She’d never once felt this way in all her years as a sex pet. This must’ve been the misery most of the sex slaves experienced. She’d seen it in the dead of their eyes. Their extreme distaste for what they had to do.
She’d never understood it.
Because she hadn’t had her own desire awakened. Hadn’t known what it meant to give her body of her own free will, to give and receive with a partner of her own choosing.
Now that she knew, it changed everything. And she hated how soiled she felt.
~.~
“Talk to me, Mina. Can you speak, now? Tell me you’re all right.” Erick didn’t like the way Mina had receded before his eyes, as if her life force had drained. But her physical body looked better. Her color had returned. She could blink her eyes and turn her head.
Turn her head away from him.
Why wouldn’t she look at him?
“Mina…” He tried to hold in the question raging at the forefront of his mind, but he couldn’t. “What did he do to you?”
Mina’s lips curled in disgust, and she rolled to her side, away from him. “Nothing.”
“Mina—”
“It’s Tara,” she corrected.
And then he understood.
Veck it all. Something in there had caused Mina to feel degraded. Shamed. It brought back the life she wanted to forget.
He wanted to beat his head against the ship wall. To go back to Neo’s and kill the bastard all over again. He’d let him die too easily. He should have caused some suffering first.
He laid a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. The rejection stung more than he would’ve thought possible. Of all the worst-case scenarios that had trampled his mind as he’d raced through Neo’s following Mina’s tracker on his armcuff and praying she hadn’t been hurt or defiled, he’d never imagined this consequence.
Her rejection of him.
But he deserved it. He’d never treated her like anything but a sex object. He’d agreed to this ill-conceived mission, which had been necessary to solve his own shortcomings in business dealings.
He’d not only relished the sex pet in Mina, he’d put it to use. Offered her to another male.
The thought sickened him.
Yes, she’d thought she wanted this, it had energized her to be a part of an exciting and dangerous mission. And he’d accepted that as enough to justify the plan.
But he should have considered every angle. Should have known this might happen. Wasn’t it his duty to protect Mina? She was his female.
Or he wanted her to be, anyway.
Now, he may have lost that chance.
Veck it all, this was bad.
“I’ll...uh...just give you some space. Do you want anything? Any other being?”
She shook her head, still staring at the wall in front of her.
Damn.
He would’ve rather died back there than have this outcome.
Chapter Nine