“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He stops to laugh. “I mean I own you now, Lyra. Crux and ALCOR signed you over to me. I quite literally hold your life in my hands.”
“Ridiculous! You cannot own a person!”
“And yet… it appears that I do.” He tosses the papers onto a nearby table and turns his back, flashing a set of perfectly sculpted shoulder muscles as he walks down the hallway. “Bot,” he calls. “Get her ready for me. And bring me that bottle of whiskey. I don’t need a glass.”
The bot says, “Very well. Mr. Serpint. I will do that. Right away, sir!”
But then the little bot hesitates, hovering. Turning its front side to me, then towards the hallway, like it has a question.
“What?” I ask it.
“Which do you think would make him happier? Fully restraining you first? Or delivering the bottle?”
I roll my eyes. These 700 series bots aren’t the most clever. “Whiskey,” I say. “It’s always whiskey.”
Which is another lie. It’s always sex with an Akeelian male. But I’m not in any hurry to add more restraints.
I’m already bound by my feet and wrists.
Where else could restraints go?
CHAPTER FIVE – SERPINT
The bot delivers the whiskey and I drink it straight from the bottle as I wait for my hard-on to ease up enough to pull on a pair of pants.
Fucking curse of the Akeelian cocks. Always so goddamned demanding.
Once that’s sorted I take the bottle over to my data station and pull on my boots, staring at the screen as I absently fasten them.
“Come online, come online, come online, for fuck’s sake!”
But the word OFFLINE just flashes at me in bright red letters.
I hear the girl protesting as the bot gets her ready. Gasping and swearing once she realized what all that entails.
I smile a little. Can’t help it. She’s a very bad princess.
Is she a princess? Is she telling the truth about some crazy palladium concoction she whipped up to make herself glow?
I tap the screen and pull up the galactic web, doing a search called: What makes Cygnian princesses glow?
Several million responses pop up—must be a popular search—and I tap the first one and begin to read.
Cygnian princesses require a constant supplement of palladium xenide in their system at all times in order to glow. Palladium xenide can be found in tushberries, passion limes, youthfruit, and sparkling wines made from these fruits.
Huh. No wonder Crux is always shoving fruit and champagne down their throats. They need it.
I should probably know this already since I’m a fucking shareholder in the only Cygnian princess harem in the galaxy outside their home system, but I’ve never been into them. They are all so… girly. So bright and beautiful. And honestly, who cares if they glow when they come? Ya know? So they get off for a long time. Doesn’t do anything for me.
I like girls with a little spirit in them. Tough ones. Mouthy ones. Ones who can drink, and swear, and don’t need to eat passion limes all day long. I like a girl who can take care of herself and maybe, if I find myself in an uneven fight, help out a little.
Like this one, I reluctantly admit. Maybe she’s not a real princess? Maybe she does have some secret concoction? And maybe there is some covert plan cooked up by women who think they can fool us?
Crux will want to know about this. Our whole business could be at stake.
Lyra is right about one thing. You can’t really own a person. And we don’t really own them up in the penthouse harem. We just… indenture them for five hundred spins once they get here.
Yes, it’s shady on all kinds of levels, but the law is the law. If you find yourself on Harem Station without entry papers you must pay your way in through servitude. And since all these princesses came to us through unscrupulous bounty hunters—like myself—they all find themselves here under those conditions.
We give them a choice, of course.
They are welcome to go serve their sentences down on the lower levels. Harems, or restaurants, or whatever the hell job they want. But they won’t find conditions like this down there.
There’s a very good reason outlaws come here for rest and respite. It’s because nobody fucks with us. The Prime Navy doesn’t even patrol here. Not even when they should. ALCOR might be annoying as hell, but he’s built himself a formidable security force over the past several thousand years. They patrol both sides of our gates and their motto is, “Shoot everyone unless they have the proper entrance signal.”
We are probably better protected than the stupid Cygnians.
Besides, we practice equal-opportunity entrapment. We indenture anyone who enters without permission, not just princesses and women. Hell, ALCOR even indentures the sentient ships. That’s how I ended up with Booty. And look, she’s happy.