The Bargaining Read Online Free Page A

hands. He kept his grip on her and flipped them over until she lay on her back beneath him, her eyes bright with surprise and wariness.

    Shifting again, he grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head to the cot. “All right, what’s the deal?”

    “I told you. If you will take me with you, I will show you how to escape from --”

    Deacon shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I want to know what you’re after. And why.”

    She shifted beneath him, but his weight kept her pinned in place. Deacon had the feeling that if he wasn’t careful, she would be crushed under him. She was even tinier than he’d first thought.

    “I want to leave Ankhar,” she said after a short pause. “I don’t belong here.”

    Raking his eyes over her mostly naked body, Deacon laughed. “You look right at home to me.”

    Her jaw clenched, but she kept her eyes cast down and her voice soft and meek. “Men don’t usually look past the lya and the bare breasts. I imagine all nitarai look alike when one doesn’t see our faces.”

    His eyebrows shot up. Huh. That had almost sounded like a backbone. “I see your face. And yeah, I know you don’t look like the typical Ankharan. But that doesn’t mean you don’t belong on the planet. Your family’s here, right?”

    Her laugh did not sound amused. “How much do you know of the Ankhar culture, Deacon? Nitarai have no families once they reach breeding age. They are raised in the harems once they have their first blood. Then when they are ready, they are sold to their new masters.”

    Deacon felt his lip curl with distaste. “Your family sold you when you were just a kid?”

    She tensed under him almost imperceptibly, but Deacon was pressed too close to her not to notice. “No,” she said. “I do not look like the typical Ankharan because I am not. I was not born here. I was born on Golian.”

    That made sense. Her features had the look of the Asian-descended settlers who had populated the grass-covered planet. Suddenly his memory clicked into gear and he frowned. “Wasn’t Golian taken in the last Frontier Offensive? The Protectorate gobbled up at least ten rocks on that one. Jubal, Gnori, and Bahn V, as well. Right?”

    Her chin dipped once in an abrupt nod.

    Deacon swore. “They took you captive, didn’t they? And sold you to the Ankharans?”

    They weren’t really questions, but he still cursed again when she nodded. “Along with a hundred or so other young girls from our system. We were all under fifteen. Everyone older was already dead or on the prison ships. But we didn’t all come to Ankhar.”

    Fuck. He really didn’t want to hear this. “They weren’t filling an order, were they? They auctioned you all off on Solomon Prime.”

    Her eyes squeezed shut on a nod.

    “Shitpissfuck.”

    Deacon let go of her wrists and dropped onto the edge of the cot next to her, lying on his side between her and the door. If anyone looked in the small window, all they would see was his back. If they’d seen his face, they would know immediately that she was definitely not tending him right now.

    Solomon Prime. Fucking perfect .

    Deacon hadn’t joined the rebellion because he loved the Protectorate and hated to see corruption eat away at its noble intentions, nor because he was looking for a fast thrill. He’d joined it because he had first-hand experience with the way the military megalith operated. It was like a swarm of locusts through the universe, destroying everything in its path. Only, unlike locusts, when the Protectorate finished feeding, it made a big deal out of telling its conquered citizens how much better off they were for having been crushed beneath its boot.

    In his years with the rebel army, he’d seen a lot of evidence of how corrupt and destructive the Protectorate really was behind its shiny, polished principles. Protecting planets meant extorting all their wealth. Bringing the cutting edge of progress meant destroying