I smile broadly as the guard leads me into the main office of the jail itself. His companion sits behind a desk, watching a few monitors, and the female human sits in a chair by herself, waiting. It’s my first chance to get a good look at her and I’m surprised.
She’s more fragile than I thought. There’s an air about her that speaks of delicate things, of birds and gossamer wings and crystal threads that would shatter at a rough touch. She gets to her feet and she only comes up to the middle of my chest, but she lifts her chin and gives me a cool, assessing stare as if she expected this and she’s not afraid. I like that. I like that she doesn’t flinch at my acid-scarred face, either. I know it’s hard to look at, all that too-smooth, shiny skin on one side and how my left eye droops, just a little. How my mouth is too tight in one corner and makes my smile look more like a grimace. She studies all of this and doesn’t seem to care.
I like her.
Even though she’s small and fragile, she seems calm around the much larger mesakkah. There’s no fear in her as she stands in front of me, her hands clasped at her waist. Her dress is simple—a pale beige with a long skirt that’s belted at the waist and shows off the impressive tits that most humans are graced with. Her hair is long and a pale brown color, but instead of pulling it back from her face, she wears a fringe of it completely over her brow and the rest seems to slide forward, as if she uses it to hide her expression. Beyond the hair, her face seems to be all eyes and dark lashes and smooth brow.
She gazes up at me with big brown eyes that are strangely dark and even more strangely appealing. “You’ll do.”
Such flattery.
The guard hovering around us snorts. “You sure this is what you want?”
“I’m sure,” she says in that calm, firm voice. Then she smiles, all sweetness as she looks at the guard. “You can’t know how much I appreciate this.”
“Oh, I know,” he says, and holds out his hand.
She nods and pulls out a series of metallic chips—untraceable credits—from a pouch at her waist. A fair amount of them, too. Well now. So she is buying herself a slave. “You sure I’m the right purchase?” I can’t help but tease, wondering if I can get her to smile at me like she smiled at him. “Want to check me over a bit more? Squeeze my biceps?” I flex one arm and lean over a little so she can reach it. “Should I strip? Everything I have to offer’s all covered up.”
“Stripping’s not necessary,” she tells me in a surprisingly crisp voice. “I can see everything I need to see right now.” And she reaches forward and puts her small, human hand on my still-hard cock. “You’re showing everything already.”
I bark with laughter, shocked—and aroused—by her bold touch. “I stand corrected.”
“Hold still,” the guard says to me, and then a shock-bracelet goes around my wrist. I grit my teeth, trying to hide just how much I hate the damn thing. He hands her the small control to it and beams. “Pleasure doing business with you, human.”
“Miss Evans,” she corrects him again, then puts that too-sweet smile on her face again. “Thank you ever so much.” Then, she turns to me. “Come along, my friend.”
I follow, because what else can I do? The bracelet will go off if I wander too far from her side, but at least I’m out of that cell. I’m not entirely sure I’m still going to prison at this point, so this is definitely a step up. I can easily overpower one small human female, given the chance.
I can still make my off world rendezvous with the va Sithai brothers.
I follow the female out to her air-sled. It’s an older one, one that looks like it’s had many repairs. A piece of keffing junk, I’d call it, but it fires up all right and with the right hand, it could probably purr like a kitten. That’s my speciality—fixing up old machines, especially sleds. But I don’t show this. I keep my face neutral as we get into the air-sled and she taps on a button with an unfamiliar word on the screen. The air-sled speeds up and starts on its course, leaving Risda III’s sorry port behind and heading across the open fields and crops that make up most of the land here.
Neither of us says anything. I’m too busy mentally mapping out our location and eyeing the speeder. It shouldn’t be a problem to hotwire. A good override program, then a few tweaks here and there—