Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Mercenary (2 page)

Slave?

A wave of nausea hit
her.

It wasn’t just the thought
that she was now a slave that evoked that feeling. There was
something else. She focused on her surroundings and her stomach
lurched.

In Iskara’s name, they
were travelling in sub-space and she was awake. Wave after wave of
sickness swept through her, crashed over her, until she was
fighting a constant battle to stop herself from
vomiting.

Slave?

Miali gasped at air. It
was cool and refreshing but didn’t stop the nausea from growing
worse as her panic increased. Some people had her. They must have
attacked the ship while she had been asleep.

“
Who are you?”
she said, voice shaking along with her body.

The man grinned and
backhanded her. Pain shot out in all directions from her jaw and
cheek. Flashing white dots punctured her vision. She closed her
eyes against them and the sight of this terrifying
reality.

“
Quiet!” He
grabbed her roughly by the jaw and dragged her head back around.
She squinted through the pain to look at him. Those sharp teeth. It
dawned on her. Minervan. “Think of me as your master, for now.
Can’t say you’ll be needing this where you’re going.”

He took the translator
from her ear, her voice alteration device from her throat, and the
communications band from her wrist. With a chilling laugh, he
walked away, disappearing into the gloom. The sight of his teeth
wouldn’t leave her. A Minervan? Why did a Minervan want her? Slave?
Master?

Her head pounded from fear
and pain.

Slave runners?

A door opened and she saw
a corridor and then the silhouettes of several people. One was
easily recognisable as the man who had spoken to her. He was tall
and broad, but not in a muscular sense. Clearly, he was living well
from trading the people that he captured, selling them into
slavery. Two people just as tall followed him. Both male judging by
their shape. One was as large as the man she had met and the other
was far slimmer. The last silhouette was clearly a
female.

A female working in the
slave trade?

Perhaps she was a slave
herself.

When the door closed, the
light above Miali dimmed and then went out. She tried to look up,
but couldn’t move her head enough. The collar around her throat dug
in, stopping any attempts to escape. The metal was sharp at the
edges and her wrists were already sore. Questions filled her aching
mind.

Her hope that the others
were alive faded when she remembered that this was a slave ship.
From what she had read about and seen of slavery, male slaves were
rare. Females brought the best price at market. She had heard of
the incredible prices that some of them had fetched, and how prized
they were by their masters.

Her aunt, Kayla, had
suffered years of slavery with a Sekarian trader, thankfully only
working in his warehouse. If Uncle Balt hadn’t saved Kayla, someone
might have discovered that she was Terran royalty. They would have
sold Kayla to the highest bidder. Her owner would have prized her
as a whore.

Was she facing such a fate
now?

What if these men knew
that she was Lyran royalty? No. They couldn’t. Her family had been
careful to give her a false background and to alter the records of
the princess with another’s picture so no one would recognise her
as the daughter of Prince Lyra IV.

White spots appeared
across her vision again. It was a struggle to hold onto
consciousness as the combination of nausea and fear threatened to
take the universe away again. She blinked rapidly, clinging to the
darkness and trying to calm herself. A stronger wave of sickness
crashed over her and swept her away into the inky black.

Miali groaned when she
came around, her throat aching from having her head hung forwards
against the collar while she had been unconscious. She screwed her
face up and then slowly opened her eyes. The dark greeted her, as
menacing and chilling as before. Staring into it, cold fear crept
down her spine. What would happen to her now? Where were the rest
of the crew? Where was Eryc? Were they really all dead?

Her stomach had settled.
They must have come out of sub-space. In fact, she couldn’t feel
the ship moving at all. Perhaps they had docked.

A bright burst of light
blinded her and she flinched away from the open door. When it
closed again, the pinhole light above her came on. She squinted as
her eyes adjusted to it.

A man stepped under the
light, his black spiked hair and equally black eyes betraying his
species as much as his sharp teeth did when he spoke.

“
Not a
word.”

Another
Minervan.

This one was young and
handsome.

And he spoke
Lyran.

****

Chapter
2

Kosen approached the
female slowly. He ran his gaze over her from her heavy boots up her
slender legs to her ample cleavage and from there to her beautiful
face. She was a siren that could make any male’s blood boil. It was
exactly as their contact had promised them. She would fetch a good
price at the auction on Minerva Nine in four days time.

Her silver hair shimmered
under the spotlight, glowing in a way.

She was more beautiful in
the flesh than he had imagined she would be. He had never seen such
a figure matched with a goddess’s face and silver hair. There was
none like her at the markets.

“
Food,” Kosen
said and showed her the small black protein pack in his
hand.

Her nose wrinkled up and
she turned her head away. He frowned and then realised that her
tight flight suit was dirty. Whatever she had had in her stomach
was now down her front.

With a sigh, he walked
over to the side of the room and placed the protein pack down on
one of the containers. He picked up a cloth and went back to the
female. He hadn’t expected that he would be cleaning as well as
feeding her but they had to keep her presentable. The smell of sick
on her might lower her value. He needed her to fetch the best
price.

“
He frightened
you that much?” Kosen muttered and wiped the vomit off her clothes.
She struggled when he cleaned her chest. It didn’t stop him. Years
of working in the slave trade had taught him that she wasn’t really
a woman. She was an object that would soon pass from his hands to
another’s. If he saw her that way, he wouldn’t care what happened
to her.

It was best this
way.

Yet, he was speaking Lyran
to her. He was talking a language that disgusted most of his
species, even though a member of the Minervan royal family was now
the queen of the Lyran people.

To him, Lyran was a
musical language.

“
Cruskin
nyaaeso!” The female lurched forwards. Her rebellious actions only
served to press her breasts against his hands.

They both
froze.

She immediately shrank
back and spat in his face, as though he had touched her on purpose.
It was her fault for arching into him.

A tirade of foul language
spilled from her lips. Lyran was beautiful sometimes at least. When
she spoke it, she said every word with so much venom that it
sounded Minervan.

“
I said to be
quiet,” he warned and finished cleaning her. “I’ve never had a
prisoner be sick down themselves before. Try not to do it again. I
don’t think Nostra deserves such a violent reaction.”

“
Nostra?” she
whispered, as though saying it quietly meant that she wasn’t
breaking the rules.

“
The man you
met earlier.” Kosen couldn’t believe that he was talking to her.
Something about her made him respond. He had seen captives
frightened before but never to this extent.

“
Not him,” she
said and he looked at her. Her dark eyes were only a shade closer
to brown than his were. They were wide and round, rimmed with long
thick black lashes. “Not sick for him.”

She swallowed with a look
of discomfort. When he saw the red marks on her throat, he frowned.
Nostra had put the collar on too tight. Kosen reached around her to
loosen it. Damaged goods sold for less.

The moment his body
touched hers, she moved back as far as possible. He rolled his eyes
and waited for her to spit at him again. As though he would
intentionally press himself against her. He wasn’t
Sasue.

“
Keep still,”
Kosen said and moved the collar onto the next latch, giving her
more room. “There.”

She was frowning when he
stepped away.

“
Why were you
sick?” He studied her. She was paler than when he had first seen
her. She needed to eat, but he knew without trying that she would
refuse the protein pack if he offered it to her again.

“
Sub-space.”

That one word made him
frown along with her. When they had boarded her vessel, she had
been in cryo-sleep. Their contact had mentioned that they would
find her there. Had she been in cryo-sleep because they had been
travelling in sub-space?

“
We’re
stationary now.” He stopped himself before he mentioned their
location. The less she knew, the better.

“
I know,” she
whispered and closed her eyes, swallowing hard as though she was
trying to stop herself from vomiting again. “Others with
me.”

“
Don’t think
about them.”

Kosen went to the crate
and placed the cloth down. His gaze slid to the protein pack. It
was worth a try. He was here to get her to eat after all. He picked
it up and walked back to her.

“
Will you
eat?”

She shook her head. This
wasn’t good. If he failed to convince her to eat, Nostra would kill
him. They had elected him with this female because he was the
youngest and nearest to her age in relative terms, and the safest
option. If she didn’t eat, she would lose weight. As it was, she
was already borderline. Bags of bones didn’t sell well. In fact,
they made less money than damaged goods.

“
They’re dead,”
she said, her voice a broken whisper. Her dark eyes were full of
tears.

This wasn’t what he
needed. Crying females were impossible to deal with and difficult
to keep emotional distance from.

Normally, he left the
room.

He couldn’t leave her
though.

With a long sigh, Kosen
went over to the crate and picked up a clean cloth. He went back to
her and tried to wipe her tears away but she lowered her head and
turned it away from him. He tried again and she turned her face the
other way. He growled in frustration and ground his teeth, his jaw
tensing so hard that his teeth creaked.

He offered the protein
pack. She shook her head and kept it hung forwards. Nostra had
ordered him to remain with her until she had eaten. At this rate,
he wasn’t going to be getting off the ship before they left dock in
a day’s time.

He dragged a crate across
the room and sat down on it. There were supplies that he needed to
get before they broke port, but he was willing to wait for her to
become hungry. It couldn’t take that long. As far as he knew,
Lyrans ate quite frequently. With her stomach empty, she would soon
be asking for the food. He picked his nails to pass the time and
then toyed with the protein pack, shifting the black liquid
contents from one end of the rubbery casing to the other. It amused
him for a few minutes at best. Next, he tapped out a rhythm on the
crate beneath him, trying to recall a tune from his
youth.

Slowly, she raised her
head again and looked at him. Kosen could feel her eyes on him,
studying. He let her drink her fill of him and take him all in. He
wasn’t much to look at. Probably just another bastard Minervan to
her. Regardless of the fact that her queen was Minervan, she would
still hate his kind. Lyrans had always hated them. Minervans had
always hated Lyrans in return. Nothing would change
that.

“
Did you kill
them?” she whispered.

His gaze shifted to
her.

He wasn’t going to lie to
her. Perhaps if she knew the truth, she would be more cooperative.
The quicker that she lost hope of being rescued the better. They
needed her to behave herself. Normally, they had weeks to break a
captive’s spirits. This time they had barely days.

“
Not all.
Some,” he said and her focus fell to the floor.

A string of perfect
Minervan swearwords issued from her lips. His left eyebrow rose.
She knew his language. He reminded himself that she had been an
ambassador. It shouldn’t be so surprising that she would be
educated and would know some of the primary languages of the
galaxy.

Kosen frowned when her
hair suddenly flattened.

She hadn’t moved but it
had. Was there something about her that their contact hadn’t
mentioned? Kosen went over to her and brushed his fingers through
the long silver locks of her hair, studying them and ignoring how
she flinched away. There was definitely something different about
her. He had never seen a Lyran with silver hair before. The contact
had only told them that she was beautiful and Lyran. When they had
seen a picture, her silver hair hadn’t been evident. They had only
seen her beauty and had immediately agreed a cut of her sale price
with their contact, knowing that this time they would make a
fortune.