Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Some of the girls gave him sullen glares but many were nodding their heads. I saw La’le’la’s eyes light up when he spoke.
“Oh, I’m so glad we have a coordinator!” she exclaimed.
“You are?” I asked, frowning.
“Oh, yes—all the high-end auctions have them!” She nodded eagerly. “He’ll be certain we’re looking good for the Masters. Remember, Elli—the better you look, the higher your bids. And the higher your bids, the richer your Master.”
“Okay,” I said but I couldn’t share her eager enthusiasm. I didn’t care how rich my new Master was—I didn’t want to be a Sex Pet for anyone but Sir.
But it seemed I was never destined to see him again.
SIXTY-ONE
SIR
“Who sent you?” the guard at the front of the warehouse where little one was being held demanded suspiciously.
Luckily, he wasn’t speaking to me. He was talking to the male in front of me in line—a line which stretched a considerable distance, I might add. This was supposed to be a clandestine pet auction, from what I had gathered by the chatter around me, but a lot of people seemed to know about it.
“Well? Who was it that sent you?” the guard repeated, since the male in front of me still hadn’t answered. “No entry unless you’ve been vetted by a trusted member of The Society.”
The Society? I frowned. I had heard rumors of this organization before—a shadowy cabal of wealthy males who had a taste for the finer things in life. They drank only the oldest and most expensive vintages, vacationed at the most exclusive resorts, and bought only the rarest and most prized Sex Pets. I had sometimes wondered if they were a myth but this was proof that The Society really existed.
You might think that as the Overlord, I would be included automatically in such a group. However, it was because of my official position that I was excluded. I represented laws and restrictions and—worst of all, to the wealthy citizens of my land—taxes. So there was no way I would be invited into The Society, where the extremely rich did everything they could to keep their wealth intact.
“I was sent here by Lord Te’gum,” the male in front of me said at last. “He vouches for me.”
The guard nodded.
“All right, he’s on our list. You may enter after you sign the agreement.”
He pulled a light-stick out of his sleeve and drew a rectangle in the air. After a mern, the rectangle filled itself in with legal script. I frowned as I scanned it over his shoulder. A lot of it seemed to do with swearing him to secrecy though there was something else at the bottom I couldn’t quite read.
The male didn’t even look at the agreement—he just signed it with the light pen the guard handed him and then the guard nodded him through.
“All right,” he said to me in a businesslike tone. “Who sent you?”
I was relieved to see that he didn’t look twice at the black mask I wore. But then, nobody did. Most of the other participants also had on some kind of disguise—clearly nobody wanted anyone to know who they were. For which I didn’t blame them since, from the talk I had heard around me, this sale would feature exotic pets that had been banned for sale here on Korrigon Four.
Well, banned on the Northern Continent, anyway. I had been working for some time to limit the network of Mind-Controlled slaves. My goal was to have free-thinking laborers who worked for a fair wage and, by-and-large, my people had responded positively. Pets I had put into a different category, but after my relationship with little one, I was rethinking that.
Considering our current regulations in the Northern continent, however, I was rather shocked to find this black-market sale going on basically under my very nose. This was the kind of thing that happened on the Southern Continent, under Gra’multh’s rule. He advocated for Mind-Controlling every other sentient species in our galaxy—doubtless to line his own pockets. It was yet another reason why our two continents were teetering on the brink of civil war—I felt that lower species deserved respect and to live their own lives while Gra’multh and his ilk did not.
At any rate, I would have time to think later—now it was time to act.
I gave the same name the male in front of me had and—to my relief—the guard let me sign the agreement and let me through. I stepped into the abandoned warehouse…and was surprised at what I saw.
Instead of a dusty, disused space crowded with old junk, the interior had been re-designed as an elegant, high-end shopping experience. There were white Flu’rin silk wrappings on the walls and T’stian fire globes floating along the high ceiling, shedding flickering, golden-red light on the scene below.
Torvian servers bearing glasses of rare Saturian wine were circulating through the crowd, though I well knew that a glass of the stuff was worth what a regular citizen would earn in a year—it cannot be synthesized because its flavors are too delicate. Clearly whoever was hosting this private auction was expecting a huge payback on his investment.