“I imagine not, since you thought you’d be getting what you wanted for little to nothing.”
“Oh, I…” Ass-licks didn’t seem to know what to say.
“If you don’t have enough, go to the bank and get it,” the Baron told him. “And you can deduct it from your salary this month.”
Interesting… so Ass-licksworkedfor the Baron. I would have been intrigued if I hadn’t also been scared stiff of the way I was being sold off to a male who could clearly snap me in two like a twig if he wanted to.
“But…butBaron,” Azz’lx began to protest.
“Fuckingdo it,”the Baron growled at him. Then he nodded at me. “Come on, little girl. Let’s go.”
This time there was no getting away and I knew it. The Baron was rich enough and powerful enough to have me followed to the ends of the universe if he wanted to. There was nothing I could do but accept my fate.
I followed him.
FIVE
NATALIE
We went up the exclusive ice elevator at the back of the Central Hub, the one that was restricted and for use by the Baron himself only. I had never been on this elevator before—there was no point in even bothering to try getting on.
And anyway, even if I had gotten to any of the higher floors in his building, what would I do there? I would have been completely out of place because the higher you went in the building, the swankier and more expensive the floors became. And at the very top, in the penthouse, was where the Baron lived.
I had heard all this from some of the other Blood Whores who followed him the same way Anglophiles follow the British Royalty. But I had never expected to see his private floor myself—especially not under these circumstances. What was a rich, important male like him doing with a lowly Blood Whore like me?
From the looks on people’s faces as we passed them, lots of them were wondering the same thing. I was sure the gossip rags would be full of questions the next day—I might even get interviewed about it. That is, if the reporters could get to me before R’xs did.
Because I had no illusions about what was going to happen to me—the Baron was going to use me any way he saw fit and then he was going to send me back to my pimp who would doubtless do something horrible to me as retribution. R’xs wouldn’t care that I had made him nearly a thousand creds in one shot—he would still be angry enough to hurt me for making him “lose face” in front of big shots like the Baron and Ass-licks.
Speaking of Ass-licks, I wondered grimly if he was enjoying the rest of his morning. I bet myself that when he went to find R’xs and demanded to use me that morning, he hadn’t anticipated that he’d be paying a hefty wage out of his own paycheck for his boss to use me instead.
Then I felt my spine stiffen.
Use me? I don’t think so,whispered a little voice in my head. I didn’t care how rich and important the Baron was—I wasn’t just going to roll over and play dead for him like some damn dog. I was going to treat him like any other client, I told myself. He wanted to taste my blood? Fine—I was, after all, a Blood Whore—selling my blood was my job. But that wasallhe was getting from me. I’d be damned if I would spread my legs for him or let him bite me anywhere but my wrists.
Although now, my right wrist—formerly my “good one”—was in considerably worse shape than my left wrist, due to the way R’xs had been gripping it. There were already purple bruises growing where the pimp’s long fingers had wrapped around and squeezed. He—
My thoughts were cut off abruptly when the elevator gave a muteddingand the doors slid open to reveal the most luxury I had ever seen since I had come to O’nagga Nine.
The ceilings were high and there was a thick, crimson carpet on the hallway floor which led down a long corridor papered in muted deep umber. There was a bunch of rare snow flowers on a pedestal across from the elevator, their delicate white lace offset by the heavy traditional earthenware vase they were in. The space had a rich, intensely masculine feel to it.
A Naggian servant in a black suit with his hair combed severely to one side met us as the doors opened. His eyes widened briefly when he saw me but his voice betrayed no surprise when he spoke to the Baron.
“My Lord,” he said, inclining his head respectfully. “May I take it that you have company for breakfast?”
“You may, Daw’snx,” the Baron rumbled. He looked down at me. “I think, anyway. You hungry, little girl?” he asked.
Was I hungry? When was Inothungry? I couldn’t remember a single day since I’d gotten to this miserable frozen planet when I hadn’t been so hungry it felt like my stomach was gnawing my backbone, as my Granny would have said.
I nodded mutely.
“Good.” The Baron nodded back. “Breakfast for two, Daw’snx,” he told the servant.
“Very good, my Lord.” Daw’snx nodded again. “And will that be a cold breakfast with traditional Naggian fare? Or do you prefer a hot breakfast with more modern food?”
The Baron looked at me speculatively.
“A hot breakfast, I think,” he said, much to my relief. I had seen the traditional food the Naggians still ate during their feast days and it was awful—mostly blood based cuisine with long curls of frozen fish and bloated intestine sausages filled with half-cooked bile.Disgusting.