Page 12 of Taken to Lemora
I won’t serve anybody… “But if I don’t serve anyone, then who will I be?” I meant to saywhat, not who, but the word just slips out and, judging by the look that the females share at my expense, it embarrasses all of us equally.A female who brings shame onto herself is meant for the pleasure houses. A female who brings shame onto her master is not even meant for that.
“Forgive me. What I meant to say was…”
“Who? Did you just say who?” Raingar growls, pulling my attention back to him.
My jaw snaps shut, teeth clacking together. I shake my head. He looks furious at my question, so I quickly open my mouth to retract it further but the female who gave me her tunic lowers her hand to my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find you a role in the clans you’ll be happy with. In the meantime, just focus on serving yourself and being you.”
“Oh. Oh yeffa. Thank you,” I say aloud though I don’t really mean it. The thought of this thing — this unknown role — I’m meant to be stepping into, or perhaps letting go of, is daunting. I don’t even really understand what she’s asking of me, but I don’t resist —a female never resists— and let the female help me to my feet and guide me out into the hall and eventually, onto a ship.
It’s translucent, the Lemoran ship, tinted purple and blue, green in some places, pink in others. That’s all I notice. I’m in a daze, not thinking about anything but the order I’ve been given. The only one I was never trained for.
As I step to the back of the ship and watch the females take their places at the controls, a strong and sudden fear shoots through my toes, making me wonderwhythey purchased me at all if they don’t intend to use me as I was trained my entire life to be used.
Is there somethingworsethan being a pleasure female to an Oosa colony or an Egama horde? These Lemoran seem nice, kind…well, except for the male. He doesn’t seem to like me at all, which is at odds with the vision I keep close to my heart of him stepping in between me and the Egama warlord. Maybe he isn’t cordial, but that act was a kindness in itself. He also seemed to have brokered the deal with Igmora — stars, if I understand how when all he told her was that he did not negotiate — but then he didn’t make the purchase himself.
They must want me for something truly nefarious. I shudder as I glance around. Unwilling to take one of the empty seats in the center of the transporter, I sit down on the floor against the far wall and take deep breaths, trying to cool and calm my mind.
It doesn’t help because all my thoughts scatter when the doors close and we take off of this planet — only the second place I’ve ever been outside of the fort Igmora and Tyto hold on Eshmir, the reavers’ trading planet. We rise up into the stars and I would ordinarily look up and out of the window, focusing on them and the beauty they bring, but I can’t. Because the male who likes me enough to defend me, or maybe doesn’t like me at all, takes up position to my left and proceeds to stare at me with such intensity it makes my stomach churn and every word I thought to say to break this awful tension dies in my stomach before ever even reaching my lips.
I can do this. I have not forgotten Tyto so quickly. I know how to respond during punishment, and that must be what this is because that’s what it feels like — his gaze cutting into me harder than any whip.
The idea that thisispunishment makes me feel…better. I almost relax. I might have…if one of the females hadn’t chosen that moment to get up from the controls and approach me. “Hi, I’m Bebette.” She moves the bulky item in her grip up and down. A healing torch. That’s what it is. I’ve seen one before just like it many times. “Now why don’t you let me take a look at those hands.”
I glance down and see red that I don’t understand.
I look up and see a smile that I understand even less.
I glance to the grumpy brute, glaring at me and only me and entirely ignoring Bebette and I realize that I am quite close to losing my grip on the shores of reality and these kind, or perhaps very frightening creatures, are going to watch me drown. I was taught to swim, but without the anchor of being a pleasure female, I’ve entirely forgotten how.
3
Raingar
I don’t like it. My horns are throbbing. There’s a tightness in my chest and for the past quarter solar, I’ve had to poop. Not poop so much as explode. And maybe not out of my ass but out of my chest, for certain. My heart is hammering, throwing itself against my ribs and always in the same direction — hers.
Merquin is smiling though she’s trying not to show it. I catch her smiling when I rip my gaze away from the female long enough to meet her stare. But the pain of looking away from the female is too much to bear, so I don’t bother trying again. It’s enough to know that Merquin is smiling. Reyna, Tana and Bebette, too. They’re all smiling. And I know why they’re all smiling.
They’re all smiling at my doom.
Merquin is standing behind Reyna and Tana at the controls. The only difference between the way we arrived and the way we’re leaving now is Bebette at the back of the transport on her knees in front of the female with the brown and red skin, doctoring her wounds with a healing torch.
The torch will clean and seal her cuts, but the sight of the bright red blood on her hands still makes me want to shatter something. The Egama, perhaps. Hewantedher. He wantedmyfemale. I want to go back there — need it. I want to plunge both my hands into his face and rip out his one great big eye and stomp on it.
My forehead erupts with a fresh bout of sweat, which is almost painful. We don’t sweat as a general rule of thumb, not even in the mines where we, well…mine. I shift and my tough skin ripples when I shudder. I feel panic and pain grip me in tandem. She hurt her hands. She hurt her hands and now she’s bleeding and I can see the blood and there’s nothing to do to stop it and I hate that and I hate that I hate it and most of all I hate that I let her hurt herself and that I let my horns and their pressure and her incandescent beauty rob me of fourteen tuns of kintarr…
“How could I let this happen!” I bark. The problem is that I’m speaking to Merquin, but my inability to look away fromhermeans that I’m now shouting atherand it makes her jump.
She glances around in confusion and presses her lovely lips together. The worry on her face makes me grumpy and that’s a problem because I’m already feeling panicked and enraged. “I’m not talking to you! YOU ARE FINE,” I shout at her again only to realize how odd that sounds. Fine? I mean she’s doing fine. Performing adequately. Not that she looks fine — because she doesn’t.
Her eyes are large in her face and her pretty, dark brown lips are trembling and her trembling hands are bleeding and the sight of that blood is jacking up my pulse. Should I tell her this? What? What am I saying? Nob! I want her knowingnothing. Pagh!
“Merquin! How could I let this happen?”
Behind me Merquin just tuts. “If you think you had anything to do with this, then you are just as stubborn as I thought you were and twice as foolish.”
Ignoring her barb, I chuff, “I don’t like it.”
