One
Needrix didn’t give a damn about the girl.
That was what he told himself, anyway. Even as the Zorthian slaver dragged her up onto the auction block and ripped open her gown to show the creamy brown swells of her breasts with the tight, berry-dark nipples at their tips, he looked the other way.
Too bad for her. But that was life and life was a shitty mistress, one who took whatever and whoever she wanted and ground them into dust under her heel at random. You never knew when you were going to lose what mattered most to you in this uncaring universe—Need had found that out the hard way.
So he turned his head and pretended not to notice as the slaver boasted about how the girl was a verified virgin—only lately ripped from the protective womb of a private finishing school in the Trell’wick system, where only the finest and most beautiful females were taken in, specifically to be molded into wives for the rich and influential of the galaxy.
“Look at her flesh,” the slaver hissed to the patrons standing below the auction block. “Never been touched by a male’s hand—her virtue is guaranteed! And look at her skin—such a rare coloration! I’m telling you, this girl is a prize. She was going to be the bride of a Galactic Senator but now she can be yours for the right price!”
The males looking up at the girl whistled and hooted, shouting for more. Some of them were just passing by in the busy market square, while others were serious about wanting to buy. But everybody liked a free show.
Rather than looking at the girl, who was shivering and trembling and trying not to cry as she attempted to pull her torn gown closed around her, Need studied the crowd. Yys, the planet where Need’s ship had docked to re-supply and also take on new cargo—(no doubt illegal since Captain Glo’ll specialized in “hard to get items”)—was a space port at the hub of a busy system. So there was plenty to look at.
Need saw a pair of Torgians with their mouths open, their three rows of sharp, serrated teeth grinning like sentient nightmares, looking up at the girl. Beside them was a Xanther—a strange looking creature with a body about the same shape and size as Need’s own but with a long, flexible, telescoping neck which it had curved down so that its tiny head and wide, unblinking eyes could stare more closely at the shivering prisoner. Standing beside the Xanther was a Trollox—a huge sentient being with three heads, all of them leering at the girl at once.
Unfortunately, Need knew this last male. His name was Drung and he was the second mate on the Dark Star, the ship Need flew with.
Need himself was first mate and Navigator—a position Drung greatly coveted. He was always trying to pick a fight with Need, hoping to displace him. He wasn’t very subtle about it, though, and for the most part Need side-stepped his obvious attempts at one-upmanship and ignored the big bastard.
It helped that the Trollox’s right and left heads weren’t too smart. The right one never said anything but only giggled like a naughty schoolboy telling a dirty joke and peered slyly out at you from slitted yellow eyes. The left head, Need was convinced, was mentally deficient. It stared dully at the world from tiny black eyes like shriveled raisins and occasionally drooled down the left side of Drung’s tunic. It, too, never said a word.
It was the middle head you had to watch out for, Need thought as he watched his shipmate watching the hapless girl get auctioned off. The middle head was sly, with narrow red eyes and a snout like a porcine. It had two great tusks curving up from its lower jaw too, which—combined with the aforementioned snout—made it look like a wild boar.
All in all, it was a motley crew watching the auction—Drung most of all. All three of his heads were fixated on the trembling girl and the middle one was licking its chops eagerly. Lecherous, pig-snouted bastard.
Not that Need himself had such a fine pedigree, he reminded himself dryly. He was a hybrid—a byproduct of two different branches of the Kindred tree merging together. His mother’s people had been Blood Kindred and Need had the double fangs where another male’s canine teeth would be to prove it. His father’s people, however, had been Vision Kindred—a subgroup of the Kindred that were nearly extinct.
Vision Kindred had the special ability to see their enemies weaknesses but that wasn’t the only reason they had the title “vision” in their name. They also began Dream Sharing with their future mates early—as soon as the two of them had exchanged drops of blood in the Bonding Ceremony, which was typically held when the prospective bride and groom were only five or six cycles old.