I’m struggling and squirming again, trying to escape the iron-like grip the alien has on me. This time, Yashhi clamps down on both my wrists and forces them to the table top, pinning my arms and torso down while his lower set of hands start to caress my thighs, trying to part them. I press the side of my head to the cool metal of the table’s surface and clamp my eyes shut, willing this to all be a terrible nightmare.

“What’s this?” Byakii asks, and I can feel him leaning over me from the opposite side of the booth. He tugs at the black leather strap Tringa had given me to hide that big ol’ ‘for sale’ sign I have stamped on my skin.

No.

No, no, no!

The strap comes loose and someone takes my wrist from Yashhi’s grip and turns it over. “It looks like human may well be on the menu,” I hear someone say as Yashhi’s hands start inching their way under that one flimsy strip of fabric that drapes over my bare pussy.

My head spins.

I think I’m going to black out.

“Get your fucking filthy hands off the female,” a gravelly voice demands from above me.

Did I imagine that?

Hope sparks low in my belly and I dare to crack one eye open, then the other. My cheek’s still pressed to the cool metal table so what’s directly in my line of vision is… a crotch. A crotch clad in tight pants with a couple of leather belts and gun holsters strapped to the biggest, most jacked thighs I’ve ever seen.

I swallow and chance a glance up at what is hopefully my knight-in-tight-pants to see the tallest alien I think I’m yet to see. He is easily above seven feet, but from my position down here on the table, I can’t make out much more. Shifting, I try to glance back at Yashhi and it’s then that I see it…

The newcomer has one of those alien blaster-guns pressed right into the asshole, Yoxxarii’s temple.

The others seem frozen and it’s almost like the rest of the club fades into nothing, and I can’t tell if that’s the thump-thump-thump from the base of the music, or from my heart trying to burst out of my chest.

“I’m tipping for her service,” Yashhi growls, apparently not so willing to give up on his meal.

“No, you’re not,” the newcomer says before reaching out with his other hand to touch my little floating credit-collecting orb, causing it to make a little ‘ping’ noise and glow a little brighter, indicating that he’s just paid. “I am. And I suggest you release the female before I start decorating this ‘fine establishment’s’ walls with your brains.”

Yashhi grunts and I can feel all four of his hands release their grip on me.

I can breathe again.

“Come,” the newcomer demands, replacing Yashhi’s hold with his own, a large dark gray hand clamping down on my arm. “You are mine until this place closes.”

He yanks me to my feet, and from this position, I can see that yes, he is indeed over seven feet tall, possibly eight if you factor in the large, black, spiralling horns that sweep back and up over his head of dark hair. The rest of his skin is gray, too. Albeit a lighter, more bluey-gray than that of his hand - the hand that still holds me. His bright green eyes sweep me up and down now that he can see all of me and I don’t miss the way his throat bobs with a swallow.

God, I hope he’s not another human-eating species.

For a few beats of pounding music, he just stares at me, like now that he’s prized me from the Yoxxarii, he doesn’t quite know what to do with me.

But whatever this guy has in mind, it has to be better than being a dish on the après-fuck menu, right?

“There’s… um-…there’s an empty booth over there,” I gesture over my shoulder to one of the darkest corners of Star Pleasures, desperate to be anywhere that’s not near the ghoulish flesh-eaters still watching me from their table.

The tall male’s eyes don’t even look to see where I was pointing, he simply jerks his chin in a single nod and says, “lead the way, female.”

OceanofPDF.com

4

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 4 - Niska

I can practically feel the hulking frame of the new guy following me over to the booth, and once we get there, I turn, catching his eyes focused on something lower before they fly up to meet mine. I take a moment to look at him properly now that we’re further away from the threat of the Yoxxarii. Not only is he tall, and topped with shiny black horns, he’s broad-shouldered and muscular. I’m pretty sure this guy could take on most of the patrons in this dive club and win through sheer size advantage alone. Those tight pants are a tan-sort of color and remind me a lot of riding breeches from those fancy period dramas where a handsome duke falls in love because he saw the lead woman dancing at a ball one time.

Speaking of period dramas, he’s wearing a flowy white shirt, not unlike a Georgian gentleman, undone right down to his navel, showing off a sliver of his impressive chest. Come to think of it, he’s wearing black knee-length boots too. If he weren’t… you know, a giant, horned, gray dude, strapped up with two space blasters to his bulging thighs, I’d say he’s cosplaying Mr Darcy pretty spectacularly right about now.

Except, there’s definitely an air of danger that Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley could never pull off - no offense to Colin Firth.

The new guy slides into the dirty booth, his thickly-muscled legs parted wide and his arms hung along the back of the seating as he quite literally takes up the whole space. His ear flicks like he’s agitated, and that’s the first time I notice that they’re long, like an elf, with a few golden studs. There’s a glint of a gold chain at his neck and chunky gold rings on his darker fingers too.

So maybe, more Georgian pirate, than landed gentry? Either way, this whole look is-

“You do not have to stay if you do not wish, but I’d wager those Yoxxarii will corner you again if they see you unoccupied.”

His deep rumbling voice cuts through all my mind-babble and brings me right back to the danger I’m still in. I don’t even need to look to know that those Yoxxarii are still staring over at their meal getting away. “No, I definitely want to stay,” I say, sliding into the booth and onto Mr Space-Darcy’s lap. He stiffens instantly, and not in the fun way - as in, his whole body tenses like he hadn’t expected me to take him up on his offer, and now that I have, he’s not quite sure what to do about it. “Thank you so much for saving me back there,” I tell him earnestly. I don’t normally like the thought of having to be saved - especially by a man - but I’m not stupid. Sometimes a damsel is genuinely in distress. And there’s nothing a man likes more than to play savior, so I will shamelessly play that card. “I don’t know what service you want in return but-”

I glance at my little floating friend - the money-collecting orb - only to see the amount shown shining on the surface is far more than when I’d last taken notice. “You paid twenty million credits?!” I gape at him.

The male swallows and rubs the back of his neck. “Is that not enough? I’m happy to book your time until close so you do not have to resort to entertaining the Yox-”

“Enough?” I shift in his lap to face him better and I don’t miss the way his breath hitches at my movement. “You could outright buy thirty of me for that amount! That’s-” I suck in a breath.

Why did I say that?

I don’t want to highlight the fact that I can be purchased to anyone here in this club! Niska, think before you speak, for God’s sake!

The gray male’s eyes drop to my throat briefly before he’s looking away and shifting his hips beneath me. “I am not in the habit of buying people,” he says, holding up two fingers to one of the Raxilli servers nearby. I watch as her eyes widen and then she scurries away to go and get the man’s drinks. “Nor am I in the habit of frequenting places like this. I came here to find my brother. I know he’s down here somewhere.”