“Please! Leave me alone!” The girl stumbled backwards and the one behind her caught her by the shoulders, causing her to cry out in pain and fear. She tried to kick him but he only stepped back a pace and laughed, still holding her tightly.
“To think that fool of a Kindred paid forty thousand credits for her and then just left her to fend for herself,” his friend remarked. “This may be the most expensive meal we’ve ever eaten.”
“And the tastiest!” The other Torgian licked his chops, saliva dripping from his rows of gleaming fangs. “Do you want her head or her feet?”
“The feet, I think. They’re crunchy. We’ll save the head for last and split the brain,” the other replied.
Up until now, Need had been watching in a kind of trance. Now he realized he had to get moving—if he didn’t, these bastards were going to eat the girl alive, right before his eyes!
Stepping out from the shadows of the building where he had been standing, he came striding over to the Torgians, drawing his blaster as he went. He shoved the blunt muzzle of the deadly weapon into the thick neck of the one closest to him, just to one side of its fin.
“Let her go,” he growled. “Or this ‘fool of a Kindred’ will fucking kill you both!
The girl is mine.”
As he spoke the words, he realized they were true. He couldn’t just buy her and then wash his hands of her. She was half naked and helpless, damn her. Wounded from the fucking stick the slaver had used on her and disoriented—stranded on a strange planet. If he left her to her own devices she’d only be eaten or raped or both.
You bought her, Need, whispered a grim little voice in his head. You own her now—you’re responsible for her. At least until you can get her back where she came from.
The idea made him savage and he shoved the muzzle of his blaster even harder against the Torgian’s thick skull.
“Let her go,” he repeated. “Unless you want your friend to have your brains for his breakfast.”
“All right—all right.” The Torgian holding the girl by her shoulders let go and held up his scaly hands.
“We didn’t know you still wanted her,” the other one whined. “You left her alone, Kindred!”
“A mistake I don’t intend to repeat,” Need growled. “Now get the fuck out of here before I vaporize you both!”
The two of them scrambled away, their eyes rolling fearfully in his direction as they hurried across the marketplace.
Need stalked angrily over to the girl, who was still standing there, clutching his shirt to her chest. She looked up at him, her dark, gold-flecked eyes filled with uncertainty.
“My Lord?” she whispered.
Need sighed. He would have to break her of calling him that, somehow. In the meantime, though, he had to get her back to the ship.
“Come on,” he told her. “We have to go.”
She didn’t ask where they were going, only followed meekly along as Need led her through the marketplace—or he thought she was until he turned his head. Then he saw that she had fallen behind, maybe because she was still hobbling as though she was in pain. Angrily, he strode back to her.
“Damn it,” he growled. “Can’t you keep up?”
“I…I’m trying, my Lord.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Please, I’m sorry…”
“Here.” Need had no more time for this. Leaning down, he swung her up into his arms.
The girl gasped but made no move to get away. She trembled in his arms as Need carried her through the crowds, headed for his ship.
His thoughts were resentful as he stomped along, not looking at the girl in his arms. Damn it, this was more than he had bargained for! He’d only meant to buy her and set her free—he hadn’t expected to have to take care of her afterwards. Now he had a female he wanted nothing to do with—how in the Seven Hells was he ever going to get rid of her?
I’ll take her back to wherever she was taken from, he told himself.
Hadn’t the slaver been boasting that she’d been snatched from some private finishing school in the Trell’wick system? Need had never heard of it but he could look it up in the star charts on board the ship.
Surely it can’t be that far—hopefully somewhere in the same galaxy we’re in now. I’ll be rid of her the minute The Dark Star gets anywhere near her home planet.
He would get rid of her as soon as he could, he promised himself. He wanted nothing to do with any female—least of all the one trembling in his arms.
Four
Why was he so angry? Lan’ara let her eyes flick up to study his face occasionally as he carried her, though she took care not to look too long. For such a big man, he had fine features—a hawk-like nose and high cheekbones, not to mention those strangely beautiful, metallic bronze eyes.