"Thank you," Karra said to Berti as he opened the door. Laren slipped to the back of her mind, too afraid to assert herself.
As she stepped inside, a shadow passed over them. She glanced upwards to find a Security aircar hovering. Heart racing, Karra settled herself back in the seat. A few moments later Del joined her, never noticing her apprehension.
"I love that color on you," he said, his tone conversational.
"It's just a simple cream gown," she told him, hoping he meant her dress and not the sickly white her face must be.
"I mean the accents of pale pink you've used to brighten it, not ostentatious, yet enhancing to your complexion. Where did you learn to use color like that?"
"Must be inherited," Karra said.
A tiny frown crossed his brow. Then he chuckled. "Would you believe I forgot?"
I can't, she thought, her mind tossing her from his reality to her own. It's in all the laws and restrictions, in every shadow in the Area, in the hunger-pinched faces of the children, in the adults who die before they are old.
Careful, the beast warned. Laren would not make such comparisons.
Wouldn’t she? she argued. She cares more than you realize about the plight of Homelanders.
But she is careful not to speak her mind, especially when in the presence of Nevian authority. You lack her compliance. No matter what the King asks of her, she obeys. I like that about her. I shall teach you that trait.
Karra ignored the voice and rode the rest of the way in silence.
The restaurant was too stereotypically Homelander. The vibrant colors were a Nevian’s idea of commonly human, with human waitresses all cute and bosomy.
And the food! Karra read from the menu the foods for which she was not in the least homesick. She recalled Suzin making gravy over a cut of meat designed for one rich Nevian, feed their entire family. So many meals of beans and flatbread had been set before them she had lost count. And then there were soybeans. Soy, soy, and soy! She had eaten powdered soy, soy cheese, crumbled soy, soy seasoned to taste like various meats or poultry. Su made meals of breads and cereals when there were not even soybeans. She could not help but think of the scarcity of fruits and vegetables. And milk! Milk was always saved for the babies. To this day she never got enough.
Karra decided to order chicken and noodles, made with real chicken. Oh, how marvelous chicken and noodles had tasted when Su could afford real eggs for the noodles too!
But when the food came, it tasted strange.
"Do you not like your meal?" Del watched her picking at her food.
"Oh, it's all right." She cut a noodle into tiny bites. "It just tastes different from what I expected."
Del became very quiet before he finally said, "I keep forgetting you're not Nevian, and yet it's your humanness that attracts me. They use Nevian spices here to keep the food from tasting so foreign to us. Please forgive me."
He apologized? You should be sorry for not appreciating this meal, Laren reminded her, adding a quick, "Of course," to Del.
To make up for the meal, Laren, no longer frightened, steered the conversation to a subject she knew he liked.
Karra stayed out of it, afraid to discover what lay behind his attraction for the fictitious Laren.
The beast chuckled. You cannot control Laren even on your day off, can you? I have decided to let you watch Laren from a distance so that you can learn obedience, although most of the time you will be unable to intervene in her life. I value her life. I have not yet made my mind up about yours. If you refuse to learn by watching Laren, I have another plan in mind to teach you. You would be wise not to ignore me, little girl.
Karra refused to respond, but a gnat of fear niggled at her.
"So, Laren, the King finally let you plan a party." Pleased with her success at the King's Palace, Jem graced her with his broadest grin.
"The King approved nearly all my choices." Laren’s choices. True to his word, the beast had allowed her to watch Laren, even at work, but always from a distance. Even when she voiced an opinion, Laren never heard her. Laren made all the decisions now. Very little remained of Karra except a growing frustration. Laren even took over her meetings with Jem, calling him Sami because she truly believed the background Jem had provided was her reality. Laren believed Sami had found a job working for the Front as Jem’s right hand man. She was even proud of him!
The worst part was that Jem seemed to be encouraging the fantasy. He had caught on almost immediately that he spoke to Laren and not Karra. Whenever Karra tried to intervene, he now simply said Laren’s name, which silenced her. It was as if Laren had become the real person and Karra was the invented persona.
"Great! Things are working much better than I expected."
"What things?" Laren smiled, wanting a word of approval.
"Your work at the Palace, and your relationship with Del A'nden."
Shocked, Laren faded in the next instant. Karra felt the blood drain from her face as she stepped in her place. "Who?" The only A'nden either of them knew was the head of Security.
"You mean you really didn't know?" Jem was incredulous. "He's the High Commissioner for this Sector, a recluse until I tempted him with you."
"I know who Commissioner A'nden is, but I didn't know Laren’s Del was A’nden. You grayborn! Why'd you fix her with him?"
"What's wrong?"
"Who has more power than the High Commissioner? Who controls the Security? And," she spat, "who would want me dead more than he would?" Her eyes blazed with fear and hatred.
"He wants Karra Willo dead," Jem returned calmly. "Not you, Laren Demmita. You’re safe as long as you remember who you are. We can't let go of such a stroke of fortune."
"I'm so lucky,” Karra said. “Well, I also intend to stay healthy. Forget this whole romance. May the Northrange Wind crack your bones for bringing those two together!"
He glared at her as if she had interrupted. "All right. Just calm down. Laren and I can talk about him later.”
“Not later. Not ever.” Karra backed her chair away from the table.
“It would be a little conspicuous for her to break off her seeing him now. So why don’t you quit interfering in her business? Now, Laren, as I was saying…”
Her eyes seared him. She turned on her heel and left the Garden.
Jem knew his sister better than anyone else on the whole planet, or thought so. This new split identity, or whatever was happening, puzzled him. To his delight Laren was beginning to like Commissioner. But just after setting up the relationship, once she knew his identity, Karra intervened. She intended to avoid A'nden at all costs.
That Karra might learn to like a Nevian male was totally unexpected. Maybe that was why she had begun to talk about her alternate identity as if she were a separate person. Even more strange, he found he liked Laren far better. She obeyed him without question. He could tell every time Karra took the lead, so he had begun to address her as Laren, as if Karra no longer existed, and tried not to laugh when Karra acted as if she were being ignored. Laren seemed to accept the Sami personality as real, even responding as his sweet little victim. Karra had always refused to become anyone’s compliant tool.
The strangest fact, though, was that when he spoke to Laren, he was her only reality. Laren had no other siblings, and had never birthed a daughter. Laren gave him all the wens he asked for, not even protesting that Su might need money for Chalatta. Once, just for fun, he asked for her whole salary. Laren had handed it to him, with reluctance, but without question.
Karra had given him the most amazing look of surprise afterward. It amused him when her jaw clenched in helpless fury.
It didn’t surprise him that A'nden was attracted to the lovely Laren. That had been carefully planned. Jem had no intention of letting the matter drop. He would find a way to push Del right into her arms.
Laren’s open arms, regardless of what Karra thought.
He did wonder, however, if Laren was as good with a weapon as Karra was. He wond
ered how to test her.
Chapter 18
The King wanted Laren wearing something seductive tonight. Laren dropped her jaw, staring at him open-mouthed, unable even to protest. Seeing her reaction, he asked if she now understood why he had also requested someone with experience. One of the guests, he explained, had decided he liked her, and the King never refused the request of a guest. He then left her at her desk, lovely and compliant, meeting each Nevian with her smile as she took his money and ticked his name off the list. But inside she trembled. She had no idea what to do. She knew she needed to keep her job or Sami would lose his, and this was the first job Sami had ever held.
After the last guest signed in, she went home to dress for the party.
When Laren arrived in the main room, she was dressed as expected. The King took one look at her and grinned broadly, a look that heartily approved. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she dressed the way most Nevians liked: simple clothing and subdued makeup to portray an innocent girl caught in unexpected wickedness. Her white halter dress, although floor length, emphasized her seductively bare shoulders and back and revealed one leg through a split from hem to mid-thigh. Her naughty, unbound hair allowed mere glimpses of her bare back only when she tilted her head or leaned to one side. A wide gold upper arm bracelet hid the scar on her arm. A lovely touch, she thought.
Just before she left her apartment, she had brushed her waist-length hair to a coppery shine. In that moment Karra remembered mother’s touch as she stroked little Karra’s long blonde hair.
The memory startled Karra back into control as if she had been asleep. How had Laren let this happen? And what was she wearing? Her alternate seemed to be living her life for her. She vowed to resume control for the rest of the evening.
You are truly beautiful, Laren, the beast said, drawing her to the front of their consciousness, placing Karra on an observation shelf.
Laren appreciated the words of the beast, but she hated the thought of working the floor as one of the King’s girls. She returned to the King’s Palace a little shaky inside.
It’s what you were born for, the beast reminded her. Don’t you remember your brother teaching you that lesson?
Laren remembered no such lesson.
Your body remembers, the beast cooed, dousing her with memory after memory of serving men’s needs.
Laren felt the numbing wave of being used for another’s purpose.
Karra stepped off the shelf and took her alter by the hand, leading her to the bar. Drunk enough we can cater to anyone, she told Laren. Even Nevians.
"A double Ma Vita," Karra told the bartender, ignoring his raised eyebrow.
She gulped it down as soon as it came, and ordered one for Laren as well while the warmth of the first coursed her body. A few minutes later Laren gulped her drink.
See? Karra told her. We feel better already. Soon we will feel nothing at all, and can do whatever they ask. Karra ordered another double, downing half of it as soon as the barkeep handed it to her. One more and she would be very drunk.
"You keep this up and I'll make your next ones watered," the bartender informed her, placing the drink in front of her.
Ignoring him, she started to walk away, but someone stepped in front of her.
"So it really is you!"
Karra glanced up into the face of Del A'nden, High Commissioner, head of Sector Security, the man able to order her death the moment he knew who stood before him. Where had he come from? She swallowed back a gasp of fear.
"So this is why you never told me about yourself."
Her eyes flitted to the closest exit.
"I imagined you as the adopted daughter of a Nevian family, orphaned again possibly. But never a common prostitute.” He gestured with a broad wave of his hand. "This is why we met at the library."
She studied the glass in her hand. If she held it much tighter it would surely break.
"You are trembling!"
Not drunk enough, though. Karra brought the drink to her lips to cancel the panic. Once he left it would be business as usual. A few minutes later, another double would dull Laren's regret. Within an hour not even Laren would care.
But his hand closed over the rim of the glass. "Is there someplace private to talk?"
Karra shook her head. She hated the room the King had assigned her. But since Del eyed her doubtfully, Laren responded, "My room."
Karra's eyes followed the glass he had taken from her. Not only did she want that drink—very badly—but if he kept the glass he would have Karra's, not Laren's, prints.
She almost gave an audible sigh when he placed the glass back on the bar.
"Naturally your room. It is where you take your men, is it not?"
A’nden signaled to someone she could not see, and she would have looked but Laren was already speaking.
"No." He won’t believe me, Laren realized. “Until this party, I have been working in the office.”
He eyed her skeptically. "Yet you have a room here."
“Tonight I do.” Laren led him up the stairs. Karra glanced at a few who appeared to recognize the High Commissioner and eye him with envy. She felt uneasy when she realized Laren’s sense of pride in claiming him for herself.
"Ugly, isn't it?" Laren said, referring to the brightly colored room. She removed her heels and perched on the edge of the gaudy bed. Nevians hated bright colors, and this room was filled with more color than a badly planned flower garden.
"This is probably the most nauseating room I have ever seen in my life. What are you doing in such a place?" He pulled a chair across from her and sat, his knees touching hers.
What's a nice girl like you…? the beast mocked the frantic Laren in Del's Nevian-accented speech.
"Working."
"Not tonight."
"But, I have to! The King would never let me refuse a party!"
He took her hand. "Do you know who I am?"
Laren nodded. Karra cursed Jem. "I found out two handspans ago."
"Which is why, I suppose, you missed our last two engagements."
"Yes. Commissioner, the King expects…"
“Call me Del, please,” he said. He touched the white knuckles on her tightly clenched fists, as if to will them to relax. "I am the same person I was before. Did I treat you disrespectfully then?"
Laren shook her head. No, but then he had been an older Nevian, his blue-black hair carefully knotted behind his head showing a few strands of white from one side of his brow to the careful loop of hair at the nape of his neck. He was near the age her father would have been had he lived, not Karra's most dangerous enemy. “But the King…"
"You must realize 'the King' will accommodate me." He spoke from his own authority, which was considerable but it was hardly enough to keep the King from killing her.
Laren stared in silence. Her heart pounded; her stomach threatened. The beast bellowed, and he laughed when she cringed.
Del rose from his chair and marched to the closet, only to find it empty. He glanced around the room. “Where are your clothes, your books, the pieces of art I watched you buy?”
“I told you, this isn’t my room except for tonight. I have an apartment on the next pad.”
“Take me there,” he told her, grasping her hand.
“I can’t tonight. There are guards at the doors. Although they won’t keep you in, they are under orders to keep me, all his girls, here. Believe me. I must work tonight.” Karra pulled her hand from his grasp and headed for the door. “Go,” she told him as she opened the door.
“I didn’t sign you in, so I know you never registered in advance for this party,” Laren added. “I don’t know who invited you. I was under the impression you were against this profession.”
A’nden shut the door, both of them still inside. “Mistress, I require your presence. If you must entertain, then you will entertain me alone.”
“And tomorrow the King will kill me!” Laren protested, terrified.
“No, he will not
. Laren, I cannot have you working in this place. I love you.”
Karra regarded Laren’s lolliboy sadly. How many times in her life had she heard those words? All of the countless confessions of undying devotion, all of it meant nothing at all.
"Do you not also love me?"
"Yes," Laren told him.
Karra stopped her from saying more. How do you know we are able to love any man? What do we even know about love? We know how to use our bodies, but what do we always feel inside?
Nothing, Laren knew, because the beast had reminded her of her hollow life. How do you know this feeling? Maybe this is all there is.
I once loved a man. For the short time it lasted it was real. This is… This is… This is a shadow of that.
"Then tonight we will talk." No compromise graced his expression.
He’s giving me no option, Laren told her alternate.
Karra read his unyielding expression another way. Neither will there be leniency when he finds the answers to his questions, Karra reminded her.
"Or sit in silence if words fail us," Del continued.
You are wrong, Karra, Laren insisted. I truly love him.
He's the enemy, Karra protested silently, helplessly, as Laren nodded her head, fearful only of the King.
Chapter 19
The King raged. "What do you mean by not working the party?" he roared.
"He's the High Commissioner," Laren tried to explain. Her tongue was still thick from the doubles she had consumed two hours ago.
"I know who he is.” The King scowled. “He wasn't even invited.”
“I know he wasn’t registered, but I thought a friend…”
“You thought? I doubt very much if you thought at all! None of his friends approve of places like mine.” The King was boiling. “You little fool. He came to my establishment because someone told him you would be here, and that you were being held against your will. What did you say to him, anyway?”
“Nothing! Majesty, we had lunch together a few times. That’s all! I never wanted him to know…”
The King sneered. “That you’re just a common paygirl?”
Her Darkest Beauty_An Alien Invasion Series_The Second Generation Page 17