Page 14 of Tender Captivity
Lakin beamed. “Yup! Everything I might need to break out of a room or disable a ship.” She adjusted the lining so it covered the tools again and then snapped the collar back around her neck.
Jinna ran her fingers over her own collar. “Why are you still here? Why haven’t you tried for Delorta-controlled space? I remember the ship I was brought here on passed by one of their stations. If you could make it to them, you’d be free!”
Lakin shook her head. “No way am I running. I’m invested in helping these guys fix themselves. And besides, I couldn’t ever leave Dalt.” Lakin pointed to Jinna’s throat. “Try opening it yourself. If I know Holian, he keyed it so you could take it off if you needed to. He probably forgot to tell you. I heard he rescued you and there was even a fight. Did Holian kick ass? The guys all say he was as good a fighter as my Dalt in his prime.”
“He did save me from a beating,” Jinna confirmed as she awkwardly pushed the pads of her thumbs into the sensors on her collar. The thing clicked open right away. Pulling it off, she held it in her hands and stared at it, stupefied.
“I didn’t expect that,” she murmured.
“See, I told you,” Lakin said. “Now tell me about meeting Holian.”
Jinna shook her head and held up the collar. “No, you need to explain all this to me first,” she demanded. “Why do the Talins keep humans as slaves if they don’t want us to work? Why did one Talin beat me and now Holian is treating me like a real person? Why would he make me wear a collar but let me take it off? Why would you need to help them? What is going on?”
Lakin’s eyebrows rose with Jinna’s frustrated questions. “Uh, that’s a lot of ground to cover. Right, let me start with the fact that Talins are dying in record numbers from a disease called Fading. Families and clans with access to human pets are afflicted at a much lower rate.”
Time passed quickly in the garden as Lakin explained how humans filled the need for love and affection among the Talins. She learned there were two political factions fighting over the fate of Talins. Human pets had found themselves as symbols for the progressive Reformists who wanted to loosen or even abolish the strict scent-bonding and child-rearing laws. The Traditionalists wanted to keep everything as it was and even strengthen some of the more draconian regulations.
As she talked, Jinna realized Holian must have scent-bonded to her. That would explain why he seemed compelled to rub his bonding oil in her hair. If Holian had bonded to her, there must be more than sex between them. Right?
“Now that I’ve explained it all, are you going to stay?” Lakin asked, her expression worried. “Holian’s a good guy. He can be a little bit of a hard-ass, but he’s only got everyone’s best interests at heart.”
“I won’t leave,” Jinna blurted out. “As long as I can stay with Holian, I won’t leave. I mean, I won’t try to escape or anything.”
Lakin waved her hand. “You wouldn’t need to escape. If you really didn’t want to live among the Talins and you weren’t attached to anyone, I’m sure Holian would send you to Sorana. That’s a Talin colony way the hell out there on the edge of Delorta space. They have a secret deal with the Delorta so humans can go, uh, ‘missing’ and end up at one of the Delorta refuges.”
“Oh!” Jinna exclaimed. “It’s that easy?”
“Well, not super easy. I mean, it’s a bit of a trip to get there and then you’ve got to acclimate to the Delorta climate. They only colonize cold places. I mean really cold. And you’d need to put up with every single Talin you met trying to talk you into staying with them. Some of these guys really like to spoil humans. It can be a little addicting. Especially the purring and the candy. But other than that, yeah, it’s easy, I guess.”
Jinna looked down at the collar she was still holding. The collar she could take off at will. The collar she thought symbolized slavery but turned out to be much more complicated.
Earlier that day, when he’d been bathing her, Jinna had fallen in love with Holian. At the time she’d acknowledged to herself that the power inequity between them meant her love would probably be one sided. But with the addition of this newinformation, she realized they might be on a much more even playing field than she first thought. Holian wasn’t exaggerating when he claimed he risked death to be with her.
Suddenly she really needed to talk to Holian. Slapping the collar back on her neck, she got to her feet and stumbled a little because of the old injury the healer had dealt with.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to be standing yet,” the younger woman said as she scrambled to her feet and helped steady Jinna.
Her left leg was a little wobbly, but nothing that would stop her from walking. “I’m fine, but I need to tell Holian something.”
Lakin’s brows furrowed. “Is this about the Challenge? I wouldn’t worry about it. I mean, Holian is a little old to be doing one-on-one combat, but Dalt says he’s good, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“C-c-combat?” Jinna got out, her voice much higher pitched than she would have liked.
Now Lakin looked puzzled. “That’s why Dalt and I are visiting. Holian asked Dalt to be his Body Bearer. I think that means he’s supposed to help Holian get ready for the battle and inspect the other fighter to make sure everything’s being done according to the rules.… Woah, you don’t look so good. Is your leg hurting you?”
Jinna held up a finger to tell Lakin to give her a moment. It took her several breaths before she was sure she wasn’t going to panic. “Are you telling me Holian’s going to fight someone?”
Lakin’s eyes got wide. “Uh, no one told you?” Jinna shook her head, and Lakin started looking at everything but her. “Well, if no one said anything, maybe it’s not going to happen. Maybe it’s all for show, you know. Like bluffing at gav. Have you played gav yet? It’s a great game, I can show you. We could—”
“Lakin,” Jinna said, grabbing the woman’s hand in both of hers. “Please tell me what’s going on with Holian.”
Guilt twisted Lakin’s features a little, but then she sighed and shrugged. “Well, I haven’t been in trouble for a while, so I guess I’m due. When Holian took you, it was considered stealing.”
“Because he was defending me from Nelaran?” Jinna asked.
“No, that’s not it. I was told he beat the Nelaran guy up, and no one sounded a single rattle of outrage or surprise. But because he took you home and didn’t call for you to be collected by someone from the Committee for Pet Welfare, he’s in big trouble. There’s a waiting list stretching from here to the nearest moon of Talins who want human pets, and Holian basically jumped the queue by taking you.”
Fear twisted Jinna’s guts, making her feel like she might vomit. “Holian might die, and it’s my fault?”
