The words made Rowan shiver. She would be going from one beast to another. Was this truly to be her fate? All for rejecting the captain? For shaming him?
“Silas!” came Commander Norrin’s shout.
The guards entered and tried to pull the large man off but they looked like flies next to the sheer bulk of him in this tiny room. Rowan watched the captain’s face, saw the look of terror in his eyes. His pants had fallen to his ankles and his penis had shriveled to nothing. Rowan sat back on her heels, hoping Silas would snap the captain’s neck, wondering who was the greater evil out of these three men.
“Do not touch what belongs to me,” Silas said, pulling the captain’s head forward before slamming it hard against the wall. Captain Amro’s eyes looked strange for a moment and his body twitched in an unnatural way. Silas let him drop unconscious to the floor then and turned to the two guards who immediately stepped back from him.
“Silas,” Commander Norrin said in an attempt to regain control of the situation.
Rowan could see the momentary spark of fear in the commander’s eyes. Silas was bigger than all of them. Yes, they could use their guns to kill him but for some reason, they needed him. It was the only reason Rowan could think of that they hadn’t killed him or chained him up yet. They needed him.
“I will deal with Captain Amro later,” Commander Norrin said, glancing down at the motionless body on the floor.
“She belongs to me. No one touches her from here on out but me or the contract is null. You agreed to my terms. I require a virgin and until I have finished with her, no one touches her.”
Contract? Finished with her? What was to be her fate?
“I said I would deal with him,” Commander Norrin repeated, his voice tight.
It took him a moment, but Silas nodded and turned to look at Rowan. He was a mercenary, out for his own gain. All savages were. She knew that much.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked, his voice just a hair different than when he’d spoken with the others.
She shook her head no, her eyes growing wider. She noticed in that moment that he looked directly at her, directly into her eyes. He wasn’t afraid of her as the citizens of the colony were.
Silas nodded.
“Ah,” came Commander Norrin’s voice. They all turned to find two slave girls standing outside the doors, each carrying a sack. He then turned to Rowan who remained as she was, staring, frightened. “On your feet, breeder.”
She struggled to do as she was told, her chains making balance difficult. Silas reached a hand to take her arm. His touch was warm, his hand warm and gentle even for the calluses she felt. But maybe that was her mind comparing his touch to that of the others, of the guards and of the captain, of the doctors. As large as his hand was, when he lifted her to stand, he didn’t hurt her.
“What a gentleman,” Commander Norrin said, his tone sarcastic.
Silas released her but she could see him fisting his hands at his sides. Commander Norrin’s glance told her he didn’t miss it either. He cleared his throat and looked straight at her.
“Breeder, as a part of the sentence for your horrendous crimes, you are being given to this man, Silas, to be used as he pleases and ultimately, to breed you.” A long silence followed where Rowan glanced at the large man at her side then back at Commander Norrin.
“I don’t understand,” she managed.
“You are being expelled from the colonies. Is that clearer?” he asked, his tone mocking.
This did not make sense. She was a breeder. Did they then not plan to breed her themselves? Why give her to a man outside of the colony?
“I am to bear children by this man?” she asked, her mind processing.
“You will belong to him until you bear two children, both breeders like yourself: one to take the place of the breeder you murdered and the other your contribution to the colony. Each breeder child will be taken from you eight weeks after birth and brought back to the colony to be raised properly. Once you have fulfilled your obligation, your penance will have been made and you will be allowed to rejoin the other breeders in the colony for further use.”
They would expel her then take her children from her. Children were always removed from the breeders’ care after a period of eight weeks, the essential time for nursing. If they themselves were born with the gene to breed, they were allowed to live within the walls of the breeders’ hold. They were the lucky breeders, those birth mothers, if there were any lucky ones in this.
After the eight weeks, their milk was unnecessary and the children were given to the childless women of the colonies or sent to the settlements to be cared for and raised while the breeders would have recovered sufficiently to be bred again. At least the other breeders could sometimes see their children. She would not even be allowed that.
Tears filled Rowan’s eyes, but she strengthened her resolve. The chance of having a breeder was not high. Perhaps she would have natural children.
“And what if I am unable to birth a breeder? What if the child is natural?”
“That will be up to him,” Commander Norrin said. “More laborers to add to his village, I suppose. The colony requires breeders from you. That is all.”
“Can I say goodbye to my friends?” The other breeders were all she had. They were her only family.
“I don’t think that will be possible.”
Rowan wondered if the infection that rendered people infertile stole their humanity altogether, their emotion, their ability to love. Breeders loved. The colony was too busy using them for reproduction to care about that though.
“Guard, unchain her.”
One of the guards came forward to undo her bonds, carrying the heavy chains away with him once she was freed.
“Dress her,” Commander Norrin said to the two waiting women. “And you two, get Captain Amro to his rooms. Remain at his door, he is not to leave his apartments.”
“Yes, commander,” the guards said, each taking an arm and dragging the unconscious man out of the room.
Rowan rubbed her wrists as the women approached. The men watched while she was dressed in a simple white dress that covered her to the middle of her thighs and a pair of boots that came to mid-calf.
“She’ll need furs,” Silas said when he looked at her. “She won’t survive the nights otherwise.”
Commander Norrin nodded and turned to one of the girls. “Get her a fur.”
The girl left.
“And the medicines for my people? Where are they?” Silas asked.
“Loaded onto the wagon outside. All as agreed. These bags contain the breeder’s things.”
Silas took them from the girl just as the other one returned with a fur. She went to Rowan, meeting her eyes briefly, the look in them one of pity. She lifted the cape over her shoulders, all the while her eyes on Rowan’s. Then, as she tied the strings that would keep it closed, she touched her hand, putting something inside it and closing Rowan’s fingers over it so that no one else saw.
Rowan made no gesture of acknowledgement. Instead, she slipped the thing into the pocket sewn inside the cape.
“It is late and we have a long journey,” Silas said to Commander Norrin once she was fully dressed.
“One last thing,” Commander Norrin said, gesturing to one of the guards who stepped forward. “Tag her.”
Before anyone could move, the guard was on her, taking her arm, turning her wrist up. Rowan sucked in a breath when she saw the laser he held.
Silas grabbed the guard’s wrist. “What is that?” he asked.
“She is property of the colony first,” the commander answered.
Property. That was all she was.
“It is unnecessary. I have no desire to keep another mouth to feed. I will return her as soon as I am able to,” Silas offered.
It felt like a betrayal, that. She glanced at Silas as he said it, then dropped her head. Mercenary. He was just a mercenary.
“This is non-negotiable,” Commander Norrin said.
“Your medicines are waiting, ready for you to take to your people. Everything is in place, as agreed upon. Be wise, Silas.”
Rowan looked into Silas’ eyes but he masked any emotion too well to read. He glanced at her, then exhaled, releasing the guard’s arm and nodding. The guard then placed the laser against that vulnerable, delicate skin inside her wrist and pushed the button. Rowan heard a sound, it was her own gasp. The pain was intense but momentary. When he released her, she looked down at her reddened skin where a small dark red image, complex in design, now was. It was the symbol of the colony. She knew that there beneath her skin was the locator device placed in such a way that its unsanctioned removal would result in her death.
She looked up to find Silas studying it as well.
Commander Norrin then took Silas’ arm and turned him so they had their backs to her. She wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear Commander Norrin’s next words but she did, even though they did not make sense to her. “Remember our agreement well. I am not one to give second chances.”
She looked at the side of Silas’ face. He looked at Commander Norrin, his expression hard.
“You’re free to go,” Commander Norrin said, stepping back with a grand gesture toward the door.
Silas still looked at the man and it was a moment before he turned to her and touched her back. “Go,” he said.
Rowan walked out of the small cell and followed a guard down the corridor and up the stairs into the courtyard. They all walked in silence and stopped before a loaded wagon. For a moment, she looked at it and wondered if he would make her pull it. The colony would not give an animal away, they were too valuable. And for as much technology that had survived from the developed world, this was still the most basic and most commonly used mode of transport.
“Up,” Silas said to her.
She looked at him, then at the loaded wagon. Surely he couldn’t mean that she should sit while he walked with the load and her own weight on top of it.
“Up,” he repeated, this time taking hold of her and lifting her to sit on top of the largest sack there.
She did not understand this man. One moment he was almost kind to her, but the next, just as cold as the rest of them. No one spoke as the gates were opened and Silas took up the wagon and pulled. Rowan hugged her cape tight over her shoulders and looked up to meet the shadowy faces of the breeders who watched from behind their windows. One waved a hand as a tear slid down her cheek. It was her friend, Lis. Rowan raised her hand to the girl who would come of age in two months’ time. She wondered what would happen to Lis and wiped at her own eyes as the heavy gates of the colony closed behind her.
* * *
Silas pulled the wagon along the dirt road back toward his village. It was heavy but manageable. He glanced over his shoulder at the girl who sat quietly watching the surroundings as if for the first time. Well, it most likely was her first time. When she caught him looking at her, she dropped her gaze every time. He didn’t know what to make of her yet. The two times he had asked her if she was hungry or thirsty or if she needed to stop for anything, she had simply shaken her head no and averted her gaze. She was most likely afraid of him. Well, maybe that was a better way to be than any other. Neither of them had a say in what was happening. Neither of them had any choice. For the foreseeable future, they were bound together, but it wasn’t forever. She shouldn’t get attached to him anyway.
He had watched her face when Commander Norrin had explained what would happen to her, why she was being given to him. He had seen her when she’d been told her children would be taken from her. Breeders did not live in the settlements outside of the colonies. All that was known of them was that they had strange, almost feline eyes and that it was a sign that they were not wholly human and therefore could not have any human emotions. That was what the colonists were taught as well. That and to fear them—that this gene that gave them the power to bear children, that shifted the look of their eyes, also gave them another power, one to harm any who dared look straight at them with a simple thought.
Silas didn’t believe the latter and wondered how much emotion this particular breeder could bear, how much suffering. He had borne witness to her humiliation, her degradation during that very public examination. If she truly did not have the capacity to feel, she would not have reddened so, she would not have cared and what she’d not been able to mask in her eyes when told of her fate, especially when it came to her future children, would not have been there at all.
Silas looked up to the sky and cleared his mind of these thoughts. He had to remain focused, there was an end goal in sight for him. There was the safety of the village to consider first, but there was more than that, there was another reason he was doing this. One only he and Commander Norrin knew.
“The sun will set within the hour,” he said. Then the winds would begin. Ever since the asteroid had struck and since some time before that, the climate of earth had been changing. Every day the temperatures would reach almost unbearable highs and by night, would drop to below freezing. Rain would come at intervals but not enough, never enough, making the settlements fully dependent on the colonies for water supplies, among other things.
He paused and looked around. At this rate, it would take them two full days to arrive at his village with the much-needed supplies and, most important, medicines. They had to stop though, it would be impossible to travel in darkness and they needed shelter from the cold wind. He looked at his companion who looked back at him now, her expression more worried than it had been when they had been moving. Silas understood her fear.
“We will take shelter here for the night,” he said. “Have you slept out of doors before?”
She shook her head and said the word ‘no’ but it came out choked. She was probably thirstier than she let on and he could hear her stomach rumbling. He wondered how long it had been since they had fed her.
“Over there, just beyond those rocks we can build a fire out of the wind. Come,” he said, walking toward her.
She turned to scramble off the sack she sat upon and hugged the fur cape to herself. He took a step toward the wagon and she scooted to the side. He didn’t say anything, instead took the container of water and opened it. She looked at it and swallowed. He handed it to her. “Drink,” he said. “There is enough for our journey.”
She hesitated for a moment but reached out for it, and, making sure no part of her touched him, she took the container from his hands and brought it to her lips. He watched her take a long swallow before she handed it back. He drank as well and put the lid on before rummaging through the bag that contained their food for the trip. Minimal food: they had some smoked meat and one loaf of bread.
He looked around, taking in the resources here. Not much but rock and dead wood to make a fire. That would do for tonight and at least there would be no animals to contend with in the dead lands. Tomorrow they would reach richer land.
“Can you collect wood for our fire? Whatever you can carry.”
“Yes,” she said, and, without hesitation, she set off.
He wasn’t afraid of her running off, where would she go? But it was probably a good idea to make certain she understood.
“Rowan,” he called out. He would call her by her name, not address her as breeder as they did at the colony.
She stopped and turned, probably noticing the tone of his voice. He covered the few paces between them and stood inches from her, his full height topping her by over a foot.
“Do not run. If you run and force me to chase you, I will punish you. I intend you no harm but you must do as I say and not cause me any trouble, do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” she said. “I did not intend to attempt escape. There is nowhere for me to go.”
He nodded and watched as she walked toward a fallen tree and began to break off brittle branches. He then went to collect the ax strapped to the wagon to chop larger pieces of wood.
* * *
He did not seem awful, Rowan
thought. He hadn’t yet tried to have her and had even given her drink before he had taken any himself. Or perhaps he was testing if it were poisoned. No, that did not make sense. The colony would not poison a breeder. They were too valuable. Why did they give her to an outsider to mate with though? And why allow her to leave with him? Why not force them to breed at the colony?
She turned to look at Silas who worked behind her. He had taken his shirt off and was wielding an ax. His muscles rippled, his stomach, arms, and shoulders tight, his skin browned from the sun. The tattoo she had glimpsed earlier she saw in full now. It was red and black and the pattern covered half of his torso, the whole of one arm and the side of his neck, snaking around his side to take up a portion of his back as well. She wondered what it meant and also wondered how much it had hurt him. The closest thing she had seen to a tattoo was the laser tracking image over the locator chip Commander Norrin had had placed on her wrist. All breeders had one once they came of age during their examination.
She wondered what would happen to the captain, having to smile at how he had looked in the end, his pants down around his ankles, his penis shriveled after Silas’ attack. She hoped he got whipped publically but doubted that would happen. He deserved that and so much more and she wondered how much of what Captain Amro did to the breeders Commander Norrin already knew.
As she collected wood, she came upon a living tree some distance away. She smiled, recognizing the fruit. It was a delicacy, one that was abundant for two weeks of the year and then disappeared. She set the firewood down and walked toward it, her excitement growing. Pomegranates were not only delicious, they contained a memory for her, one of the few of her mother. She too was a breeder, or had been. She had died in her fortieth year after birthing seventeen children, only two of whom had been born breeders themselves. But her sister, the one other breeder, had died within a year of her birth. That was her mother’s last child. Rowan remembered that well, and preferred to remember the six years before it. Those were almost happy years. Even though her brothers and sisters were taken from them, she was allowed to stay with her mother, with the rest of the breeders.
Given to the Savage Page 4