy their sexual ability.

And despite being unspoiled, she knew what sex was.
Oh yes…

Since reaching adolescence, she’d dreamed every night of a man who introduced her to a rapturous bliss she couldn’t fathom but hungered for nonetheless. A man with smoldering eyes who entered her dreams and made her scream and cry with pleasure by just the touch of his hands and mouth and tongue.

Yes, she knew what sex was. And she had no illusions—what the Mentuan slaver might do to her would
not
be sex. Not even close.

Don’t think about it, Naya.

She forced her body to relax. Focusing on negative possibilities wouldn’t achieve anything.

Relax. Compose. Control…

The mantra from her lonely childhood wafted through her turbulent mind and she felt her muscles begin to loosen.
Relax. Compose. Control…

She sank to the floor, heavy waves of numbness rolling over her.
Relax. Compose. Control…

Her heart slowed.

Her breaths grew even.

Relax. Compose. Control…

Her head drooped forward and…

Warm hands smooth up her back, heating her chilled flesh with slow, gentle care. She shifts, moving her head a little. The hands find their way to her shoulders, massaging the knots of muscles there before skimming up the curve of her neck and tangling in her hair.

She sighs.

A low hum sounds on the edge of the darkness, soft and constant.

Fingers tug gently on her thick tresses and she shifts again, letting her head loll forward. Warm lips find her neck, charting a slow path up to the sensitive dip at the base of her skull. She shivers, the action pinching her nipples into rock-hard tips of wanting flesh. She skims her fingers over them, shuddering at the jolts of tension charging through her at the slight contact. Immediately the lips on her neck join her fingers, nibbling and playing not only with her nipples but the entire swell of each breast. First one, then the other. He eases her onto her back and then teeth join the exploration, teeth and a tongue, wet and hot.

Naya moans, the sound like a siren’s call in the silence of the night. The mouth on her body pauses before slipping down to her navel, mapping the curve of her rib cage, the flatness of her belly, as it goes.

Outside, in the black nothingness, the low hum grows louder.

She sucks in a swift breath, knowing her lover will not stop at her navel. He never does. Her sex grows wet and heavy with anticipation and she lifts her hips, eager for his mouth to find her swollen pussy lips.

He raises his head and looks at her with piercing blue eyes. Eyes the color of an ancient Terran glacier. But it is fire that burns in their depths, desire. He smiles, a grin that shouts his intention seconds before he slides his hands up her thighs and dips his fingers into her cunt.

She arches, her cry echoing in the silence.

Yet even her cry is soft compared to the hum. The hum growing louder. Louder…

Her lover plunges his fingers in deeper, wriggling them, twisting. He strokes the sweet spot within the wet walls of her sex and Naya gasps, but all she hears is the hum.

A thumb finds her clit, rolling over it, teasing. Liquid tension claims the lower half of her body, setting it afire. The soles of her feet tingle. Her sex constricts, a wicked spasm that makes her heart race and her mouth go dry. She grinds her cunt to her lover’s hand, staring into his oh so blue eyes. Something is happening. A wave of exquisite torment is building within her core. She can barely breathe. Gods, what’s happening to her?

Her lover’s lips move, but his words are lost to the hum—now a roar. Mechanical. Powerful. Frightening. He smiles, teeth flashing, before slowly lowering his head to the junction of her thighs. His tongue licks the outer edges of her damp folds and she shudders, another cry escaping.

The hum devours it. The humming sound of the engine devours everything.

Except her.

Her
lover
devours her. His tongue on her sex,
in
her sex, lapping and licking and laving.

The wave rolls through every inch of her body. She opens her mouth to beg her lover to take her, claim her.

The thrumming engine steals her plea, but he hears her all the same.

He rises from between her legs, looms over her, his cock long and thick and dripping with pre-cum. Desire glows in his eyes. He spreads her legs wider, teasing her clit with his thumb, spreading her creamy juices over her sex. Readying her to be filled.

He aligns his rigid shaft to her weeping sex. He opens his mouth and all she hears is the growing roar, the humming roar, the inescapable roar of the ship’s engines.

Naya jerked awake, both fear and pleasure assaulting her flushed body.

She looked up at her wrists, the consuming warmth of the all too familiar erotic dream shattered by the sight of the metal bindings still keeping her on her feet. Still keeping her imprisoned.

She bit back a sob. She wasn’t writhing in ecstasy. Wasn’t in her dream lover’s arms. She was still aboard the slave ship.

“Interesting dream,
riephia
?” a voice growled. “Care to share?”

Naya started, fury hot in her veins. She raised her head, glaring at the hulking Mentuan watching her from the far wall. “Release me, Taipyr, and I’ll show you what a
nightmare
feels like.”

The Mentuan chuckled. “I have to admit, I’m tempted. The battle alone would be worth the scars I’m sure you’d cause.”

Incensed rage rolled through Naya but she held Taipyr’s stare. “I would rip your throat out before you had the chance to touch me again.”

Taipyr laughed. “Maybe,” he murmured. “But what a way to die.” He crossed to the door, his footfalls thumping on the metal floor like the beat of a death knell. The door slid open and he turned, casting her a malicious glare. “We dock at Port Mercy in five clicks. I’d say get ready, but trust me, nothing could possibly ready you for what awaits.”

Dreylan stormed into the premier’s office, Mak almost running at his side to keep up. The premier—the biggest bastard in the known systems, by Dreylan’s reckoning—sat behind a desk roughly the size of a star cruiser, smug expression firmly in place.

Dreylan smirked. The premier’s features may have projected arrogant confidence, but his eyes projected something entirely different. Agitated apprehension.

Dreylan cocked an eyebrow. “Good to see you’re still scared of me, Ipari. Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Tarq,” Mak hissed, puffing to a stop beside him before the premier’s desk.

Pretorik Ipari scowled. “Don’t worry, peace-keeper. I’m quite used to Tarq’s lack of respect.” He turned his flat, mud-brown gaze to Dreylan. “Just as civil as always, I see. No wonder Aimyl left you.”

Anger simmered through Dreylan. He curled his fists tightly, controlling it. Just.

“Not as poised and unflappable as you look, are you, Tarq?”

Dreylan leveled a glare at the GU’s premier. “Not even close, Ipari.”

Pretorik stared at him, a slight twitch tugging at the corner of his left eye.

You should be nervous, you gutless prick
, Dreylan thought.
Very nervous.

Tense silence stretched between them, Ipari’s eyelid twitching more with each heavy second. Dreylan snorted with disgust.
Fuck this.
He’d had enough. He turned his back on the ruler of the known systems and began to stride from the room, Mak’s exasperated groan the only sound to be heard.

“Tarq.” The premier’s voice cracked the tension. “I have a proposition for you.”

Dreylan didn’t slow his pace. “Not interested.”

“I will return your service record.”

Dreylan continued to the door.

“I’ll return your record and position. I’ll give you back what you lost.”

Dreylan balled his fists. Hate and agony and rage consumed him, painting vivid images in his mind of a once happy marriage, lost to a man drunk on power and envious lust. “I’m not interested in what I’ve lost,” he threw over his shoulder, low and emotionless. “Nor in anything you can offer me.”

“Accept my proposition, or I’ll release the truth about the famous Dreylan Tarq over the uni-com service. How the decorated GU peace-keeper lost his sanity upon learning his wife was leaving him and butchered her aboard a short-range shuttle… Her and every one of the forty passengers also aboard the transport at the time.”

“Premier!”
Mak gasped. “That’s an outright lie!”

“Maybe. But that one little…story…would turn Tarq from the most idolized peace-keeper in the GU systems to the most wanted. He’d be dead within a day.”

“Jesus, Tarq!” Mak burst out. “Do the job. For the love of gods, just do it. If you don’t, you’re a dead man.”

Dreylan stared at the door, detached calm embracing him. “I already
am
a dead man, Mak. I died the second my wife betrayed me.”

Mak’s eyes grew frantic as he hurried over to where Dreylan paused just inside the room. “Do you really want to die before you make Ipari pay?” he muttered, the words almost inaudible. The worry in his eyes turned cold and he flicked a surreptitious glance at the premier. “You know what I’m talking about, Tarq.” His wrapped his fingers around Dreylan’s biceps, his stare hard. Pointed. “Do you really want to die before
true
justice is served?”

Dreylan studied his ex-partner, the man’s hate for his boss potent. Even before Aimyl’s death, Dreylan had long suspected Pretorik Ipari of having a secret relationship with Mentuan slavers. A suspicion, it seemed, Mak shared.

“Do you?” Mak ground out.

Chest tight, Dreylan turned, fixing the premier with a flat look. “You have five minutes, Ipari. Tell me what you want. And why you’re so eager for me to be the one to do it.”

* * * * *

“She’s New Earth’s emissary in their quest for inclusion in the Galactic Union.”

Pretorik’s words echoed in Dreylan’s head as he strode past the crowded slave markets on Level 7 of Port Mercy.
“Our intel has concluded the Mentuans were paid by those not wanting Earth to come under the protection of the GU, including New Earth–New Planet, a rebellious faction on the planet itself. The GU can’t be seen intervening with the politics and conflicts of those planets not in the union, otherwise I’d send in my top peace-keepers to retrieve her. I need you to buy her, regardless of cost, and bring her directly to me.”

Dreylan ignored the hushed voices whispering his name. He ignored the cautious looks from stall owners and slavers lining the cramped thoroughfare. He fixed his focus on his destination—the elevated selling podium located in the level’s courtyard, where the day’s featured auctions would take place. Spaceport Mercy Security Commander Kassandra Scott had approved his docking immediately, and he’d passed through inspection and headed for the port’s dodgiest level without delay or interruption.

His reputation, it seemed, preceded him, even this far from GU space.

Which didn’t make him any less agitated. Something didn’t gel with the premier’s explanation. Something felt wrong.

“No one would question
you
buying her
.”

“
Why not
?” Dreylan had asked.

Ipari hadn’t answered the question. But he’d said something that had made Dreylan want to rip the premier’s head from his soft politician’s body. “Once you’ve bought her, I want you to invade her dreams. I need to know what’s been said, what’s been done to her since the Mentuans took her.”

Dreylan gritted his teeth and pushed through the crowd, drawing closer to the selling podium.
Invade her dreams…

Only two people knew what he was—an Ezilian dream invader, a rare warrior capable of entering the sleeping minds of his enemies. Just two. His dead wife and his ex-partner—and Dreylan
knew
Mak wouldn’t speak a word of it to anyone. Mak knew how much Dreylan despised his ability.

Aimyl, however, had thought it something to brag about. And it seemed, at some point before her death, she’d bragged to the premier.

While they fucked?

Dreylan ground his teeth at the tormenting thought.

“It is time.” A deep and bellowing voice echoed through the crowded plaza, and, as one, all those around Dreylan burst into a raucous cheer. “It is time for the auction to begin.” The crowd roared again, drowning out the brassy fanfare played by a Gerdician slave.

A lean Bo’aa stepped up to the podium, shimmering deep-orange scales covering his tall body. He cast a gleeful look over the crowd below, and Dreylan got the feeling he was calculating how many credits he would earn that day. His ink-black auctioneer robes flowed and billowed about his long limbs as he moved, giving him an air of authority.

He held up his hands, the three fingers on each adorned with jewel-studded gold. “We have a rare treat for you today, buyers. The most illustrious and dedicated slave-trader in the known systems, Ry Taipyr, has procured for sale—a virgin Terran
riephia
!”

The crowd erupted into a cacophony of cheers and whistles, surging forward in a hungry swarm. Dreylan could smell the excitement of more than a hundred slave buyers intensify tenfold.

The Bo’aa smiled, fangs glistening in the muted light of Level 7. “Yes, yes, you are right to be eager, for this
riephia
is young, untouched and more beautiful than the goddesses of Ba’al.”

Another roar ripped through the crowd. Dreylan heard credits clinking as buyers checked their purses. He cast a contemptuous look at the faces of those closest to him—open hunger. Ravenous lust.

He curled his fists. If he didn’t, he’d pull his disruptor and begin shooting, and a bloody slaughter was not what he was here for.

“Esteemed buyers,” the Bo’aa continued, scales shimmering to a dark red. “I start today’s proceedings with item number one, the Terran virgin, the only
riephia
for the next five hundred years!” The crowd grew louder, almost frantic, played to perfection by the auctioneer. “The untouched beauty guaranteed to be whatever you want,” his yellow eyes sparkled with malicious mirth, “no matter how perverse.”

The crowd cheered, Dreylan ground his teeth, and with another fanfare from the Gerdician, a leering Mentuan stepped onto the dais, dragging behind him by a length of chain a young, naked female Terran.

The buyers roared, the Mentuan bowed, the Terran slave stared at him with absolute hate…

And Dreylan felt his chest grow tight.

He
knew
her.

That’s impossible, Tarq. If she’s an empathic mesomorph like the Bo’aa claims, she’s spent her life in a temple on New Earth, a planet you’ve never been to.

He clenched his jaw, letting his gaze roam over the female, ignoring his body’s immediate reaction to her lithe yet lush form. Or at least trying to.

The Bo’aa lifted his hands and the crowd fell to a quivering hush. “Let the bidding commence.”

Naya stared at the horde before her. Their depraved gazes slid over her body, assaulted her breasts, hips and the junction of her thighs. Her stomach roiled violently. This wasn’t a nightmare. This was real. This was happening. Gods, she was about to be sold to the highest bidder like a piece of meat.

Which is exactly how everyone here sees you, Naya.

Rage poured through her. She glared at the crowd below, burning the greedy face of each bidder into her brain. May the gods send out her contempt to each and every one. At the very least, may they cause their dicks to grow fat with diseased pus and fall off.

“Fifty thousand credits.”

“Fifty thousand five hundred.”

“Fifty thousand seven hundred and twenty-five.”

“Fifty thousand nine hundred.”

The bidding continued, each shouted offer a lash to Maya’s nerves. She stood tall, refusing to cower or cover her breasts with her arms, despite the stares making her skin crawl. Without being touched, her nipples burned with pain, as if knowing what every being in the arena wanted to do.

Icy terror ruptured in her chest. Any moment now the Bo’aa would call final bid and it would no longer be just eyes mauling her flesh.

Gods, please save me.

A brutal hand captured her right breast. “They feel divine,” Taipyr called to the crowd, rolling her nipple between two cruel knuckles. “Heavy and full and round. Ready to be squeezed and sucked and bitten to your heart’s content!”

The crowd cheered and surged forward.

“Seventy thousand credits,” a short, fat, sweating Trelletian with green saliva on his three chins shouted, waving his bidding wand in the air.

“Seventy-one thousand.”

“Seventy-one thousand five hundred.”

“Seventy-five thousand.”

Numbness rolled over Naya. She closed her eyes, unable to look any longer at the sickening sight beneath her. An image of her dream lover came to her—the mysterious, silent man who’d haunted her sleeping moments from the second she’d reached puberty.

Her heart twisted. He would never climb into her bed, gently spread her legs and explore her sex with his tongue again. He would never worship her nipples with his mouth until she moaned and squirmed beneath him.

The very moment her new master stabbed his cock into her virginal pussy, she would know nothing in her heart and dreams but what he wanted her to know. A sexual puppet.

Naya suppressed a soft cry as the bidding soared higher, fixing her dream lover’s smoldering blue stare in her mind, making her miss it already.

“Two hundred and five thousand credits.”

“Two hundred and seven thousand.”

Taipyr mauled her breast some more, no doubt to push the bids higher. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t respond. She wanted to turn and scratch out his eyes, break his nose. Hell, she’d be happy with splitting his thin bottom lip, but instead she stared—eyes closed—into her lover’s blue gaze.

“Two hundred and fifteen thousand credits.”

“Five hundred thousand credits,” a deep voice growled. A
new
voice. A voice that made Naya’s stomach clench and her nipples pinch into inexplicable points of rock-hard flesh. “And I will continue to bid in fifty-thousand increments until the
riephia
is mine.”

The crowd fell to stunned silence. A single word seemed to breathe through the arena—
Tarq
—before silence reclaimed the buyers again.

Naya opened her eyes, just as the Bo’aa asked for any more bids.

None came.

“Tarq.”

The collective reverent breath whispered the word—the name?—again and Naya explored the crowd, following the almost fearful and furtive glances and stares of those on the arena floor. Hunting for the owner of that deep voice.

Her stomach grew tighter, her nipples harder. Fear ate at her composure. Fear, trepidation and anger. She scanned the crowd, jumping from face to pale, awed face.