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  FALLING INTO THE BLACK

  By Caitlin Ricci

  A Planet Called Wish: Book Three

  Sometimes there’s a difference between duty and doing what’s right. And sometimes doing what’s right comes with a high price.

  Every aspasian at Asiq adores the handsome peacekeeper Resan—all except for Arin. While the other workers vie for Resan’s attention, Arin avoids him at all costs, which rouses Resan’s suspicion. When he discovers Arin is a runaway slave, Resan is bound by law to return him to his master. It is only later that Resan realizes what he’s done. Arin’s owner bought him at twelve, married him, and not only violated Arin himself, but loaned him out to his friends. Resan has returned him to a life of rape and abuse, and now he must make a decision: free Arin and abandon the oaths he swore as a peacekeeper, or leave him to languish and abandon his own conscience and heart.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  More from Caitlin Ricci

  About the Author

  By Caitlin Ricci

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  Arin

  EVERY ASPASIAN at Asiq loved Resan. I had to admit that I liked looking at him just as much as any of the other aspasians did. He was a beautiful Sythe with his dark purple skin and shiny black hair. He perched on chairs with grace, and he walked around like he was a gentleman even in this brothel. Everyone who had been with him bragged about how good he was, how much they loved being with him. How they’d screw him for free, even though he never asked for that.

  As for me, I was perfectly fine staying away from him as much as possible. Em, his best friend, and Resan were a team, and I didn’t mind having the bounty hunter around, but the peacekeeper was a problem for me. Bounty hunters like Em were much more lenient in their codes than Resan was. His world was black and white. There were good people, and then there were criminals. That was more than enough reason for me to give him a wide berth. Besides, Em was constantly busy with Corbin, who was Sythe just like Resan and had the same dark purple skin and black hair. Corbin had stepped more into the role of managing Asiq lately as Monroe, who had owned the brothel for years, was moving more toward stepping down. They were both fair and honest, so I didn’t much care as long as I kept getting paid.

  I didn’t mind Resan as much when I was working the clients. It was when I had to work the bar that put me in close contact with him. Resan was watching me as I mixed the drinks for the other aspasians to take to the clients they were chatting with and otherwise entertaining. We were busy, and since everyone else was already talking to clients, which always came first according to our boss Monroe, I had to make the drinks myself. So that left me walking over to where Resan and Em sat. Corbin was half on Em’s lap. Em and Resan had just come back from some mission, and I knew Corbin likely wouldn’t be much of an assistant manager for the rest of the night because of Em. I understood that. I saw how in love they were.

  Descani was practically climbing up Resan when I knelt in front of the four of them, like Monroe told us to do when we delivered drinks. I handed the drinks out, and Descani flashed his fangs at me. I rolled my eyes. If he wanted to pretend that Resan was his territory, even for just a few hours, then he was welcome to claim him. I was only doing my job, and I would have much rather been having sex with a client or two than running drinks to peacekeepers any day.

  I went back behind the bar and continued on with my work. It didn’t take long for Corbin and Em to leave again for their rooms. Though Descani had moved to straddle Resan, I saw the peacekeeper’s attention move to me every now and again. I pretended not to notice, and I definitely didn’t make eye contact with him.

  I was happy when Descani pulled him down the hallway to the aspasians’ rooms an hour later.

  Once I was off my bar shift, I was free to seek out clients if I wanted to. Or I could go to bed and try to catch up on my nonexistent sleep. I decided to work instead. I found an older man with graying fur around his cheeks and neck. He was Catcha, like Descani, and when he smiled, I got to see his fangs. I smiled back at him and took the seat beside him. I made sure our thighs touched, and when he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close, I brought my mouth to his neck.

  “You’re an eager little Denobelas,” he cooed at me.

  I didn’t correct him on what I was. As long as he went into my room with me, I didn’t much care what he called me. I placed my hand on his thigh, and as he began to quickly kiss me, I moved my fingers to the bulge in his pants. I squeezed him and moaned like I knew I should have. It made them want me more when I did that, and it worked on the Catcha too. Within three minutes I had him stumbling down the hall behind me, his hands already tight on my hips.

  As soon as we were in my room together, he didn’t waste time. He didn’t use lube, but I was used to that. I moaned when I was supposed to, and I begged when he told me to. I didn’t mind being an aspasian. It was better than a lot of jobs someone with no experience could get. It paid well, I was safe, and I got food. Being at Asiq was practically a vacation, no matter how I looked at it.

  He came quickly, and when he was done, he pushed me down on the bed and covered me with his furry body as he kissed me and rubbed against me. I knew now that this was their way of scent marking who they were with. It didn’t last past a shower, but they liked doing it. At first I’d been a little weirded out. Now I opened up my thighs and let him get me as much as he wanted to. I was being paid to make his time with me perfect, after all. Resisting him wouldn’t have done that very well.

  He kissed me when he was done, and then he licked my neck. That was another thing I’d had to get used to with them. They liked to lick people.

  He got off me soon after that. He got dressed, smiled at me one more time, and then left. I stripped the bed, remade it, then headed into the shower.

  I was ready to go again right after that. Some aspasians, I’d noticed, needed a break in between clients. I didn’t. I’d been able to get a hot shower, with actual running water and good smelling soap; that was enough of a break for me.

  I went back into the lounge where the clients hung out before one of us brought them back to our rooms. There were only a few people waiting, and one of them was Resan. His glass was empty, and I went to go make him a refill because that’s what Monroe had taught us to do. Not because I actually wanted to spend time with him at all.

  I knelt in front of him to give him his drink as I had before, and he took it from me without a word. As I was leaving, though, he couldn’t just let me go apparently. “How’s it going tonight?”

  I turned back to him and shrugged. I’d brought him his drink. That should have been enough interaction between us.

  “Anyone giving you any trouble?”

  Aside from him? No one. I shook my head. “Everything has been just fine.” I looked to a pair of other men in the lounge. They were
talking to each other, so maybe they’d come in together. I hadn’t had two clients in a while, but I knew I could handle it now if they were interested in me. “Did you need anything else?”

  Resan looked to the two men as well, then back to me. He shook his head, and I went to work. I smiled at them as I approached. Judging how to come at people was always a little tricky. Some people wanted gentle approaches. They didn’t want to be overwhelmed. Others wanted intense need as if I hadn’t seen them in weeks and couldn’t wait to have them again. These two made things easy for me as the one with the blue skin reached for me. I took his hand, and he settled me between them.

  Resan was watching us, but he could watch all he wanted. They took turns kissing me and petting me. Anything below my waist they needed to pay for, but my chest was bare, and they played with me while I sat between them.

  “He’ll do,” the other one said. His skin was a rich brown. They smiled at each other. Then the blue-skinned man lifted me into his arms while the darker man walked ahead of us. I gave them directions to my room, and for the next two hours, I lay between them as they took turns with me, and then each other.

  I was actually feeling a little tired when I returned from my rooms after changing them over for the next client and having another shower. I reentered the lounge and made myself a drink. There was no alcohol in it, just a bit of fruit juice and some fizzy water. It perked me back up. Resan was at his post now. No longer having fun, he was there to protect us all again. But I still caught him watching me.

  “Not many of you take back-to-back clients like that,” he said from across the room.

  I really wasn’t interested in this conversation with him, or any other. I sipped my drink without looking at him.

  “Just don’t get hurt or wear yourself out.”

  That made me smirk. “I’m fine.” I finished my drink in a hurry, though I would have much rather savored it. Monroe didn’t like us drinking or eating in our rooms, probably because it made things messy since people tended to forget to bring out their dirty dishes before Asiq opened, and no client wanted to see a mess when they came into such a nice brothel.

  I went back to my room without looking at him again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Resan

  I HAD no idea what Arin’s problem with me was. Every time Em and I came back from getting a bounty, he’d go off with Corbin, and the aspasians would all flock to me. They wanted to hear of our travels and of the kind of people we hunted in order to make the universe safer for everyone in it. Every single aspasian was like that, and I’d been with them all, and more than once too. Except for Arin. He wasn’t shy. I’d seen him with customers. He could be bold when he wanted to be. But when I was around, he refused to even look at me. It was as if he disapproved of what I did to the point of completely hating me for it. And I was getting where I was having a hard time tolerating not only his indifference any longer, but his downright apathy when it came to me as well.

  “Have I done something to annoy you?” I demanded as I cornered him against the bar the next night. The lounge was practically empty since it wasn’t even ten in the morning, leaving just myself, Arin, and an aspasian who looked far too bored with the lack of customers around to care about what I did to one little Denobelas.

  Arin backed up against the bar and stared up at me with wide, frightened eyes. It was by far the most emotion I’d seen from him yet. He looked away quickly and shook his head. He might have wanted to pretend, but I was a peacekeeper, and I knew how to read people. His rounded shoulders and the way he wouldn’t look at me told me he was lying. Something about me made him uneasy.

  “What is it?” I asked him. I softened my voice this time, trying not to demand an answer from him, but rather just ask for it. It was the difference between wanting to strangle him for annoying me and actually threatening to do so.

  Arin turned and began busying himself with cleaning down the top of the bar. I put my hand over his. The bar was clean. He didn’t need to pretend to find something to do in order to get away from me. He yanked his hand away from my touch as quickly as he could. Without the bar to distract himself with, and with me standing in front of him, he was more cornered than ever, and I saw it in the tenseness of his body. He was fighting back the urge to run, and I just wanted to know what it was about me that brought out this kind of a reaction in him.

  “It’s okay,” I said, lowering my voice in an attempt to calm him down. “I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. I just want to figure out what’s going on here so we can fix it.”

  “Nothing.”

  I glared at him. “That’s a lie.”

  He tightened up his jaw and lifted his gaze to mine. “And so what if it is? I don’t need to have a reason. I don’t get in the way of your job, and you don’t interfere with mine. Is it so hard to believe that one person in Asiq doesn’t want to suck you off every minute that you’re around?”

  I laughed. His fierce act was a good one, but I saw the fear in him. I was a peacekeeper, and I was used to seeing that kind of reaction in the people I was going after, but he had no reason to be like that with me. “If that’s all this was, then I’d leave you alone. But you’re afraid, and I want to know why.”

  He was back to staring at the floor. “No, I’m not.”

  “Is it because I don’t always use a neutralizer gun? Sometimes the bad guys don’t come easily, and Em and I have to use actual force and not just something to immobilize someone.” If he was afraid of me because I wore a gun, there really wasn’t anything I could do about that. He’d just have to get used to it.

  But Arin sighed and shook his head. “It’s not that. Can I go back to work now?” He sounded practically desperate, and I needed to know what was wrong here even more than ever.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, and he froze under even that gentle touch. When I let my hand linger there, it only took seconds before he was whimpering. I was used to people being afraid of me and what I could do, but not to this degree. Even people who knew I was there to arrest them, or that Em was going to kill them, didn’t react this strongly to me.

  Without saying a word to him, I grabbed Arin by his arm and pulled him into the nearest private room. He stood there in the center, only feet from the bed, just staring at the floor. He glanced to the bed, then to me, and back at the floor again. I knew what he was thinking, so I took a seat on the chair and expected that to relieve his fears about me forcing him onto the bed.

  Except once I was sitting, he came over and knelt in front of me as if he thought this was somehow expected of him. I grabbed his wrists before he could go for my pants. “We’re not in here to have sex. I need you to tell me what’s wrong, and it needs to happen right away.”

  I didn’t have a backup plan or a way to get him to say what it was without threatening him. The boy already thought I was planning to force him to have sex with me, and I didn’t want to scare him more than I already had.

  “Have I ever done anything to scare you?” I asked Arin as he stood back up and moved away from me again. He quickly shook his head. “Then what in the universe is bothering you?” I let my frustration come through, which I tried to avoid, but it seemed to work on him as he flinched and stopped putting even more distance between us.

  He tried to come past me, but I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. When I touched him, his shirt moved down, and his hair moved just right, and suddenly I found myself looking at a smear of cream-colored paste across the side of his neck, just below his hairline. I held his shoulder, and he held perfectly still as I used my thumb to wipe some more of the cream off his skin. When I was done, I was looking down at a brand, and one I would have never expected to see in Asiq, of all places.

  “You’re a slave,” I said as I released him. He put his hand over the mark on his neck and stepped away from me.

  “I am. Most people don’t recognize what that brand means.”

  Most people weren’t peacekeepers, so I wasn’t surpr
ised they didn’t recognize the lines and circles as something denoting ownership of him. Part of my job was to track down slaves and return them to their masters. Arin belonged to someone. If he was free, the brand would have been removed, but it was a light pink scar against his skin. “That’s why you didn’t want me near you.”

  He looked defeated as he nodded. “What can I do to get you to keep my secret?”

  I knew what he was offering, and now that I had his secret, it seemed he was more than willing to get close to me. But I was duty bound to report him, regardless of any personal thoughts of my own. Slaves were often criminals, sold into the service of another person as a way to work off their sentence and avoid the prison planets.

  “What did you do?” I wanted to believe it wasn’t anything too serious. Maybe stealing some food. But I would have never pegged him for a slave either, so I couldn’t be too sure of anything at this point.

  His gaze narrowed at me. There was no more seduction, no more hints of negotiation. He was angry now, and I didn’t blame him. Any client who saw his brand wouldn’t have cared. Any other aspasian, even if they happened to know what it meant, wouldn’t have had to do anything about him being a slave. But me, I could lose my ability to be a peacekeeper if I didn’t turn him in, and I didn’t think twice about it. I doubted that he was a murderer, or something that extreme, but if I was wrong and he killed someone after I knew what he was, that would be unthinkable.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he snapped at me. I’d heard that plenty of times before, and it didn’t sway me now. I pulled out my holoscreen and snapped a quick image of him. A few taps of my fingers later and I was able to search the database for missing slaves. There were thousands of them all across the universe, but narrowing that number by gender and approximate age helped significantly.

  “What planet are you from?” That would also help me figure out who he was and what he’d done. Arin tried to escape by running past me, but I reached out and grabbed him by his arm. I was never rough with the aspasians, rougher than they wanted at least, so I knew my treatment of him would have gotten Monroe’s attention by now since he’d be watching through his cameras. That was fine as I needed to go talk to him anyway. I put my holoscreen away as I tightened my hand on his arm, opened the door, then began hauling him down the hallway toward Monroe’s office. Corbin would have been fine to go to as well, but he was with Em at the moment, and I knew they would be busy for a few hours at least, even though we’d only been away from the planet Wish for three days.