Her eyes had fallen on a seedy-looking place on the right side of the market, just past the last stall. Red light was pulsing inside its low entrance and she could hear a soft, hypnotic drumming sound mixed with the shouts of bar patrons calling for drinks. A strong whiff of liquor and some kind of sour, skunky smoke drifted out to assault her nostrils.
Penny wrinkled her nose.
Glad I don’t have to go in th—
Her thought was cut off in the middle by the sight of a small sign posted beside the entrance.
Lucky Lounge…Come on in! the sign proclaimed.
Penny stared at it in disbelief.
Well, crap. It seemed she would have to go in after all.
It was definitely the kind of place she would have avoided at all costs back home on Earth. But here in the Hell’s Gate Spaceport, she had no choice—going into the Lucky Lounge was her only ticket home. So she’d better suck it up and get going.
Penny lifted her chin.
Well, here goes nothing!
Taking a deep breath and clutching the second-hand toupee tightly to her chest, she entered the dim bar.
Thirteen
She stopped just inside the doorway, trying to get used to the ambiance. Once her eyes got used to the reddish glow of the lights, she began to look around. The place was packed both with males of every possible alien variation, and also females, most of whom were dressed provocatively.
One woman, sitting on a hovering barstool pulled up to the long, curving bar, had large dark eyes as big as doorknobs. She was wearing a low-cut purple gown and flirting with a male who was sipping something that fizzed and smoked.
Another woman appeared to have three breasts—all of which were larger than Penny’s two put together. Her bulbous mounds were barely contained by a tiny pink tank-top that matched her hair. She was rubbing all three of them suggestively against the chest of a man with prominent brow ridges and tiny eyes. Penny thought he looked like a Neanderthal.
She picked her way through the crowd, trying to get a look behind the crowded bar. Where was the bartender Granny Two-two had told her to speak to? The bald, silver-skinned guy called Grunge? Where…
And that was when her eyes met the golden gaze of a man so big he could only be a Kindred…or in this case, a Kindred Hybrid.
Oh my God, is that him? Is that the guy Kat was warning me about? Penny asked herself as the Hybrid’s pale gold eyes roamed over her body. The gold and black tattoos seemed to answer her question—he must be V’rex, the pirate Kat and Sylvan had told her about—the one they suspected was responsible for the sudden rash of abductions and disappearances over the past six months.
And he was looking at her.
Oh my God! How had she ended up not only in the exact spaceport she’d been told to avoid, but also in the same room with the exact man she’d been told to stay away from at all costs?
How bad could her luck be?
As the man with the golden eyes stared straight at her, she had a bad feeling that she was about to find out.
Her heart started hammering and she clutched the black and white toupee so tightly her knuckles turned white. Kat’s words about girls being kidnapped and sold as sex slaves, so easily dismissed on the Mother Ship, now came back to haunt her.
She’d thought at the time, that nobody would want to add plus-size Penny to their sexy space harem. But despite the form-fitting warm-skin which clung to her overlarge hips and ass, V’rex—if he really was V’rex—was staring at her like she was a delicious dessert and he was starving to death. His golden eyes half-lidded with desire, he got off his stool, clearly meaning to head in her direction.
Penny felt her entire body clench with fear. She had to get out of here—get away from him before he came for her!
She ducked through the crowd, heading for the back of the bar. Maybe there would be a ladies room back there—or its alien equivalent—that she could hide out in until he left.
As she pushed past bar patrons and obvious prostitutes, Penny looked desperately for a door to duck into—any door would do! A broom closet, a bathroom—just someplace to hide where the huge, menacing V’rex couldn’t find her.
The first one she came to was a swinging silver door with some alien markings on it. Penny didn’t stop to try and puzzle them out, she pushed through the door and found herself in a huge, echoing room…
A room that seemed to be entirely filled with long, purple tentacles.
Fourteen
“What in the world?” Penny gasped, looking around in confusion. She started to back out the way she’d come, but she found a long, thick, purple tentacle was blocking her way. Quickly, she skittered to one side, trying to avoid it, only to find another one reaching for her.
With a little scream, she tried to back away but before she could do anything, the seeking tentacle was grabbing at her. It caught the black and white skunk-looking toupee and ripped it out of her hands.
“Hey, wait—I need that!” Penny blurted.
But it was too late—the tentacle which had taken the precious toupee had already handed it off to another set of tentacles on the other side of the room.
As Penny watched, one of the tentacles took a sharp cleaver and began to dice the toupee into tiny, hairy fragments. A third tentacle swept up some of the black and white hair and sprinkled it like a garnish over a steaming plate filled with black and purple lumps. Then a fourth tentacle pushed the plate through a low window and rang a bell.
Penny heard someone yell, “Order up!” and a set of hands appeared at the window and snatched the plate away.
It was exactly like a restaurant, Penny thought, feeling dazed. Looking around, she saw that
