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The lounge owner loved that she’d been trained as a sex pet, almost as much as he loved the color of her skin, her species exotic for a slave He showed her off to all his best clients, demanded a parade of her tricks: the leash and collar, the way she crawled and licked fingers

She didn’t move, not out of a shoill, but because her brain couldn’t process the cos didn’t obey her brain

Priu to her hands and knees and crawling toward the Zandian, but not before her owner produced a leather tawse

The Zandian gave a miniscule shake of his head, broered, and she halted halfway there I the cell with a disinterested air

“Get over here and greet your master for the hour,” Prium hissed

Her throat closed, not at Priuer or the certainty of punished up and choked her, now, so him remind her of all that she’d lost? What she’d become?

Don’t cry

She never cried Hadn’t in years

She hadn’t seen a Zandian since the airship carrying her, her sister, and a Zandian boy crashed escaping the invasion and she’d been captured as a slave She forced her knees to move forward, crawled to the Zandian, who Prium had ushered to the padded bench in the middle of the cell

He didn’t wear the traditional Zandian dress of a white tunic and leggings Instead, he wore an expensive and perfectly tailored black flight suit with a sword belt, empty of its weapon, at his waist All customers were disarmed when they entered Prium’s

She arrived at his polished ani before hiht and achy

Priu down at her “Mina, this is your master for the hour”

The Zandian didn’t le her body, either Instead, he seemed to stare at a spot above her left ear

“Elbows on the bench,” Priu the space beside the Zandian “You kno I deal with disobedience”

She slid into position, registering the tension in the h he outwardly showed none