Page 2 of Beautiful Prey

The Houses send us the profiles they’re interested in. We spend the week watching those candidates, testing them, and reporting back.

At the end, we hand over our evaluations. We can flag someone they missed. We can cut someone they wanted.

Survive all seven days, and sponsorship is guaranteed. They just don’t get to choose which House receives the contract.

The Houses call it sponsorship. Dad likes that word. Ownership would make people uneasy.

A House buys the contract. The body comes with it.

What happens next depends on who buys them. Some receive the medical coverage, debt relief, or citizenship they came for. Some work. Some are married off. Some never go back to the planet they came from.

The paperwork looks the same either way.

It's legal.

The Vultures made sure of that.

The Reach comprises seven settled planets, and every ruling House on each one has a seat among the Vultures. Planetary leaders, old families, people who inherited enough power to stop needing permission from anyone else.

Granddad helped build the organization.

Dad made it profitable.

Desperate people proved to be worth more than minerals.

Find them. Test them. Price them. Sell them. Dress them in uniforms. Charge a commission.

Do not romanticize it, Asher. Dad’s voice.

Sentiment is a defect in an instrument. You are not paid to feel anything about the stock.

I know his steps without turning. Everyone does. That’s why the deck goes quieter.

“Asher.” Dad stops beside me at the rail. He smells of cedar smoke and bourbon. He doesn’t look at me. He looks down at the candidates instead. Easier for both of us. “You’re drinking on the deck.”

“It’s water.”

“It’s about posture. Five hundred candidates can see this rail. One day it will be yours. Stand up straight. Don’t slouch at the stock.”

I straighten. The bruises across my ribs pull where the cane landed last night. Conversation came afterward. I don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it. I’m twenty-four years old, and I still obey before I think. I hate the reflex more than I hate him, which is saying a great deal.

“The Veyra delegation confirmed for the closing ceremony,” he goes on. “The announcement holds for three weeks. You’ll be presentable and charming. Their second son is said to be agreeable.”

“I haven’t even met him.”

“You don’t need to meet him. You need to marry him.” He finally looks at me, the same look he gives the stock. “A treaty is worth more than a preference. You, of all people, should understand the cost of wanting things. Wanting is what your mother did.”

There’s the ritual.

Every season, he finds a new way to say the same thing. Every season, I give him the same answer. Nothing. I learned a long time ago that silence is the only thing he can’t correct.

You cost me everything worth having. The least you can do is be worth something.

He doesn’t say that part. He said it once when I was eight. From then on, his fist did the rest.

“Presentable,” I agree. “Charming.”

“Exactly.” He straightens my collar with two fingers. “You mistake defiance for freedom. One day you’ll learn the difference.”