The Voight's Plaything E-Book

Nova Edwins

• Herausgeber: Black Umbrella Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 83

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

I need a protector who has no problem breaking a few interstellar laws for me. Since I'm smart enough not to hang around dubious space stations, I need to buy a prison inmate by paying the bounty that was put on his head. Tankol is big, has an arm made of metal, and looks mean—for my purposes, he is perfect. However, the eight-foot tall alien doesn't have the slightest desire to obey me. . . This is a dark sci-fi romance novella. Standalone. HEA. No cheating.

Leseprobe

THE VOIGHT’S PLAYTHING

NOVA EDWINS

A DARK SCI-FI ROMANCE NOVELLA

CONTENTS

The Voight’s Plaything

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

About Nova Edwins

THE VOIGHT’S PLAYTHING

I need a protector who has no problem breaking a few interstellar laws for me. Since I'm smart enough not to hang around dubious space stations, I need to buy a prison inmate by paying the bounty that was put on his head.

Tankol is big, has an arm made of metal, and looks mean—for my purposes, he is perfect. However, the eight-foot tall alien doesn't have the slightest desire to obey me. . .

This is a dark sci-fi romance novella. Standalone. HEA. No cheating.

1

PIPER

"Him." I held out the communicator to the enforcement officer and watched as the Thocod's eyebrows shot up. Since his species had unusually long heads, it looked like his eyebrows had taken the elevator to the top floor.

"You want prisoner 6357882-X-X-BD? Are you sure it has to be him?" he asked incredulously.

I nodded bravely and tried not to let myself get flustered. Since my arrival, I had pretended to be an eccentric aristocrat who wanted a new toy. The truth was many times crueler, but that was none of the Thocod's business since I didn't want him to get any ideas.

"Let's see." With his long claws, the officer scrolled through the directory. "Ah, there we have it. Six counts of murder. Yes, that's right, 6357882-X-X-BD was taken into custody on Leto 5 after he killed six Faenn during a brawl in the local apivak. After the arrest, it turned out that he was also wanted for smuggling, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. A real stroke of luck. So that's who it's supposed to be? We have much more docile specimens that are not technically enhanced to top it all off." He gave me a kind look.

As he read off the charges against this half-Voight-half-cyborg criminal, I felt a tinge of despair rising inside me, but I had no choice. I didn't need a nice little con man who hadn't paid his taxes. I needed someone like. . .

I sighed because I could hardly believe it myself that a six-time murderer was my best option. But I hoped that the prospect of his imminent freedom would make him compliant.

He was the only inmate within my budget who didn't have 'violence against women' listed on his record. That didn't necessarily mean anything, but I needed some sort of selection criteria.

And he looked scary. The law enforcement officer was busy pulling up the hologram of the alien and I swallowed hard at the sight of his horns. His sheer size was also incredibly threatening—I was barely 5"6' and he would tower over me by almost a full foot. The rest of his lavender-colored body was just as intimidating as his height. Stretched across his strong upper arms and broad chest, the prison jumpsuit looked ready to burst. His left arm was completely made of shiny silver metal, and he also had a piece of metal inserted above his right eyebrow. I knew enough about Voight to be aware of the far-reaching effect of these modifications. He had been cast out by his people and no longer cared about his reputation or standing. He was probably a ticking time bomb, but I had no other way to protect myself. All he had to do was buy me a little time and then I would release him.

I didn't dare lower my gaze to find out how the rest of him was built. Instead, I pulled the credits out of my purse and tossed them on the table as if they were worth nothing in my world. "That's the one I want." My voice sounded convincingly bored.

"As you wish, Countess."

I smiled thinly and rose when the Thocod stood up.

One after the other, he unlocked around a dozen doors, through which I followed him further and further into the prison. At the penultimate door, four more Thocods joined us, armed to the teeth.

"Cell block 9," said the officer who had led me here, and his colleagues groaned collectively. I suspected that they were not looking forward to dealing with the inmate in this particular cell block.

"One of the worst guys, of all things!" one of them said, eyeing me. It was clear what he was thinking. The human woman had overreached herself and would soon feel the consequences. I prayed that he was wrong.

Although the cells were all locked, panic tightened its grip on me even more with each step, and the prison guards did not help to make me feel safer. I was aware that the inmates were staring at me, and many of them were making suggestive noises. They were smart enough not to address me directly, but the way they licked and smacked their lips was enough to traumatize me. Human women were only good for two purposes in much of the galaxy—as a delicacy, or as an expensive sex toy.

That was the main reason I was here. I had no desire for my life to take either of those paths, and I hoped that prisoner 6357882-X-X-BD would be intelligent enough to see what I could offer him before jumping me.

We stopped in front of a shared cell with three bunk beds. A guy with a long crocodile tail was peeing noisily into the toilet bowl but was curious enough to glance over his shoulder when he heard us.

He whistled through his pointed teeth.

"Inmate 6357882-X-X-BD, step forward," said one of the prison guards.

A pair of long legs swung from the top bunk of the rearmost bed and he leapt light-footed to the floor.

My throat became tight. I knew that he was going to be big but seeing him in the flesh towering above me, made my knees weak.

He eyed us with disinterest and—unsurprisingly—his gaze lingered on me. His eyes were black and cold, not gold-colored as was typical to the Voight species. They must have been artificially enhanced, just like his arm.

The gaze of his dark emotionless eyes was unnerving. The back of my neck prickled, but it was now too late to change my mind.

"The lady bought you."

The Voight tilted his head and laughed softly as the force field opened so he could step out of the cell. "Are you sure you've got the right inmate? Surely there are better candidates than me."

I looked at the collar around his throat and tried to calm down. He couldn't attack me—not while he was wearing the shock collar. Besides, it made me nervous that he was basically saying the same thing as the prison guard said in his office.

I struggled to keep a poker face and shrugged my shoulders. "You can come with me, or you can serve the remaining 837 years of your sentence."

"Hey beautiful, if he doesn't want to, I'll gladly come along. I have more to offer anyway." The crocodile man came forward and took his big, scaly penis out of his pants, while his long tail swept across the floor behind him. The glans was huge and covered with thorns. If they let this creature out of the cell, I would run away screaming.

"Thank you, but I have made my choice." I didn't look at him, but studied the face of 6357882-X-X-BD. Was he the one? If only I could have read his black, expressionless eyes.

"Oh yeah, you bitch?" The crocodile's tone took a swift turn and he stepped in my direction. "You sure want someone to give it to you proper!"

My heart pounded in my chest, but before the crocodile could even place one of his feet outside of the cell, the Voight had grabbed him.

The prison guard pulled the shock collar trigger from the pocket of his uniform. "No 6357882-X-X-BD, you know the rules. Fellow inmates don't get murdered."

The Voight ignored him and looked me straight in the eye as he tore off the crocodile's head with a quick movement and a charming smile. He didn't break its neck. No. He ripped off its entire head without taking his eyes off me. He stared straight at me; a psychotic smile glued to his face. He still held the creature's head in one hand and his artificial arm was so strong that part of the spine had come out with it.

Not a second later, he slumped down unconscious and twitched as the collar sent strong jolts of electricity through his body.

The enforcement officer held out the trigger to me. "Here. He's your problem now, Countess."

2

TANKOL

My skull was buzzing when I woke up, which was hardly surprising considering how many tellurium units the guards had probably run through my body.

However, I was no longer in the rancid prison cell, but lying on a narrow cot in some kind of cage. The pressure on my neck told me that I was still wearing the collar. That was no big surprise, considering that it was the only way my new owner had to control me.

I had hoped that killing the Crocorlian right in front of them would scare the woman off. He would have attacked her, and by the time the guards reacted, it probably would have been too late. Crocorlians were almost immune to electric shock, so the shock that had knocked me unconscious wouldn't have even slowed down my cellmate. And I knew he had a thing for human flesh. More than once he had told us how the silky skin and tender muscle of human women made them irresistibly delicious.