Highest Bidder: 1 (Mercy) by Lexxie Couper Read Free Book Online Page A

aboard a shuttle in a Mentuan slave raid gone horribly wrong, along with everyone else on the Star-class craft. How the Mentuans had made it so deeply into GU space still remained a mystery. One Dreylan had begun to investigate before being discharged from the force by the newly appointed GU Premier, Pretorik Ipari, on the ludicrous grounds that Dreylan was mentally unstable.
    Fresh anger washed through Dreylan and he lifted his glass, downing the amber beverage in a single mouthful. The rum burned his throat, liquid fire sliding into his gut. Dreylan welcomed it. He hadn’t felt such unhinged emotion since laying Aimyl to rest.
    The thought of his wife’s betrayal sent another surge of brutal rage through him. Rage and contempt. Ipari had sent him on this mission in a twisted power play, a self-important, egotistical attempt to show he still had control over Dreylan’s life, no matter how much Dreylan tried to distance himself from the prick. It was what Ipari fed on the most—power and manipulation. Dreylan had always presented a challenge to Ipari’s ego and pride. While most cowered to the man, Dreylan had viewed him with indifference, seeing through his bluster and posturing. Ipari despised the fact he couldn’t intimidate Dreylan, and had set about proving he had the power to control ever facet of Dreylan’s existence. Seducing Aimyl had little to do with sex and desire and everything to do with domination and supremacy. Sending him on this mission now, after all this time, was just another way of turning the screws, of proving Dreylan was still under his thumb.
    Dreylan had never hated him more.
    Ipari had to know Dreylan would learn who Naya was, what she was to become. Had to know Dreylan would burn with fury and contempt over the despicable use of the woman purely for power and status. Ipari apparently thought Dreylan would swallow his rage and carry out the job like the subservient dogsbody Ipari wished him to be.
    Dreylan gripped his empty glass, an image of Naya burning in his head—bound to his bed, waiting for him, naked and simmering with awakened pleasure. Pleasure he’d created in her. Desire and hunger licked through his body, as dark as his contempt, and a slow, empty smile pulled at his mouth.
    Ipari thought he knew everything. Thought he pulled Dreylan’s string, like a gloating puppermaster.
    Pretorik Ipari thought wrong.
    The premier had taken Dreylan’s wife. His life. Dreylan would take Ipari’s.
    Straightening from the booth, he crossed the bar’s crowded floor, callous vengeance heating his blood, his body already stirring with carnal anticipation.
    He strode back to his unit, uncaring of the stares and whispers he left in his wake. The door to his rental hissed open, the sound followed immediately by Naya’s hiss of anger as he entered the unit and crossed to the bed.
    She glared up at him, lips parted, nipples erect.
    The sight of her fixed to the bed by the band of io-energy around her right wrist, her long, firm thighs splayed, her body naked, ripe for the taking, made his pulse quicken. He let his smile slowly stretch wider. “Hello, riephia .”
    An unreadable expression flashed through her eyes. She stared at him, silent. Vulnerable.
    Something akin to horrified self-disgust threaded through Dreylan’s icy resolve. He paused, hands curling into fists, struggling to center his control.
    And then Naya moved on the bed, and her soft, delicate scent assaulted his senses. Immediately the exquisite memory of her taste flooded through him.
    Control disappeared, lost to consuming lust. For her. For retribution.
    He grabbed her ankles and shoved her legs apart. Naya gasped, but Dreylan didn’t pause. He couldn’t. Not with her scent in his very system, pulled in with every breath. Not with his body heated by a lust he couldn’t comprehend. Not with his heart infected with a rage he couldn’t restrain.
    He gazed at her exposed sex, blood roaring in his ears. Her pussy lips glistened