Page 58 of Needed in the Night
“My mate.” I cradled the back of her head to soothe her. “I will never demand anything of you, least of all secrets you need to keep to protect others. But please tell me how you came toFortusia. I swear, nothing you say to me in confidence will ever pass my lips.”
“I know you’ll keep my secrets.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what’s mine to tell.”
She took her time gathering her thoughts. I did not rush her.
“My name is Isla Mair,” she said finally. “Or at least it is now. And it will be from now on, I hope, because that’s the name you know, and I like hearing you say my name. It makes me not want to risk needing to change it. I suppose I might not have a choice if my past finds me.”
My hearts ached at the thought of my mate having to take many names, since rarely did that happen by choice or without a threat looming. And my spines prickled because she still lived in fear.
“My mother belonged to a trade baron on Havel Prime,” she said. “She was born and raised in a frontier colony raided by mercenaries and sold to the baron when she was twenty standard years old. I was born a few years later. My father was one of the baron’s household staff. My mother loved him, and she said he loved her too, but he left the planet after he finished his service contract and never came back for us. I don’t remember him at all.”
Her matter-of-fact tone sent a sharp pain through my hearts.
“So I grew up in service in the baron’s household,” she continued. “I was a playmate for his children when I was very young, and then when I turned ten, I helped the cooks in the kitchens. After a couple of years, I didn’t get along with the new head chef, so the baron’s chief of staff reassigned me to cleaning and preparing the apartments for the baron’s guests. It wasn’t misery, but it wasn’t good. I was lonely most of all, especially after my mother died.”
Her hand tightened on mine. “And then when I was twenty-one, one of the baron’s guests heard me singing while I cleaned. She’d never heard a human sing before, and she decided I’d be aperfect addition to her palace on Agicord. The next thing I knew, she’d bought me, and I was on her private starship with a travel case at my feet.”
“Oh, my love.” I nuzzled her hair. “I am sorry.”
I had suspected something like this in my Isla’s past. Her reaction to the Sirrah in the market during our first outing together had revealed far more about her than anything else I had observed in the three months before that moment.
“She wasn’t cruel, but she owned me,” Isla said, rubbing her nose on my chest over my primary heart. “She’d bought me from the baron and had the duly registered certificate to prove it. So I came to live at her palace, to sing whenever she wanted me to sing—which was primarily when she had guests. And every time I sang for guests, I lived in fear I’d be sold again, and this time to someone much less kind. Someone who wouldn’t just want me to sing.”
She raised her head to meet my gaze. “Soon I was less and less of a novelty. It was only a matter of time before she’d find someone or something new she could show off to her guests and want to be rid of me. I knew better than to delude myself into thinking she’d let me stay out of the kindness of her heart. I needed to find a way to escape her palace and get off that planet. A dangerous proposition, but I didn’t have a choice. And most of all, I wanted freedom.”
My heartache and rage grew to nearly unbearable levels. To think of Isla asowned, a possession, a symbol of status, a wonder and curiosity for wealthy visitors to a palace on some distant planet…with my bare hands, I could have killed these people who had bought and sold Isla as if she were a ship or a pretty sculpture.
I could not help but think of my own military conscription. Many nights I had lain awake on my cot in whatever housing I slept in, on whatever planet I served on, thinking of the day I could come home to Fortusia. For all that misery, at least I had afinite term of service and a home planet I could dream of during those long, sleepless nights. Lovely Isla had not had even that solace.
“I had a lover in the palace on Agicord,” Isla said, her gaze on mine. “I’ll call her Hidel. She was one of the housekeepers. She worked in the palace by choice because it was good wages. Hidel had a wonderful, kind heart. She knew how much I wanted to escape, so she found someone who could help. And one night some people came, took me from the palace, and smuggled me onto a ship bound for somewhere a long, long way from that palace.”
I closed my eyes and rested my head against Isla’s.Thank you,I thought, willing my gratitude to find this nameless woman wherever she was now. Her loving sacrifice had helped make this moment possible.
Isla took a deep, shaky breath. “Because of how suddenly I left, I never got to tell Hidel thank you or say goodbye. It must have broken her heart to give me up. I don’t know if I would have had the strength to do it if our situation had been reversed.”
“I believe you would have,” I said, holding her close. “Your courage and strength astound me. You would have found a way to do what was right even if it caused you pain.”
“You are so kind.” She kissed my jaw. “After I was free, I decided I wanted to help others as I’d been helped. And that’s what I did for three years. When that work came to an end, I came to Fortusia to sing for myself, on my own terms. I wanted to make people happy and earn a living with my voice.”
Isla sounded so fierce now. My hearts warmed knowing she had not only devoted her life to freeing others but then chosen to take back her voice and her power. We had both lived under Nubo’s thumb, but even so until recently it must have felt enough like bliss and freedom for her to stomach his possessive and vile behavior.
“And how did you meet Brae?” I asked. “Was that after you left Agicord?”
“Yes.” She smiled, and I was glad to see it. “I found him on Pallasia, as you probably guessed. He was a baby, orphaned when a transport crashed near his mother’s nest. My life wasn’t conducive to having an animal companion, but I happened to walk past a shelter and saw his image on the screen out front where they listed companions needing permanent homes. I don’t know why, but I found myself going in to ask about him.”
She made a face. “They didn’t want to let me adopt him. I wasn’t a citizen of Pallasia, and I told them I was unemployed since I couldn’t very well put my real employer on the application. But then he imprinted on me and wouldn’t let go of me, and they had to let me take him.”
“Why did he imprint on you?” I asked, smiling.
“Because he was so young at the time, Brae doesn’t remember imprinting on me, so he can’t very well say why he did it.” She chuckled. “Now he says it’s because even as a baby shadowbat he could tell if he stayed with me his life would never be boring.”
“An exciting life is not necessary.” I kissed her hand. “I would happily have a boring life with you, my Isla. A boring and wonderful life.”
“I don’t think I’d mind a boring life now.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Pool?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “Or shower?”
“Pool.” Carefully, I gathered her in my arms and rose from the bed. “I enjoy seeing you swim.”
“I like seeing you in the water too.” Her smile returned. “But we’re going to end up on those stones, right? Like youpromised?”
