Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Mercenary Read Online Free Page B

than a
slave that could potentially make him rich.

    She nodded. “It makes me
sick. Something which you and sub-space have in common.”

    He smiled at her, as
though her words had no effect other than amusing him.

    “ I thought so,”
he said and she concentrated on the ship. It was moving but far
slower than before. It wasn’t in sub-space. She gave him an
incredulous look. He had said that he was the closest thing to a
doctor on this vessel. Had he ordered the captain, that horrible
mountain of man, to travel through normal space?

    Why?

    “ You should
eat.” He walked across the room and came back with another
disgusting protein pack. The taste of the black goo had made her
want to retch and the texture of it had made it impossible to
swallow. She shook her head and kept her mouth firmly shut. He
wasn’t going to fool her into eating it this time. He sighed and
pulled the crate out again, placing it in front of her.

    When he sat down, he toyed
with the pack just as he had done before. He seemed more patient
than the other man and a lot younger. He almost seemed too young to
be a doctor on any vessel, even one this small. Minervans aged at a
similar rate to Lyrans. He had to be close to her age.

    “ If I don’t
eat, what happens?” she said.

    “ To you, or to
your value?”

    “ My value,” she
said, that word hard to swallow. Her father had always said that
she was priceless. How much would he pay for her? He would probably
give everything he had for her safe return.

    “ It goes down,”
he said and for some reason that answer pleased her. What he said
next made her reconsider her plan to starve herself. “If you don’t
eat, the man you met, Nostra, will punish me and will send another
man to feed you. Sasue is the one of us most likely to resort to
violence to get you to eat. If that doesn’t work, he’ll probably do
things to you that could result in you losing your mind. It would
make you quieter at the auction but would probably lower your value
a little.”

    “ But you
said...”

    His look soured. “Sasue
has been running slaves long enough to know how to get his pleasure
without tainting the goods.” He stared at the floor, as though he
couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “He’s sick. I don’t want
that to happen to...”

    Miali frowned. To who? To
her? This man was confusing her more and more by the second.
Perhaps if she ate then he would leave her alone again. But then,
if he did that, the other man he had spoken of might come to see
her. What was stopping him from coming to this room?

    “ If I eat, will
you leave?” she said.

    He nodded.

    “ If you
leave...” She bit her tongue to stop herself from saying it.
Shackled to the wall, she was vulnerable, and that frightened her.
If the man called Sasue came, she wouldn’t be able to stop him from
doing things to her.

    “ I will lock
the door,” he said, as though he had read her mind. “Only the
captain can overrule my decision about keeping you locked
away.”

    A moment of uncomfortable
silence stretched between them as she looked into his dark eyes. He
lowered his head again and stared at the protein pack.

    “ You seem
different to him,” she said and found herself relaxing a little.
She watched his slender pale fingers as he played with the packet
of black goo. Either it fascinated him as much as her hair did or
he was avoiding looking at her.

    She wished that she could
sense people’s feelings like her cousin Sophia could. That ability
would be handy right now.

    “ This wasn’t my
profession of choice,” he whispered and squeezed the pack. All of
the liquid oozed up to one end. “I didn’t want this blood on my
hands.”

    Unsure how to respond to
such a confession by a man who was her enemy, Miali stared at him
and remained silent. He turned the pack over and sighed when it
fell from his hands, hitting the metal floor with a thud. He stared
at his upturned palms, a frown creasing his brow.

    His