Thankfully, for once she did not argue with him. She bounded up and raced into the other room. Ean closed the door.
“I would ask you if you had lost your mind,” Kael finally said when he’d dropped into one of the chairs, “except that I think I have lost mine, too. This is dangerous, Camryn. By the gods! If you cannot show more restraint we will all be undone!”
“You of all people should not lecture me on restraint!” Camryn snapped.
Kael glared at him but finally shrugged. “In this instance, I have more. I at least do not go about calling her Simone! You could not expose yourself more glaringly!”
Camryn reddened uncomfortably. “I had not realized it,” he muttered.
“Because that is how you think of her in your mind … and you cannot afford to.
You know this!”
“Think of her? Or think of her as Simone?” Camryn asked tiredly.
“Either,” Ean responded angrily. “You are as dangerous to her as she is to herself!”
Camryn threaded his fingers through his hair. “I will petition the council to take her as concubine.”
Kael and Ean exchanged a look. “They will not allow that. You know they will not, Camryn. If she was one of our own, they would not. Asking when she is not even drak is likely to doom not only her, but all of the others. They were not disposed even to allow us to take them as breeders.”
Camryn surged to his feet furiously. “Then the laws need to be changed! They
had concubines! Not much choice, granted, but still they had some possibility. We do not! And our sons will not! They will cling to the old ways until there is no mighty drak empire! Until there is no one!”
“It would wound Lielani to hear you say such things,” Ean said quietly.
Camryn glanced at him sharply. “She will not hear,” he said tightly.
“She will if you go to the council,” Kael pointed out. “They have changed nothing in a thousand years. They have known that this day would come a hundred years and done nothing to stop it or even to slow it. It was a great victory even to convince them to concede us as much as they have. They will bend no further. You cannot convince her to accept if you will not.”
“You have accepted?” Camryn asked tightly.
Kael’s expression hardened. “No. I just do not think this is a battle that we can win. And I know also that we are liable to lose what we have gained. I do not want to risk that. I want to know that I will have a son. I know it is bad luck to think of death when we go into battle, but I cannot put it from my mind when I have no son and know that my line dies with me.”
“I am not certain it matters,” Ean said tiredly. “She is angry now. She will hate us all when the babes are taken from her. I do not think she would consider becoming our concubine even if the council allowed it.”
“We cannot know that when we cannot even ask!” Camryn snapped.
Ean looked at him for a long moment. “I watched the vids, Camryn. They want the babes. That is why they are determined to fight us every step. They do not want to give them up.”
“Well they cannot have them!” Kael exploded. “They are our sons!”
Camryn studied his brother and his cousin thoughtfully. “There is a way that we can keep her with us—for now. It will buy us time to try to make a change. It may also appease her.”
Ean and Kael both turned to stare at him.
Camryn turned to pace, thinking.
Kael and Ean watched him for several moments, growing more and more impatient.
“Do you mean to tell us?” Kael demanded finally.
“She carries the heirs of the House of Jakaar,” he said finally. “It has not been done very often, but it has been done. We can insist that she be quartered in the palace so that our own physicians can care for her. The babes will need to be cared for when they are borne. There is no reason why she could not be their caregiver … until it is time for them to begin their training.”
Kael frowned, considering it. “They will want her bred again within a year … certainly no more than a year. The others will begin to demand a breeder, you can be certain, as soon as they have delivered ours if they are not already in process of petitioning. That is not much time for any sort of petition and you can be certain that if you try what you have in mind that they will drag that out until we are old and gray,” he ended dryly, “And that is only if they will agree to consider it at all. It is far more likely that they will see her and her people as a threat to our traditions and take steps to prevent it.”
“Do you think that she will be satisfied if she is given seven summers with them?”
Camryn frowned. “They will not be babes. She should not object. We cannot allow her more.”
“We cannot promise her that much!” Kael said. “You have not thought this out, Camryn! There is nothing to say that the next to breed will not also demand to house her while they await the birth of their sons! Even our rank will not prevent that!”
“If we are successful in our petition, however, she will no longer be a breeder,” Ean said.
“Except that that is unlikely!” Kael snapped. “And certainly not likely within the space of no more than a year. We will not be there to see it through. We are very likely to be sent to the front again as soon as we return. We can file a petition, but it will merely sit there until we are allowed leave to return and that may not be before the birth of the babes … if then.”
“Then we must convince your father to aid us.”
Kael stared at him as if he had grown two heads. “My father? By the gods, Camryn! He is the worst traditionalist of the lot! He is more likely to have heart failure and expire!”
“Our father cannot when he is acting head of the council!”
“And he would not if he could!” Ean put in.
Camryn settled heavily into a chair at last. “We can try. If he fails us, we will have to find someone else.”
Kael sat forward in his chair and dropped his face into his hands. “I think this will all fall apart on us, Camryn,” he muttered. “Too many know that we are keeping her here. They may not say anything if there is no further interference when we reach Macedon, but Akule has developed an interest in her. If he wants her half as much as we do, he will not be silent. And I would not bet one pikan that it will stop there if the other warriors get wind of it.”
“You are that concerned about rumors that will go no further than the worker class?”
“In this instance, yes! Because it will go higher, Camryn. It will reach the council, very likely before we could push forward any petition at all.”
Camryn flicked a look at Ean.
“I will watch him myself,” Ean said. “I am not sure I agree with Kael, but I see no sense in risking it.”
* * * *
“Simone! Simone! Si-mone!” the women began to chant the moment she stepped inside the cell with Camryn and they noticed her.
“That certainly worked well,” Kael said tightly. “They were not as vocal in their
rebellion before we removed her.”
Camryn hesitated and finally released her. She flicked a glance at him and the others and strode briskly away, which prompted the women to begin cheering.
“Well,” Ean said, “I think we can cease to worry that any others will harm
themselves. They are more likely to slit our throats in our sleep than their own.”
“They are not barbarians and they are women,” Camryn growled irritably. “Do
not be absurd!”
Ean threw him a look and then exchanged a significant glance with Kael. “Do
not tell me that you still believe that they are the gentle creatures that we are accustomed to!”
“Of course they are!” Camryn said irritably. “And Simone is the sweetest, most
gentle of all.”
* * * *
“Well, it looks like they still have their balls,” Liz commented by way of greeting.
Simone shrugged.
“They wouldn’t sleep any where around me.”
“That’s just a crying shame!”
Simone sighed. Actually, she thought it was. It had been almost as hellish pinned up in such close confines with them as it had been when they weren’t there and she’d had nothing but her thoughts for company. Thankfully, Akule hadn’t approached her again.
Not that he didn’t stare holes in her when he came for his daily brainwashing session!
The women surrounding her began pelting her with questions as soon as they’d finished welcoming her back, but Simone shook her head, motioning toward the guards with her eyes. “Sorry, I’m tired. We can talk later.”
They were disappointed, some of them angry, but then they hadn’t caught the eyeball signal. They drifted away and Simone and Liz moved to Liz’s bunk and settled.
“We were really hoping for some kind of news,” Liz said neutrally. “I think everybody’s mostly just bored stupid.”
Simone nodded, picking at the covering on the bare mattress. “I get the impression that we’re being monitored,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how good the equipment is, but I imagine it’s at least as sensitive as anything we have.”
Liz’s eyes widened.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the last guy I dated,” Simone said in a more conversational voice. Liz looked at her blankly and Simone felt impatience flicker through her. She’d given a lot of thought to how she could get the message across without giving them away like she had before, but trying to hint through correlation was the only thing she’d come up with. Liz was smart. She’d figured she would catch on very quickly. She just hoped she hadn’t been wrong because she didn’t know how to get it across if that didn’t work.
She forced a fake chuckle. “We fought all the time—nothing physical, mind you, but a lot of hell raising. He was a real control freak.”
Pausing, she studied Liz to see if she’d caught that and saw to her relief that Liz was looking thoughtful. “Anyway, there was just no dealing with the jerk. It seemed like every time I wanted to do something, he didn’t want to and he didn’t want me to.
The minute I said anything, he’d immediately object and then we’d have a huge argument. I let him browbeat me for a while—until I got tired of it. Then, when we’d argue, I’d wait until he decided he’d bullied me in to giving him his way and I’d go and do it anyway. Of course, if he found out, he was mad as hell, but as long as I let him think he was running everything he was happy and things were peaceful.”
Liz sat frowning thoughtfully at her feet for several moments. “Why don’t you rest? I think I’ll go chat with some of the girls.”
Relieved, hopeful that Liz really had caught the message, Simone made a production of yawning and stretching and then lay down on the mattress when Liz left, closing her eyes. For a little while, she listened to the snatches of conversation she could hear around her, but it didn’t take long for her mind to complete the circuit back to her latest stay in Camryn’s cabin. She still didn’t understand what had happened, and it bothered her that she hadn’t been able to figure it out.
If she’d had a better grasp of their language, she might’ve been able to understand it. Unfortunately, despite her bragging and her own confidence, she hadn’t made much headway in learning the drak language. It also didn’t help that she didn’t seem to understand the rules and laws of the drak as well as she’d thought she did. She supposed she’d tuned Akule out more than she’d realized.
And yet, Akule had just propositioned her. She would’ve thought that he’d lied and it wasn’t alright, except that she distinctly remembered that part of the lecture from the many times he’d recited it before. All of the draks seemed to understand English. If Akule had been misleading them the entire time, surely some of them would’ve noticed?
She’d finally decided that it had only seemed to her that the argument had something to do with her, but that explanation hadn’t helped her to dismiss it—mostly because the guys had acted so strangely around her afterwards—starting with sending her to the bedroom and shutting the door.
They’d never seemed to concern themselves with whether she was in the room or not because they knew she couldn’t understand them. Mostly, they either completely ignored the fact that she was in the room, or they pretended to, and she’d begun to think that they were just pretending she wasn’t there most of the time. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why she thought that. It was like—electric vibes or something.
Then again, she couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t all in her head, that she didn’t just feel like they were conscious of her because she was so aware of them.
The chances were, she thought wryly, that it was just a form of conceit. She was hypersensitive about them and she’d transferred her own feelings to them. In all honesty, which was a great pity, she couldn’t think of a single reason why they’d focus on her unless it was just because they weren’t used to having women invade their space and felt like she was an intruder.
She would’ve liked to believe that that little episode was all about jealousy, that they found her as attractive as she did them, but they sure as hell hadn’t given her any reason to believe that. None of them would come closer than three feet of her except Camryn when he was bullying her and even then he pretty much kept her at arm’s length.
There weren’t any ‘accidental’ brushes. She hadn’t encountered any sizzling looks. She couldn’t even honestly say that they avoided coming near her because they were afraid they just wouldn’t be able to trust themselves!
The thought almost made her laugh. Self-control didn’t seem to be a problem for them. The outburst she’d witnessed was, in fact, her first indication that they might have any kind of anger management issues.
She shuddered at the memory. She supposed that was the main reason she hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind. Camryn had scared the pure shit out of her, almost literally, and it made her vastly uneasy that she didn’t know what had set him off—so she could avoid it, whatever it was.
One thing was certain, she hadn’t had a bit of trouble acting subdued and cowed after that little episode! Because it wasn’t acting. She was cowed. If she’d had any idea Camryn was capable of that kind of rage before that she wouldn’t have been playing with fire!
With any of them! Camryn had totally dominated her mind at the time, caught her full focus, but despite the fact that Kael and Ean were grappling with him, trying to hold him back, they’d looked nearly as furious. In retrospect, it had almost been more like they were wrestling over which of them was going to get to her—or Akule—first.
That was another big question mark in her mind—whether she’d been the target or Akule. She thought it was Akule, but then again, the moment Akule had left, Camryn had focused on her. She hadn’t even been able to remember what he’d asked her at first.
It had been the next day before she’d managed to jog it loose—something about taking Akule as her lover.
That was what had led her to the interesting possibility that it was a fit of jealousy. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to convince herself that it was when he hadn’t tried to get in her pants himself—before or since.
She had to conclude that she or they had broken one of the ‘golden rules’ of the fucking draks. It was good to know that they tended to react very violently to any breach of conduct. Camryn had warned her, of course, but that wasn’t the same thing as experiencing—not by a long shot.
It had made her rethink their situation. Were they really prepared, she wondered, to deal with the consequences of rebellion? She didn’t think they were. She didn’t know if she could gather up enough spine to face the possibility of Camryn in a rage multiplied by hundreds of them.
Try to tell the others, she wondered? Or try to keep them occupied, allow them to think they were going to make a difference?
She didn’t want to get them killed. She knew they weren’t really following her so much as she’d managed
to strike a chord in them, but she also knew they’d been holding all of it inside until she’d encouraged them to let it spill out—which still made her responsible.
They couldn’t do anything now anyway. They couldn’t really reach the men to try to persuade them and it probably wouldn’t do any good if they could. They appeared to be powerful men, but they weren’t the leaders. Camryn, from what she’d understood, was the mission leader and/or the big boss of the ship, but that didn’t mean he had a lot of influence beyond the ship.
Of course, he’d seemed pretty damned cocky about his position when he’d informed her that he was a prince, but then she was just a lowly breeder to him. That was enough to set up his back whether he was somebody really important among his people or not. They might have princes running out their ears.
Chapter Eight
Simone’s knees still felt like water when she was ordered to unfasten her restraints and get up. She stood shakily like everyone else and followed the herd to the opening in the side of the shuttle. She was almost afraid to breathe when she reached it and stared around blankly at the scene that seemed at once nightmarish and unreal at the same time.
A nudge from behind got her feet moving and she focused on trying to keep from falling down and rolling to the bottom of the steeply slanted off-ramp. Several dozen women had emerged before her and they stood in a tight, frightened knot at the bottom of the ramp. She joined them, searching for Liz, wrestling with the weightless sense of fear in her belly.
The knot of women eddied as others joined them, but no one did more than shuffle out of the way when pushed. They were all too stunned and frightened to move from the spot without being driven from it.
Simone clutched at Liz with relief when she’d finally joined the group. Bolstered by the false sense of security it gave her to have contact with someone else, she lifted her head and looked around again.
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