Page 12 of Primal Call

Rivek eyed the crowd, wagging his gun in mock chastisement. "Look with your eyes, not your hands. Come on, get your fill!"

One by one, the Borraq crowd stepped forward to inspect their potential purchase.

Jasper shrank back as each towering brute loomed over him, eyeing his body as if evaluating a prize object. When Jasper tried to twist away from their stares, Rivek sneered and gripped him, forcing him to stay still.

"A real pretty little mouth on this one," the prospective buyer grunted, grinning. "Could put it to good use."

A chorus of dark chuckles rippled through the crowd. Jasper's face burned with humiliated fury, but he bit back any response. Showing defiance would only make things worse.

As the revolting process repeated, each new observer more loathsome than the last, Jasper battled rising panic. He strained against Rivek's unforgiving grip, but the slaver only laughed and yanked his head back with cruel force.

Jasper fought back tears as yet another Borraq stepped forward. His chest constricted with dread. But when he opened his eyes, his breath caught in his throat.

This one was different.

He was just… standing there.

Where the other Borraq had appraised him with greedy, predatory leers, this Borraq's gaze held no malice. His expression was unreadable, but Jasper saw no hunger, no cruelty in those piercing eyes.

The Borraq was tall and powerfully built, his golden skin gleaming. His face was all harsh angles and taut muscle, a brutal beauty etched in sharp lines. With his well-cared-for cold weather gear, he seemed more like a hunter, instead of one of the moth-eaten mercs that filled the rest of the bar.

As their eyes met, Jasper felt an unexpected jolt low in his stomach, like the first dizzying drop of a roller coaster.

Those eyes… there was something in their depths that made the hair prickle on the back of Jasper's neck. An intensity that seemed to bore straight through him, stripping away his fear and humiliation until all that remained was the thrumming of his pulse, the rise and fall of his chest.

The Borraq held Jasper with that inscrutable stare. It was like he could see right through Jasper. Though the stranger made no move to touch him, Jasper felt like he was being opened up, laid bare for examination.

And then the Borraq flinched.

The flicker of pain that lanced across his chiseled features was unmistakable to Jasper's trained eye. The Borraq's jaw clenched, thick cords of muscle straining in his neck as a shudder rippled through his powerful frame.

It was the telltale sign of a gene bomb's insidious effects. Jasper had seen that haunted look on the battlefield, in the agonizing fallout of biological weapons.

Without conscious thought, Jasper leaned forward, his instincts running deeper than fear or self-preservation. "You're suffering a neurological backlash…" he said, the clinical detachment of a doctor's diagnosis steadying his voice. "Do you have any genexyridine? It can help counteract the synaptic misfiring."

To Jasper's surprise, the Borraq didn't react with the contempt he expected from this crowd. The amber eyes studying him intensified, but there was no anger there, only… curiosity?

"You know your medicine, human," the Borraq rumbled. His graveled baritone sent an involuntary shiver down Jasper's spine. "Tell me, were you a medic before becoming a slave?"

The words stuck in Jasper's throat as their eyes locked again. "I… I was," he finally forced out, swallowing hard. "Before..."

He trailed off, unable to give voice to the living nightmare of his capture, his freedom ripped away. A slave…

Rivek frowned. "Enough talk — unless you're talking credits!" He looked up over the crowd. "Okay, dregs, who wants to take this pretty little pet home?"

Jasper's heart pounded against his ribs as the bidding commenced. He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to squeeze his eyes shut against the nauseating spectacle.

"I'll give you fifty for the night!"

"A hundred for a week!"

Another crude bid, this one accompanied by an obscene gesture that made Jasper's gut twist. He risked a glance at the imposing Borraq still holding his gaze, searching for any flicker of revulsion or pity in those inscrutable amber depths.

But the hunter's expression remained unreadable, an infuriatingly calm eye in the midst of the depraved storm raging around them. That strange intensity was still there, searing straight through him.

But whether it was lust, or loathing, or something else entirely, Jasper couldn't begin to decipher.

The bidding continued to escalate, the numbers growing more outrageous. Jasper's cheeks burned, every crude remark and filthy proposal another dagger of humiliation lancing into his flesh. He was acutely, agonizingly aware of the dozens of lecherous stares stripping him bare, sizing him up like a side of meat to be consumed.

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