Merchandise (7 page)

Chapter Six

Dyos
leaned his forehead tiredly against the reinforced glass walls of his cell. How
long had they been here, days, weeks perhaps? Knowing their impossibly sweet J
was in the hands of Farr galled him. It drove him practically insane.
Brale
had confidently said Farr wouldn’t dare touch her,
but
Dyos
wasn’t very sure.

His mind kept returning to the
transport vessel where they’d first encountered Farr. With the serious modern
weaponry Farr touted, it had been clear to
Dyos
that Farr
didn’t mind breaking a few ancient traditions.

There was something in the
Hadarian
commander’s eyes he didn’t like. Beyond the mantle
of honor and
Hadarian
nobility he projected, there
was a lean, almost hungry kind of desperation lingering there.

Desperate men were the sort
Dyos
feared the most, because when pushed to the edge they
became dangerous and unpredictable.

In the second cell next to him,
Dyos
gazed at his mate. Since the glass separating each
holding cubicle was transparent, he had a full view of what
Brale
was doing.
Brale
was dozing at the opposite end,
hands behind his neck. He looked far too relaxed for
Dyos’s
liking
, as if he had
all the time in the world.

Dyos
punched one battered fist into the glass, wincing at the sting. Still no
reaction from
Brale
for what must be the hundredth
time.
Just perfect.
 

“Fuck you,
Brale
,”
he hissed, even though he knew
Brale
couldn’t hear
him.
Dyos
slumped into the wall, holding onto his
hand.

Closing his eyes,
Dyos
was about to doze off when his ears caught excited
voices from the outside corridor leading to cells. Had the crew changed
rotation? Farr didn’t leave anything to chance. He always made sure to post two
warriors to watch them.

Catching snippets of the
conversation at first,
Dyos
tuned out everything else
to listen.

“Indeed,” a deep voice was saying.
“His high—I mean the commander is pleased to be returning home after years of
being in space.”

“Were you all on a long-term
mission?” The sound of J’s curious voice froze
Dyos
.
The last time they saw her, she was being led away by Farr in abject protest.

“I am afraid that is confidential
information we cannot share even with you, J. Not until we have mated you,”
said a second warrior’s voice.

“I see. Sorry, I’m just excited to
see Planet
Hadar
after all the heroic tales you all
told me.” J hesitated. “Gael, what is Farr waiting for? Am I … not good
enough?”

There were immediate protests at
this.

“Not at all, our lovely J. Farr is
very rooted in our traditional ways, you see. He intends to present you to our
temple high priests and make our mating official in the eyes of witnesses.”

“Like a marriage?”

Hearing J’s hopeful voice,
Dyos’s
heart lurched painfully in his chest.
So.
She did
eventually change her mind about being their third.

“I can’t blame her, and I have no
right to be angry,”
Dyos
whispered to himself. “
It’s
selfish thinking she’d loyally stay by
Brale’s
and my side when Farr can promise her a sheltered
and comfortable life.”

What could two pirates like them
offer a treasure like J anyway? A life filled with danger, with no guarantees,
and constantly being on the run from the galactic law?
Dyos
let out a dry laugh. Gods, it unexpectedly hurt, though.

“I’ve never been here, and I’ve
been everywhere on the ship,” J was saying.

“J, wait, do not go in there,” a
voice warned, but the double doors leading to the prison hissed open.

Hearing her voice was one thing,
but seeing her in the flesh felt like he’d taken several blows in the gut. The
borrowed flight suit she wore was three, maybe four sizes, too big for her, but
it miserably failed to hide her soft curves.

Aside from them, the other two
containment cells were empty, so her curious gaze instantly went to them.

“J,”
Dyos
said hoarsely.

There was no recognition in her
face, just confusion.

Her eyes lingered on
Brale’s
sleeping figure, and then she moved to the front of
Dyos’s
cell. There was a curse from the two warriors,
but they ignored them. J pressed one hand against the glass door, and
Dyos
struggled to his feet to put his palm against hers.

“I don’t … do I know you?” Her face
was pale, as if she was struggling to piece a puzzle.

Intense yearning speared through
him. He wanted to reach out and to stroke her cheekbone.
Dyos
wanted nothing in the world but to comfort her, to pull her to him and inhale
the scent of her, but he couldn’t. There was just one thin glass separating
them, but it felt like a huge yawning chasm.

Dyos’s
gaze dropped past her face and down to her neck to discover with shock that
their mating marks were fading. He let out a protesting sound of disbelief.
Dyos
didn’t know such a thing had been possible.

“What did they do to you, J?”
Dyos
asked tersely.

His anger was ignited again, surging
to the surface.
Fuck.
He was right
about the bastard Farr.
Dyos
had heard rumors the
Hadrian army had been developing a memory serum to use in their interrogation
methods. He just didn’t expect to see the serum used first-hand on an innocent
like J.
 

“How do you know my name?” she
pressed.

She
must have some flickers of memory left of us.
Dyos
leaned his head against the glass, and she mimicked the gesture like a mirror.
“You know me, little one, and also the lazy
Cobrini
on the other cell. You belong to us, as much as we belong to you.”

J jerked back, as if she was
struck.

Suddenly there was a large angry
warrior grabbing her arm. “J, get back from the door. These are violent filthy
criminals.”

“Gael, I—” J seemed to struggle for
words. She looked like she was about to explain what just transpired, but to
Dyos’s
relief she closed her mouth. “I ... I’m sorry. I
understand.”
 

J gave one last lingering look at
Dyos
, before allowing Gael to lead her outside. More words
were exchanged, Gale’s terse explanations mingled with J’s soft compliant tone.
Gritting his teeth,
Dyos
slumped back against the
wall and found
Brale
staring back at him from the
opposite cell.

“About time you woke up,”
Dyos
remarked dryly. “Or were you awake all this time?”

“It’s just as I suspected,”
Brale
answered, not elaborating, but
Dyos
him well enough to understand the calculating look in his eyes.

Taking deep breaths,
Dyos
calmed the anger brewing inside him. Losing his temper
wasn’t going to help anyone, and he knew the
Hadarians
were keeping a close watch on them. They didn’t need say another word, because
an ocean of understanding was exchanged between them.

Trust me,
Brale’s
gaze said.
Trust me like you always have.
Don’t lose faith.
Dyos
curtly nodded, feeling
ashamed he’d doubted his
mate, that
he’d thought
Brale
didn’t care about their fate or J’s.

Chapter Seven

It started as a game, but it
eventually evolved into a dangerous habit J couldn’t break out of. Certain most
of the crew were in deep sleep in the surrounding pods, J quietly climbed out
of her own pod and sneaked out of the sleeping quarters.

By now, J had memorized the
rotation of the crew. At the last rotation, the equivalent of midnight on
Terra, only three warriors remained awake. One stationed at the bridge to keep
an eye on the controls, and two more by the holding cells. She still didn’t
know why Farr wanted two guards at all times on the prisoners they were
transporting, and it was clear he didn’t want to entertain her questions, so J
wisely kept her mouth shut.

J walked along the corridor, her
bare feet hardly making any sound. Her first stop was the communal kitchen. She
fished out a flask of heady
Jixas
wine, a wine, Gael
told her, that was made
specially
from a sweet violet
fruit only found on their home world. Then she headed to the entrance of the
holding cells. The two
Hadarians
on watch looked
bored to death, seated on foldable steel chairs and playing cards.

“J, you know you shouldn’t be
here.”
Killas
, being young, reckless, and eager to
prove himself, was more susceptible to her charms than the other veteran
warriors.

“I couldn’t sleep,” J confessed,
shyly holding out the flask to him.

Killas
grinned, accepting her offering, his large hand lingering slightly on her
wrist. The men were allowed to give her little touches, but Farr forbade them
to go any further.
Fine with J.
She still wasn’t sure
what Farr had planned, but she could bend his little rule to her advantage.

Melas
raised one scarred eyebrow.
“Nightmares again?”

She nodded, biting her lip. Some
part of J wondered why she was using her training for this. If Farr found out
she made these unsanctioned trips several times a week, he’d cuff her to her
pod when she slept. It had taken a while for the hardened and scarred
Melas
to trust her, but he eventually did, just like the
rest.

“May I sit on your lap and watch
you two
play
again?” J asked, pretending not to notice
the visible bulge on his flight suit. He grunted, considering her request.

“What’s the harm?”
Killas
asked. “You can sit on my lap if you want, J.”

Melas
let
out a snarl and banded his arm around her waist in a possessive matter.
Undaunted, J smiled and climbed on his lap. She found the crew observed some
matter of cultural hierarchy. Farr was her master, so most decisions regarding
her fell to him. Gael made decisions when Farr wasn’t around. In this instance,
Melas
outranked
Killas
, so
she answered to him.

“What did you dream about?”
Melas
held his cards in one hand, while he kept his other
arm around her waist.

She didn’t comment when he pressed
her hard to him. Clearly, the game was no longer on his mind. His strained
breathing and his erection pressed against her belly told her she was testing
the limits of his control.

“The same nightmare about being
chased,” she answered, lowering her gaze to his member. When she touched the
raised bit of cloth, he let out a guttural sound.

“
Melas
… can
I not ease your suffering? If I am to belong to all of you, can I not put my
skills to use?” J fluttered her eyelashes and her slightly wet eyes.
Melas
let out a curse.

“Don’t
cry,
sweetling
. It’s all right. You can please us soon,”
Melas
coaxed, stroking her hair.

Despicable
.
If playing to these
men’s weaknesses made her feel so terrible, then why couldn’t she stop? These
warriors were decent men, if not promisingly excellent lovers. Any Breeder back
at the labs would be seething with jealousy at her position.

Why had it been so important to
come here practically every night? Did wanting a mere glimpse of the two
prisoners make her sick and flawed?

 
“Okay. May I remain by your side for a while,
at least until I feel sleepy?” J pleaded.

He continued stroking her, like she
was a small animal that needed comfort, but his touch lacked the edge she was
craving. What the hell was wrong with her? Over the course of their journey, J had
developed some measure of fondness for Farr and his men, but fondness didn’t
translate to raw passion in the bedroom.

She knew she wouldn’t fail in her
purpose and bring her new master and his men pleasure, but could they do the
same?

What J wanted were men who could
play her body like an instrument and who were capable of making her scream with
pleasure over and over again. A restless voice inside her told her she already had,
which was why she found herself wishing for those phantom hands in her dreams.

“Let her stay,”
Killas
suggested. “If she falls asleep again, we’ll just carry her back to her pod.
Gods,
Melas
, would you let her sit on my lap the next
time she visits?”

“I’m certain if she’s on your lap,
you wouldn’t be able to contain yourself,”
Mellas
said, shifting her slightly so she could lay her head against his shoulder and
pretend to show interest in their game.

Minutes passed, cards were shuffled
and re-shuffled, and the two warriors shared the flask. When J felt
Mellas’s
grip loosen, she quickly slipped out of his lap.
Mellas
and
Killas’s
bodies
slumped over the playing table, and
Killas
began to
snore loudly. Confident the men were truly knocked out from the little drug J
had slipped into the drink, she stood in front of the double doors leading to
the cells.

Her heart painfully thumped against
her chest. She stared at the touch pad controls. Spending enough time with
Mellas
and
Killas
made it easy to
know the number combination, but did she have the courage to go in?

Often, she’d changed her mind, but
not today. The doors hissed open, and she slipped through. Some cowardly part
of J hoped the prisoners were asleep, but they were awake. They knelt
face-to-face, their foreheads pressed to the glass, eyes closed, and their
hands pressed again each other despite the glass separating them. Soft words
were exchanged, words J was too far to hear.

A lump rose in her throat at the
sight, accompanied by unexplainable feelings.
So close and yet so far.
Were they unlikely lovers? If they
were, then it seemed so cruel and unfair to part them.

The healing bites on her neck
hidden underneath the medical gauze tingled, and the two prisoners suddenly
parted and turned their gazes eerily in unison at her.

“Don’t be afraid. The last thing
we’ll do is harm you,” the
Hadarian
said harshly.

“Come closer, J. Have you not been
paying us secret visits? Lingering outside but never coming in?” the
Cobrini
asked.

Deep-seated curiosity dispelled
whatever fears she held. She went over and knelt in front of their cells, just
between the thin partitions separating their cells. They crept closer, and J
was tempted to keep her distance.

Ridiculous.
What can they do to me? They’re still captives, just as much as I am.
She
frowned, unsure where that stray thought came from.

“How do you know my name?” J asked.
More interested in knowing theirs, she continued, “What are your names?”

The
Hadarian
smiled faintly. “You know our names, J, even if they
lie
buried deep in your heart. It’s just good to see you.”

J pressed closer to the glass, and
the
Cobrini
reached out, tracing the curve of her
breasts, the gesture strangely seductive and hypnotic. The holding cells
should’ve felt cold, but somehow, heat radiated between their bodies. J shivered
for no reason, remembering the dominating but confident phantom hands plaguing
her dreams.

The dreams always started with
those two faceless large figures. She should’ve been frightened, but she wasn’t
because while those hands were capable of killing they were also capable of
control and unexpected gentleness. Then the nightmare would start. Those
figures were wrenched away from her, and she imagined running like a frightened
mouse, footsteps thumping harshly behind her.

Her nightmares seemed far away now.
J’s breath quickened when his fingers lingered down her ribs to the crevice
between her legs. Her cheeks heated up. Moisture flooded there, and she
wondered if they could see the wetness under her white sleeping shift.

“Are you wet, J?” the
Hadarian
asked, and her gaze fell to his handsome face and
dipped lower to the visible bulge under his suit. “Don’t bother lying because
even with this thin layer of glass we can both smell your arousal.”

“We’ll show you ours if you show us
yours,” the
Cobrini
said in a teasing voice.

She shook her head, visibly shaken.
How could these two strangers make her skin flush and her pussy wet so easily?

They hadn’t even touched, yet here
she was reacting like a slut. The
Cobrini’s
suggestion sounded like a game children played, but they all knew the game they
played was dangerous.

The right thing was to apologize,
to simply run out of here and back to her pod where Farr and the rest of his
crew were sleeping. Farr, her master and her prince who had promised he’d treat
her like a princess.

Still, J stayed. She nearly jumped
at the harsh sound of zippers being jerked down. Clearly they were as aroused
as she was, but weren’t the two men lovers? Why did the sight of her make them
react this way, and more importantly, why did they make her body react this
way?

“Now your turn,” the
Cobrini
said thickly. His eyes were dark and heavy with
desire, and J lifted up the hem of her shift. “Good girl.”

Was it wrong a bolt of excitement
went directly to her pussy hearing him say those words?

“Not enough. Take off your dress
and underwear,” the
Hadarian
demanded hoarsely.
Something about his voice, the desperation there made her heart unexpectedly
ache.

J apprehensively glanced at the
door, then back at them.

“Please.” The
Hadarian’s
words undid her.

J pulled off her dress and panties
and knelt back again. The
Hadarian
reached out
against the glass, tracing a circle over her nipple. He looked so wistful, so
unbearably sad that J touched her hardening tits until they hardened to pebbles.

“Fuck,” the
Cobrini
said harshly, hand moving up and down his thickening length. “Spread yourself
for us, baby. Give us one last good show.”

Last good show.
Why did those words sound like
a finality
?

J lay flat on her back on the cold
ground, pulled her knees up and spread her legs. She still wasn’t sure why she
was offering herself up like some lewd whore for a bunch of prisoners she
didn’t even know, but J didn’t feel repulsed or dirty. Not like those strange
occasions when the crew dined and either Farr or Gael would place her on their
laps and feed her bits of food like some sort of pet.

No
use thinking now.
Time to give in to the sensations and see
where this will lead.

“Touch yourself, J. We want to see
your beautiful body strain and come.”

J closed her eyes and eased the
heat between her legs with her fingers.

“Does it feel good, baby?” the
Hadarian
asked.

“Gods, yes,” J murmured. “Farr
hasn’t allowed me to touch myself or let anyone else touch me. It’s been so
long.”

A moment of silence followed. Then
came
the
Cobrini’s
smug voice,
“Good. That’s it, J. Part those pussy lips. I want to see just how wet you
are.”

J parted her lips with her fingers,
wondering how fucked up it was she was obscenely turned on by this. Someone
groaned. J rubbed her clit in circles, moaning, imagining one of the men’s
mouths was on her, sucking the swollen nub until she cried out. The image was
so strong she gasped.

“What are you thinking, baby?” The
Hadarian
asked.

“Your mouth on
me.”
J’s entire face reddened at the confession, but she didn’t care. It
felt too good.

“It’s only fair to tell you,” the
Cobrini
panted. “We’re getting so hard seeing you touch
yourself. I can’t imagine sliding my cock into that virgin pussy of yours,
followed by my mate.”

“Oh gods.”
The graphic image was too much. Still rubbing her clit with one hand, she used
the other to slide one finger in her.

“Put another inside you, baby.”

J obeyed, still fantasizing about
the warriors taking turns sliding their long meaty lengths inside her waiting hole,
finally taking her maidenhead.

“We’re going to be much larger than
your fingers, so stretch yourself wide.”

J did, furiously rubbing at her
clit, feeling the pressure building inside her about to explode. One of the
men, she wasn’t sure who, let out a gasp, and she had a feeling he’d come.

“Come for us, J,” the
Cobrini
commanded.

The command triggered her orgasm
and the
Cobrini’s
. She bit her lip, trying to muffle
the scream of pleasure threatening to tear out of her. She heard the
Cobrini
grunting, cursing softly under his breath. Waves of
pleasure assaulted her body, leaving her gasping and limp on the cold floor.