Page 12 of Auctioned to the Convicts
“Never say that,” Ky’Li nearly growled in her ear.
Her hand went to Ky-Li’s midriff, quieting him. Rock-hard muscles tensed beneath her fingers as Vaughn, the doctor with the scruffy beard and compassionate voice, lifted a brow.
“An intriguing offer, but I can’t treat him.”
“You have to treat him!” she begged.
Light blue eyes shot to the right, indicating Dresden who stood beside him. Regret filled the doctor’s face, and her stomach pitched.
“I can treat anyone for the proper credits when I’m off work. The Company takes seventy percent, I take thirty. Come see me when you gather the funds.” He nodded, his frown deep as he left to examine Griggs.
“Choose, Raines, or he forfeits,” Dresden pressed. “If you want him healed, then ask who has enough credits.”
Dresden had a point. She needed funds and the men out there had eagerly offered their credits to bid on her. But this was her life, the lives of five people who’d be in a unit, bound together their entire time on Narkos. She’d remain bound to men who might not get along for years, possibly the rest of her life if any of them were Level 5s.
Dresden tapped on his datapad. “Never mind. Assuming the treatment is not a quick fix like a broken bone would be, and given the doctor’s high rates—”
The doctor’s high rates? Seriously?
“Ah, as I suspected,” Dresden continued, “Any two of the solitaries combined will give you what you need.”
She looked over the field. The miners stood out with their hulking bodies and grime-filled hair. They’d been pulled from work for this auction, or they’d come running without taking the time to shower. She’d be forcing three men into a unit and stealing their credits to save a fourth.
Any two men combined will give you what you need.Fine then. She glanced at the hazel-eyed man with the untamed hair that swept into his face as he supported Ky-Li’s other side.
“Him,” Hannah said quickly, pointing to Hazel Eyes.
“There are plenty other professionals including a few botanists like Sersie, who are more stable,” Dresden said.
An odd way to describe someone, but no one else had stepped forward to help Ky’Li. This man Sersie had.
“He’s mine,” she said to Dresden. “If you want to be with us,” she said, turning to Sersie. Already, this planet, this colony, was changing her. She’d chosen Sersie, taking away his choice just like her choice to live alone in peace had been taken away. “I mean, would you join our unit? I realize we don’t know each other, bu—”
“Yes! I’ll join.” He had the most deliciously surprised expression on his face.
Well, then, that wasn’t as hard as she had expected. Hannah glanced at the hundred faces watching, staring, ogling her. No wonder she didn’t need to convince Sersie. These men only saw sex in their future. She shivered.
“No one will touch you but me,” Ky’Li whispered in her ear.
God, the man had her blood rushing to all the right places. On that shuttle, she had made a connection with Ky’Li, one she hadn’t really had the chance to think about before she’d been auctioned off like a prized pig. She didn’t know anything about the men she was picking. All they saw was a woman they’d get to screw. But Ky’Li would watch over her.
The men in the clearing shouted out promises of credits, luxuries, any and everything a woman might want. It was a buyer’s market, for a person who’d been on sale only moments before. The Company had trained them all so well; many thinking outside the box, coming up with creative offers, including ensuring she’d never have to work on Narkos. She wondered how anyone could swing that given Dresden’s emphasis on the work quota, but that was a question for another time.
As she scanned the crowd, pondering her next choice, she spotted a man with the most amazing blue eyes and a scowl as long as her sentence on Narkos.
“The man with the bright blue eyes and arms folded across his chest, to the right of the crowd, what is his job here?” she asked.
“That’s Renzel,” Sersie answered, with a very neutral expression At least Sersie didn’t look at the man with disdain. She could work with that. Getting four men to get along in one unit would be a challenge. Her mom had had difficulty with just two men long before Holden moved in. There had been verbal and physical fighting between Hannah’s dads, but they’d never harmed her mother, or Hannah and Amelia.
Sersie touched the back of Hannah’s hand, ever-so-lightly, and then quickly withdrew when Ky’Li growled—growled—at him.
“Ky?” she asked, worried. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“You’re too innocent, Hannah.”
Okay, whatever that meant. She was hardly innocent, in any sense of the word. She’d had a boyfriend once, and she’d been with The Company ten years, ever since she turned seventeen. Innocent didn’t describe her dealings with The Company.
“As an engineer, Renzel Satterley is a good choice,” Sersie continued, tearing her from her thoughts of home. “Engineers make money on the side, after hours, building and fixing homes and other items. The Company only takes 65% of what he makes on his own time, so he’ll have the credits you need to save this one.” Sersie nodded his chin toward Ky’Li who looked pale, too pale. “But Satterley’s a solitary for a reason.”
