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ONE
Market Station, the Lorezostellar Empire
The year 2450
Rance Conlan prowled his cell like the caged wolf he was, anger boiling through him with every long stride. There was nothing to divert his rage, since the cell held only a cot built into the floor and a toilet unit that thrust from the wall. Both were stark, white, and rounded, without so much as a sharp corner he could put to bloody use.
Not that it mattered. All he had to do was shift, and he’d have fangs, claws, and two meters of werewolf muscle at his disposal. Trouble was, the slave collar wouldn’t let him shift.
One of the new slaves sobbed in her cell on the other side of the bulkhead, her voice thick with despair and aching grief. Her tears scraped at Rance’s Freeworlds-bred instinct to protect and comfort. Adding to his frustration, the doorway of his cell lacked either bars or barrier field, creating the illusion that escape was possible.
Unfortunately, Rance knew better. If he so much as stepped over the threshold, agony would cripple him.
Bloody collar.
He glared at the empty doorway in brooding fury. All his life, his nanobot system had provided him with absolute control over his body. The molecule-sized robots traveling through his bloodstream gave him the ability to heal any illness, tap superhuman reserves of strength, communicate over vast distances, access any fact he needed to know. Even change into something not quite human.
On the savage world he called home, a man had to be more than a man to survive.
Rance’s nanos had given him that kind of power—until slavers had captured him three months ago. The collar they’d locked around his neck had reprogrammed his nanosystem and turned it into the instrument of his enslavement. If he attempted rebellion now, the ’bots would plunge him into a screaming red hell.
But that wasn’t going to stop him. Nanos or no nanos, he’d find a way to escape. The traitor who’d handed him over to the slavers was damn well going to pay.
“Mad Dog!” The voice rang down the corridor, arrogantly nasal. The sobbing from the cell next door cut off as if a switch had flipped.
Smart girl.
“Mad Dog, I’ve found a potential buyer.” The slaver strutted through the cell doorway with two hulking cyborg bodyguards at his heels. “An aristo courier looking for a werewolf bodyguard. And you’d better not space the deal, or you’ll curse your mother for birthing you into hell.”
Ortio Casus had a taste for melodramatic threats. Trouble was, he also liked carrying them out.
Rance ignored the little bastard, all his feral attention focused on the two ’borgs. They were as powerfully muscled as their boss was thin, dressed in steel-gray nanotium body armor and black-visored helmets that concealed their faces. And they were entirely too alert, apparently well aware of just what Rance was capable of.
Bloody hell. All he needed was a moment’s inattention. Even a little boredom would do. Too bad they were so well-trained. Probably ex-Imperial Marines. Especially the leader of the two, Captain Aaren, who’d first hacked into Rance’s nanosystem…
“Did you hear me? I said I’ve found a potential buyer.” Casus glowered, jerking his weak, bearded chin upward in irritation. As usual, he was dressed like the aristo fop he longed to be: gaudy velvet and too much lace. But what interested Rance was the glittering array of rings he wore on every finger. One for each slave in the cells.
Rance suspected the big ruby on Casus’s right hand controlled his particular collar. It’d be interesting to bite the ring off that spidery finger and find out. A quick shift to wolf form, a snap of razor fangs, and—
The pain slammed into his groin so fast and brutally, his knees buckled. Rance crashed to the floor, his body jerking into a helpless fetal ball. He gagged, struggling to breathe despite the sensation of a big fist slowly twisting his dick with sadistic strength.
Fucking nanobots.
He must have met Casus’s gaze again. The little prick hated it when he did that. Probably because he could see the patient death waiting in Rance’s eyes.
The pain abruptly ended, leaving him to collapse in sweating nausea.
“If you ruin this deal for me, I’ll see you dead!” Casus snarled, red-faced and quivering. “You’ll scream for days, Mad Dog. Days, do you understand me?” He raised the riding crop. “Do you?”
“Yes…master.” Rance gritted his teeth, because to do anything else would bring more punishment and accomplish nothing. Slavery had taught him he couldn’t afford empty gestures, no matter how satisfying it might be to spit in the bastard’s face.
He had to pretend to submit, regardless of the humiliation. With any luck, a new master would be less wary than Casus. Rance would only need an instant’s inattention to do his killing and make his escape.
Mollified by Rance’s pretended submission, Casus drew himself to his full height—such as it was—and straightened his lace cuffs with a fussy jerk. “Good. My guards will prepare you now. But if you dare meet her gaze with those yellow mad dog eyes, you’re a dead man. One way or another, I want you out of my stable. Either she buys you, or—”
Rance concealed a frown. She?
Zarifa Lorezo pushed the heavy gold drapes aside and stared out the porthole beyond. An imperial courier maneuvered to dock at one of Market Station’s other arms, its thrust nodes glowing blue as it edged into its assigned slip.
