"Clean it up," Perdil snapped at the assistants. "We'll take her upstairs." I fainted twice on the way, after I'd been shoved into the hoverchair by someone. I thought they might be taking me to the apartment I'd shared with Ry. We didn't stop there. The top floor was our destination. The hoverchair moved past Zendeval Rjjn while he stared at me and my attendants, an unreadable scowl marring his features.

"You couldn't clean her up first?" Zendeval demanded.

"This happened in the kitchens. Do you suggest we do it there?" Perdil was angry with Zendeval for some reason. "Get her into the bathroom," Perdil ordered Geldis. Geldis was confused until Zendeval showed him where the bathroom was inside his master suite. I didn't want to be anywhere near Zendeval Rjjn. And the tear that dropped? I wanted to hide that, if I could.

Zendeval and Perdil both watched as Geldis lowered me into a tub of water. I sobbed, thinking about how Ry had kept the water warm for me when I'd bathed under his watchful eye. There wasn't a soul here who cared for me now; I was a job to do and money to be made. Otherwise, I likely wouldn't have gotten a bath.

Zen watched impassively as Reah was bathed, even as a voice in his mind screamed protect, protect, protect. He ignored it and stood his ground. The evidence of his bite was still upon her shoulder. She bore his marks. That should please him. His black eyes betrayed nothing. Perdil glanced at Zen a time or two, but turned back to Reah's bathing both times. Did Perdil want her as well? Perdil hadn't expressed interest in any female. Zen wondered briefly why that was.

"Pick her up," Perdil hissed after Geldis dried Reah's skin and hair. "Are you completely devoid of feeling?" Zen wondered where he'd been, mesmerized as he was by Geldis caring for Reah. "One arm around her torso, beneath her arms, the other under her little butt, do I have to show you everything?" Perdil grunted as he helped get Reah's limbs sorted out. Geldis stepped back and watched as Zen lifted Reah.

A warm mouth on mine. That's what woke me. "Ry?" I mumbled.

"No. Never again," a voice replied when the mouth was taken away. I struggled. I knew that voice. It wasn't a voice I wanted anywhere near me.

"Reah, do not force me to activate the controller further," Perdil's voice was harsh. My body stilled in Zendeval's arms. That's where I khatd, thinkin was; Zendeval was holding me. Carrying me somewhere. I watched his chin as he carried me along, that's how close I was to him.

"Do not have sex with her for another eight-day at least; you will make her ill again," Geldis warned as Zendeval laid me on a bed. Standing back, he blinked down at me. I knew, then, whether he did or not, that he was being controlled just as I was supposed to be. I wanted to ask Perdil about that. The dwarf knew many things and he wasn't saying anything. Geldis' warning meant nothing to me—I was prepared to fight with Zendeval Rjjn if he even attempted sex. I still felt achy and out of sorts, my stomach wanted to heave again and I had a headache.

"Do not harm her," Perdil ordered. "You," he pointed to Geldis, "stay in the other room unless you are needed." He led Geldis away. I heard Zendeval's door closing shortly afterward. Perdil had left me alone with Zendeval Rjjn.

"Yes, I know there are still problems to be worked out," Faldin snapped. "I can't seem to separate what constitutes affection, and we're still experiencing difficulty with implanting instructions on how to escape or hide if they are implicated in a crime."

"It's only a matter of time before someone discovers the controllers," Dantel Schuul remarked, irritated that Faldin seemed to be wearing a hole in a very expensive Serendaan carpet. Dantel had asked Faldin to meet with him in Dantel's spacious, private study at the Schuul estate. Darletta was still amusing herself on Stellar Winds; Dantel had purchased the controlling interest in it for his only child once the opportunity to do so was presented to him.

"And you can't control fear," Dantel added to the list of the controller's shortcomings. "Although it was a stroke of genius to make them from this ancient technology. Who knew that these microscopic transmitters, combined with the tiniest of electronic chips, would prove to be practically invisible to medical technology? I commend you on your innovation, Faldin."

Faldin preened for Dantel Schuul, although the original idea hadn't been his. He wasn't about to tell Dantel that he'd borrowed anything to make the controllers possible. When he, Dantel, Darletta and the other six controlled both Alliances and what lay beyond them, Faldin expected to live beyond his wildest imaginings and have every sentient creature at his beck and call. All of it was within his grasp. Faldin flexed his hands and smiled at the thought. The last auction would be held, the last bit of their technology would be brought online and the universes would be theirs.

Faldin hadn't known when he was studying engineering that it would bring him to this. Who cared that his controllers couldn't command love? He and Darletta were made for one another. Neither cared that sex was obtained from others. It only titillated them. The controllers worked perfectly for commanding sex from any partner, including the unwilling ones.

I woke with warm arms around me. I still ached and moved slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position. "Don't move. I think better with you close like this." Zendeval's voice. I froze.

"There's no need to be frightened." A hand was placed between my bare breasts. He'd undressed me. I was naked against him. "Your heart needs to slow down." Lips caressed my ear and then my temple. I couldn't slow my heart any more than I could stop the planetoid from spinning; the organ was pounding in my chest. I whimpered without meaning to. kg te to be p

"Someday you will not be afraid of me." That wasn't going to happen. Someday, I intended to kill him. Then my heart might stop pounding like that. Zendeval's comp-vid beeped and he moved away to answer it. I huddled into a smaller ball on his bed.

"I must go." He stalked away. I blinked at his retreating back—he was just as naked as I. Sighing with relief that he was gone, I fell asleep again.

"Wake, Reah." Perdil was back. Was it his personal mission to torture or aggravate as much as possible? I blinked at the dwarf. "We have food for you, and then you will be taken to the kitchens again. It is six days before the sale. You must get on your feet as quickly as possible. We cannot have a weak female stand for the bidding."

Geldis helped me off the bed; I almost fainted in the shower while I washed myself, almost lost what I ate for breakfast and then shivered when a strange guard carried me down the hall to the elevator.

"Tell us what to add," an assistant begged later as I attempted to put the cake batter together for the dessert. More gishi fruit ice cream had to be made as well; the dessert was more popular than anyone imagined, even with the exorbitant cost.

"No, more ground chocolate," I said, shivering slightly.

"She is still feverish," Geldis stepped forward to check my temperature.

"Reah, get the cake batter together and we'll put you back to bed," Perdil snapped. I told the assistant how much chocolate to add, then watched while he stirred everything together. "That looks good," I muttered weakly. The batter was poured into the pans and slipped into the oven. "Take her upstairs," Perdil jerked his head toward the kitchen door. "Carefully, that is an investment," he ordered.

That's what I was, now. An investment. Something to be sold for money, and then likely ordered to do Perdil's and Zendeval's bidding in the kitchens from then on. Except I didn't intend to let that happen. Lendill would be watching through the cameras embedded in my skin, and as soon as we arrived at the base of operations where the sales took place, all of them were going to get a surprise from me. Meanwhile, I had to rest as much as I could and build up my strength. I was going to need it, and I cursed Zendeval and his attack silently. He'd inflicted this weakness upon me, with whatever it was he'd become at the full moon.

"There's some sort of microscopic device in the neck," Lendill indicated the spot on his own neck while Gavril watched.

"We looked," Gavril sighed. "But I beheaded both of them, and if there was anything there, it was destroyed." He spoke of his and Dee's assistants, Greta and Alphine. He and Lendill had gone through the records, and neither assistant had traveled to Stellar Winds, but that didn't mean that someone else who'd come in contact with them hadn't.

Lendill was beginning to have suspicions, and those suspicions were frightening. Ship's passengers and their baggage were checked at the point of origin, not the destination within the Alliance. Controlled guests could be sent away from Stellar Winds with anything in their possession and the controlled inspectors at the space station would allow it to pass right through.

"This is how they're getting weapons," Lendill muttered. "These two had unregistered weapons, those two kns,hat' killings on Surnath involved unregistered weapons and who knows how many others have them, too?"

"This is the worst possible scenario, isn't it?" Gavril sighed.

"If there was something there, it was removed," Karzac said after examining Tory's neck. "And it could have been small enough that a quick blast with a laser needle might have taken care of it, leaving no discernible wound. Easily disposed of, I think."

"But could that explain all this? The holes in his memory and everything? Norian says that people are being controlled." Lissa cast a worried glance at her healer mate.

"Yes. It could definitely explain it," Karzac agreed.

"Reah, you will sit there quietly while the meeting takes place." Perdil was in Zendeval's suite again while he and Zendeval ordered waiters and kitchen employees to place this or that on Zendeval's kitchen island. It looked as if he were inviting at least seven or eight people.

"I do not want this," Zendeval muttered.

"I know that, but Nedrizif was quite adamant. And he knows about Reah. One of his spies, no doubt. He insisted that she be here so he can look, as will the others. When I told him her health was poor, he ignored me, saying he was bringing a physician with him to check her over." I watched as calmly as I could—they'd placed me in a hoverchair inside Zendeval's kitchen while people moved around me. All controlled, I think, except for Perdil. He still answered to the one he'd called Nedrizif; it looked as if they all did. Who else was coming? Would I see all the major players now? It worried me that Faldin might have returned. I truly hoped that wasn't the case, I didn't want to take all of them on as weak as I was.