The first beating she’d suffered through had been within hours of her waking up. She’d still been groggy, fighting the nausea that came with whatever hardcore meds they’d used to knock her ass out.
Despite her confusion, Nova was still full of sass and mouthy. That hadn’t lasted long. Within the first few strikes of Talis’s whip across her back, the grogginess had gone away as her body had become alive. With each strike that Talis flung at her, Cruum repeated the details of her new life.
His words had stung almost as badly as the whip his lacky wielded.
Nova was no longer free. She was a slave. She’d been kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder. Her owner ran a brothel on a trading planet called Euphoria—a planet that looked like something straight out of one of her favorite movies. A planet she would have preferred to keep on the big screen and out of her reality, in all honesty. Her new home was filled with red dirt, grubby aliens grunting at each other, and a slaver she wanted to strangle to death with the chain about her neck.
At the thought of her bindings, her fingers ran under the leather wrapped around her throat, checking its tightness out of habit. Her anxiety rose as she felt the unmovable lock fastening the collar around her neck. After a few deep breaths, she bit back the urge to weep over her current situation. It was hard, but she managed. Barely.
She knew she had to escape, but the twins were right. Another failed escape would likely get her killed, she thought, considering the beating she’d taken after her first escape attempt. She’d asked the wrong alien for help, and it had cost her. The cycle of beatings followed by the twins’ healings had continued for some time before her friends finally caught the master and his muscle’s attention long enough for their tempers to ease. After that incident, Nova had been fit with a collar, and the twins were required to chain her whenever they were with a customer. If they forgot, they would all be punished. On one occasion, her leash hadn’t been properly secured, and the punishment had been so severe, the women vowed to never forget again.
Even as the memory made her stomach churn, Nova steeled herself to be stronger.
Cruum was trying to break her, but she was stronger—she had to be.
There were a few things she’d learned growing up an orphan. Life lessons taught straight from the reality of the foster care system. The first thing she’d learned was that you had to be tough to survive.
Rule #1. Act tough, even if you’re scared shitless.
Showing weakness was like throwing chum in shark-infested waters; it brought out all of the mean motherfuckers looking for an easy mark. Nova refused to go down like that. Decades of surviving her own shitty life had given her a resolve to not die, chained up on some alien planet at the whim of a red-skinned pimp with halitosis.
She wasn’t a quitter. She’d never had the privilege to give up and take a seat on the sidelines if she wanted to survive, and she wasn’t about to start now.
You want to live, Nova.
“Did anyone see you?”
Nova flinched at the question, flashing back to Cruum’s voice repeating the same words as he dug into her wounds. Shaking the memory away, she instead focused on answering Halla’s question.
“Yes,” she breathed. Her heart raced as she recalled the big Phaeton who had startled the shit out of her in the market. She didn’t worry about sharing the information with the two in front of her. They’d saved her skin more times than she could count.
Literally.
“Who?” Halla asked, fear sparking bright in her feline-like eyes. “If they tell Cruum—”
“It was a Phaeton,” she interrupted with a shake of her head as his face flashed in her mind. In reality, she’d only seen him a moment or two, but his handsome features were etched in her brain. He was unforgettable. Hell, he’d made such an impression on her in those few seconds that she already had him starring in her pain-induced wet dream. “You told me yourself that Cruum avoids them at all costs.”
“If it was a Phaeton, why did you not seek help?” Kalla asked. Nova prickled at the accusatory tone in her voice.
She’d asked herself that question a million times since Talis had gotten his painful grip on her again. Still, she didn’t know, other than feeling like she’d