Page 4

CHAPTER 4

T he next few minutes were a blur.

Rona didn’t even remember leaving the Common Hall.

One moment, she was standing amid the crush of bodies, waiting for the contract to be signed.

The next, she was outside on the dirty streets of the village with the stars overhead, and the three biggest men she had ever seen walking along beside her.

The cool night air should have been a relief after the sweltering heat of the hall, but it wasn’t.

Rona was sweating twice as hard as before, and the last words Aeron had spoken were still ringing in her mind.

We split everything three ways

Including me, Rona thought.

The Mercs were going to split her.

They were going to share her and breed her, whether she wanted it or not.

That thought filled her with a sense of dread like she had never known before.

They’d walked maybe a hundred paces from the entrance of the Common Hall, when Rona caught sight of their starship.

That machine had looked scary enough in the daylight.

Now, under the cover of darkness, it looked even worse, like a big metal dragon crouching at the edge of town, waiting to swallow some unwary villager whole.

That sight was more than Rona could stand.

Her mind snapped, and her instincts took control.

Before she was even aware of what she was doing, she had dodged past the lead Merc and was racing toward the shadows at the edge of town.

Rona was sprinting faster than she had ever sprinted in her life.

Her legs were pumping like pistons.

Within seconds, her muscles were burning, but she refused to give in to the pain.

She had to get away.

She had to.

If she could just make it to the hills.

There were caves up there.

Caves where she could—

Hsss!

Something coiled itself around Rona’s ankles, binding them together.

Her own momentum tipped her forward, and she hit the dirt with a thud that knocked all the air from her lungs.

Then she was being dragged feet first, back in the direction she had just come from.

She managed to twist herself over onto her back just in time to see Aeron towering above her, shaking his bearded head.

A long, thin cord was coming from a device on his wrist, and the end of it was wrapped around Rona’s ankles.

“Hold her down while I untie her,” he growled.

The other two Mercs crouched on either side of her and held her in place.

Their massive, gloved hands felt as sturdy as steel clamps around her arms. The one named Aeron knelt in front of her and started to untangle her feet.

“You’re quick,” he chuckled.

“But not quick enough.”

Once the cord was sufficiently loosened, the whole thing slithered back into the device on his wrist.

Rona’s legs were free!

Still operating on pure animal instinct, she kicked her right leg, driving it up between the kneeling mercenary’s thighs.

Her aim was perfect.

Her plan was not.

Rona’s foot connected with what felt like a pair of solid concrete balls, and she yelped as a spark of pain leapt up her leg.

“ Ow! ” she cried. “ Fuck! ”

Aeron, on the other hand, seemed completely unfazed by her kick.

He nodded to his companions, who were still holding her by the arms.

“Stand her up,” he said.

Rona’s heart lurched into her throat as the Mercs lifted her to her feet.

Once she was upright, Aeron grabbed her jacket and pulled her body tightly against his own.

Rona felt something long and hard pressing against her through the front of the Merc’s pants.

She was pretty sure it wasn’t a concealed weapon.

“Let me go!” she shouted.

She tried to pull away again, but Aeron clamped his left hand over her butt, pinning her against him.

His other hand came up to her face.

If her hair had been longer, he might have pulled it.

Instead, he just cradled her chin and tilted her face upward until she was looking him in the eye.

When he spoke, she could feel his voice rumbling straight out of his body and into hers.

“Listen woman, and listen well. Until this mission is over, you are my property to do with as I wish. I’m going to breed you, hard and often. If you behave yourself, that breeding will be done in private. If not, I’ll drag you back inside that building and breed you in front of the whole damn village. Then I’ll let Murdok and Zeth both have a turn. Do you want that?”

Rona had no doubt that he was ready to make good on his threat.

She could feel the hard length of his arousal pressing into her.

She could feel its heat .

Rona shook her head.

“That’s what I thought.” Aeron shoved her back a step.

“Zeth, you’d better carry her the rest of the way, just in case.”

A massive pair of hands encircled Rona’s waist and yanked her off the ground.

The next thing she knew, she was flung over the shoulder of one of the hooded Mercs.

He held her in place with a hand clamped firmly on her butt.

She was reminded of earlier, when the miner in the Common Hall grabbed her there, but this time there was no revulsion, only a sudden surge of heat and arousal that only got worse when the Merc’s huge fingers slipped between her thighs, stroking the most sensitive part of her anatomy.

At least he was wearing gloves, so he couldn’t feel how wet she was down there.

Sweat , Rona told herself.

Only sweat.

But she knew damn well that wasn’t true, and it gave her all the more reason to flee from these beasts who had claimed her.

How though?

She needed to think fast. They were already approaching the edge of the village.

She was facing backwards over the man named Zeth’s shoulder, but when she twisted around to look behind her, she saw that the starship was already looming ahead of them in the darkness.

Aeron tapped a device on his wrist, and the ship suddenly came alive.

The engines hummed as they powered up.

Floodlights snapped on.

A boarding ramp started to descend from the vessel’s underbelly, offering a glimpse of the brightly lit interior.

Once they were up that ramp, there would be zero chance of escape.

Rona couldn’t let that happen.

She couldn’t allow herself to be dominated by these three brutal men.

It’s now or never , she thought.

Still bent over Zeth’s shoulder, Rona twisted her upper body and delved her hand inside her open jacket.

Her fingers curled around the handle of the knife and drew it.

The blade gleamed in the shiplights.

“Let. Me. Go! ”

She drove the knife down with all her might, aiming it at the meat of Zeth’s arm, where his vest left it exposed.

Pok.

The knife tip penetrated Zeth’s skin by a mere fraction of a millimeter, then stopped .

The Merc grunted softly, the sort of sound a man might make when he’d been bitten by a bug.

What the hell?

With a snarl of rage and desperation, Rona lifted the knife and brought it down again in a series of hard, quick stabs.

Pok—Pok—Pok—Tnk!

The tip of the knife broke and went twirling off into the darkness.

Rona lifted the ruined blade and stared at it in disbelief.

Around her, the three big men just laughed, and the one she had stabbed seemed to laugh the loudest of all.

Rona could feel his voice rumbling up through his shoulder and vibrating deep within the pit of her belly.

“I had a feeling she was going to be a feisty one,” Aeron chuckled.

“Murdok, would you please get that knife away from her before she hurts herself?”

The big, hooded Merc was so quick, Rona didn’t even see him move.

In a blink he was standing behind Zeth, and his hand was clutching Rona’s wrist. He gave her a light pinch, and an electric impulse of pain zapped up her forearm.

“Ow!”

Her fingers lost their grip on the knife, and it tumbled through the air, winking crazily in the light.

Murdok caught it with his free hand.

A smile appeared within the shadows of his hood.

“Careful,” he said. “We don’t want you cutting your pretty little self.”

He tossed the knife to Aeron, who spirited it into one of the many pockets on his vest.

“Wanna do what you said before?” Murdok asked.

“Take her back in that building and breed her in front of everybody?”

“No,” Aeron answered.

“Not now. We’re already back at the ship. Let’s just take her aboard and get her properly secured. I’ll deal with her once we’re airborne.” He paused.

“Actually, let’s let Murdok handle the woman. Zeth, I want you in the cockpit with me.”

Zeth made a reluctant sound, but he complied, and Rona found herself transferred from one big shoulder to another.

“Good,” Aeron said. “Come get me once she’s been secured. Oh, and Murdok?”

“Aye, boss?”

“Make sure to search her. Thoroughly.”

“ Aye , boss.”

Rona could not see Murdok’s face, but she could tell by his voice that he was smiling.