Page 15 of Tender Captivity
“That wasn’t the takeaway from my explanation,” Lakin said with an exasperated huff. “Challenges don’t always end in death. It’s an honor thing. I think if one guy admits defeat, it ends there. But Holian’s a warrior, and I saw him train with Dalt once. He wasn’t as good as my guy, but he was impressive. I’m sure—”
Jinna didn’t hear what else Lakin had to say because she was too busy running for the house. Her left leg wasn’t responding like it should, so her gait was awkward and stumbling.
“Jinna! Hold up! Sit down, and I’ll go get Holian,” Lakin said as she sprinted in front and blocked Jinna’s progress.
“Holian!” Jinna screamed. She was frantic by now. She couldn’t lose him. It didn’t matter if Lakin thought he could win the Challenge, she couldn’t take that risk. “Holian!”
She yelled loudly enough to make Lakin flinch back. Even as she drew breath to scream again, Holian and another Talin she didn’t recognize raced out of the house.
“What’s happened?” Holian asked as he and the other male skidded to a halt next to them. The other male pushed Lakin behind him and searched the garden around them for a threatwhile Holian picked her up to cradle her against his chest. He was both sounding a rattle of aggression and purring.
To Jinna’s horror, she felt tears start pouring down her face. She’d never been a delicate, pretty crier. When she was stressed enough to cry, she turned into a watery, snotty mess. Already it was hard to talk.
“You can’t die!”
Before Holian could ask any questions, Lakin spoke. “This is my fault. But in my defense, I didn’t know we were keeping the Challenge a secret.”
Realizing there was no immediate threat, both men relaxed at her words. Rubbing his cheek across her head, Holian stopped rattling and only purred. The deep rumble was soothing, but not enough to calm her fears. Only one thing could do that, him promising not to fight.
“Please don’t fight,” she begged.
“If I don’t answer the Challenge, they might try to take you away and give you back to the Loklon Clan,” Holian answered. “Nelaran and his family have been found guilty and punished, but the clan was found non-complicit. That means they submitted a claim for you, which I denied. They decided to shortcut the system by having Nelaran’s family issue a Challenge.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not going to make her feel better,” Lakin commented. If Jinna wasn’t busy sniffing and trying to keep her sobs at bay, she would have agreed.
It took her some time, but she managed to speak again. “We need to run. Far away. I lost my husband and child. I can’t lose you too.”
At her words, everyone went silent. Blinking through the tears, her eyes met Lakin’s sympathetic gaze, and then Dalt started making a strange, rusty, rumbling purr.
“Oh, my sweet flower,” Holian murmured as he turned and began walking back into the house. “Enjoy my home and don’t let Lakin destroy anything while Jinna and I talk,” Holian said to Dalt before turning away and carrying her into the house.
Jinna was so busy clinging to Holian and working on not crying that she barely registered Lakin’s words of outrage as they left her and Dalt behind in the garden. Jinna needed to get herself together and talk Holian into fleeing with her.
He didn’t stop walking until they were in the room she thought of as his office. Sitting down in one of the backless chairs, he arranged her in his lap so both his arms circled her and his head rested over hers.
She felt sheltered and safe.
“Please tell me,” he requested. “Tell me what happened.”
Chapter 8
Holian wasn’t foolish enough to think Jinna had been captured and brought to Talarian never having had a partner, but he hadn’t considered she might have had an entire family. Many of the humans sold to Talins were young simply because the human life span tended to be short in such a merciless universe. He’d rarely encountered a human who had paired off and started a family before becoming a pet.
He struggled with being both jealous that someone else had a claim to Jinna’s heart before him and desperate sadness at her loss. When his wife had died shortly after their marriage, he’d been upset. As with all Talin marriages, theirs hadn’t been a love match, but she’d been a smart and honorable woman who died much too young. The bright spot had been that they already had a child growing in an artificial womb. How devastating must it have been for Jinna to lose both a partner and a child.
“Please tell me,” he requested again as he rubbed his aching scent glands into her hair. “Tell me what happened.”
She shuddered as she took a deep breath. Reaching out, she wrapped both her arms around one of his and drew it against her chest so she was hugging him as he was holding her.
“Few people were in the human colony where I grew up,” she started. “We always liked each other, but it was never some deep, romantic love. He was a good man, kind and gentle. We got along well, so we ended up pairing off. He was a good dad too. When Lind was born, he never wanted to put him down.” She felt a watery chuckle bubble up her throat at the memories.
“It didn’t matter what time of day or night he was crying, Mateo was there to comfort him. After I recovered from the birth, I went back to work full time because the station was struggling without me, and Mateo cut his hours in the galley to care for our son. We lived like that for years. It was amazing. We even managed to save up enough to take a little vacation to Iknal. Lind was fascinated by the purple sky of that planet.”
She felt a smile form on her lips at the memory. She’d worked so hard to make enough for that vacation. “He also loved their bioluminescent sea. We had a room below sea level, and he spent hours staring out the viewing window. He was so joyous that I was determined to give that to him again. He was only ten years old and never complained that we didn’t have much to give him. He was always happy with what little we could afford. I was determined to give him that experience on Iknal again. I took every extra shift I could. That’s why I wasn’t there.”
She struggled to get the next part out. Holian didn’t press her. Purring, he held her gently and gave her the time and mental space to find the words.
“We weren’t in the worst housing on the station, but it wasn’t the nicest area either. When things malfunctioned, they were usually inconvenient but not dangerous. This time was different. While I was working a double shift, the atmospheric system in that section failed. No one else in our section of the shipwas human, so they only became ill, but my husband and baby boy died. I was called from my station to their room, and the moment I got to the door I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t even see them yet, but I just knew somehow.”
