The two fingers twisting the golden collar and cutting off my air were suddenly withdrawn and I was dropped like a ragdoll onto the hard, dirty floor. Gasping and choking, I looked up to see Sir standing on the other side of the bars.
My Master was glaring daggers at Shadrack, who had an angry but defiant look on his lumpish features.
“She ain’t yours, HighBorn,” he snapped. “I scooped her up fair and square. She’s going to the Pet Auction back on Korrigon Four—you can bid on her there if you want to. Until then, she’s mine.”
“You fucking scum!”
The barely controlled rage in Sir’s deep voice was terrible to hear. I was alarmed to see that his full-black eyes had suddenly gone full-white, which was somehow even scarier than his usual horror-movie look. And then something started to happen.
It began with the metal gate across the narrow doorway rattling, even though Sir wasn’t touching it. The rattling became a shaking and then the metal bars of the cage began to move.
But they weren’t being pulled away from the door in the way I had been trying to get them open. No, they were compressing somehow. It looked like a giant, invisible hand was crunching them down, wadding them up the same way I might casually wad up a piece of paper.
I stared in amazement as the bars were squeezed into a metal ball about as big as my torso and then tossed to one side with an echoing clang! Had Sir done that with his mind? It was like something out of a science-fiction movie! What was the one with the guy who wore a helmet and had special powers over metal? I couldn’t remember but I couldn’t help staring at Sir. How had he managed that?
By this time, Shadrack was shaking in his size 27 green boots. As Sir entered the dark space, he fell to his knees and started blubbering.
“I’m sorry, my Lord!” he moaned. “She said you were an OverLord but I didn’t believe her! I didn’t know! I didn’t know!”
“It shouldn’t matter what I am—you have no right to hurt an inferior species like this or to trap primitive females and sell them as Sex Pets!” Sir thundered. “Your kind make me sick! I ought to do to your head what I did with that metal gate!”
He pointed at the other male and I saw the thick neck begin to compress, cutting off Shadrack’s airflow as surely as he had been cutting off mine when he tried to twist off my golden collar. Slowly, his big body began to float up into the air, almost as though an invisible hand had the big Korrigon by the throat and was lifting him.
“No, my Lord!” Shadrack gasped, his gray face beginning to turn blue. “No, please! I’m not here just for…for my own profit. I’m here on orders…orders from Sir Gra’multh, the OverLord of… of the Southern Continent.”
“How dare you lie to me?” Sir thundered.
Shadrack shook his head violently in negation and drew in a wheezing gasp. “His Lordship says…says this universe is ripe for…for the plucking. He sent me…me and other Pet Finders to look over the females and take the…the likeliest ones!”
For a moment I thought Sir was getting even angrier. His eyes went from white to a kind of silver and I thought lightning might start shooting out of them. Hey, it wouldn’t be any weirder than seeing him wad up a metal gate with his mind like it was a piece of paper or lift a ten-foot-tall giant by the throat without even touching him.
But then he dropped Shadrack abruptly—though he still hadn’t touched him physically at all. The gray Pet Finder, as Sir had called him, collapsed on the ground like a sack of dirt, panting and clawing at his throat as he wheezed in big gasps of air.
“I will not start a civil war on my home world over the likes of you,” Sir growled at him. “But you will not keep these females you have taken, either.”
He pointed a finger at the women who were still huddled together silently in the corner. Suddenly the silver collars they were all wearing fell off, clanging on the floor at their feet.
Sir stepped forward to them. Almost all of them cringed away from him but he shook his head.
“No, do not fear me. I need only a moment to contact the ones you came here with. Tell me their names and I will send for them.”
One by one, the women stepped forward and each one mumbled a name. As they did, Sir closed his eyes and appeared to concentrate. I saw his lips moving—was he sending thought messages to the women’s husbands or partners or something?
I didn’t know for sure and I was afraid to ask, but after a short time—just a few merns as Sir would say—alien men started arriving at the little dark cell where Shadrack had been keeping his prisoners.
The first to come was a big Vorn with red skin and pointed horns. His golden eyes went wide when a small woman with deep brown skin and curly black hair rushed forward to greet him.
“Tarn!” she sobbed as he enfolded her in his arms.
“Yolla! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” His voice was low and rough as they embraced. “Where did you go?”
“A girl with red and white skin told me she had some special jewelry to sell,” the woman named Yolla admitted. “I never should have gone with her—I tried to turn back but she dragged me in here and then he put a collar around my throat and I couldn’t even shout for you!”
She nodded at Shadrack, who was still curled in a ball, sniveling on the floor.
“What is he? A fucking slaver?” The Vorn warrior’s eyes began to narrow with rage.
“Close,” Sir said, stepping forward. “He is a Pet Finder from Korrigon Four—I am ashamed to say it is my home world. I am afraid there is a HighBorn male there who covets the women of your galaxy. You must look to your females and warn others to do the same.”
“Are you the voice I heard whisper in my ear, leading me to Yolla?” the Vorn asked him.
Sir nodded.
“I am. This scum took my little one as well.” He nodded at me.
By this time I was sitting with my back against the wall and my knees drawn up to my chest, trying to make myself small. I said nothing, only watching the man who called himself my Master. The things he could do were frightening and I wasn’t sure if he knew that I had gone off on my own before I had been lured into Shadrack’s lair or how angry he would be if he found out.
“Then I must thank you,” the Vorn said to Sir, inclining his head. “My Yolla is everything to me—I went half mad with worry when I thought I’d lost her.”
“I know how you feel,” Sir murmured, casting another look at me.
By that time more alien men were arriving—I recognized a Braxian, two more Vorns, and a Majoran, as well as two other men that I thought might be Denarins, who both hugged the same woman at the same time. They put her between them and encircled her with their muscular arms. Meanwhile, in the corner, a Majoran man changed colors like a chameleon enfolded his own wife, who was sobbing with relief and happiness at seeing her mate again.
“All of you, listen.” Sir’s voice rang out above all the sobbing and exclamations of joy and concern. When he spoke, all heads turned to look at him. “This scum is the one who took your females,” he said, pointing at Shadrack, who was looking at the gathered alien males with fear in his eyes. “He intended to take them back to my galaxy and sell them as Sex Pets.”
An angry murmur rose from the alien males and a lot of furious glares were aimed in Shadrack’s direction.
“I have my own little one to attend to,” Sir continued. “But I urge you to punish this scum of a Pet Finder in whatever way you choose.”
“I know what I choose.” The Braxian’s deep voice reminded me of the bellow of a bull. “I say we fuck ‘em up!”
The rest of the males murmured ascent and then began to gather around Shadrack. The Korrigon Pet Finder was a good three feet taller than any of them…but he was also severely outnumbered. And just because the alien males surrounding him were seven feet tall instead of ten feet didn’t make them any less muscular or any less angry.
“Wait!” he gasped as the alien males began closing in on him. “Wait, please! My Lord HighBorn—don’t let them do this to me!”
Sir gave him a scathing look.
“You’re getting off lightly. I would punish you myself but I’ve already broken enough of my own rules in dealing with you, scum.”
I had no idea what he meant about that and I didn’t dare to ask. Before I knew what was happening, he had leaned down and scooped me up in his arms and was striding down the corridor and out into the light.
I was once more in Sir’s power, and I had no idea what was about to happen to me. I only knew he was a lot more powerful than I had realized before.
And that scared the shit out of me.