The sight nearly undid him.
She looked every inch the sex slave—pert breasts offered up, her sex—permanently made bare through laser hair removal, as was the custom with Ocretion sex slaves—gloriously inviting between her legs, copper hair tumbling across one shoulder. If some being told him that she was actually a mystical, magical creature, capable of seducing males of every species and bringing them to their knees, he would’ve believed him. Her sister had possessed some extra-human ability to read minds. Why couldn’t this one possess some quality that made her irresistible to him?
He stepped closer, and she reached for the bowl, but he pulled it back, out of range. “Uh uh. I’ll feed you, or you’ll eat too fast. How long has it been since you’ve fed?” He scooped up a spoonful of grain and fruit and held it out to her.
Her lips closed around the utensil immediately, and she answered with a full mouth, “Since they captured me, two planet rotations ago.”
“You were only with them two planet rotations? That’s good.” Though he shouldn’t care, the idea of her being mistreated by those men made him uncomfortable.
She watched the spoon expectantly, but he paused, not wanting her to make herself sick by eating too quickly.
“It was time enough for each one of them to take me several times.”
The bitterness in her tone ripped his chest open. He’d half convinced himself that as a sex slave, she’d known no better—apart from her brief freedom when she’d stolen his ship. He hadn’t wanted to pity her for her station in life. Because if he did, it would make everything he’d done to her wrong, as well.
Veck.
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes shifted from the bowl to his face, surprise flickering there.
He swallowed and picked out a piece of meat. “Chew it slowly,” he warned. “How often do humans normally feed?”
She chewed frantically and swallowed. He rolled his eyes.
“Three times a day, if we can. Sex slaves are generally well-kept. They want us looking healthy, of course. But we’d been foraging on Jesel for half a solar cycle, so we didn’t eat as often as we liked.”
“You and who? The rebels?”
She shook her head and made an impatient jerk of her chin toward the bowl. He smiled. She was adorable. He loved when she showed him this real side of her, what lay beneath the slavish meekness. Lily, the warrior. The one who’d stolen his ship. He fed her another bite.
“The escaped slaves. The ones who took your ship.”
“Hold on,” he barked. “Is my old ship back there on Jesel?” He would turn around and recover the thing, if it was.
“It didn’t survive landing.”
He growled his displeasure.
She shrugged. “They’d only learned to fly by scanning databases. No one had any practical experience, so we figured we were lucky to walk away from the landing.”
He swore several times and walked a tight circle around his small chamber.
She climbed down from the bed and followed him, attempting to take the bowl from him with adorable supplicant eyes.
Once more, he jerked it back, but offered her a bite. Her little tongue darted out to catch a spilled piece of grain on her lip, and he watched it, fascinated.
He really shouldn’t be so turned on by this silly human.
“So what happened to the rest of them? The escaped slaves?” He wasn’t sure why he wanted to know, but he did. He wanted to hear all of her stories, too—how they’d planned the escape, what her life had been like. But that was just bizarre.
Her pretty face clouded, and her muscles hardened. “They were killed,” she said stiffly.
“By whom? The rebels?”
“No. By a bomb. I was away from camp.” Her gaze turned distant, like she was reliving the moment.
He didn’t want her to.