Free Burning Ceres by Viola Grace

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
     
    Ceres stumbled and fell hard. She scrambled to her feet and dodged down the nearest alley. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her chest was heaving like a bellows. She tried to still her breathing and crouched next to a waste receptacle. Her eyes and ears were alert for any sign of her pursuer, but she knew that by the time she heard something, it would be too late.
    Why the hell had she run from her family? Oh, yeah. The arranged mating.
    So, her family was Nyal royalty, so they had a position to maintain, what gave them the right to choose the man that she would submit to ?
    On the day of the official ceremony she had run. As far and as fast as her credit could carry her.
    She had eluded capture for almost a solar year. Within that year, she had gone into heat five times. Each time she had bribed a medical team to put her in a tank at the medical center and to wipe their records of her visit after she left. The fake names that she had used had given her a bit of protection, but she had been forced to use the same identity twice. The last two heats had been so close together that she had been unable to set up a new name before she was forced to seek medical attention.
    The tank had become essential two years earlier at her family’s home. She had begun attracting every male in the vicinity with her pheromones and it had caused quite the stir, even her guards had tried to break into her room one night to answer her body’s call.
    That had been when her father had put his foot down and started to make arrangements for her mating. She had no say in the selection process.
    The day before the official announcement and two months before her next heat, she ran. She was exhausted.
    It would almost be easier to just let them catch her.
    She sat up quickly, hearing a noise in the dark and steeled her nerves. If she could last out the night, she could contact her father and arrange to come home. Kirkan Avedis might have a temper, but he would honour his daughter’s request to come in if she apologized.
    A bright flare in the darkness let her know her time was up. She felt the pulse of energy a moment before she fell to the ground in a heap.
     
    * * * *
     
    “Ugh. Where am I?” She struggled to sit, but there were restraints on her arms and across her torso.
    “You are on my ship, Dame Avedis . I am taking you back to Nyal .” A woman’s voice. Low and sultry. The type of voice that men fell over each other to get close to.
    “And who are you?”
    “ Asha Timmons. Alliance Hunter.” The owner of the voice stood and came close enough for her to see her.
    It was one of the new races. A Terran. The blue-black waves of hair that fell down her back were just as alien to the Nyal as the bright blue eyes were.
    Ceres’ own ivory locks and scarlet eyes were stereotypical Nyal features. Her dusky skin was the only aberration. The result of an ancestress who tumbled an Azon during a period of her own heat.
    “What is an Alliance Hunter doing tracking in Nyal space?”
    “Making a fair trade for some citizens who are being held slave in your solar system.” She perched on the end of the bed and looked down at her prisoner. “I suppose that I should warn you, your father is really pissed. He has insisted that you be taken with no concern for your rank or physical condition.”
    “Well, I imagined that he would be. It isn’t anything new.”
    “Oh, have you been sold at the Great Arena before? That is where you are headed.”
    Ceres went cold. The Great Arena? That was where low caste women were auctioned off to the highest bidder for mating, and slaves were processed for distribution. The same slave trade that had kept Nyal out of the Alliance .
    “You have to let me go. I need to get out of here.” She struggled against her bonds, frustrated when her captor just watched her. There was pity in that blue gaze, but also a stern determination.
    “It is better for you to be in the