“You want to sell me too?”
He laughed again, closer to the shrieking sound that had broken her before.
“I considered it. You have had offers. But you are lucky. I am keeping you. You should be grateful.”
Rage flooded her.
She forced it down.
One chance. One.
“Poor little Lily,” Horos continued. “Escaped slavery once, only to nearly fall into it again. When you think about it, you are a very fortunate creature.”
“What are you talking about?” she hissed.
“You do not think a kind researcher took you from Earth, do you? Herion-class ships belong to the elite. And smugglers. And syndicates. The universe has a sense of humor. You ended up owning the very thing that took you.”
He leaned closer.
Before she could strike, he opened his mouth and released the sound.
She hit the floor, convulsing.
Horos watched, rapt.
“So beautiful,” he whispered.
When it ended, Lily lay sobbing on the floor.
“It hurts,” she rasped. “You said you did not want to hurt me.”
He stroked her hair, her back.
“I do not. This is not harm. This is instruction. You must learn who holds power here.”
His hand slid to her waist, then her hip, squeezed once, then pulled away as if even that was too much.
“I have to go. We cannot use the navigation network. Vegrun would find us instantly. Manual plotting takes time, but this way we are invisible. Vitromium earns its price.”
He stood.
“When I meet the fences and receive my payment, I will move you to another ship. No one will ever find us. We will have all the time we want.”
He left her alone with the fading pain.
She could endure the physical agony.
The thoughts were far more dangerous.
Chapter 22
Patience Is Power: Master Yourself, Master Your Enemy
Lily
“Herr-3, phonetically pronounced in the Corvus tongue, meant freedom.
A vilely ironic name for a world where millions of beings from other species were forced, against their will, to have their biological maps overwritten, then made to carry offspring like parasites incubating in stolen flesh. It was a lesson the IMPERIUM’s lawmakers could never afford to forget. Even after millennia, they had to remain vigilant. No species could be allowed to rise so far above the others again.
