"HANDS OFF, FEKKIKS!"

A futilely-struggling-in-the-iron-grip-of-two-Pacifiers Chiana was unceremoniously dumped into a large well-appointed room, and the door was slammed shut behind her, booming closed like a sentence of doom.

She gathered herself up, stood, looked around, pulling on the collar they had latched around her throat. She hated collars. This one, at least, did nothing but hold a medallion. At least twenty pairs of eyes gazed back at her, some shocked, some puzzled, some knowing – all belonging to females of various races.

One in particular, an attractive and formidable-looking female obviously Ashkelon came casually toward her, looked at the medallion hanging from the collar.

"A new one. We will be a Chro'la Ball Team if this keeps up." There was a general peal of laughter at that. "He's going for the exotic lately, I see. An 'Inviolate' seal, no less."

"What the frell is going on?" Chiana demanded, backing away in a stealth-slink.

"You've been bought, dear," the female told her, somewhat condescendingly. "Welcome to the D'Strand'm'tah 'Harem' – such as it is."

"Thanks, but 'm not staying." Chiana told her, all darting and assessing eyes. "I'm no seraglio fodder!"

That brought another peal of musical laughter from the group.

"You've been bought, dear," the spokeswoman repeated. "I can't imagine what he wants with the likes of you. You're a bit… scruffy, aren't you?"

"I don't remember being asked if I wanted to be bought." Chiana thought a moment, growled, "An' who you callin' 'scruffy', you overmade-up tralk?"

Another female in the corner laughed, stopped abruptly at the spokeswoman's glare.

"She's a Nebari, Be'bari'a."

Be'bari'a nodded.

"What's your name?" She asked, reassessing. "You do have one, I presume?"

"None of your fralking business!"

"A vocabulary, too." She gracefully walked around the hissy Nebari.

"Like Umur said, I'm Be'bari'a." She smiled a not-unfriendly smile. "You doubtless have concerns. They're unnecessary. An Inviolate Seal means you're untouchable, not that any of us are ever touched."

"What're you talkin' about? What kinda harem is this?"

"Not that kind." Be'bari'a opened her arms to encompass the room. "It's a harem only because the rabble call it that. We're all rather strange prisoners after a fashion, though we're not really that, either."

"We're leverage," someone else said.

"There's the word," Be'bari'a agreed.

"Leverage? For what? I'm nobody!"

"If you're here, dear, that is quite obviously not the case."

Be'bari'a sat gracefully down in a finely-wrought chair at an obviously expensive table, unconcerned with Chiana's slinking about.

"We're all of us quite expensive," she said to the nods of many heads, "to someone or another. Perhaps wanted, perhaps loved, just withheld, denied, or simply hidden, until the time is right. It depends, you see, just why we were bought."

"It's not bad here, you know," the one called Umur called over, "though there's no getting out."

"You don't know my friends," Chiana growled, now back against the wall and inching slowly along it. "I won't be staying long," she reiterated.

"Yes, you will," Be'bari'a assured her, "so you may as well get comfortable."

"The frell…!" Chiana suddenly lunged at her… only to find herself suspended in the iron grip of a Pacifier.

A strongly-built, rather handsome male stepped around the Pacifier, quite calm and very obviously the one in charge. He had silver eyes, immaculately-coifed night-black hair, and the bold tattoos all Ashkelons his rank possessed. Chiana knew enough by now not to bother struggling. She hung there in the Pacifier's hands, a good half-motra off the floor.

"I would appreciate," he said in a deep baritone, "no violence please." He regarded the fuming Nebari. "You're Chiana, late of the Leviathan Moya, yes?"

Chiana stubbornly refused to answer him.

"I am D'Strand'm'tah. I must apologize for the rather abrupt introduction. I require your help, as I'm afraid your friends will likely not be very amenable, though they were paid rather handsomely."

"Buying me is th' wrong way of gettin' their attention, frellnik." She said eventually.

"That's just tradition," he said, unperturbed, "just following the forms." A smile. "Just for their trouble, you see."

"What do you want?" Chiana asked sullenly.

"Your attention, that's all." He gestured both to the Pacifier and Be'bari'a. "Bring her."

He smiled at Chiana with the grin of a V'rakka Cat.

"Let's prepare for your friends' arrival, shall we?"