Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!
It is Zann who stays my hand - an act that makes me glare at him.
“It is still early,” he reminds me, casually taking a handful of candies and shoving them in his mouth. “Someone will be along soon, I’m sure.”
“If they are not ready to serve me, they should not be open at this hour,” I growl, just as a bony-looking Sectarix male appears from behind a draped-off area.
“Good morning, gentlemales,” he greets, his antennae twitching. “My name is Yix, how may I serve you today.”
“I need the female who was working at Star Pleasures last night,” I demand, my finger tapping on the counter.
I ignore the scoff I hear coming from my brother behind me.
This ‘Yix’ blinks his huge eyes at me and his mandibles open a little before closing again. “The-… uh… did you happen to know her name, sir?” he asks, picking up a tablet screen before he starts tapping away at it.
Her name?
No, much to my chagrin, I did not learn her name.
The Sectarix looks up at me from over the top of his screen. “Sir, we have lots of human females in stock currently, if you do not know her name-”
“You know who I am speaking of,” I tell him, feeling a prickly heat rise up my body. “There was only one human working in that place last night, and she was branded by this trading company.Get. Me. My. Female.”
Yix pales and starts frantically tapping at his screen while I wait, my jaw clenching so tightly, I think I may shatter some teeth if I don’t get her to safety soon.
“Ah, yes,” he chirps, still tapping away. “Here we are.”
The relief I feel is palpable. She is here, and she will soon be walking away from this level and all its dangers.
And walking straight into the jaws of new ones, a little voice murmurs at the back of my head. I shush the voice, vowing that I will not touch this human - she will simply be under my protection. I activate my wrist comm, readying it to transfer whatever amount of money they deem to charge for that little Goddess of a female.
Yix looks up at me, and I go cold as he says, “I fearshe has already been purchased, sir.”
6
Chapter 6 - Niska
I’m still curled up on my bunk, trying to forget the majority of my horrible shift at the club last night, when Yix comes bustling in.
“I have good news, and bad news, and then some more good news, and some final, possible bad news that I just thought of,” he babbles, his bony, buggy arms gesturing nervously.
Lois sits up from her bunk and stretches. “That’s not really how that saying normally goes, but go on,” she drawls, reaching for the armful of red alien fruit that Yix is silently offering out to all of us. I decline the offer.
“Well,” he starts, handing two fruits to Jaya. “Star Pleasures Club are so pleased with Niska earning over twenty million credits for them last night, that they do not need anyone else to work another shift by means of apology to Master Joolyx.”
“Holy shit!” Lois says, almost spraying her bite of the juicy fruit all over her bunk. She wipes her mouth with the back of herhand as she continues to stare, wide-eyed at me. “What fucked-up kind of shit did they force you to do to earnthat?!”
Jaya looks at me with a similarly shocked expression, her hand holding the fruit pausing mid-way to her mouth before it falls back into her lap. “Are you ok, Niska?” she asks in a small voice.
“I’m fine,” I huff, hitching up the horrible, dirty-dishwater-colored, itchy blanket higher over my shoulders as I continue to lay here on my lumpy bed. “I got lucky with some rich patrons is all.”
Rich as in ‘royalty-rich’, I think to myself, remembering the large, horned Prince I’d practically rubbed myself against like a cat in heat. I still don’t know if he’d managed to make good on his promise of disposing of those Yoxxarii, and my nerves spike dangerously high when Yix says his next words.
“The bad news is that someone came into the store today looking to purchase you. They said they saw you at the club last night.”
Oh no.
Oh, no, no, no.
