Home > Alien Mercenary's Prize (Lathar Mercenaries : Warborne Book 3)(5)

Alien Mercenary's Prize (Lathar Mercenaries : Warborne Book 3)(5)
Author: Mina Carter

The slight crunch of a boot behind her made all the hairs go up on the back of her neck. Instantly, she analyzed the sound. It was about ten feet behind her, which was a problem because she was at least a hundred feet from the junction. This street had been empty when she’d turned into it, and she hadn’t heard any doors open on the way. Which meant...

A bag dropped over her head. Shit. Vasa had found her. She bellowed in fury, throwing her weight and kicking out as hard hands grabbed her.

“Draanth! Trevia jakesh tri da vani?”

“Utesh! Eshna br’vitav tolonokesh!”

Deep male voices growled as they dragged her backward, the words punctuated by grunts of pain as she landed heavy blows.

“What the fuck! Let me go, you assholes!” she hissed, crying out as her arm was twisted up her back. She kicked out again, rewarded with another grunt of pain.

Before she could do it again, light crackled, visible through the fabric over her head. It touched her chest, and everything went away.

 

 

3

 

 

Tarviisa. The one place in the universe he never thought he’d return to.

Beauty lounged in the chair behind his console and looked out the main viewscreen as they approached the planet. It filled the screen, all blue-violet seas and white clouds, interspersed with idyllic-looking little island chains and large, floating cities. This was the tourist side of the planet, the place people all over the galaxy paid hefty credits to visit. It looked like paradise… but it was a rotten one. On Tarviisa nothing was sacred. You could get anything for a price.

“It’s beautiful,” Marika breathed, her hand on the back of his seat.

He grunted, trying not to breathe in her scent too much. Light and alluring, it was a temptation he couldn’t afford, not when it could entice the dark creature that hid within him. She wasn’t his and he knew that. Even though her scent, more apparent to his keen sense of smell, was tempting and so very near perfect, there were one or two notes in it that his other side didn’t like.

She wasn’t his. Close, but no dice.

“It’s corrupt. All that glitters,” he murmured, not even sure where that quote had come from. It was undoubtedly human, he knew that much, but he’d read so much Terran literature since coming into contact with the new species that he couldn’t remember which book was which. “Scratch the surface and all you’ll find is rot and corruption.”

He should know. It had been his life from the moment he’d left the auction block, a scared little boy still grieving for his mother. He’d found out very quickly that just because something looked good didn’t mean it was, and that just because someone was nice to you didn’t mean you could trust them.

He smothered a snort of amusement and slid a glance sideways to T’Raal, the Warborne’s leader, sitting in the command chair in the center of the bridge. Perhaps that had been why he’d trusted the big Lathar.

Fresh out of the pits, just after winning his final fight, T’Raal had been one of the first beings he’d run into in one of the local bars. Literally. Pissed off that Beauty had won his freedom, Vaxel had sent some of his bully boys to ensure he broke the rules of his release and landed him back in processing. From there, it was a short ride to the pits again, back on the bottom rung of the ladder.

Not that he’d been Beauty back then. He’d had a different name in the pits. Had been someone else.

Zero took them around the other side of the planet. Perpetually in darkness because of the path of the planets around it, this side of Tarviisa was one you never wanted to end up. The dark side was where the shadows reigned, not just in the pits but also in the slave auctions and pleasure houses’ services. Here all pleasures were catered for, no matter how perverse.

“So my sister is here?” Marika asked, her voice getting smaller.

Beauty nodded. “The report came from pit processing, which means she’s dark side already. Once you get on this side, there’s no escape. It’s the pits or worse.”

The small human female had come to stand next to him, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think she was the only one listening. He rarely spoke about his past. Make that he never spoke about it, even though some of the others had angled for it in conversation. Not wanting to relive that period of his life, he’d never risen to the bait.

Now, though... they all needed to know how Tarviisa worked because their lives might depend on it.

“Once a slave hits dark side processing, they’re screwed,” he explained, keeping his voice low and unemotional. “If they match certain criteria, they get hauled off to the pleasure houses. Your sister is pretty enough that I’m surprised they didn’t route her that way.”

He was relieved, though. If she’d been taken to one of those places, the best they could hope for was that she was already dead. If she wasn’t, if by some miracle she’d survived, there wouldn’t be much left of her worth saving.

“But, from the vid-feed recording, she had pit cuffs on, which means they’ve routed her through as a fighter.”

He kept the surprise out of his voice. From the quick look he’d gotten at her on the footage, she was delicate and slender like Marika, with the same mass of dark hair and heart-shaped face. Not someone he would have pegged as a fighter, but they did pick females to throw into the matches as something for the males to protect, fight over, or fuck. The organizers didn’t care if the bout turned into a massacre or an orgy, as long as the customers got a spectacle. None of his bouts had ever devolved into an orgy; it had always been full-on carnage.

“What does that mean?” Marika asked, biting her lip as they flew over the first of the cities. This side of the planet was all rock, the cities carved into the surface with the lights on the upper levels burning constantly.

“She’ll enter the pits.” He frowned as they circled over Konuriaa, the central city on the dark side. “All fighters are kept in cells in the catacombs below the arenas. They’re allowed out a couple of times a day—once for food and once for exercise in the arena.”

“Sounds pleasant,” Sparky said from the other side of the bridge. “Bit like Mirax Ruas that. Only the exercise was more running away from the other wankers you were locked up with.”

Rubbing a hand over the scar on his throat, Beauty shot an irritated look across at the loud-mouthed human.

“When she’s listed for a bout,” he continued. “She and the other combatants will be taken up the main arena level. Only two ways out of there. As a winner or...” He shrugged.

Marika paled as she looked at him. “As a winner or... dead?” she guessed in a small voice.

He nodded, feeling bad for scaring her, but there was no way around it. The pits were a brutal place, and no amount of sugar-coating would change that. If he tried, as soon as they went down there, she’d realize he’d lied.

“Let’s just hope your sister is as strong as you. Eh?” He offered with a smile that got him a grunt and a sharp look from Skinny. Even though the big heavy-worlder had mating marks to prove Marika was his, he was still Lathar and therefore highly possessive and protective of his mate. As it should be.

“Little bit of that Ingrassia backbone, and she’ll be running the place within a week,” he added confidently.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)