Savage Prince by Alison Aimes
2
“Merchandise number one hundred and one. Tonight’s star attraction—and already warmed up for you lucky gentlemen.”
Tess was wheeled into the second back room as the guard, Nils, made the announcement. “Tight, wet, and made for an Alpha’s pleasure.”
Her arms strained in the binds securing her to the hook overhead, the rough bounce of her cage sending her swaying. She widened her legs to stay upright, the awkward position leaving her forced to balance precariously on tiptoes.
“A rare pleasure slave,” continued Nils, “available to only a few lucky VIPs.”
Her cage lurched to a stop.
Five hungry pairs of eyes locked on her. Same as before. Same as always.
She swallowed hard, the thick black slave choker around her neck digging into her throat.
Someone whistled. “That is one prime cunt. No wonder she’s special viewing only.”
The bidders had been seated in five rickety portable chairs positioned in a semi-circle, but they rose to their feet now.
A thick blanket of aggression and testosterone battered her skin even as slick pooled on her thighs. She might hate her instinctual omega reaction, but there was no denying it helped with what was to come.
“Stay back.” Nils, her least favorite guard, raised his crackling baton toward the surging crowd. “You know the rules.”
The rowdy males retreated.
No surprise. With thick neck plates and sharp, yellow tusks protruding from his lower gums, Nils and the rest of the hired auction muscle looked exactly as mean as they were.
Her gaze caught on a few other familiar details.
A stained mattress was shoved into the far corner of the private room. A few threadbare pillows had been thrown on top in a hollow gesture toward nesting. Dark stains bloomed on the walls amidst the cracks and plastered-over holes.
Neither the bidders nor her owner Aldar cared about ambience.
Or pretended this was anything but what it was: a sordid fuck den meant for filthy, violent things.
“Fuck. Look at her.” The next male to speak had piercings across his face and bare chest and a wide forehead that crested to a single stubby horn. He stroked his dick through his trousers. “You bastards might as well give up now. I’m winning this bitch first tonight.”
“Go fuck yourself, Kuril lackey.” The pinchers of a gray-skinned Alpha with jutting mandibles scissored open and shut. “That cunt will be twitching under me first tonight.”
The other two Alphas growled, their brutal stares ripe with lust.
She knew what they saw.
A dark-haired omega with blue streaks in her hair, violet eyes, and big tits, bound in a cage only a bit taller and wider than herself.
Merchandise number 101. Meek. Pliable. Helpless. Broken. Available for rutting, fucking, and knotting to the highest bidder.
Exactly what they were meant to see.
“When do we get to touch her?” The pierced male rubbed his hands together. Like all the rest, he was maskless and gloveless and impatient to begin.
Because it wasn’t her looks that had drawn the bidders. It was something more enticing and rare.
“When he says so.” Nils looked toward the transparent window.
Aldar sat in a massive chair at the front of the glass. His seat was positioned in the ideal spot for viewing, his face and body obscured by a long gray cloak.
He might be a small-time criminal and slaver within the underworld, but as her owner, his word was law.
Old lashes on her back throbbed, a reminder of his power and past displeasure.
Her gaze slipped past him to the four female faces lined up to the right of his chair. Aldar’s adolescent army of thieves.
They were slaves too. Collared and injected with the same kind of tracker that had been forced in her to ensure she never ran away.
They were also orphans, just like her. Omegas who’d been born outside the fold of a strong Alpha protector and become easy prey.
Unlike her, however, these four females were only thirteen to seventeen years of age, a few years younger than her twenty-four seasons, and considered too green yet to work the auction circuit, their gifts not yet fully formed or reliable. Instead, thanks to their small, quick hands and innocent-looking faces, they increased Aldar’s profits by fleecing the auction attendees. They were successful enough at their task that Aldar continued to feed, clothe, and let them live.
Though the slaver had another reason for keeping them around as well: motivation.
As if he’d heard her thoughts, Aldar nodded once more.
Like every time he put her to work, his guards’ weapons rose until they were trained at the heads of the four young omegas.
A reminder to Tess of what would happen if she disobeyed.
Which was why she never did.
Despite what it cost her.
The slaver gave a brief nod, the edges of his hood fluttering in time with her heart.
“Line up.” Nils’s bark was immediate. Everyone hustled when the boss issued a command. “A brief sample will be allowed to show proof. After that, you’ll have to pay for the privilege.”
Pushing and shoving, the potential bidders fought to be the one to try her out. Five hulking beasts three times her size.
On the other side of the glass, Aldar stood for a better view.
Sweet Flora, referred to as Four since the slaver preferred numbers rather than names for his property, looked away. Betta, or Three as she was called, curled her small hands into fists and attempted a comforting smile. Mauve, Two, shook. Lottie, One, scowled.
Tess sent them all her best it’s-going-to-be-fine stare.
This was her second run of the night. All she wanted to do was sink to the ground and be sick, but to keep them alive, she would do as Aldar commanded.
Her status made it impossible to protect the young omegas as well as she would have liked, but she did the best she could. Because those four females were one of the few things left in this galaxy that mattered to her.
Her gaze shifted to the final soul on the other side of the glass—and the weapon also pointed at his head.
As if he’d been waiting for her, jittery blue eyes streaked with silver connected with hers.
Rav Byrel, the only other creature in the galaxy she cared about.
The thick black slave band around her childhood friend’s throat turned the skin beneath silvery white as his neck muscles bulged. Like all other Alphas, he was sometimes rough and brusque, but due to the suppression drugs forced on him since he was a child and the tracker in his blood, he was also a slave, his aggression leashed.
They’d been caught by Aldar when they were young. Before that, they’d run with a gang of orphans who banded together to survive. Until she and Rav had struck out on their own, and ended up enslaved.
Around seven years older than her, five times as strong, and very wily, Tess was certain Rav could have escaped on his own long ago. But he never had.
He was her friend and co-conspirator. If she ever wavered or felt like giving up, he was always there to remind her that the younger ones in Aldar’s care needed her to remain strong.
“Let’s begin.” Nils’s pronouncement pulled her back to the ugly present.
A volunteer had been chosen to receive the sample.
Two guards converged to stand sentry on either side of her cage.
Her breathing came fast.
She should have been terrified by what was about to happen, but the disturbing truth was a part of her relished it.
She’d put herself back together so many times the pieces of her soul were a patchwork of ugly, jagged tissue sealed together by the thinnest of threads and sinew. But at least at this moment, she had some true value beyond being Aldar’s slave, property, and puppet. At least in her sacrifice and her ability to keep her friends alive one more rotation, she was finally good for something other than her usual death and destruction.
The pierced Alpha stepped forward, his sour scent filling her lungs. A rough hand shoved into her cage and grabbed her breast.
Pain slammed through her.
She tried to stifle a scream—she didn’t like to give Aldar the satisfaction—but it burst from her anyway.
Thanks to her gift, the black tendrils of the Alpha’s lust and aggression snaked beneath her skin, penetrating like a thousand sharp knives.
When she was younger, she’d fought the darkness. She didn’t bother anymore.
Because, thanks to her so-called gift, for every moment of pain she suffered, the Alpha experienced unimaginable bliss and intense sexual pleasure.
At least at first.
Panting, twitching, she writhed in her bonds as the pierced Alpha’s eyes rolled back in his head.
“Yes!” He groaned, his cock swelling so fast and hard it tented his trousers. Precum left a widening stain on his pants. “Incredible.”
“Enough.” Two of the guards, their batons crackling, shoved him backward, severing his grip.
With a roar, the Alpha stumbled back, fangs flashing. “No, I need more.”
The guards formed a wall, batons out, blocking him.
“You want more?” Nils’s gaze flickered to Aldar for permission before continuing to follow the usual script. “Line up and give me your financial information for bidding purposes, and you’ll have the chance to win her for far longer than a single touch.”
“I’ll pay whatever it costs.” The pierced male was already close to feral.
“So will I.” The next male in line bounded forward.
Lost to lust, they never questioned why only a brief sample was provided. Or why so much financial information was required.
On the other side of the glass, Aldar turned away.
He always left at this point and returned to the main room. With all the pieces of his con in place, he liked to give himself an alibi, just in case.
He gestured for his army of young thieves to follow. Rav too.
Tess preferred it that way.
She didn’t like any witnesses to what came next.
Because what the Alpha males clamoring to bid on her didn’t realize was that her gift was the ultimate bait and switch.
The pleasure was short-lived—and came at a terrible price.
“Sign me up.”
“I’ll pay more.”
Pushing and shoving, the males lined up in front of Nils to hand over critical account information, unaware they were being played.
Bile burned at the back of her throat.
She didn’t know why Aldar had targeted these particular Alphas, but she knew they were part of the notorious, powerful Brotherhood syndicate, and she knew what was expected of her.
Failure was unacceptable.
For her too.
She’d long ago given up the idea of rescue—or anyone else in this galaxy giving a damn whether she, or any of the other slaves, lived or died—but that didn’t mean she’d given up on the idea of saving her young friends.
Even now, when Aldar thought her cowed and that his young thieves were working just for him, they were busy in the main hall slipping a stolen trinket or two into Rav’s hands for their own private stash.
Once released from her binds, Tess would do the same.
One rotation soon, they’d have secreted away enough to afford a tracker remover. Then, she, Rav, and the four young omegas could run without fear they’d be hunted down and dragged back.
Their plan was taking longer than she’d hoped.
But stealing from Aldar was risky and the tracker remover was expensive.
Rav assured her, though, that they were well on their way.
She could only hope it happened before she lost what was left of her soul.
“The next phase of bidding is about to begin.” Nils’s pronouncement pulled her from her thoughts. “Gentleman, your lives are about to change forever.”
She didn’t look at the smirking guard as he made his sick joke. She couldn’t. Instead, she focused on the heightened rage surging inside her.
Because she wasn’t just a pleasure whore, she was a killer.
And her true value to Aldar lay not in the holes between her legs, but in the deadly potency of her gift.
Soon, just like what had happened in the last back room, Nils would unlock her cage and release her binds. He and the guards would leave the room and, unbeknownst to the bidders, barricade the door shut behind them. Then she would entice the Alphas to touch her a second time before she made a mad dash to her cage and locked herself in.
After that, she’d slam her eyes shut as blood-curdling screams and snarls echoed through the room—very few of them hers— as her gift infected the targets and they attacked one another and themselves, out of their minds with lust and rage, their minds clouded by the darkness. Then all she could do was wait for the awful silence that signaled it was time for Nils to come and collect her so she could begin the whole horrific cycle again.
It was a living hells of pain and death.
But to keep her friends alive, she did what was required.
She waited for Nils’s signal.
Only to feel the strangest tingle at the base of her spine—and then, without warning, disaster struck.
Her nipples tightened. Her core clenched.
Her gift erupted, totally out of control and off schedule, blanketing the air with dark aggression.
“I’ll kill you all!” Out of nowhere, one of the Alphas buried his neck spines into another bidder’s belly.
Another dropped to his knees, screaming, raking his claws down his face.
Her eyes went wide. Normally, the madness only infected the Alphas after they touched her.
But this time it was happening while she was still restrained and Nils and the guards were in the room.
Something was very wrong.
Aldar didn’t like mistakes.
Fear for Rav and the others wound through her.
She had a terrible, forbidding sense that her life was about to change forever.
A crash sounded outside the door.