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…but do these three guys have a harem back home?

The sudden pangs of jealousy that hit me are embarrassing. I shouldn’t care. I’m thinking of destroying these men, not settling down with them...

However, if Ihadbeen considering a future with them – which is what I need them to believe – it would be only natural for me to ask, right?

“Hadrian… Kitos… Just how many women do you have waiting for you back on Colossus?”’

Hadrian snorts.

“None.”

His answer is so quick – so unequivocal – that I don’t need the power of the Bond to know he’s telling me the truth.

“We chose career advancement and delayed building our harem,” Hadrian continued. “Domestic pleasure makes an Aurelian turn into a doddering fool before his time. Soon… but we hadn’t yet…”

Kitos laughs bitterly.

“We had a plan. The promotion weweregoing to get would have secured us enormous manors and the pick of the litter of human females.”

Then, Kitos snorts.

“But I’m not bitter. No women I’ve ever been with has satisfied me, Allie. They were all like ghosts compared to the real thing. It’s just strange going from thinking your world and life will go in one direction, and then suddenly seeing it diverted completely off course.”

I knowexactlywhat he fucking means!

A week ago, if you’d told me I’d wind up on an Aurelian ship, about to touch down on a garbage planet like Sulcus, I’d have booked the first space-craft off the planet first.

But what was the direction of my life, anyway?

I’dthoughtI’d be stripping for the greedy eyes of men for the indefinite future. I thought I’d probably spend the rest of my life hiding out, on the run, and barely scraping a living.

Instead, I’m now plotting the horrific betrayal of three honorable, bold and sexy warriors – all of whom profess to adore me, and all of whom imagine I’m eager to become their supplicant little housewife and breeding slave.

Suddenly, I’ve made my choice.

The only way I’ll ever be free of these men are if they’re executed. I can’t trust that whatever ability I have to “mute” the Bond will be enough to escape them.

It makes me feel terrible to even consider this horrific, shameful course of action – but I didn't consent to have them blossom in my mind. I didn't consent to have them linked to me for all eternity. I didn'twantto see Daccia's boyish grin, oraskto experience the thrills of Kitos' dark, dominant side. I never requested to feel the devotion of warriors who one second treat you gruffly, and the next worship you like a goddess; and the very reason for their being.

I know I'm not a good person. I don't need to be. I just need to be astrongperson.

The second I've gleaned everything these aliens can tell me about my sister’s disappearance, Ineedto turn them over to that other triad of Aurelian Law Enforcement agents and get thefuckoff the planet. Or, alternatively, I can remain there – hidden in plain sight. I can blend into this rough, polluted frontier world. I can disappear into its dark underbelly.

And I’ve never been better prepared to do it.

I don't just have my concealed weapons back. I don't just have the highly-lethal electro-shock emitter concealed in my arm – which can be used once a day to kill even a three-hundred-pound man, or the shift-blocking device in my other arm.

I've now got something better.

The Bond.

I experimented with it when I woke. Normally, I could do thirty pushups in a row. Being an exotic dancer forced me to keep myself in good shape.

But this morning, I did a hundred pushups – without even breaking a sweat.

The rumors about the Bond are true. I'm suddenly stronger than the average human male – and the average man looks down on a woman as being weaker than he is.

If it now comes down to it, I could survive or eventhriveamong the dog-eat-dog underworld community here on this crime planet, because the one thing that had held me back before – my physical weakness compared to men – has been overcome.