"You'd be the second guy coming to pick'er up today," knocking on the woman's cage, Croaker, the slave merchant, woke his most beautiful-looking female slave. "Rise and shine, kitty cat, wake up and come out here!"
Standing beside him, Zephyr watched as a woman scrambled inside the cage. The sudden noise had awoken her, and from the looks of it, she seemed to be struggling to get up. A telltale sign that she'd been beaten up for not waking up or doing something whenever it was asked of her.
"She's a Capra," leaning against the cage's bars, Croaker chewed on a lit cigar and blew it onto Zephyr's face. "Horned goats, motherfuckers have nutsacks heavy as a pouch full of gold, and the women are ever producing in the white gold department."
Dressed as the merchant boy, Zephyr brushed the smoke off his face and turned to look at the beastman. Squinting his eyes ever so lightly, he held his gaze without speaking a word.
"What?" Croaker asked as he was about to take another hit.
But as the youngster kept staring at him and his eyes grew as hollow as the very depths of the abyss, the beastman wiped a bead of sweat from his temples and stood up straight.
"Alright, you're not a pushover like the last kid," waving his hand as a gesture to let the matter go, he shifted his attention to the woman in the cage. "Oi, woman, come here before I unlock the cage. I don't like roughing up gals, but if you're gonna force my hand, then I'll bear whatever discount I need to put on your ass after I bash in that pretty face!"
"I-I'm coming!" Rushing to the gate in an instant, the Capra woman stood before Zephyr wearing a battered rag. "I-I'm sorry, don't hurt me. Please…"
"Yeah, yeah, just stand there," turning around again, Croaker placed a hand on Zephyr's shoulder. "You look and chat with the gal. I'll go finish blowing smoke behind that curtain. Just see me there once you've made a decision on her."
With his hands deep in his pockets, the gold-toothed beastman walked away feeling quite embarrassed for having been shown up by a young man. Zephyr, on the other hand, did not even notice his meagre flit in expression, for the beastman's turmoil was nothing compared to the woman standing in front of him.
Fidgeting on the spot with her thighs pressed together to pinch the end of her rag so that it wouldn't ride up too far, the woman kept her head low as a constant blush rode across her freckled face. Her eyes burned a deep auburn, and her cream-blonde hair complemented her fair complexion quite well. As for the weight on her body, it was neither too much nor too little, just the perfect thickness to make any and all men lust after her.
However, right now, Zephyr wasn't there to find another member for his harem. Instead, what he wanted was quite simple.
"Can you serve men?"
"Uhm…" With a gulp, the woman slowly looked up at him. "What do you mean by serve, young master?"
"Can you hand our customers, mainly men, their orders?" Since neither Freya nor Aura was too fond of dealing with men, Zephyr wanted someone to fill that gap, lest their business draw unneeded attention as a place where only women could shop. "Can you do that?"
"Y-yes, I can." Nodding her head, she lowered her head again. "I…I can do a lot of stuff, I can even–"
The desperation in her voice was clear, but even then, her attempt to get out of the cage with words of seduction failed to escape her lips. She didn't want to sell her body, not after how long she'd managed to keep herself pure despite her fiancé's foul intentions.
"Alright then, one last thing…" While the man was still gone, Zephyr cracked his neck, and his two devil horns appeared on top of him. The woman jerked back to the horror, but not a word left her mouth, for already the devil was hushing her with a finger on his lips. "I extend my hand to you, but whether you shall take it is up to you. But know that if you do, You shall know freedom for that is your greatest desire, thy most sought after treasure."
Extending his hand to her through the gap between the bars, Zephyr held it firm in waiting for her. Flitting between the horns and the hand, the woman struggled to comprehend the very reality before her eyes. Was she truly seeing a devil? Or had she gone insane, and her apparent savior seemed as such?
"I…" Too long she'd been trapped to remain rotting in that cage, and so neither the truth nor fiction mattered. "I want to be free!"
Taking the hand with a forward leap, she felt a sudden pain shooting through her head, and the next thing she knew, her body was lying on the floor. Falling unconscious, the woman was spared the last few moments that she would've otherwise had to suffer through from inside that cage, and since freedom had already been promised, Zephyr would bring her outside, and she would feel it herself as the breeze against her face.
"A capra…" Glancing her up and down, the fiend was quite fascinated by the demi-human slave. Her white horns were torn on both ends, but from the looks of it, no blood flowed through them anyway. "Her curly hair hid those knubs well; I wouldn't have known that she had them otherwise, I would've shown other than horns."
In the end, to show a horned demi-human horns wasn't as good an idea as Zephyr had initially thought. But since it worked out in the end, it was time to get Croaker and get the girl out of her pen. Upon his return to the cages, the scaly beastman had his own question, but since Zephyr was going to buy the slave anyway, he no longer cared how she had fainted.
"Alright, now that the payment is done, it's time I bind you two as master and slave. Just give me a moment," taking out a small golden razor that often swung from his neck, Croaker tried to use it on Zeph to get his blood, but he had another plan.
"No need for the seal, just hand me the girl."
"Are you serious? What if she runs away or doesn't listen to you? This seal will keep her obedient,' the beastman complained.
"Just do as I asked," Zephyr shot back.
"Don't come to me when she eventually runs away." Shrugging his shoulders, Croaker unlocked the woman's cage. "Go ahead, take her hot shot. I bet a gold coin that you can't even get her out of here like this."
Ignoring him, Zephyr, even in his boyish state, grabbed the woman by her waist and lugged her onto his shoulders. Then, without breaking a sweat, he passed the slave trader and said one last thing.
"Next time I'm here and you blow smoke in my face," holding that same hollow look in his eyes, Zephyr turned his head. "I will pluck your teeth with my bare hands, one by one, and I'll make sure that you remain conscious."
Holding his glare, the slave trader stood his ground. However, as soon as the fiend was gone, every muscle in his body gave right in. Barely sitting upright on the floor, he looked to the ceiling and heaved a sigh.
"Fucking hell, what was wrong with that kid's eyes?" For a man who'd seen horrors upon horrors committed on the slaves that he sold, for something within that boy's eyes to make his entire body sore…"What kind of fuck up life has he led before coming here? That little runt…"
The answer to that question, the trader shall never know.