The Neko's Tail (Book 2 of Astara)

Slave Cat

Elias cowered in the corner of a cell, his hands clutching the tight collar around his neck. The leather was his only clothing, the outfit Artemis had bought was stripped away by his captors. It happened again. He was sold once more.

The neko held back tears. Crying didn't help him when he had been torn away from his family all those years ago. They wouldn't help him now.

"Unknown species. I picked him up a day ago," a Xanar said to another alien as they walked past.

Elias kept his eyes down, listening while trying to appear disinterested. He needed to get this collar off and find Artemis. But to get the collar off, he needed to find the remote, and the person holding it.

It hadn't been a day. At most, it had been four hours since he had been kidnapped off the ship. He hadn't even been asleep that long before the Xanar had grabbed him. Surely Artemis was looking for him by now. But he was not going to wait for the tiger.

Elias was done being a victim.

The neko rose on shaky legs and grabbed the bars of his cage.

"Let me go!"

Pain surged through his neck, and Elias cried out, releasing the cage. Noise assaulted his ears as he recovered from the shock, and the neko realized a couple of aliens were laughing at him.

Glaring at the aliens, Elias spat. He tensed up as his saliva hit one of the aliens, and just as he thought, another, stronger, jolt knocked him over.

But he had seen what he needed to. An orange humanoid pressing a remote.

The neko had his target.

Someone approached from the other side of the cage, and he heard another laugh.

"Feisty cat, isn't he?"

Turning his head, Elias frowned. The human he and Artemis had rescued was standing next to the cage, leering at him.

"I could use a slave," Commander Hawke said to the orange alien. "And I do enjoy breaking them in..."

Nothing. There was no sign at all.

"DAMN IT!!!" Artemis roared, startling several beings nearby.

He had been searching for hours, scouring every slave pit in the station. Elias wasn't in any of them.

"Captain, we can't have you scaring our product," an alien said behind him.

Artemis growled, turning on the being.

"People. They are living beings," he hissed.

"While you are entitled to your opinion, if you continue to disturb the pens, you will be removed."

Biting his tongue, Artemis stormed away. He was lost. The alien in charge of tagging new slaves hadn't seen Elias. An alert had been put out with the neko's description, but Artemis knew it was unlikely the neko would be found. If he wasn't in the legal slave pits, he was in some back alley being sold off discreetly. Artemis would never see him again.

The tiger ducked into an alley and sat against a wall, holding his knees.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"Twenty thousand and he's yours."

"Twenty and I get the collar too. I don't want him running off on me."

Elias stared at the alien that held his remote, listening to the human haggle over him. He could not go with the woman. She was a warrior; she could overpower him easily.