Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
My whole body felt like someone had dunked me in an icy river—I always felt cold on O’nagga Nine but this…this was a whole different kind of chill I was experiencing. I looked up at the Baron again—he was huge. Taller by at least a head than other Naggian males and instead of having the slender frame of most Naggians, he was built like a bull, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He looked like he could dead-lift me right over his head if he felt like it and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer if he wanted the same thing Ass-licks had wanted from me.
“Ah, well…” I could see the wheels in R’xs’s head turning. “Normally a rare whore like Natalie makes forty or fifty creds a solar hour,” he said—which was a blatant lie. I was lucky to make twenty, of which R’xs took fifteen right off the top. “But for Your Lordship, I could give you the bargain rate of thirty-five creds a solar hour,” he said to the Baron.
“Done,” the Baron said dismissively. “Now let her go.”
Slowly, R’xs released his bruising grip on my wrist.
“Very good, my Lord,” he said, ducking his head again. “Er, how many hours do you wish with the little whore? Just the one or—?”
“I’ll have her for the entire day and night,” the Baron said decisively.
“But my Lord, that’s an entire twenty-eight hours!” R’xs protested. (The days on O’nagga Nine are longer than they are on Earth.) “Which comes to—”
“Nine hundred and eighty creds,” the Baron said dismissively. “Yes, I know.”
I gaped at him and I wasn’t the only one. R’xs’s mouth was also hanging open, showing his yellowed fangs. The Baron was offering to pay almost a thousand creds for me—that was more than most Naggians saw in a week.
“Well…” R’xs said, recovering at last from his shock. “If that’s what Your Lordship wants, you shall of course, have it. Er…I generally take the money up front with such a large transaction,” he added, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
“That will be fine,” the Baron said dismissively. “Azz’lx, pay the male,” he added.
“I, but…but I’m not certain I have that much on me!” Ass-licks protested.
The Baron gave him a hard look.
“I imagine not, since you thought you’d be getting what you wanted for little to nothing.”
“Oh, I…” Ass-licks didn’t seem to know what to say.
“If you don’t have enough, go to the bank and get it,” the Baron told him. “And you can deduct it from your salary this month.”
Interesting… so Ass-licks worked for the Baron. I would have been intrigued if I hadn’t also been scared stiff of the way I was being sold off to a male who could clearly snap me in two like a twig if he wanted to.
“But…but Baron,” Azz’lx began to protest.
“Fucking do it,” the Baron growled at him. Then he nodded at me. “Come on, little girl. Let’s go.”
This time there was no getting away and I knew it. The Baron was rich enough and powerful enough to have me followed to the ends of the universe if he wanted to. There was nothing I could do but accept my fate.
I followed him.
FIVE
NATALIE
We went up the exclusive ice elevator at the back of the Central Hub, the one that was restricted and for use by the Baron himself only. I had never been on this elevator before—there was no point in even bothering to try getting on.
And anyway, even if I had gotten to any of the higher floors in his building, what would I do there? I would have been completely out of place because the higher you went in the building, the swankier and more expensive the floors became. And at the very top, in the penthouse, was where the Baron lived.
I had heard all this from some of the other Blood Whores who followed him the same way Anglophiles follow the British Royalty. But I had never expected to see his private floor myself—especially not under these circumstances. What was a rich, important male like him doing with a lowly Blood Whore like me?
From the looks on people’s faces as we passed them, lots of them were wondering the same thing. I was sure the gossip rags would be full of questions the next day—I might even get interviewed about it. That is, if the reporters could get to me before R’xs did.
Because I had no illusions about what was going to happen to me—the Baron was going to use me any way he saw fit and then he was going to send me back to my pimp who would doubtless do something horrible to me as retribution. R’xs wouldn’t care that I had made him nearly a thousand creds in one shot—he would still be angry enough to hurt me for making him “lose face” in front of big shots like the Baron and Ass-licks.