by Autumn Dawn
“About time,” Wiley scolded mildly, Lemming at her heels. “I was beginning to fear they’d done away with you, even though Jayems insisted you were still in here.” She gestured for the servants behind her to enter while Jasmine sleepily stifled a yawn. “I brought breakfast.” She crossed to the wardrobe and set a dark bundle of folded clothes inside. “You can see if these fit you after we eat, if you want.”
“Great.” Jasmine finger combed her shoulder blade length hair out of her face and scratched her scalp sleepily. A male servant in a white and gold tunic and loose trousers set a large covered tray on the dining table and took off the lid while a woman dressed in the same uniform began to set the table for two.
“Shutters,” Wiley called out, and the wall directly opposite the door slid open like elevator doors, revealing a wall of clear glass with a breathtaking view.
Jasmine drew in a breath, distracted from the delicious smells of breakfast, and moved closer to stare in awe at the sheer drop below her window.
It was misty outside, the kind of thick fog that was almost rain, but even so she could make out the cove five stories below her room. Towering redwoods rose on every side at the edges of the shore, half hidden in the haze. Farther out, gray sea met smoky sky in a seamless melding that might have stretched forever, off unto the edge of the world. Or perhaps it was merely the hazy glass curve of the magician’s crystal that held this strange dream world.
Wiley stared out the glass as well, wrapped in the same bemusement. “It’s an inlet of the sea—I forget what it’s called. On a clear day you can see the mountains on the other side.” Today she wore a sky blue robe with a long sapphire over-tunic trimmed in black embroidery. She stroked one sleeve of it absently, in a faintly troubled way.
Jasmine shook her head, breaking the spell of the sea. “Beautiful,” she said to Wiley, suitably awed and then, “Let’s eat.”
Wiley laughed and moved towards the table. The manservant stood discreetly against the wall while the young woman made up the bed and collected Jasmine’s clothes, depositing them in a machine hidden behind a wall panel. Jasmine observed that her white uniform didn’t appear to be the best color for a maid as the woman began to clean the tub and then dismissed the matter. Maybe they had superior methods of stain removal here. At any rate, she had more important things to worry about.
She spread a napkin on her lap and had just opened her mouth to broach those matters when Wiley gasped and began to giggle. “What?”
“You had to sleep there?” Wiley pointed an unsteady finger at the bed.
She glanced at it, and the mirror on the ceiling, annoyed all over again. “Your sweet cousin seemed to think it was funny.” She surveyed the silver chopsticks and wide spoon beside her plate with consternation. Perhaps she should have tried harder to master the wooden ones in the Chinese restaurants back home. Picking up her spoon, she scooped a small taste of what appeared to be a sausage pilaf and nibbled on it experimentally. Satisfied, she took the serving scoop and piled a small mountain onto her china plate. “I won’t be sorry to see the end of him.” “Here, have some almond milk.” Wiley smiled almost nervously and handed her an insulated silver ewer.
“Almond milk?” She made a face as she accepted it and poured a little in a tall crystal glass. “What is this, planet of the health food junkies?”
Wiley shrugged in apology. “No dairy animals.”
Jasmine’s brows shot up. “What? No whipped cream, no butter?” Frowning, she took a cautious sip from her cup, a surprised expression crossing her face. “Ok, it’s not bad, but if someone whips out a brick of tofu, I’m leaving.”
Wiley swallowed nervously and toyed with her fork. Addressing it, she said, “You can’t.” At Jasmine’s stunned expression, she explained, “They won’t let you.” She risked a glance at Jasmine and saw her staring, unseeing, at her pilaf. She bit her lip. “They think you’re planning to cause trouble if they let you go.”
“Rescuing you, you mean.” She ground her teeth. Wiley said nothing. Jasmine tossed down her spoon. “What right do they have to hold you here, anyway?” she demanded, incensed. “Seems to me like they gave up on you a long time ago. Why take you back now, when you don’t want to go?”
Wiley sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair. “It’s worse. Jayems...” she drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair and blinked rapidly. “He claims he’s my husband.”
“What?” Jasmine stood up, tossing her napkin on the table. “For crying out loud, why?” Her hands on the table, she leaned over it.
Wiley’s lip began to tremble. “He claims we were ‘joined in a betrothal ceremony’ when we were kids.”
Jasmine shoved her chair away, her robe flapping against her legs as she stood up and paced, the better to rant. “That’s barbaric!” An awful thought occurred to her and she paled and then whirled to face Wiley. “He hasn’t tried to...”
Wiley’s eyes widened, reading her mind with the ease of long acquaintance. “No! No, nothing like that,” she hastily reassured her friend. “I don’t think he’d...I think he’d rather...” She cleared her throat and blushed. “Anyway, it’s the whole idea.”
“I should say so,” Jasmine agreed indignantly, pacing again. She spotted the male servant watching her and stopped, narrowing her eyes at him. No doubt he was sent to spy on them. Well, two could play that game. “What’s your name?” she demanded, and the man stepped forward calmly.
“Knightin, Lady,” he said with a respectful inclination of his head.
She puzzled for a second over the lady—he made it sound like a title—but let it pass, assuming it was a substitute for ma’am in this neck of the woods. She studied his vaguely attractive face for a moment, noting that his long rusty hair was also tied in the back. Long hair appeared to be in fashion on this world. “How do you get a divorce here?”
A gasp came from her right, and she whipped her head around in time to see the maid fumbling for her dropped feather duster. Score one for the home team.
Good, she thought with fierce satisfaction.
Knightin’s expression turned wary. “It is not done, Lady.”
“It’s not done, or it can’t be done?”
He shifted a fraction and took a slight breath. “If a woman can prove she has no desire for her bond mate, than she may be released from her bond, however—”
Jasmine smiled triumphantly at Wiley and watched her shoulders begin to relax. “There, you see? Nothing to—”
“However,” Knightin interrupted, “—in the Lady Rihlia’s case, it would be almost impossible to obtain.” He seemed almost angry, and Jasmine wanted to find out why.
Forcing herself to sit back, she motioned for him to have a seat opposite. “It’s uncomfortable to look up to someone while I’m talking to them. Please.” He complied, but he perched warily on the edge, looking ill at ease. She pretended to be distracted by the view for a moment, letting him stew as she served herself a dainty wedge of baklava. It was difficult to suppress a mischievous smile when she offered him some and he refused. “Now then, please explain why Wiley would have trouble divorcing this Jayems.”
He looked like she’d forced a bite of Chinese bitter melon on him. “Lord Jayems,” he emphasized the title like a nanny prompting diction, “Is the successor to Lord Rohmeis, but only through his bond with Lady Rihlia.”
Jasmine winced a little at all the foreign terms and then looked at Wiley significantly. “So without Wiley, the leadership, or whatever it is, goes poof, huh?” Two could play the name game, and she was not calling Wiley by that stupid name. She took a thoughtful bite of flaky pasty and mulled that over. “But would Wiley really be forced to stay with him if she didn’t want to?” she wondered aloud.
Knightin relaxed and answered with a touch of male arrogance, “Considering the type of bond they share, it’s unlikely that ‘wanting’ could even be an issue.” When they just stared at him, he clarified with satisfaction, “Their bond was determined by casting a
lot.”
Jasmine’s temper began to get the better of her again. “Are you telling me...” she paused to control her tone, “that my best friend’s future husband was determined by essentially drawing straws?”
Taken aback, he tried to explain, unconsciously speaking with his hands in his agitation, as well as his voice, “The lots are holy, reliable instruments of—”
“I don’t care about your holy mumbo jumbo!” she shouted at him, leaning forward and gripping her spoon like a miniature weapon. “How could her family do that to her? Where were her parents? Don’t answer that,” she cut him off, raising a hand in warning. “I might get sick.” She glanced at Wiley, who looked worried again, and made herself calm down. Wiley didn’t need her losing her temper. She had it rough enough already.
But it wasn’t fair—none of it. Wiley had already been through too much. Growing up an orphan was tough enough. Suddenly finding an entire family and being snatched by an alien world was more than enough to deal with without watching her friend throw temper tantrums on top of it. What they needed was a plan, and she had just the thing.
She touched Wiley’s hand gently. “Don’t worry about it, Wile E. Coyote,” she teased. “We’ll just treat him like a wart—a little liquid nitrogen, a little discomfort, and poof, he’s gone.” Wiley laughed, as she’d intended. Knightin turned an unhealthy shade of bing cherry, but said nothing.
She eyed him speculatively. “So, what exactly are your orders? Besides reporting every word we say, that is?” She watched in satisfaction as his jaw clenched, but he didn’t rise to the bait. “Do you have to follow her everywhere she goes, or only when she’s with me?”
Annoyance simmered in his manner, but his answer was straight forward enough. “Only when she’s with you, Lady.”
She laughed, pleased that he’d confirmed her suspicions, and told Wiley wryly, just to see her smile, “I guess you’d better step out while I get dressed then. There’s only so much I’d care to have reported about me.”
Wiley chuckled and waved her hand, more like her old self. “Go use the dressing room, brat. I promise not to let anyone follow you.”
Jasmine entered the dressing room and closed the door behind her before examining the bundle of clothing that Wiley had brought her. Knowing Jasmine’s tastes, Wiley had selected clothes suitable for a working class woman on the go. There was a pair of black leather boots with breathable canvas panels in just her size—bless the girl!—and several pairs of socks. Comfortable black pants in a material similar to extremely thick silk with a button fly closure and a belt had been included. She set them aside while she searched for underwear.
That was when she hit the first snag.
In disbelief, Jasmine dangled a pair of silky lace panties up in the air, her mouth gaping as the black material parted at the crotch, forming a butterfly. She’d never owned such a scandalous undergarment in her life, and she couldn’t believe Wiley would actually bring her such a thing. Yet here they were, several pairs of them. Yep, she could choose to be risqué in either fire engine red, silver, black, white or midnight blue.
It got worse.
Jasmine had once seen a picture of some ancient Mediterranean pottery where the women wore a type of short sleeved bustier/vest that had boosted their breasts. The garments had been cut out around the breast itself, leaving the naked breast lifted up and exposed as if held in two cupped hands, rather like an offering.
If she wasn’t holding an exact replica, it was dang close.
“Wiley!” she roared, “Get your butt in here!”
Wiley entered on the run. Jasmine held the offending garment up accusingly, and her friend blushed all the way to the roots of her hair. “Don’t blame me,” she said defensively. “They’re standard issue here.”
Jasmine’s eyes boggled, dropped to Wiley’s chest and then hurriedly away. She was not going to ask. “Fine,” she said, her voice strained. “I still can’t believe you brought them, though. As if I’m going to wear a bright red...” she dangled the garment on one finger. “What do you call this thing?”
Wiley crossed her arms. “I never actually asked, and for your information, I wasn’t the one who picked them out.” She paused a moment, letting the horror build and then informed her, “Keilor got them for you after I mentioned you needed a change of clothes.”
There was a long moment of silence. Then, “You let your cousin pick out my underwear?” She ended on a shout.
“He picked out your boots, too, and I don’t hear you complaining about them,” Wiley pointed out.
Jasmine shut up. Some humiliations in life were best not dwelt upon. Trying not to think about it, she put on the black panties, socks and pants. At least the pants were comfortable, she consoled herself. That left the naughty tops to choose from and several long scarves of matching colors.
Still wearing her robe, Jasmine picked one up scowled at it. “What am I supposed to do with this, wrap it around my head and pretend I’m a pirate?” she asked irritably. Since Wiley didn’t know, they called in the maid for a consultation. It turned out that the scarf was made to be worn crossed over the breasts and tied at the back of the neck for a bandeau. Somehow the maid convinced Jasmine to put the bustier thing—which she called an overnji—over the bandeau and at least look at it.
“It’s very respectable,” the older woman reassured her. “My daughters wear it all the time.”
“I look like a harem girl.” Jasmine muttered sulkily, staring at the midnight blue overnji and white bandeau she’d been conned into.
Wiley smirked and grabbed the dark blue sash and wound it low about Jasmine’s hips, knotting it at the hip. “There,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and standing back to look over her creation. “Now you look like a harem escapee turned pirate.”
“Why, thank you, Wiley,” Jasmine sneered, stalking out. “That is so much better.” She yanked open the armoire doors and extracted a brush she’d discovered there the night before. Eyeing the top in the mirrored doors as she worked the tangles from her hair, she decided that it wasn’t so bad. At least her stomach was flat. Heck, she’d worn crop tops in public that bared about the same amount of skin and never thought twice about it. Of course, none of those had ever been chosen for her by a man.
With effort she chased the image of Keilor holding her new panties in his hands, perhaps imagining her in them. It was swiftly replaced by the image of him looking over the overnji, trying to guess at the size of her...
She took a deep, deep breath and then expelled it slowly. Keilor wasn’t thinking about her breasts, or anything else for that matter. Men who looked like he did didn’t need to fantasize. Shoot, for all she knew, he was happily married and had three kids, not that she cared.
What she needed to be thinking about was getting Wiley and herself back home where men were manageable and the local police force didn’t look like the cast of Howling III.
They needed a plan.
Chapter 3
Keilor shook his head as Knightin’s recording finished late that afternoon. “I think we can conclude that she’s cagey, disrespectful, and definitely up to no good.”
Jayems gave him a thoughtful look from where he sat, arms crossed, on the edge of his desk. He unfolded himself and stood, drumming long fingers thoughtfully on his desktop. He slanted a look at Knightin. “How did the Sylph affect you?”
His captain frowned at the memory. “Like a bloody panting boy with an armful of naked woman. It’s making me wish that I’d fixed my interest elsewhere long before she ever showed up.”
Keilor snorted with amused agreement. “Ah, the bliss of a man already spoken for. Too bad our doctors can’t replicate that protective little brain chemical. It would save us all a lot of grief. Short of becoming a Haunt with no sex drive or chance of falling in love, the rest of us are stuck.”
Jayems shook his head. “This is not good, Keilor. I don’t like my options.” He ticked them off grimly on his fingers. “I can send her
back and pray that she won’t cause trouble.” Their eyes met, and he closed that finger back into his fist. They both knew it wasn’t worth the risk. “I can lock her away from all but my wife, women, and mated males.”
“And have Rihlia resent you forever,” Keilor concluded.
Jayems withdrew that finger, clenching his fist. “Never,” he swore. “We will work past this. In the meanwhile...”
“Find her a lover, my lord,” Knightin suggested reasonably, and they looked at him in surprise. He’d made no secret of the fact that he disliked the presence of the Sylph and her subversive essence as much as anyone, dreading the influence that it would have on his men. Knightin hated disorder, and a Sylph was the definition of it.
“That might work,” Keilor agreed and looked hopefully at Jayems. He didn’t care for the woman’s influence on him, either. The sooner she was mated, the sooner her wretched power would be confined to one poor soul, and the rest of them could get on with their lives as before. He frowned, momentarily displeased by the thought of the lucky—unfortunate—man that would be the focus of all those intensely erotic Sylph pheromones. Then he shrugged it off. It was only the lingering affects of her remembered scent making him possessive, and an excellent example of why Knightin’s suggestion was a good one. “I’m for it,” he asserted firmly.
Jayems looked hopeful for a moment and then scowled. “It can’t be just a lover. By forcing her to stay and accepting her as a guest of my lady, I’ve declared her my guest as well. Honor dictates that I can’t scheme her into such a disreputable position. Besides, a lover wouldn’t be good enough. As long as she’s not securely attached, the men will still vie for her.”
Knightin nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, it will have to be a mate,” he agreed, practical as always.