“Go ahead on y our end, sir. This is John, the one you bid on, and he can hear you and see you just fine.”

Ryansmiled, feeling nervous and unsure of what he should or shouldn’t say to impress this good-looking creature. The fact that a Lycan had bid on him was exciting and far better thanhe’d hoped for. They were all known to be very wealthy and rumored to be exciting lovers. They were also said to be able to shift into huge, savage wolf-like creatures whenever they needed to, but none of that had ever been proven so far as Ryan had heard, though the rumors persisted. Ryan thought the legends came from fear of their savage nature more than anything else. The general public had been mostly kept in the dark though when it came to the inhabitants of that planet. Ryan decided it must be only talk and wild stories, probably inspired by their strange red eyes. He decided to sit quietly and lull the Lycan into thinking he was well-behaved. He’d let the huge, beautiful man make the first move. He knew most, if not all of these guys were very dominant, and he wanted to make a good impression.

He was beginning to get nervous when the Lycan finally spoke. “Stand up and turn around very slowly.” He spoke to him in Earthonian, a mixture of several of Earth’s primary languages, the official language of the Alliance. Ryan concentrated on the words spoken in a deep, melodious voice, tinged with a strange accent.

“Do you speak English, by any chance? My Earthonian is a little rusty.”

The gorgeous creature raised oneperfectly shaped eyebrow. “Of course,” he replied in English.“Now do as you’re told and stand up.”

Dutifully, though blushing now at his imperious tone, Ryan stood and pirouetted slowly in front of the screen.

“So…” the man began.“What’s wrong with you?”

“Uh, sorry?”

“I said, what’s wrong with you?”

“I-uh…”

“You can talk, can’t you? Or do you just stutter?”

Ryan glared at him. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Don’t bristle.I’m buying you for fucking, not for conversation. What I mean to say is your price isn’t all that high for a cycle, and you’re very pretty.Why hasn’t someone already snapped you up, as you humans say?”

Ryan fumed a little at the pretty remark, but tried not to show it, though he could feel a hot blush on his cheeks. Sitting down and straightening his back, he glanced up and saw the man smirking a bit at his reaction and shifted uncomfortably on his seat.

The fact was Ryan was a fraud.He wasn’t particularly submissive and never had been. He enjoyed a little kink, yeah, but that didn’t make him a sub. At least not a twenty-four-seven sub like these dominant guys usually liked. Ryan knew almost all of the buyers on this site had strong dominant tendencies, at the very least, and the boys who sold themselves here were usually submissive, like in the extreme. Some were masochists too. Neither of those terms applied to him, and he wasn’t into pain in any way. Hence his extensive list of hard limits.

He needed a place to hide, though, and having a nice, strong man like this Lycan around to take care of you didn’t sound too bad when vicious killers were after you, so when he’d heard about these auctions, it sounded like a good gig to him. A cycle off-planet, in some backwater of the galaxy, might give the people looking for him time to forget him, to write him off. He had to look on this as a role, like in a film.He’d played the submissive before in his porn films and never minded too much. In fact, some of it had been enjoyable, even sexy. He could do this. He raised his eyes to stare back at the handsome face in front of him.

“I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with me, other than the fact that I have certain stipulations about my contract. As you know, I want to be off-world for at least a full cycle, and I have to be anonymous.”

“I know all that,” he replied impatiently. “What else?What are your hard limits?”

“My…uh…” The words referred to BDSM and limits that subs put on their master’s discipline of them. With the right guy, a little kink might be a lot of fun. With the wrong one, however, and way off-planet in the far reaches of some bumfuck planet, things could get dicey, if he wasn’t very careful.“My, uh, limits.Let’s see, I can furnish a health certificate, and if you can too, then I can do bareback, but not without a certificate.”

“Okay, go on.” The man waved his hand in front of him.“Limits, I said. Focus, please.”

“Okay, well, no pain. No edge play. I don’t like that. A little discomfort is okay.I’ve been with guys who like to spank, or even like to have someone spank them…” Ryan looked up hopefully, but the expression on the handsome man’s face didn’t look exactly promising along that particular line of thought. As a matter of fact, the comment only made him narrow his eyes even more, before twitching his lips, like he was holding back at smile.

He tried again.“So, yeah, a little spanking, like I said. You know, a little kink. But no whips or chains. Nothing extreme.And I really don’t like to be tied down.”

“No?”

“Oh, no,” Ryan said firmly, shaking his head. “Kind of claustrophobic, I guess. Anyway, uh, no. No bondage.”

“No bondage?” he repeated, raising one eyebrow, and Ryan thought he might have blown it. “You’d look awfully pretty tied up…”

Ryan felt a twitching in his cock at the words, and shifted again. Why in the hell is that turning me on, damn it?

“Um, no, I don’t want that, sir,” he said. “Oh, and I don’t want to sit at your feet or sleep on the floor.I’m not a dog…” Ryan flushed again and glanced up as he remembered just who he was talking to.“Um, I don’t want to be treated like…a slave. You know, eating from your hand and all that.” He shook his head emphatically.“No, none of that shit.”

“Yet you’re selling yourself as a love slave.”

Another painful flush. Fuck, what was wrong with him? This guy would think he had some kind of condition, for gods’ sake.

“Anything else?” The man almost growled.

“Well, just no body fluids, sir. You know, like enemas or golden showers. Or spitting in my mouth. Gross.” He made a face again and this time a little smile definitely played around the man’s lips.

“Not much of a sub, are you, little human?”

“Oh yes, sir, I’m all sub, but just not a really…uh…good one, I’m afraid.”

A genuine smile this time. The man regarded him closely.“A bit of a brat, aren’t you?”

“Oh no, sir. I promise I won’t give you any trouble. I mean, I don’t smart off or anything. Well, hardly ever.” He squared his shoulders.“I promise to do whatever you tell me. As long as it’s not against my limits, sir.”

“Your extensive list of limits…”

“Well, yes, sir.”

“Your list of limits that doesn’t leave much room for you to be a sub at all?” “Um…well, not exactly,sir.”

The Lycan hesitated a long time, staring at him. Finally he spoke again.“Why, John? Why are you doing this?You obviously don’t have any interest in being a submissive or a love slave. Are you in some kind of trouble? Not in trouble with the police, are you?”

“Oh no, sir. No trouble. I just have my reasons. Nothing that would affect the…uh…performance of my duties,” he replied, lying through his teeth.

The big man hesitated before asking the next question.“I suppose I’d get much the same answer if I asked why you wanted to be off-planet for a cycle.”

“Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.”

Another long pause.“Do you even have any interest in submission?Don’t lie to me, human.”

“Yes, sure. I’m definitely a submissive, really.I really want this,” he said, repressing the urge to touch his nose to see if it was growing likePinocchio’s.

The man gave him a long, hard, very suspicious look.“Obviously your name is not really John Smith. Would you like to give me your real name?”

“I’d rather not, sir, but if you don’t like that name, you can call me anything else you like. I’ll be fine with whatever you decide.”

“My name is Blayde, by the way. Blayde Balanescu. And you can call me Alpha.”

Alpha? What the hell does that mean? Is that some kind of Lycan thing? Or was it a Dom thing? Whatever, if it helped him get the hell off this shithole moon.

“Oh. Uh, yes. Alpha,” Ryan replied, nodding his head up and down.

“All right. Much as I’m enjoying myself, it’s time to wrap this up.” He stood up and looked behind Ryan.“Move on in, boys.He’s ready for pickup.”

“What? I don’t under…” Suddenly a large man came up beside him and took hold of his wrists, clapping cuffs on him. Another big guy wrapped an arm around his throat, slamming him back in the seat as he tried to rise.

Ryan’s heart shuddered to a thudding stop, and he made a short choking sound. No! Not now, after he thought he’d actually made his escape! This couldn’t be happening…

He heard a voice washing over him as from a distance.“Ryan Henderson. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you. You are under a judgment from a high court of the Allied Forces, and are sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance for parole. Resistance is futile. Prepare yourself to be taken to Lycanus 3 to be transferred to my ship for the journey to the prison moon of Omega 9, in the Copernicus star system, to serve your sentence.”

“A bounty hunter,oh fuck no!” Ryan said, closing his eyes and tilting his head back.

“Ah, but I am, indeed, a bounty hunter, Ryan. And you have just been apprehended.”

Ryan opened his eyes and stared into the exotic, handsome face floating in the air before him and feeling only searing shock. Too stunned and sick at heart to say another word, he met the steady gaze of Blayde Balanescu, hoping for some sign that it was all some terrible joke, some misunderstanding. He saw nothing in those exotic red eyes but an icy coldness.