Chapter 2

Rikki

I was having the absolute worst day of my freaking life. First, I’d woken up and discovered my favorite hair straightener was busted, then I’d slipped in the freaking shower and conked my head. I only knew that had happened for real because I still had an egg-shaped bruise at the base of my skull, hidden beneath my totally out-of-control curls.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I’d woken up a second time on a space station, sold at auction by actual real freaking aliens. I was still trying to wrap my head around that one and coming up short. How was any of this possible? What had I done to make the universe hate me this much?

For the past hour, I’d been dragged through a creepy, dirty space station on a leash. The guy who’d bought me an alien with red skin and white markings on his face that made him look like he was celebrating the Day of the Dead. Only, his markings were real, and they pulsed when he got mad, which was all the time.

Alien voices had assaulted my senses, alien smells had filled my lungs, and I’d concluded that all of it sucked. And somehow, I could understand it all. They’d done me the great favor of installing translator implants in my ears, but they hadn’t bothered to heal up my cracked noggin while they were at it. Now I could understand what my new ‘owner’ wanted of me, and I thoroughly wished I couldn’t. The dirty, lascivious things he’d said made it clear he’d bought me for one purpose only: sex.

The ‘pet’ collar around my neck had already been demonstrated to me once when I saw my chance and tried to duck between some market stalls to escape. The pain had been indescribable, and I was still shaky in the legs from it. I couldn’t believe I was this trapped, but I knew one thing for sure: I was not letting that asshole lay a finger on me. Over my dead body.

At least it seemed a bed wasn’t on the itinerary just yet and I thanked my lucky stars for that, not that they’d been very lucky of late. After what appeared to be an unfocused meander through the bizarre alien space station, we’d arrived at the shittiest-looking dive bar I’d ever laid eyes on. Dirt entirely obscured the windows, the neon lights above them broken except for one silly stripe in bright pink.

The people inside honestly didn’t look any less scary and alien than those I’d seen outside. That the floor and bar were covered in stains and sawdust also came as no surprise. I did a double take at the sight of the bartender swinging bottles through the air with four hands; that looked pretty cool. Okay, that was good, I tried to tell myself. Just look at this like I was a tourist or something, on the strangest trip of my freaking life.

That only worked if I didn’t think about the asshole holding this stupid leash and pretended I didn’t notice how everyone ogled my boobs and ass. I’d looked, but nobody had offered me any sympathy at all. In fact, I was not the only one dragged around on a leash or wearing a metal collar like mine. It was clearly common practice and nobody batted an eye, though I was the only human as far as I could tell.

My skin prickled right as that thought struck me and I glanced around the giant, gray-skinned Rhinoceros alien acting like a bodyguard to see who it was. For some insane reason, this stare felt different from the millions I’d already received since I’d woken up in this nightmare a couple of hours ago.

Was that a demon? A water demon, maybe? Did those exist? The alien that was staring at me so heatedly had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. They practically glowed. His skin was black as night, but lines and fissures ran like lightning strikes across his flesh. They, too, shimmered with a blueish light. It was the spiraling pair of horns and the long, pointed tail lashing at this back that made me think ‘demon’. I wasn’t sure if catching this guy’s attention was a good thing or a bad thing at all, but it felt… different.

“Careful, Sir. I believe those are Varakartoom mercenaries,” the Rhinoceros on two legs said in what was a shockingly posh and polite voice. Every time he opened his mouth, I started picturing a pair of spectacles on his nose in front of his beady, black eyes. I did not know what Varakartoom meant, but the word mercenary piqued my interest. Swords for hire, could I work that to my advantage somehow?

I realized that the rhino had gestured with a giant paw toward the table with the strange blueish demonic-looking guy. He wasn’t alone, his table was filled with several more aliens and they were all wearing the same high-tech black armor suits. It wasn’t quite a uniform, but it came extremely close. Two were of the same species as my new ‘owner;’ I refused to think of it without quotation marks in my head. That would make it too real.

One of the demon mercenary’s companions was holding onto his arm, a guy with what could only be described as the head of a shark. There was even a sharp gray fin rising from his back. I wasn’t sure if he, the rhino, or that blue demon with the intense stare freaked me out more. No, I did know. It was the guy who bought me and what I knew was in store for me if I didn’t manage to escape.

I was dragged along by the leash as my ‘owner’ walked up to the bar and started talking with the four-armed bartender. I only paid a small amount of attention, my eyes drawn back to the big, horned guy with the glowing blue lines. He didn’t look quite as demonic now that I was a little closer, but something about the way he was conversing with his friends made me think he was super angry. Probably the snarling in the face part was what gave that impression.

My head twitched when I caught words like “Stay out here. Guard her. No, you can’t come in with me.” Turning to look over my shoulder, I realized the guy with the freaky skull face was arguing with his bodyguard. From the looks of it, he was winning, or ordering, the guard to stay out here. With me. My heart started racing; I sensed an opportunity.

Not long after, I was dragged to a table near the exit; the guard sitting down with some kind of weird glowing beer from the tap. I, of course, was not allowed to sit on a chair or anything. He grunted and made me sit in the dirty, stale sawdust at his feet. I didn’t even get the choice to remain standing, which I would have preferred.

Now what? How did I get out of there when I had that collar around my throat and the guard had a remote on his belt he could use to zap me? I glanced around, my heart pounding, my breathing growing short and choppy as I imagined my opportunity slipping through my fingers. I had to get out of here before that guy came back and decided to take me to a place that did have a bed. Worse, what if he figured he didn’t even need a bed?

Sweat started trickling down my spine as I contemplated my options. Could I snatch that glass, break it, and stab the guard in his thick neck? If he was out, I could grab the remote thingy and book it… I eyed his nearly empty glass, the third by now, and shuddered. It would probably barely make a dent in his thick skin.

I glanced around the room and my eyes landed, again, on the blueish demon. He was rising to his feet, and my breathing faltered when I realized how freaking tall he was. Then he started coming my way, his friends calling him back which he completely ignored. My mouth went dry, was this it? Could I ask him for help? Was that crazy? Nothing about his appearance said he’d treat me any better than the guy who bought me.

He was almost on us and I figured, what the hell, it was worth a shot. “Hey! You’re a mercenary, aren’t you? I’ve got a job!” My voice sounded a little scratchy and dry, my mouth parched after hours without even the smallest sip of water. Still, my voice rang loud and clear and the entire bar fell silent and turned to stare at me.

The blue guy stopped right next to me and glanced down, his eyes locking on my face. I felt like I was tumbling into that gaze, like he was seeing through me and straight through the bravado to my absolute terror.

My rhino guard huffed loudly and lumbered to his feet, “Keep walking, Merc.” He didn’t sound so posh and polite now, his huge, meaty arms crossing over his chest as he leveled an impressive glare at the mercenary with his tiny black eyes.

I might be impressed, but the mercenary barely seemed to notice. He curled his lips and exposed a pair of razor-sharp canine teeth that bracketed otherwise normal-looking pearly whites. “Fuck off. The lady wants to make an offer, don’t interfere with legitimate business.” It looked to me like the rhino alien thought the demon-like mercenary was hella intimidating. Interesting. It did give me a little niggle of doubt about what I was going to do; was I jumping from the pan straight into the fire?

No, anything was better than being that guy’s bed slave for the rest of my miserable life. I wasn’t going to let that happen. When the mercenary turned his bright azure eyes on me, I didn’t cringe back but unfurled from my kneeling position to make sure he got a good look at all my curves, wrapped in a stupid black catsuit.

“I want you to get me out of here,” I said, and I tapped the collar pinched around my neck. “Take me to safety. Can you do that?” The rhino alien made a rumbling noise of discontent, taking a large, thundering step forward and raising his fists toward me as if he intended to shut me up with those meaty paws.

I didn’t even see him move. A strange, sci-fi-looking pistol was just suddenly pressed against the rhino guy’s thick neck, the tip glowing red. The rhino froze in place, his beady black eyes going comically wide, so wide that I could see white slivers around the edges. Mercenary-man shifted his silent snarl from his target to me, “And what did you plan to pay me with?” he drawled, his voice a deep dual tone. A resonance of sub-harmonics that was absolutely not human but pretty anyway.

“You’re a slave, you have nothing.” His words made me want to snarl myself. I wanted to reach out and slap the arrogant look right off his face. How dare he say such things! I was a person, I had rights, damn it. But I forced myself to swallow down all that rage; he was right. This wasn’t my world. I was trapped on an alien space station in a complete and utter nightmare. I had to play by their rules if I wanted to survive.

Which meant that I had only one thing to barter with; my body. My eyes dropped from his face down his chest, clad in form-fitting shiny black armor. His arms were bare, showing me all those interesting blue lines that glowed on his skin. I found his face interesting but still sort of human, with a sexy, lush mouth and a straight nose. He wasn’t bad looking.

Sex with him once, or maybe a few times, wouldn’t be nearly as bad as being stuck as a slave for the rest of my life with that death head guy. I swallowed and then darted my head down and shimmied. It was embarrassing, and I hated that I was forced to stoop to this. I forced myself to draw my hand over my breasts, down my belly to my hip. “I’m sure we can work something out. Can’t we?”

His eyes flared, his nostrils did the same, and I spotted his tail whipping wildly behind his back, like an angry cat. “I’m sure we can,” he snapped out, his teeth clicking together. The words had only just left his mouth, but he was spinning so fast that he blurred. He raised his hand and then the pistol hit the Rhino guy somewhere in his thick throat and the huge alien went down like a ton of bricks.

I gasped, but I was still exhaling when my newly hired mercenary ducked and threw me over his shoulder. Under the sound of people exclaiming in shock, the bartender yelling curses, and his own friends hooting, he stalked from the building.