“That is helpful to you now?”
Brandi glared at him since his logic was pretty damned hard to dismiss. “Smartass,” she muttered under her breath.
“You are an impertinent slave!” Ulrich growled, though it lacked much heat.
In point of fact, he looked almost amused, but the comment still gave Brandi a jolt. She blinked at him. “I forgot I was one.” She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know how to be a slave. I was born free—grew up free. I’m sorry if it … makes you mad. I don’t want to piss you off, but I’m used to feeling equal to everybody else.”
Ulrich stared at her for a long moment and finally looked away. “I was engineered to be a slave and I have been nothing else until only a few annums ago when I bought my freedom.”
“Engineered?” Brandi gasped. She would never have guessed that in a million years, despite what he’d said about ‘never born at all’. “No wonder you’re so awesome! They must have picked the best genes to make you!” She chuckled. “I had to settle for what my parents had on them. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t anything too spectacular.”
Ulrich studied her suspiciously for a moment and finally relaxed. “I had no parents.”
“Aww! Poor baby! That so totally sucks!” She thought about it. “Not that me and my parents always got along, but I thought they were pretty great most of the time—while I was a child anyway. Later, during my teens, not so much. I felt pretty persecuted, then, but we were starting to get along again … before I got snatched away.” She sniffed, struggling with the abrupt urge to cry. “I hope they aren’t very unhappy that I vanished. I don’t like to think of them being hurt and unhappy—nothing I can do about it, of course, but I really hate it.”
Ulrich moved closer, settling his arms around her.
He seemed a little awkward and uncomfortable, but she appreciated the fact that he’d wanted to offer comfort.
She supposed he was awkward because he hadn’t gotten a lot of hugs when he was young.
Actually, probably none.
It occurred to her abruptly that, just as she’d been raised to think and act like a free person, Ulrich had probably been taught to submit from the time he was born, to expect no consideration and no freedom—even of thought.
Until the moment that occurred to her she hadn’t considered how much it must have taken for Ulrich to go against everything that had been pounded into him from birth—to think differently.
Of course, she didn’t know if he’d decided that it was wrong that the sect of Nhewa demanded that he submit his woman and she submit her body to their desires or if he’d simply decided she belonged to him and he wasn’t going to share.
She didn’t suppose it mattered. The result was that she was free of the religious nuts and he was—the world was, she supposed.
Ulrich hadn’t talked about it, of course, but she figured, considering how bad he’d looked, they had to look worse. Beyond that, she didn’t think he would’ve come back if he’d thought there was any chance they were still after him and would follow him to his special place.
He’d brought her and left her to keep her safe. She didn’t believe he would’ve risked her after going to that much trouble to protect her.
She became more certain that she’d correctly interpreted the situation as the days passed into weeks and the weeks into months.
Not that she was really aware of the passing time for the most part. They worked from daylight to dusk on producing the things they needed for survival and comfort. It was a learning experience for her—a hands on training period that she was grateful for when she wasn’t too tired to think at all. Because the more adept she became, the more skills she learned, the easier her life was and the more secure she felt that she could survive whether Ulrich was there or not.
Oddly enough, the more certain she was that she’d developed the survival skills she needed, the less inclined she was to consider escaping.
She never consciously decided to stay with Ulrich. She simply accepted that she was where she wanted to be.
The only timekeeping she did at all was to keep a rough tally of the days between her periods. She never allowed herself to acknowledge why she was keeping tabs when she had no birth control, but when, after nearly a year with Ulrich, she missed a period and felt a surge of joy and excitement, she knew.
And she was still cautious about accepting until she’d missed a second period.
And her waist began to fill out and her belly to take on a decidedly basketball shape.
She didn’t know how long it took Ulrich to notice but there was more concern than joy in his eyes when he examined the growing mound. “What is dis?”
“What?” Brandi asked, teasing.
His frown deepened as he examined her. “You are skinny everywhere but in dis place.”
Indignation deflated Brandi’s mood. “I am not skinny!” she said irritably, but then she really noticed his expression for the first time. “You aren’t happy about it?”
He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “I should be happy?” he asked cautiously.
She let out an irritated huff. “You said you wanted a baby!” she snapped.
He turned as white as a sheet. For a few moments she thought he was going to pass out. “This is … this is …?”
“Well, obviously I can’t guarantee that it’s a son, but it’s definitely a baby!”
He looked torn then. “You are certain?”
Brandi frowned. “What did you think it was?”
He shrugged. “Something growing ….”
That was why he’d looked so anxious?
She decided to forgive him for his lack of enthusiasm. “Well it is something growing. It’s a baby—which is a good thing. I think so anyway. I’m happy about it. I’d hoped you would be.”
A slow grin spread across his face. Abruptly, he grabbed her and squeezed her so tightly she began to think he was going to squeeze the baby out the bottom and her brain out the top of her head.
The man didn’t know his own strength! Instead of complaining, though, she hugged him back and then, when he allowed his arms to drop, she lifted her hands and placed them on his cheeks to frame the face she’d come to think of as being one of the dearest to her heart, ever. “It might sound crazy, but I’m pretty sure I love you.”
His face turned so red she was almost sorry she’d said it. “You tink?”
Brandi felt a sudden urge to cry at the mixture of doubt and hopefulness she saw in his expression. She lifted up on her tiptoes, pulling at him to urge him to meet her half way and kissed him on the mouth. “Yeah. I think so. We’ll give it a few years and see, ok?”
He studied her face and nodded. “I tink I love you also.”
Brandi burst out laughing. “You think?”
He frowned. “I am not sure. What does it feel like?”
Brandi studied him, trying to figure out how to explain it, feeling her love for him expand in her chest like a hot air balloon. “Like the joy of coming home,” she said finally.
The End.
Alien Slavers II: Breaking Brandi Page 12