Silver Bound Read Online Free Page A

expression no doubt due to his already handsome bribe to get the information he’d needed from her earlier. “Are you ready to pick out your new concubine? I have a dossier of measurements and pictures here.” She waved in the air, her dark hair piled on her head above a space-pale face. “Her personality is yours to mold.”
    He bit back the urge to wipe that plastered smile off her face and tell her what he thought of slavers, but he needed her cooperation. “I’m interested in the one brought here today.”
    The office manager frowned, showing fine lines around her mouth and a cold stare. “She’s no longer for sale.” She rose. Her silver lab coat rustled as she moved to the slider. “If you would like to come back another day, we can look through the dossiers. Until then…”
    The door slid open. The empty hall outside seemed bleak and stale. He wasn’t doing this right. “I’ll pay more. You said yourself, one is as good as another.”
    He gave her his most charming grin, but she shook her head and he froze his face to keep the scowl at bay.
    She tutted. “I’ve already started her procedure, as you know. She’s already bought.”
    The momentary inclination to throttle her and make her tell him where Jewel was hidden away nearly took his breath, but a sly glance from the manager couldn’t be mistaken. She could be bought, as surely as Jewel had been.
    “I’ll pay you double,” he blurted. “She took my fancy.”
    The manager turned, the plastic smile brightening a little, and shut the door. “I’ll take your money. Though one is as good as another.”
    Her cheerfulness went up in direct contrast to his plummeting mood. Yes, to this shadow-bidder who already waited on her, one slave would be as good as another. But not to him. Not to Jewel.
    The manager walked him to a payment booth and left him there to complete the arrangements. He didn’t hesitate. Jewel meant more to him than these funds, even if he’d nearly cleaned out all his accounts. He swiped his thumb over the pad on the panel to complete the money transfer.
    The light clicked from yellow to green. Everything was all set.
    In a small but plush waiting area, he waited as the technician prepared Jewel for his inspection before the procedure.
    The procedure.
    The coming process both repulsed and, he was ashamed to admit, excited him. His cock filled, heavy in his lush Terraloft garb, all silk and clinging, brushing against his heated flesh. He preferred the twill slacks and cotton button-down shirt of his real life to this material made to flaunt his body. But it fit the part. He blended with the dissolute elite who had nothing better to do than relieve their boredom. As that kind of man, he wouldn’t care if his erection was so hard and long it peeked above the waistband of clothing that most people wore to bed.
    In this guise, he didn’t have his boots. A man couldn’t be a proper sheriff without his boots. He sighed. He’d never quite been proper.
    He should walk away rather than submit Jewel to enslavement, but he couldn’t, even though she’d broken her promises and walked away from him five years ago.
    A yellow light over the door signaled that Jewel had been prepared.
    For a second, he considered taking the easy way—a small DNA swab and Jewel would be programmed. But if he didn’t go through with the full procedure, the technician would know something was wrong. Everyone did it. Nobody opted to forgo imprinting their silver-tipped slave with their own bodies.
    Lust trembled through his body as the door slid open.
    ***
    She was born as a woman at 0600 ship time. That she knew the time made her curious, a state-of-mind she seemed to well understand. The numbers on the wall display slowly progressed.
    She had no name, but she accepted her surroundings and the tick of the seconds passing by. She’d been alive for an hour. Secured in a strange chair for her own protection, she’d yet to walk or move. But she could walk, had