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“So this mineral we’re searching for—what does it look like?” Commander Bard cast a sidelong glance at the male beside him.
There was plenty to glance at—he was speaking to Chief Commander Rarev of the Monstrum Kindred. With a thick mane of wild gold hair and glowing golden eyes, not to mention the short, dense, velvety fur that covered his entire body, the male looked more than a little like the Earth animal called a lion.
Of course, as a Beast Kindred, Bard had golden eyes himself and he was just as tall as the other male—a bit over seven feet and heavily muscled. His dark, shaggy hair and grizzled black and gray beard made him look intimidating. But somehow humans still preferred his kind of Kindred to the Monstrum, probably because even Beast Kindred looked more humanoid than a warrior covered in fur or feathers or scales.
Bard hadn’t been sure about pairing up with the Monstrum Commander at first. The Monstrum Kindred were new to their universe, having come just in time to save the Earth from an attack by the Darklings. The evil beings, which had come from a twisted universe, looked like a cross between a snake and a bat but they were more like yet another Earth animal—the ravenous piranha.
The Darklings had dived through multiple rips in the fabric of space-time, invading the Earth and stripping anyone unlucky enough to be caught in their path to the bone. Only the timely arrival of the Monstrum Kindred and their fleet of golden ships had saved the small, blue-green planet the Kindred of the Mother Ship had been protecting for over ten years now.
In return for rescuing the Earth from such a dire threat, the Monstrum Kindred had been awarded the right to call brides from Earth. But it was a right that none of them—except their original emissary, a Satyr Kindred called Storn—had yet taken.
Bard wondered when they would start calling brides. He was a member of the Kindred High Council and he and everyone else on the Council was waiting with baited breath to see how the people of Earth would react to having the Monstrum Claim their women.
Bard’s guess was that it wasn’t going to go very well. The humans had protested and fought over letting the Kindred of the Mother Ship call brides from among them and he and his kind at least looked human—though Kindred warriors tended to be much taller and more muscular than Earth males. So letting the Monstrum—many of whom didn’t look human—call brides from among them was sure to cause an outcry.
But for now, at least, he didn’t have to worry about such things. That was because he and Chief Commander Rarev were as far from Earth as it was possible to be and still be in the same galaxy. They had folded space to Passion Prime, looking for Yillium, an element which was apparently abundant in the Monstrum Kindred universe, but was turning out to be extremely rare here.
“Yillium is a dense, dark blue rock that sparkles when you turn it in the light,” Chief Commander Rarev said in his deep, purring voice. “On many planets in our ‘verse, it was free for the taking. You barely had to dig before you hit a deposit of it.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like it’s quite so fucking common over here,” Bard growled. “Or we wouldn’t have traveled across the galaxy just on the hope of finding some on the word of some shady trader.”
“It is a pity he insisted on meeting us in such a sordid spot.” Rarev narrowed his eyes as he scanned their immediate surroundings.
Both sides of the narrow street were filled with holo glow signs—big, flashing, 3-D images shining like bawdy beacons in the dusky evening light. But the signs weren’t content with halfway blinding passersby with their brilliance—they also loudly announced themselves in several different universal languages.
“Girls, GIRLS, GIRLS!!!” shouted one.
“You pick, you choose, you take her home with you!” screamed another.
“Fifty credits buys you any girl you want for the night!” roared a third.
Bard winced, wishing he could cover his eyes and his ears simultaneously. Passion Prime advertised itself as a “full-service pleasure planet where all your dreams can become reality.” But the truth was, the entire world was just one big endless whorehouse where females of all kinds and species were extorted, trafficked, and sold to lustful males who didn’t give a damn for anything but their own pleasure.
Such a place was disgusting to Bard—and clearly to Rarev too. Though the other male looked more beast than man, he was still a Kindred and all Kindred warriors worshiped the Goddess and revered and protected females. Seeing so many of them hurt and sold like they were no more than property made Bard sick and angry. He wished he could wipe the whole planet clean and send every one of the exploited females home.
