by Emma Alisyn
“I don’t force women,” he snarled, “but don’t think that means I’ll never relinquish you. Whether you are my slave or my mate is your choice. But you are enja. Mine.”
13
Mila was busy with her mate, which left Gayle to her own devices. She trained with the other YETI students for a time, but as Ithann had warned, word had begun to get around. A few of the humans began half-jokingly addressing her as “Your Highness” and they began to pull their punches. After a heated fight with another student which caused the Adekhan in charge to throw her out of the session—politely, of course—she returned to the shopping level to sit and brood.
She was bored.
There was plenty of reading to do, and her language lessons were proceeding well. She’d been able to turn the translator down to only eighty percent filtering, which meant twenty percent of the Yadeshi tongue she translated the old-fashioned way—with her brain. Ithann delighted in correcting her accent. She wondered if he was playing a joke on her, because at times some of the Yadeshi she spoke to looked at her oddly. She noticed subtle differences in the inflections many of them used for their wording.
When she asked Ithann about it, he said, with no little satisfaction, “You’re beginning to sound like an Ngandan Bdakhun.”
Maybe she didn’t want to sound like a princess. She’d exchanged one male master for another—gone from father to pseudo husband without missing a beat.
“I had plans,” she told him, her voice tight.
She’d tracked him down in his office out of their suite. He took one look at her face and slashed a glance at the two Yadeshi sitting with him, who rose and excused themselves, glancing curiously at Gayle.
“I have work to do, Gayle.”
“That’s the crux of my problem. I had planned to have work to do as well. You’re grooming me for a position I never even said I wanted.”
His fingers tapped the desk underneath him. It was the same transparent material as the learning tablets he provided, allowing the user to bring up multiple screens when working.
“Is your objection to the position, your temporary status, or that your input wasn’t required?”
She leaned her hands on the desk. “All of the fucking above, Ithy baby. Maybe I don’t want to be a princess. Maybe I want to be a working girl.”
He stared at her, irritation and thoughtfulness fighting for domination on his face. He let out a harsh sigh. “Gayle—you’ll have plenty of time to find your own path. Isn’t moving to a new planet, learning the intricacies of a new society, enough for now without adding this youthful self-exploration into an already volatile mix?”
“That sounds very reasonable.” She paused. “No. I want to spend a few weeks exploring and then I want to pick what my career path will be, after I’ve attained full citizenship in a way that doesn’t involve being kinda married and kinda in sexual servitude to you.”
He rolled his eyes. “You aren’t a sex slave. It’s an old legal code, a holdover from the days when there was a caste system and males of high castes weren’t allowed to mate females of lower castes. The compromise was the concubine status where one had the technical recognition of a wife but not the same legal and inheritance rights. The paperwork was designed to be easy to file, and easy to dissolve. It’s just a tool I used to stop your father’s legal machinations.”
It was more words she’d ever heard him speak at one time before. “Have you been drinking?”
Ithann rose and leaped over the desk, landing at her side on his feet and snatched her up.
“There’s a couch in here?” she asked.
Because whenever he got like this, it meant a dirty fight and then sex. He seemed to think that was the way to handle her. And it worked for a few hours, but she always came down from the admittedly high sexual haze and got back down to business again.
A girl couldn’t let a man control her with his cock, after all.
Clothing tore, fingers rough on flesh. Nails scraped bare skin and teeth grazed her neck. No subtleties, no finesse, just the hard, thick length of his cock inside her. A fierce, base, and openly dominant thrusting in her body, bringing her to orgasm and leaving her a limp, sweaty wreck.
Once again, his marks tried to separate and crawl onto her skin, and once again, she inwardly flinched and they fled. Ithann’s expression darkened, closing.
“I’m not doing it on purpose!” she cried, hating the flare of pain and rejection in his eyes before he pulled away from her.
When he glanced at her, his face was its usual stony half scowl, hinting at a sneer. “No one can reject a bond on purpose. It only means you lie when you say you love me.”
“Maybe I’m not ready. Maybe I want to control my life more than I want to be bonded. Is there something wrong with that?”
He stilled, broad shoulders tense. He’d turned away from her, and the flex of his powerful thighs and tight ass momentarily distracted her. Enough that the heat between them began to rise again. She scrunched her eyes closed, swearing. She would always want him, even if he were a controlling jerk.
“No, there is nothing wrong with that.” His voice wasn’t quite chilly, but it still… worried her. “I’ll give you what you want, Gayle. Just be patient.”
“Did you read the latest injunction Bakari filed?” Vorah asked, her lips twitching.
Ithann glanced at his aide, suppressing a grimace. “You’d think he’d have a bit more subtlety.”
The human’s anger had deteriorated into him, using the clumsiest of legal maneuverings with all the finesse of a brick. It was becoming embarrassing. It was one thing if his future mate’s father showed some political slyness that indicated a modicum of intelligence and cunning—that would be good. It would mean his mate came from good stock. But so far, the father had simply flung all the paperwork he could at the problem, like a child beating on a closed door during a tantrum.
“I’ve been wasting time countering this petty maneuvering,” Ithann said, and tossed the tablet on his desk. “Make him stop.”
Vorah’s brow rose. It was likely she recognized his tone. After a pause, she said, “So how permanent do you want the ‘stop’ to be?”
Ithann growled. “Don’t kill him.”
She shrugged. “Fine. You do know he has her under surveillance? We’ve observed a shadow monitoring her movements.”
Ithann frowned. “Local or remote?”
“Local. It seems like the plant was already on board, so he must have had contacts in place.”
That made no sense. “He couldn’t have anticipated her moves, and his interests in the province aren’t vital enough yet to warrant him maintaining a factor. How did he make contact?”
She pursed her lips. “I see. And if he has a factor on board, why is he bothering with all the petty paperwork?”
Unease stirred. Initially, he’d assumed Bakari would be more of a problem than he’d proven. But what if the injunctions and formal complaints were a ploy to keep his attention away from the real move? The one thing he knew was that Bakari was livid—he wanted his daughter back.
“Where is Gayle?” he asked.
The computer responded with a location. He stared at his desk, watching as her tiny icon made its way down a corridor towards her friend’s quarters. She was alone. He had ordered security remain remote to give her the illusion of some privacy and autonomy—and because he’d assumed she was relatively safe.
Had he been wrong?
Ithann rose. “Send Hamin and Ebba to Gayle. I think we’ve been outmaneuvered. And send a warrior to Bakari’s home. We need information.”
Gayle arranged to meet up with Mila for a training session and then lunch. She changed out of one of the sheer gown and duster sets and into a modified training uniform. She wasn’t technically a student anymore, but the uniform fit and colors felt familiar and visually branded her when on the training level. She was considering doing something about her hair, though. Everyone seemed to know who she was with these days
—there was no chance for even a few minutes of anonymity because even though creative color wasn’t remarkable, only she had butt-length micro braids in electric blue. Combined with her darker skin tone and height, she stood out.
So, maybe once she was planet side she wouldn’t fight any mentions of changing her style up. A bit. She’d been eyeing a shade of platinum for a while, but was scared to trust her hair to a hack—even an expensive hack. The expensive ones were the worst sometimes.
Gayle took the lift down from Ithann’s suite to the level Mila and Jaron stayed on. At this time during the twenty-four-hour cycle, most people were engaged in work or various leisure activities, leaving the halls clear. She passed a man in a nondescript hooded t-shirt that shadowed his face, the skin of his hands a shade of blue that had strange peachy undertones—almost as if he were half human. Involuntarily, she slowed her step, about to glance over her shoulder and take another look when the faintest swish of air activated every instinct honed and drilled into her from the training.
She dropped, deflecting the blow, the clinical part of her mind registering the tiny glint of a needle strapped to the man’s forefinger. If he held his hands at his sides, no one would even notice.
This all passed through her mind in a matter of seconds as she executed a defensive Form designed to block and enable her retreat for a few precious seconds to plan her next move.
He countered her block, engaging with an almost leisurely professionalism in a brief, nasty scuffle where she combined some choice street moves she’d picked up during the fight with Samson with her training. And realized, very quickly, that she wasn’t only outclassed, but he was playing with her. Or just putting her through her paces out of curiosity. He said nothing, made no noise.
And then the surussh of the nearest lift opening down the hallway caused a subtle stiffening of his shoulders. He stopped playing with her.
Gayle threw herself backwards, not even trying to defend, but simply trying to flee until she could intercept whatever distraction was coming down the hall on swift, booted feet.
His finger grazed her neck in one last attempt and then he turned and fled as two warriors she recognized burst around the corner. One continued running, pursuing her assailant while the other halted at her side, saying nothing as he began herding her towards the lift.
“I have her,” he said into the air, voice clipped. She didn’t see his earpiece, but it must be there. “Ebba is in pursuit.”
Gayle allowed him to escort her to Ithann’s office level. Now that the adrenaline from the brief encounter wore off, her head began to swim. She sighed, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. When they entered Ithann’s office, his head snapped up, eyes already the pale, pale white she associated with high temper or the heat of passion. He leaped over the desk again as if he hadn’t heard it was possible to simply walk around it, and was on Gayle in three seconds flat.
“Are you injured?” he asked, voice a snarl. He patted her down with the thoroughness of a professional, examining her neck and any exposed skin for marks.
She batted his hands away. The roughness of his touch pushed her off balance. She stumbled, just a bit, knees folding.
He swore, a string of vicious words she understood for once, and lifted her. Gayle fought to make her head stay on straight as conversation washed over her head.
“… fled. Not a trace of him anywhere.”
“Check the docks for an unauthorized single shuttle. Or something innocuous, like a supplies delivery drone. He knows we know he’s here. Her father...”
Her father what? Gayle forced her head to behave. The… assassin… must have grazed her with whatever was in the needle.
“What did my father do?” she asked, words slurred.
Something was pressed to her teeth and she opened instinctively. Cool liquid, not water, dribbled down her throat. A slight pressure on her thigh and a moment later, the hazy dizziness began to clear. But her stomach roiled in protest.
“The nausea will recede in several minutes,” a female in a medic uniform said.
Gayle frowned. She hadn’t noticed anyone coming in to tend her. She glanced up at Ithann, who stood at her shoulder, a hand on her head. “What did my father do?”
“He had a factor in place on the shuttle that we missed,” he said, terse. “The man attempted to take you.”
She frowned. “That’s stupid. I have the travelers chip in my ankle. I wouldn’t even be allowed back into Earth’s airspace if there’s an alert on my records.”
Ithann glanced at his aide, a woman Gayle recognized from her interruption of his meeting the other day.
“Bakari contracted him,” the woman said softly, “but he must have another master. One who supersedes Bakari. And he was already aboard.”
“And had separate orders.” Ithann’s expression was grim. “I don’t like it.”
“Could it be the Platon?”
“It can be no other. No one else would care badly enough. And to use her father as a pretext would be too good an opportunity to miss.”
“I’ll double her security.”
He nodded. “The Bdakhun doesn’t leave my sight.”
Not if she had anything to say about it.
14
“I didn’t think my father would go so far,” she said when they were alone.
He ordered two drinks, a particularly potent red wine she knew could have her flat on her back after five swallows, and a clear glass of…
“Is this water?”
“Drink it,” he said. “You have chemicals in your system. You don’t want wine until they are flushed out.”
She took the water grudgingly, knowing he was right. He downed his red wine and ordered a second.
“Should you slow down on that?” she asked, eyeing him.
He snorted. “I am not a puny human female.” She didn’t have the energy to be offended. “And your father was being used. I suspect in his clumsy attempts to find a factor already on board he could use, he stumbled across a man in place by the Platon—and our enemies simply took advantage of the circumstances.”
Unease stirred. “So, they could have done something to me and made it look like my father ordered it?”
“Yes, or that something went wrong and your death was an accident of your struggles or some such.”
Gayle’s mouth tightened. “I’m going to have a talk with my mother. She has to put her foot down and nip this shit in the bud.”
His brow rose. “I’ve… met your mother.”
Gayle’s eyes slashed through his skeptical expression. “She fooled you, huh? She plays the silly trophy wife but she’s trained in law and history just like my father.”
“Interesting.” His eyes narrowed. “If I’ve overlooked her, I’ll rectify that mistake. If she’ll take your side against Bakari, she’ll be an asset we can use—if sparingly.”
“Let me talk to her first.”
“Mother.”
“Abigail.” Miranda looked surprised. “How in the universe did you manage to connect a call?”
“We’re docked at a space station for four hours loading new passengers and supplies. Look, there isn’t a lot of time in case this line is being monitored.” Ithann had warned her that even though they’d done everything they could to ensure it was secure, there were always those with better tech, sharper skills in infiltration.
“Mom, Dad tried to have me kidnapped and it almost got me killed.”
Her mother’s expression… altered. Just enough that Gayle caught the widening of her eyes and the tightening of her mouth. Miranda hadn’t known.
“What do you mean, Gayle?”
She explained the situation briefly, keeping her eyes glued to her mother’s face. “This is unacceptable behavior,” Miranda snapped. “This isn’t how we handle family disputes. It’s… savage.”
Count on her mother to be more upset that the method of dragging Gayle back in chains was uncivilized, rather than being upset at t
he idea period.
“If I confront him directly, he’ll transfer whatever operations I may have access to away from the house and his main office,” her mother said. “And I don’t know where his secondary location is.”
Gayle blinked. Her mother admitted so casually that her father had a secondary office location, the implication that it was for conducting less than squeaky clean business.
“Can you… find out?”
Cool dark eyes flickered away from the screen. “I have to go, Gayle. I’ll do what I can here. Be careful.”
She told Ithann about the conversation. “Good,” he said. “But this doesn’t change the fact that you need to accept your position here. You can’t go home, and on my planet, you will be in danger if you chafe at the temporary restraints I have to put on your movements.”
Her jaw ached from clenching. “I’m not going to keep having this argument, Ithann. I’m not locking myself up in your home.”
His hands wrapped around her upper arms and he shook her. Not hard, but with the impression he wanted to rattle her teeth in her head. She balled a fist as if to sock him a good one in the jaw and he let her go, catching her curled up hand.
“Stubborn female. When will you accept the way things have to be for now?”
She wrenched away. “Because it’s not the way things have to be. It’s the expedient way for you.”
He whirled away from her, stalking out of the room. “Since you won’t listen to reason—like a child—you can have supper in your room. Like a child.”
She rushed after him just as the door panel slid closed. And locked. She stared for one split second then took a step back and screamed with rage.
Mila grabbed her hands. “This is it.”