The Bargaining (3 page)

Maybe if she treated the prisoner as another beautiful animal, it wouldn’t be so difficult to touch him. Either way, she had to do it. If the guards looked in, all her frantic planning would be for nothing.

Her hands trembled just a little as she laid them on either side of Deacon’s spine. They looked pale and small resting there. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a moment, gathered her courage, and began the kneading motions of a massage.

His body amazed her. Compared to the prince’s soft, pampered form, he felt like solid rock, his flesh barely shifting under the pressure of her hands. He grunted and she gave a little jump.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” he growled from where his head was pillowed on his forearms. “Go ahead and put your back into it, or I won’t even feel it. Trust me, I can take it.”

“Yes, D-Deacon.”

She did as he asked, leaning forward and pressing with more strength, the heels of her hands digging into the planes of muscle and kneading out some of the stiffness. As she worked, she started to realize that some of what she’d assumed was the natural hardness of well-developed muscle tissue was actually stiffening caused by tension and injury. She worked hard to find those pockets of stress and work them out with the pressure of her hands.

Kili worked in silence for several minutes before she flicked her glance up to the prisoner’s face and saw his dark eyes watching her over his shoulder.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the spa treatment, muffin,” he said, “but I thought you said you wanted to talk to me about something. You want to get around to talking?”

She felt the blush staining her cheeks. “I’m sorry. Yes, I do wish to speak with you. I arranged to do something worthy of punishment so that I would be sent to the kitchens and I would have an excuse to see you when I was sent to deliver your food.”

“What did you do?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s not important. What is important is that you listen to me very carefully and know that the bargain I am offering you should have much value in your estimation.”

His shoulders shifted beneath her hands in a shrug. “I’m listening. What did you have in mind?”

Kili took a deep breath and forced the words out before she could lose her courage. From this point on, there would be no turning back. “I can help you escape from the prison and from the city. I can help you break free.”

One of his dark eyebrows quirked. “Well, I guessed that much. When you came in here and instead of feeding me like a good girl, you offered me a bargain, I didn’t think you were talking about discount hull patches for my ship.”

She frowned. “If you knew what I would say, why did you ask me to say it?”

He snorted. “I guessed you were going to offer to help me out here, but I didn’t know what you wanted in return. Still don’t.” His mouth twisted wryly. “It’s not like I’ve got credits to burn at the moment.”

Kili shook her head impatiently and her long hair fell forward to spill against Deacon’s back. She thought she saw him twitch. “No, I have no desire for money.”

Deacon lifted his head a little to look at her more closely. “Then what?”

Kili closed her eyes and dove off the cliff. “I want you to take me with you.”

“Shit. I fucking knew it.”

Chapter Six

Deacon ran through a quick mental list of swear words in seven languages and then made a mental note to learn at least seven more. How the fuck did he always manage to end up in these messes?

Growling, he twisted onto his back faster than she could blink and grabbed her by the arms, trying not to notice how soft she felt in his hands. He kept his grip on her and flipped them over until she lay on her back beneath him, her eyes bright with surprise and wariness.

Shifting again, he grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head to the cot. “All right, what’s the deal?”

“I told you. If you will take me with you, I will show you how to escape from --”

Deacon shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I want to know what you’re after. And why.”

She shifted beneath him, but his weight kept her pinned in place. Deacon had the feeling that if he wasn’t careful, she would be crushed under him. She was even tinier than he’d first thought.

“I want to leave Ankhar,” she said after a short pause. “I don’t belong here.”

Raking his eyes over her mostly naked body, Deacon laughed. “You look right at home to me.”

Her jaw clenched, but she kept her eyes cast down and her voice soft and meek. “Men don’t usually look past the
lya
and the bare breasts. I imagine all
nitarai
look alike when one doesn’t see our faces.”

His eyebrows shot up. Huh. That had almost sounded like a backbone. “I see your face. And yeah, I know you don’t look like the typical Ankharan. But that doesn’t mean you don’t belong on the planet. Your family’s here, right?”

Her laugh did not sound amused. “How much do you know of the Ankhar culture, Deacon?
Nitarai
have no families once they reach breeding age. They are raised in the harems once they have their first blood. Then when they are ready, they are sold to their new masters.”

Deacon felt his lip curl with distaste. “Your family sold you when you were just a kid?”

She tensed under him almost imperceptibly, but Deacon was pressed too close to her not to notice. “No,” she said. “I do not look like the typical Ankharan because I am not. I was not born here. I was born on Golian.”

That made sense. Her features had the look of the Asian-descended settlers who had populated the grass-covered planet. Suddenly his memory clicked into gear and he frowned. “Wasn’t Golian taken in the last Frontier Offensive? The Protectorate gobbled up at least ten rocks on that one. Jubal, Gnori, and Bahn V, as well. Right?”

Her chin dipped once in an abrupt nod.

Deacon swore. “They took you captive, didn’t they? And sold you to the Ankharans?”

They weren’t really questions, but he still cursed again when she nodded. “Along with a hundred or so other young girls from our system. We were all under fifteen. Everyone older was already dead or on the prison ships. But we didn’t all come to Ankhar.”

Fuck. He really didn’t want to hear this. “They weren’t filling an order, were they? They auctioned you all off on Solomon Prime.”

Her eyes squeezed shut on a nod.

“Shitpissfuck.”

Deacon let go of her wrists and dropped onto the edge of the cot next to her, lying on his side between her and the door. If anyone looked in the small window, all they would see was his back. If they’d seen his face, they would know immediately that she was definitely
not
tending him right now.

Solomon Prime.
Fucking perfect
.

Deacon hadn’t joined the rebellion because he loved the Protectorate and hated to see corruption eat away at its noble intentions, nor because he was looking for a fast thrill. He’d joined it because he had first-hand experience with the way the military megalith operated. It was like a swarm of locusts through the universe, destroying everything in its path. Only, unlike locusts, when the Protectorate finished feeding, it made a big deal out of telling its conquered citizens how much better off they were for having been crushed beneath its boot.

In his years with the rebel army, he’d seen a lot of evidence of how corrupt and destructive the Protectorate really was behind its shiny, polished principles. Protecting planets meant extorting all their wealth. Bringing the cutting edge of progress meant destroying ancient cultures and desecrating the societies that had founded them. And promoting freedom and equality among all living species meant only the ones who weren’t butchered during invasions or conscripted into the vast army or sold as slaves in the vast black markets the Protectorate claimed to have abolished decades ago.

Black markets like Solomon Prime.

According to the written laws of the Protectorate, slavery had been abolished for all sentient peoples everywhere shortly after the First Interstellar War when the United Interstellar Protectorate was established. The written law had very little to do with the practical one, though. The main tactics of the leaders of the Protectorate had always been tyrannical brute force and terror, and there was no better way to terrorize a people than to kill most of them and enslave the others. Quick, simple, and very effective.

Not to mention morally repugnant.

Deacon felt his teeth grind together as he clenched his jaw. “You said you were all under fifteen. How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

Thirteen. A goddamned baby, and she’d been sold off to the highest bidder to be brought up as a sex slave for some pervert’s private harem.

“How old are you now?” He saw her flinch from the bark in his voice, but he ignored it.

“Twenty-five.”

The muscle in his jaw jumped beneath the skin. “So twelve years. You’ve been held prisoner and forced into prostitution for twelve years now.”

The girl shook her head and almost smiled. “No. For all their faults, the Ankharans are rarely pedophiles. I was raised with other prisoners and native Ankharan girls in the preparatory houses. They maintained me, trained me, renamed me.”

“Renamed?”

She nodded. “Kishantiana is an Ankharan name. Before I came here, my name was Kili. I was allowed to keep it in private until I left the preparatory house.”

Right, because after kidnapping her and training her to become a child prostitute, how bad was stripping her of her identity?

“And how old were you when that happened?”

“Eighteen. Then I was sold to my first master.”

“Right. ’Cause thirteen would be a problem, but eighteen is just fine.” No way in hell could he keep the disgust out of his voice. Her self-conscious shrug told him he’d better work on it, though, so he blew out a deep breath. “All right. But you’ve been here for twelve years. Have you ever tried to get away before?”

She laughed, but the sound came out sharp and bitter. “That’s all I did for the first six months. I earned so many beatings, they practically had my bed set up next to the skin-regen. No one likes scar tissue on a new slave.”

He inhaled to the count of ten and blew it out slowly. “How far did you get?”

“I made it all the way to the port once, but there was no way to get on a ship. Offworld vessels rarely get permission to dock here, and the outgoing ones are inspected within an inch of their lives. The prince has to know exactly how much profit he can expect from each load, of course. And there was no way I could steal a pod or a shuttle. When Golian was attacked, I was still too young to learn to pilot.”

“Shit.”

Her forehead furrowed. “Do you always curse so much?”

“Only when I’m about to do something stupid,” he growled. “Tell me how we’re going to get out of here.”

Chapter Seven

Kili’s heart leapt at his words, and she had to force herself to breathe through the rush of adrenaline. She felt her hands shaking and pressed them firmly against the cot to still them.

“I know how we can get out of here and as far as the ports,” she said. “I even have an idea about stealing a ship. I’ll try for a pod, but our choices may be limited. Can you pilot something larger?”

“If it flies, I can pilot it. But forget the ports and stealing a ship. I have a shuttle stashed about two klicks past the westernmost guard post on the trade road.”

Her eyes widened. Making it into and out of the ports without being detected had been the trickiest part of her plan. If he could bypass it by heading toward his own ship, their chances of success increased dramatically.

“I know the area you mean. If I get us past the post, you are certain you can locate the shuttle?”

“Hell, yeah.”

Her heartbeat picked up speed. “Good. I’m not allowed out alone, so once we leave sight of the road, I’d be lost without --”

“Yeah, well, before you go getting excited about exploring the great outdoors, how about you tell me how we’re going to get past two armed guards without so much as a soup spoon for a weapon. You wearing hairpins in that mop?”

“It won’t be a problem,” she said with conviction. “If we wait a little longer, once we call the guards to let me out, they’ll be tired and easy to distract. They already think I’m free for the taking, so if I make an offer --”

Deacon cut her off again, his expression stormy. “What the hell do you mean? I thought it was verboten to pass around your slaves on this rock. They should be scared to so much as touch you.”

Kili’s mouth twisted. “It is. But they believe I am being punished. Which I am. And if my
dashim
cared so little for me he would let a prisoner have me, they believe he will not care if they do, as well.”

She could feel every muscle in his body tense, and when he spoke, his deep voice had gone even rougher. “So they fucking think they can pass you around like a party favor?”

“They are not wrong.” She shrugged. “Technically, my master has cast me out. So even if they did use me, my owner would not care.”

“Cast you out? That sounds pretty permanent.”

“It is.”

He pushed himself up so he loomed even further over her. The look on his face made her shiver, even though she did not think he would harm her. Still, she had been wrong about men before.

“You mean to tell me some bastard threw you away like some old socks? And what the hell would have happened to you if I had told you no?”

She looked away. He had a look in his eyes she didn’t really want to see too closely. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“It is true.” She shifted restlessly. “You would not need to worry for me.”

His big hand caught her by the chin and turned her to face him. “Don’t lie to me, little bit. I don’t like liars.”

He spoke quietly, but his tone carried a sharp edge of insistence. She closed her eyes. “I would perhaps be sold.”

Silence.

“Or?”

Kili clenched her jaw and fought a rising tide of resentment. “Or my master could decide I would not bring a respectable price because of my history of disobedience. Then he could choose to have me disposed of more ... permanently.”