Raeda has lived her adult life traveling from world to world, seeking the men who were designed just for her. Kenvin is the world where she is knocked out and dumped at a bride auction, caged to wait her turn. Her clone set has followed orders and has waited patiently on Kenvin, but when they get the message that their mate is about to go on the block, they are done waiting. Dorn, Taro and Renner take their mate into their custody and rescue her from the hands of lustful colonists. Their hands will soon be the only ones she needs to be concerned about.
Raeda sat back in her cell without wondering how the men went about choosing. That was a place her mind really didn’t want to go.
There was a ton of scents flying around in the air. The masculine scents were the strongest. Male arousal, anger, excitement and a heavy dose of alcohol coupled with body odour. The women’s scents were more interesting.
There were ten women on the same level as Raeda and they were being removed from their cells one by one. Some started with fear, some excitement, even a bit of confusion, but when they got to the upper level, arousal was their overwhelming attitude. Their scents changed to aroused excitement and Raeda could not shut it out.
She stifled a groan as she waited, biting at her nails with her protruding canines. When her senses had gone insane, she had taken her boss’s advice and left Shekhar for travel in the stars. Since most of the space stations had air processing, the scents were more muted than they were on living, breathing worlds. Being a dancer always managed to find her work, even on the smallest station. If not for the sudden drop in fuel, she would never have stopped on Kenvin.
As she leaned back and absently braided her hair, she became suspicious that there was someone behind her landing here.
Time ticked past and more and more of the other women went up for auction. When it was just Raeda and the guard, he stood in front of the bars with the leer back on his face.
“Time to go, blender.”
“Who told you I was a blender?” She kept her tone calm.
“It was on your detail sheet. I have to tell you, this is a big deal for us. We have never seen a female blender before.” They were walking to the doorway that contained stairs going up.
“Really? Well, I suppose that you are unaware that we can do this.” She slammed him into the wall and used her senses to find the exit. There.
A few sharp punches to the torso of the guard with one shot to his head and he was down for the night.
She ran along the hall and when she found the door, it was locked from the outside. She grabbed onto the joist of the ceiling above her and kicked at the door with both feet. It moved, but not enough. There was steel involved.
Cursing, she quickly ran back the way she had come and froze when two guards came down the stairs, stopping to look at their companion.
“What did you do?” One of the men was approaching her and she struck out at him. He snarled and she suddenly felt her muscles jerk in spasms of pain.
Her words hissed through her teeth. “I tried to escape. I don’t belong here.”
“This could have been easy for you, but now, it will be our pleasure to see your pain.” The guards grabbed her by her arms and dragged her up the stairs. Her earlier victim was sitting upright and looking wounded.
Light blazed into her eyes as she was hauled up the steps. At a guess, she would say that she was facing four hundred men. An attractive scent caught her attention and she turned her head, but the guards jerked her along.
One of them whispered to the master of ceremonies and his face went flat. “Gentlemen, we have in our possession the first female blender that I have ever seen. She is a fighter, so let’s see if we can’t wear down her resistance a little, shall we?”
The nasty laughter coming from the audience warned her that she was not going to like what came next.
A table was wheeled from the back and a mechanism that Raeda had heard of in whispers was locked into position above the flat expanse.
She was regaining her independent movement, but the guard on her left had a stunner in her ribs. She was either going to get on that table or they would put her there.
With a limited amount of dignity, she got on the table and fought the furious tears that pricked her eyes. They locked her wrists down and her knees were bent so that her thighs parted. Her feet were fastened at the corners of the table and a series of vid cameras swung into place.
The master of ceremonies cackled. “One more thing. The unit needs all of your skin accessible to work.”
He groped her breasts as he untied the wrap, sneering at her helplessness. He removed the wrap with a flourish and his sneer froze on his face.
There was a low growl coming from the audience and as Raeda looked up at the monitor blowing the image of her breasts twenty feet high, she could see the wolf head on the inside of her left breast and it seemed the image was freezing the crowd in a way that few things could.
“What are you doing with our mate, Nathan?” The voice was deep and barely audible behind the growl that came with the voice. The lights were focussed on her, so she could not see who spoke.
“Unfasten her now, Nathan.” The next voice was calmer but the tone was sharp.
