I close my eyes and concentrate on recalling what I’d overheard.
“He has six capos,” I recall. “Each capo commands fifteen to twenty men. They aren’t all fighters. Some are loan sharks, some are drug dealers, but at least half of them are muscle – and the other half all know how to wield a gun, at least.”
Conan swallows hard. “One-hundred-twenty. One-hundred-and-twenty of them, and three of us.”
Augustus snarls. “Each of us is worth a hundred of them.”
Evander looks back, giving an even gaze to his two men. “I won’t bring us into a war we can’t win.”
That silences the two other aliens. The four of us sit uneasily.
I heard a saying once that war consists of long periods of boredom followed by short periods of terror. If that’s true, my life has been an exceptional conflict. I feel like I’ve constantly been terrified – ever since Peter Paradooli first decided to take me as a slave when I was just eighteen-years-old.
I haven’t felt safe ever since then – and that sense of unease just keeps building and building as I contemplate what is about to happen.
The Aurelians are going to use me as bait – and, if they can’t beat the Bullfrogs by playing cards, they’ll resort to violence to free Danielle.
What happens if they lose? What happens if Peter kills my three protectors?
The weight of the world is on my shoulders. I know I have to be strong. Not for myself, but for Danielle. She was always a woman filled with fear, and now she’s looking at spending the rest of her life as a servant to the worst kind of scum in the universe – or an unwilling whore.
“Be careful,” I whisper – and I’m not sure if I’m talking to myself, or the three Aurelians.
Conan gently touches my thigh. It’s not a sexual touch, but it nevertheless sends a tremor up my spine. He’s the most fragile of the three, but I can tell he’s being strong for my sake.
Conan breathes in deeply, his broad chest pressing against his crisp, white, dress shirt. “Don’t fear,” he reassures me – or possibly himself. “It’s all going to be okay.”
8
Conan
I pray to the Gods that my words are not a lie.
Fear is pulsing inside me, deep down beneath the surface. I hope that Ashley can’t see it. If she can, she’ll know my weakness. Ashley is perfection incarnate, and I feel deep down in my bones that she might be our fated mate – the one woman Aurelians spend their lifetimes looking for; yet rarely find.
If that is so, I can never let her see my fragility.
I feel the same sensation right now that I did before we went down into that fateful Scorp nest – the one that changed everything. The one that sent us Rogue.
A dark forbidding is building in my body.
Be strong for her, Conan. Earn your mate. The Bond doesn’t come to the faint of heart. The Bond serves only to bring the most valiant Aurelians the sons they so desire.
But what if that’s all a lie as well? Like so many other teachings we’d been raised to believe?
What if no one knows why or how the Bond works, and the Aurelian Empire has spent generations pretending that the Bond rewarded valor – if only to keep us foolish warriors in line?
It doesn’t matter now, though. My triad and I have chosen our path. The only thing that matters now is the swiftness of our Orb-Blades, and the ice in our blood.
Bullfrogs are notorious gamblers – but they’re even more notorious cheaters.
However, they may have met their match with us.
My triad and I won a lot of money back in the training academy, playing a human card game known as Texas Hold’em against the other recruits. The game is widely considered to be the second-best thing humans have ever created – the first being their ripe, fertile females.
We can certainly hold our own at the card table against the Bullfrogs…
…and in combat, if they cheat.
I look over at Ashley. She’s so perfectly soft and voluptuous. The dress she’s wearing has a deep, sloping neckline that frames her gorgeous, full body. I suddenly imagine her breasts swollen with milk, and her belly fat with my future sons.
I should be readying myself for battle, but instead my cock surges to attention as I drink up every iota of her being. She’s perfection – and I want to make her ours.
Not just in body – legally, as the men who purchased her, we’ve done that already.
No, she must be ours in spirit, soul and heart.
I shake my head. We often joked in the training grounds – back when we were new recruits to the Aurelian army – about what we would do with the first woman of our harem.
I never realized what she could do to me.
I once heard a phrase that read: “Behind every great man is a great woman.”
I’d never believed it – until now.
I’d always thought of humans as stupid, foolish beings – unable to take care of themselves in the harsh universe. I’d felt it was the reluctant duty of the Aurelian Empire to nursemaid the humans – and the huge harems that Aurelians would assemble were our reward for protecting the child-like humankind.
But then I met her.
Ashley survived years of slavery under a brutal crime boss – one whom I will soon take the head of, and present to her on a platter.
As I look at Ashley, I feel my courage coming back to me. It was taken from me when we turned tail and deserted our entire company to their horrific deaths.
I know that logically we couldn’t have helped them – that all we’d have done was die honorably beside them...
And yet, by the standards
