Captive of Pleasure; the Space Pirate's Woman (The LodeStar Series) Read Free Page B

bodies, avarice, fear and lust.
    Rough beings from several planets milled about, talking and laughing raucously, some gambling in impromptu games of chance, some attempting to peer into the big transport for a glimpse of the day’s wares.  
    A fight had broken out between a huge Mau and a pair of humans. The Mau ended it by tossing one of the men bodily through a slit in the tont walls around a vendor’s stall. The other man turned and ran, shoving his way through the crowd. The onlookers laughed uproariously or slunk away, depending on who they’d been cheering for.
    Inside the cave, the auction ring took up the rear of the space, with a smaller opening behind it. A stage hovered several feet off the ground, and the buying had begun. A pair of Tygean females, petite and buxom, posed for the beings watching from the cave floor. The Tygers’ golden gazes were feral, wary. Both were in full mating shift, tails waving behind them.  
    Above their heads, a holovid magnified them in detail for the crowd. The holocams captured the catlike intensity of their gazes and the fine dusting of fur covering their voluptuous curves.
    A Vulpean skated above the crowd on a hovie, his beady gaze on the crowd, his oily voice amplified as he extolled the virtues of the two slaves. “Not one, but two fiery Tygeans to warm your sleeping pod. Both in full mating shift, thanks to their recent arrival from Tygea, where the female moons are in ascendance. Ver-rrry lusty, they are.”
    Bidding was brisk. Buyers held devices in their hands that signaled the amount of credit they were willing to spend.  
    To the rear, a small group of prisoners huddled under heavy guard. A Barillian female’s keen of despair, fluted from the tall pipes atop her lavender head, cut through the rumble of the crowd and the auctioneer’s strident voice. One of the towering Mau guards struck the Barillian, and her mourning ended with a squawk of pain. The stench of fear emanating from the cowering group heightened.  
    A Mau was readying the next offering, a pale Pangaean, green hair wrapped around his throat, slim body shivering despite the heat.  
    Joran glided through the crowd, his stride relaxed, a man with no apparent intent and all the time on this world. Over his leathers and vest he wore the long cape favored by travelers here, of dull shaded gray-green. The hood was pulled forward to shade his face from the glare of the hoverlamps.  
    He was not the only one so garbed. On an illicit occasion such as this, many preferred to remain anonymous. And there were those who wanted to pry their identity from them. Spy bots zinged through the crowd, tiny holovid cameras revolving like disembodied eyeballs. Occasionally the tiny orbs ventured too close to their prey and were struck down, to fall from sight in a shower of sparks.
    The crowd was edgy, eyeing each other and the guards. Many hands or paws hovered near weapons. An Occulan’s eight eye stalks waved, each in a different direction. An Indigon stood, pale face grim under his ebony hair, a space cleared around him as he used his mental powers to hold others at bay.
    Qala walked just behind Joran, also hooded. As his second in command, she would be as easily recognized as he.
    “The Pinnacles,” she scoffed, voice too soft to be heard by others, but as clear through his comlink as if her lips were at his ear. “More like the space dregs.”
    She was not wrong. The place was full of bottom feeders of all kinds.
    Off to their right, Var strolled on a parallel path, one arm around Ilya. The small blonde had her hood thrown back. She surveyed the penned prisoners as if searching for just the right new servant. The two Occulans were moving into position near the stage.  
    If necessary, Wega and Riley would cause a disruption, a decoy for the attention of the guards. This was a mean, ugly lot—Maus, a few Gorglons and even Ingoes, the scum of the galaxy.  
    “Quark, they have a lot of captives,” Qala said.