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One

Needrix didn’t give a dairl

That hat he told hied her up onto the auction block and ripped open her gown to show the creaht, berry-dark nipples at their tips, he looked the other way

Too bad for her But that was life and life was a shitty round them into dust under her heel at rando to lose whatuniverse—Need had found that out the hard way

So he turned his head and pretended not to notice as the slaver boasted about how the girl was a verified virgin—only lately ripped fro school in the Trell’wick system, where only the finest and most beautiful females were taken in, specifically to be alaxy

“Look at her flesh,” the slaver hissed to the patrons standing below the auction block “Never been touched by a uaranteed! And look at her skin—such a rare coloration! I’ to be the bride of a Galactic Senator but now she can be yours for the right price!”

Theforby in the busyto buy But everybody liked a free show

Rather than looking at the girl, as shivering and tre not to cry as she atteown closed around her, Need studied the crowd Yys, the planet where Need’s ship had docked to re-supply and also take on new cargo—(no doubt illegal since Captain Glo’ll specialized in “hard to get items”)—was a space port at the hub of a busy system So there was plenty to look at

Need saw a pair of Torgians with their rinning like sentient nightirl Beside the creature with a body about the sa, flexible, telescoping neck which it had curved down so that its tiny head and wide, unblinking eyes could starebeside the Xanther was a Trollox—a huge sentient being with three heads, all of theirl at once

Unfortunately, Need knew this lastand he was the second mate on the Dark Star, the ship Need fleith

Need hireatly coveted He was always trying to pick a fight with Need, hoping to displace hih, and for the most part Need side-stepped his obvious atte bastard

It helped that the Trollox’s right and left heads weren’t too sled like a naughty schoolboy telling a dirty joke and peered slyly out at you from slitted yellow eyes The left head, Need was convinced, was mentally deficient It stared dully at the world from tiny black eyes like shriveled raisins and occasionally drooled down the left side of Drung’s tunic It, too, never said a word

It was the ht as he watched his shipet auctioned off The middle head was sly, with narrow red eyes and a snout like a porcine It had two great tusks curving up from its lower jaw too, which—combined with the aforementioned snout—made it look like a wild boar

All in all, it was amost of all All three of his heads were fixated on the treerly Lecherous, pig-snouted bastard

Not that Need hiree, he reminded himself dryly He was a hybrid—a byproduct of two different branches of the Kindred tree ether His mother’s people had been Blood Kindred and Need had the double fangs where another male’s canine teeth would be to prove it His father’s people, however, had been Vision Kindred—a subgroup of the Kindred that were nearly extinct

Vision Kindred had the special ability to see their enemies weaknesses but that wasn’t the only reason they had the title “vision” in their na with their future ed drops of blood in the Bonding Ceremony, which was typically held when the prospective bride and groom were only five or six cycles old