Hold

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Hold

ISBN 9781419912849

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Hold Copyright © 2007 Zannie Adams

Edited by Helen Woodall.

Photography and cover art by Les Byerley.

Electronic book Publication November 2007

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

HOLD

Zannie Adams

For Laura.

Hold

“Find the strongest man there. Give yourself to him in return for protection. It’s the only way you’ll ever survive.”

Riana knew the words were intended as a kindness. And in her gut she knew they were true. But they made her want to scream anyway.

Genus 6 was a prison planet.

It wasn’t a penal colony. The Coalition had given up on those long ago, when too many exiles managed to escape and make it back to the civilized planets—sometimes even as far as Earth. So instead of colonies the Coalition had assigned otherwise uninhabitable planets as primitive and inescapable prisons. The surface of Genus 6 was covered by a volatile ocean that was poisonous to human life. The prison hold was built beneath that ocean. Even if a convict managed to get through the structural barriers and the guards, there was no way to survive the ocean.

Genus 6 was hell, as far as Riana was concerned.

There were any number of prison planets in the Coalition now and Riana had never given them a second thought. She’d heard horror stories—as everyone had—about people unjustly incarcerated and permanently caged up like animals. Stories like that weren’t unusual. The Coalition wasn’t known for using its authority in a fair or enlightened way.

But it wasn’t something Riana had wasted any time or indignation on.

Life sucked sometimes. The Coalition sucked most of the time. And there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.

So she minded her own business and flew her expeditions under the Coalition radar. Archeologists weren’t particularly valued at present—as they provided neither power nor money for those in authority. But they were usually ignored.

5

Zannie Adams

Which was the way Riana had always preferred it.

She was on staff with an Earth university but hadn’t been on campus for nearly four years. She spent all her time at her digs—usually on obscure aging planets where civilization had died out centuries ago. She’d been orphaned as a child and raised by a grandmother who’d died ten years ago. She’d never had many friends. Her professional colleagues were all she needed for companionship.

Mostly, she just wanted to be left alone to do her work.

And she
had
been—for the eight years since she’d earned her degree. Until she’d happened to choose the wrong place to dig.

All archeological digs had to be approved by the Coalition well in advance of the project. Riana had gone through all the necessary red tape and had received permission for her work on the Imperial Palace of Karna. And if she’d assumed that permission had extended to the grounds surrounding the palace, that had been her mistake.

A mistake for which she would pay for the rest of her life.

A life that might not last very long.

There were no light sentences in the Coalition. All official crimes were treated the same—from trespassing to murder. If a crime wasn’t a threat to Coalition authority or resources, it was usually ignored. So Riana assumed there must have been some sort of covert Coalition headquarters elsewhere on Karna or her breaking of the rules would never have been prosecuted.

But it was prosecuted. And she was summarily convicted.

And then she was sentenced to imprisonment on Genus 6, the closest prison planet to Karna.

There were no specified terms on prison sentences for the Coalition. Those who went in never came out.

One other prisoner had been transported to Genus 6 with her—a sleazy middle-aged man with thinning hair and a nauseating leer. The transport landed on water, 6

Hold

since there was no other way of landing on Genus 6. The spacecraft must have been designed to be a submersible as well, since it then submerged to the prison structure beneath the ocean.

After it had docked, she and the other prisoner were hauled into the main guard room. The room was foul—dirty and smelling strongly of stale sweat and faintly of urine. They were shackled in mechanized manacles while the paperwork was taken care of, and Riana shuddered with disgust at the stench and at the lewd suggestions her fellow prisoner kept muttering about how he was planning to take her when they were finally dumped into the main prison hold.

She’d been in shock for the last two days—ever since she’d learned what her fate would be. The shock was a blessing, since it had kept her from fully processing what was going to happen to her here.

There looked to be about a dozen guards in the room, but Riana’s attention was held by the man who appeared to be in charge. He introduced himself curtly to the transport officials as Davis and gave Riana and the other prisoner a cursory look.

Davis looked to be in his forties, with slightly graying dark hair, strong features and sharp green eyes. He didn’t have the crude quality of the other guards but he was all business, with no softness in his expression.

He barely seemed to notice Riana. But some of the other guards did, ogling or making crass comments about her body.

She wasn’t any sort of beauty queen or sex symbol. She had a pretty good body, dark curly hair and blue-gray eyes. Nothing about her was particularly extraordinary.

But she was a basically attractive female in a setting where that was clearly rare.

Riana had never felt so objectified in her life, and the terror that had been held back by the shock of incomprehension was starting to take shape in her gut.

This was real. She was really a prisoner, about to be thrown into a prison hold with a couple hundred rough, violent criminals. With no mercy and no protection.

She’d be lucky if she made it through the night.

7

Zannie Adams

One of the guards, eyeing Riana offensively, said, “Maybe we should give her a test drive before we hand her down to the animals.”

Davis stepped over and backhanded him across the jaw—the gesture more effective because of its perfect blandness. “That’s the way to lose your post. We aren’t responsible for what the prisoners do in the Hold. But we
are
responsible for what happens outside it.”

The words weren’t much comfort to Riana, who was about to get thrown down into the Hold.

“Don’t worry,” her sleazy fellow prisoner said. “I’ll take care of the test drive myself.”

To Riana’s disappointment, Davis didn’t strike the sleaze. Instead, he calmly pushed her toward what appeared to be a small armored vehicle.

It was then he leaned down to murmur in her ear the words that changed everything. “Find the strongest man there,” Davis said. “Give yourself to him in return for protection. It’s the only way you’ll ever survive.”

The advice made sense. She’d never be able to protect herself. Not in a place like this. If she didn’t seek protection from someone who was strong enough to give it to her, she’d be literally ripped apart.

But the alternative was equally unappealing. Giving herself to one of the prisoners—becoming a kind of voluntary sex slave—sounded like it might be worse than death.

She didn’t have time to dwell on the dilemma for very long. Once the sleaze was hauled into the vehicle as well, the door was closed and Davis sat down at the controls.

The vehicle was lowered down into a cavernous room.

The Hold.

As soon as they touched down, Riana realized why the vehicle was so heavily armed. A single guard wouldn’t dare to enter the Hold without some serious defense.

8

Hold

Prisons like this didn’t have individual cells and there was no separation of genders. It was a free-for-all. Mass chaos. A nightmare of violence and primitive power.

Survival was based on physical prowess and strategic alliances. The weak and those without protection starved or they were murdered, assaulted or raped.

That could very easily be her.

“I’ll take you around the Hold so you can see the layout,” Davis explained, “before I let you out.”

Again, Riana realized it was an unnecessary kindness—giving the new prisoners time to scope things out before they had to handle the initial arrival.

As soon as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light of the Hold, Riana could see that the structure had once been set up more like a more traditional prison. There were rows of cells lining the walls on both sides—three levels of them. But few of them had doors or bars so they’d neither keep one in nor keep others out.

Glancing into one of the open cells, Riana saw a naked man on his knees with another man’s cock in his mouth.

She looked away immediately, feeling bile rise in her throat.

What was going to happen to her here?

“Food comes twice a day,” Davis explained disinterestedly. “It’s passed down through the chute there.” He gestured toward the center of the back wall. “Obviously, it doesn’t make it around evenly.”

Riana had no doubts about that. It wouldn’t be individually portioned so the strongest would take what they wanted—leaving the rest to make do with what was left.

Davis paused in front of a large cell—twice as big as the others. Looking in, Riana realized that was because the wall between two cells had been torn down to make one big one.

9

Zannie Adams

“That’s Thorn. He’s someone to pay attention to.” Davis glanced back, giving Riana a significant look.

Riana peered more closely and saw a handsome blond man stretched out on a bed.

He was dressed in trousers and a t-shirt and he appeared to be talking to someone. She noticed that there were three women in the large cell—all in various states of undress—

and Riana realized why Davis had given her that look.

This must be the alpha male of the Hold. He already had three women under his protection. He would be the obvious choice for Riana too.

She couldn’t see the women very well. The one closest to her was wearing a tattered, revealing dress. She had probably been attractive at one time but she now looked dirty, prematurely old and used up.

Riana experienced another surge of nausea and tried to fight back her rising panic.

“Toilets,” Davis said, pointing to the right. A doorway—without a door—led into what must be the main bathrooms.

Riana gasped as she saw a man getting beaten by two others just in front of it.

There was no reason to be surprised, though. This was what happened on a prison planet.

Davis appeared not to notice the fight and kept steering the vehicle around the perimeter of the Hold.