Accidental Acquisition Read online

  Even in a world full of aliens, her appearance took Jillian aback. She was wearing meter-tall heels and a dress that clearly showed her full, bare breasts, which were pierced with large gold hoops and covered only by a thin, transparent piece of silk.

  Well, maybe this is how they dress on Yonnie Six, Jillian had thought to herself. She’d heard a little about the female-dominated planet which was run by cruel Mistresses who believed men were only worthy of being servants and bodyslaves, but she’d never met anyone from there before.

  “Yes? What do you want?” the Mistress asked rudely. “I’ve very busy at the moment, so it had better be good.”

  Jillian frowned at her insulting tone. She would have left at once, but she hadn’t had any luck getting thaelite anywhere else.

  “I’m looking for a brick of thaelite,” she said shortly. “The Saurian at the far stall told me you might be able to help me.”

  “Ah, thaelite. Such an elusive substance.” The Mistress got a crafty look on her heavily made-up face as she looked down at Jillian from her extremely high heels. “It’s very hard to come by, you know,” she added, smiling in a way that didn’t reach her lavender eyes.

  “I’m aware of that,” Jillian pointedly. “Do you have any?”

  “I do, but it’s not cheap,” the Mistress warned her. Turning, she lifted one of the brocade curtains and shouted, “Kalis—come at once and bring me that brick of thaelite I bargained for last week. Hurry up! A customer is waiting.”

  There was a rustling sound from the back of the stall and then the gold brocade curtains parted and the huge warrior had come out. In his cupped palms was a small black brick about six inches long and three inches wide. It didn’t look very heavy to Jillian, but he was carrying it cupped carefully in both huge hands, as though it was precious.

  “So that’s the thaelite?” Jillian asked.

  It looked exactly how Suzanne had described it. The dense material was so black it seemed to suck in all available light, making a kind of dark shadow around itself.

  “Yes, my dear—that is thaelite.” The Yonnite Mistress nodded her head as her bodyslave stood there, holding the small brick.

  “I see. How much?” Jillian didn’t believe in beating around the bush.

  The crafty look was back on the Mistress’s face.

  “Well, there are two possible prices, my dear. Five hundred credits if you can handle it by yourself. For a thousand, you can buy both the thaelite itself and the means of transporting it to your vehicle.”

  “I’ll take the cheaper price then,” Jillian said, frowning. “I have a way to transport it right here.” She patted her straw tote, which was hooked over one shoulder. It was only halfway full, since she’d just bought a few vegetables and fruits—there was plenty of room for the small brick of thaelite.

  “Apologies, little Mistress,” the huge bodyslave said, speaking for the first time in a deep, rumbling voice that seemed to vibrate Jillian’s bones in their sockets. “But I’m afraid that fragile little bag won’t be able to withstand the weight of an entire brick of thaelite.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jillian demanded, frowning. “This is a strong tote—I’ve had it for years.”

  “If you want to keep it intact, I wouldn’t put the thaelite into it,” the Yonnite Mistress remarked, her scarlet lips curving into a sarcastic smile. “It’s massively compacted—one of the densest and heaviest substances in the known galaxy. That’s one reason it’s so expensive and difficult to store.”

  Jillian glared at the Mistress. “Is this some kind of scam? You’re trying to pretend like it’s heavy so I’ll pay you double to transport it to my shuttle, aren’t you?”

  The Mistress narrowed her eyes with apparent displeasure.

  “Is that what you think? Very well. Kalis, drop the thaelite brick into her paltry little bag.”

  The huge bodyslave looked at Jillian with his silver-green eyes, as though asking for confirmation. Those eyes gave her pause—had she seen them somewhere before? Maybe in a dream? But she pushed the thought aside. By now, she was sure this was all a scam—the Yonnite Mistress was just trying to double the price of an already expensive ingredient.

  So she nodded her head firmly and held open the straw tote.

  “Go on—drop it in,” she said to the bodyslave.

  The enormous warrior looked down from his great height and nodded.

  “As you please, little Mistress. But I recommend you keep the bag far from your body and be sure your feet aren’t under it when I drop the thaelite in.”

  This seemed like a strange request but Jillian did as he asked, holding the tough, thickly woven straw tote away from her body, she opened it wider and nodded again.

  “Go ahead.”

  The bodyslave held his big hands over the open tote and carefully tipped the solid black brick into her bag.

  At once, Jillian felt a massive weight yanking her arm down and pulling her body to the ground. She gasped and lurched but the pressure ended almost at once as the thaelite brick tore a gaping hole right through her tote and landed on the dusty ground with a solid sounding thunk. A puff of dirt flew up around it and when she looked down in shock, she saw that the black brick had sunk down into the compacted dirt until only about half an inch of it remained visible.

  “What in the world?” she exclaimed, staring at it.

  “I tried to warn you.” The Mistress was positively smirking now. “Still think you can transport it yourself? Kalis, pick it up,” she added, snapping at the huge bodyslave as though he was a well-trained dog.

  Jillian thought she saw a flash of anger in those silver-green eyes but then the huge warrior’s face went blank and impassive and he knelt to dig the dense, black brick out of the ground.

  It seemed to give him a bit of difficulty but at last he managed the task by digging away the dirt around the thaelite so that he could fit his fingers under the small brick and scoop it into his palms. Slowly, he rose, holding it in both hands once again, and offered it to Jillian.

  “Would you like to try holding it yourself?” The Yonnite Mistress inquired sweetly.

  “As a matter of fact, I would.” Jillian lifted her chin. Despite the hole in her tote—which, thank goodness, didn’t seem to be big enough to let any of her other ingredients escape—she still thought this was some kind of a scam.

  “Very well, hold out your hands so Kalis can give it to you,” the Mistress commanded.

  “You’d better let me put my hand under yours first, little Mistress,” the huge bodyslave told her seriously. “Otherwise the weight of it will pull your hands to the ground and crush your finger bones.”

  This sounded ominous to Jillian, but she still thought the Mistress was somehow scamming her. Still, she allowed the big bodyslave to carefully transfer the thaelite brick to only one of his hands and then slip his free hand under her cupped ones.

  His hands were large and warm and surprisingly gentle, Jillian noticed. But maybe she was just thinking that because she hadn’t been touched by a man in so long. Not since Brad had broken her heart and ruined her life, she thought distractedly.

  “Gently now, little Mistress,” Kalis rumbled in that deep voice of his. “I’m just going to let you feel the weight of it without actually putting it all the way into your little hands. As I said, I don’t want to crush your bones.”

  Jillian thought about snapping at him to just get on with it—it was such an obvious scam! But the look in his silver-green eyes stopped her. They were deep, those eyes—as deep as the ocean, and she got the sudden feeling that the huge warrior must have seen a lot in his time. She wondered again how old he was—she’d guessed his age around early to mid fifties because of the iron gray in his hair, but at that moment, as they stared into each other’s faces, he seemed ageless.

  Then Kalis slowly edged one end of the thaelite bar into her cupped palms—while being careful to hold the other end himself.

  “There you are, little Mistress,”
he rumbled. “You’re holding it—half of it, anyway.”

  “This isn’t so bad!” Jillian exclaimed, frowning. “I can barely feel anything at all.”

  “That’s because I’m still holding it up,” Kalis said mildly. “Do you want me to let you feel the weight of it?”

  “Of course—isn’t that the point?” Jillian was rapidly running out of patience.

  “It is indeed, little Mistress. Very well—here you go.”

  Suddenly a crushing weight was pressing down on her cupped palms and fingers. It was like someone was slowly smashing her hands between two of the heavy plates on a weight-lifting machine at the gym, Jillian thought.

  “Ow! Hey!” she exclaimed, attempting to pull her hands away. “That hurts!”

  At once, the weight was lifted and Kalis took the thaelite back into his own large hands completely.

  At last, Jillian was convinced. She’d known that thaelite was a dense, compacted material, but she hadn’t had any idea how heavy it was.

  “That was awful!” she exclaimed, looking up at the big warrior. “How are you holding it so easily?”

  “It’s not easy, little Mistress,” he remarked, and Jillian noticed that his biceps were bulging as he cradled the small brick in his massive hands. “But I’m strong. Spent seventeen years in the Blood Circuit—I had to be strong or I’d be dead.”

  Jillian didn’t know what to say about that. She only shook her head—she definitely had a new appreciation of the big bodyslave’s strength.

  “I think you can see now why paying the higher price, which includes transportation of the thaelite, is both necessary and practical,” the Yonnite Mistress said smoothly. She arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow at Jillian. “Unless you have a male of your own somewhere in the market who is strong enough to transport the brick to your vehicle?”

  Jillian thought about calling Hard or Kind and asking them to come help her, but then she remembered the bags under Suzanne’s eyes the last time she’d seen her friend. All three of the triplets had gotten colic at once and she and her husbands had been taking turns rocking and burping them. They were sleeping in shifts, but since all three babies were crying all the time, whoever actually got to lie down and close his or her eyes for a few hours really wasn’t getting much sleep.

  It’s an exorbitant price, but it’s not outside the budget the Kindred High Council gave us, she thought.

  Though she hated like hell to do it, she was pretty sure she would just have to pay what the Yonnite Mistress was asking. The huge bodyslave, Kalis, could carry the brick of thaelite out to her shuttle and deposit it safely. And hopefully she could get one of the Kindred warriors in the Docking Bay to bring it to the kitchen of Pat-ar for her.

  How she was supposed to cook with it, she wasn’t sure yet. But that was a problem for later—right now, she just needed to get the damn thing stowed in her shuttle.

  “All right,” she said, frowning. “A thousand credits for the thaelite and a way…er, a person to transport it,” she ended, looking up at the massive bodyslave.

  “Don’t be ridiculous—Kalis isn’t a person—he’s a male,” the Yonnite Mistress said dismissively. “Now then, let’s see the color of your credit. Do you wish to pay by coinage or cred-chip?”

  As it happened, Jillian had a special cred-chip the Kindred High Council had issued just for her for this occasion. She pulled it out and waved it in front of the Yonnite Mistress’s chip-scanner, watching as a thousand credits was deducted from the account.

  “Thank you.” The Yonnite Mistress smiled brightly. “Enjoy your purchase and do come again.”

  Not likely! Jillian thought. But she only nodded briefly and said, “Thanks. I’ll bring, er, Kalis back as soon as he puts the brick in my shuttle.”

  “Oh, no need for that,” the Yonnite Mistress had said, breezily.

  By which, Jillian had assumed she meant that the huge bodyslave could find his own way back through the market. Which was fine with her—she was eager to get back to the Mother Ship and start researching how in the world she was supposed to cook with the super-dense brick of thaelite.

  “Okay,” she said and nodded at Kalis. “Let’s go—I know how heavy that is so we’ll go straight to my shuttle.”

  “No need to rush, little Mistress,” he rumbled. “I can carry it as long as you need me to. Just point me in the right direction.”

  “This way,” Jillian told him, and they headed off to the tram together.

  3

  But as Jillian and the huge bodyslave had boarded the tram, one of the gramples—small soft purple fruit about as big as a large apple—which she had bought at the produce side of the market, somehow worked its way out of the hole in her tote and tumbled to the ground.

  “Shit!” Jillian hissed impatiently. “No, don’t worry—I’ve got it. You just stay here and keep hold of the thaelite,” she added to Kalis, who looked like he was about to go after the rolling grample. “Don’t move—I’ll be right back.”

  Hopping down from the tram, which was still for the moment, she ran to grab the purple fruit…only to see it snatched up in a huge gray-green hand as big as her entire head.

  Looking up, she saw that the hand belonged to the two-headed Trollox she’d seen eyeing her earlier.

  “Hey,” she said uncertainly. “Uh, that’s mine.”

  “Of course it is. Sweeties for a sweet little humanoid.” It was the yellow-eyed head talking and Jillian thought it produced a strangely high voice for such a big body. Its eyes glowed like a Jack-o-lantern’s as they roved greedily over her body. The leering way it was looking at her made her want to cover herself, though she wasn’t wearing anything provocative—just a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

  “Sweeties for the sweet!” the other head exclaimed, and bellowed laughter—a hyuck-hyuck-hyuck sound that set Jillian’s teeth on edge. This head had beady little red eyes and it seemed to be somehow mentally deficient—at least compared with the first head. Its long yellow tusks dripped drool on the dusty ground, which made her stomach turn.

  The Trollox extended its enormous hand and opened it, showing her the grample, which looked about the size of a pea in its huge palm.

  “Go on, my dear—take it,” the yellow-eyed head said as the Trollox loomed over her like an enormous tree. “A gift from Ripper to you.”

  “Uh…Ripper?” Jillian looked up at him uncertainly.

  “That’s our name, so it is!” the red-eyed head exclaimed. “Hyuck-hyuck-hyuck! Ripper, cause we rips ‘em open when we shoves inside!”

  “Shut up, you imbecile!” the yellow-eyed head snapped. It looked at Jillian. “Pay no attention to him, my dear. Here you go—take it.” And it held out the lost fruit again.

  “Okay, thanks…um, Ripper,” Jillian said, frowning as she reached for the grample. What was going on between the two heads? It must be really weird to have to share a body like that—especially if you disagreed a lot…

  “Don’t touch it, little Mistress.” The growling voice over her left shoulder made Jillian jerk her hand away from the grample and whirl around.

  Kalis was standing there, a stormy look in his silver-green eyes.

  “Don’t…fucking…touch it,” he repeated, his voice a low growl. “If you take a gift from the big bastard, you’ll owe him one in return, according to Market Law. And you don’t want to owe a Trollox.”

  The Trollox snatched the grample out of sight, both heads glaring down at the big warrior.

  “Who asked you?” the yellow-eyed head snarled in its strange, high voice. It sounded like the Trollox had been sucking on a helium balloon, Jillian thought.

  Kalis didn’t answer. He only nodded at Jillian.

  “Come, little Mistress—let it go and we can get another one later. The tram’s about to start.”

  “Um…all right.” Feeling shaky—as though she’d barely avoided something really bad—Jillian turned away from the enormous Trollox and headed for the tram.

  But as she step
ped aboard, she looked over her shoulder and saw that the two-headed monster was still staring at her balefully with both sets of eyes. As she watched, the Trollox held up the grample between one massive finger and thumb and crushed it until purple juice splattered on the dusty ground.

  Shivering, Jillian turned hastily away and looked towards the other side of the market, trying to ignore the angry eyes she could still feel on her back until the tram pulled smoothly away.

  4

  After the situation with the Trollox, everything was fine. In fact, the trouble hadn’t really started until after they got the thaelite into her shuttle, Jillian thought…

  * * *

  The rest of the trip on the tram had been uneventful. They hadn’t really talked much—Jillian wasn’t sure what to say to the huge warrior—though she did thank him for helping her with the Trollox.

  “You don’t want to fuck around with a Trollox,” he’d said darkly as they stepped off the tram and headed for the Buy-All-Sell-All’s exit. “They’re always on the lookout for lush, curvy Elites like you, little Mistress.”

  “And…you think he would have demanded a ‘gift’ in return, if I’d accepted the grample from him?” she’d asked, doing her best to ignore his compliment, which made her heart flutter a bit, she had to admit.

  “Absolutely. And you wouldn’t want to know what he’d ask,” Kalis said grimly. “Something fucking horrible, probably. Excuse my language, little Mistress.”

  “Please, don’t apologize.” Jillian had waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve worked in professional kitchens most of my life—I’ve probably heard every swear word you can think of and then some.”

  Kalis nodded, an easy smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

  “Yeah—same for the Blood Circuit. Lots of swearing and knives flying.”

  “Pretty much exactly like a kitchen then,” Jillian said, laughing a little.

  “Except you don’t usually fight to the death making Last Meal,” Kalis rumbled. “This your ship?” he added, nodding at the sleek sliver Kindred shuttle in front of them.