Page 27 of Taken to Lemora
But that’s when I realize that I’ve been caught in the act.
Raingar’s expression is one of pure bewilderment as my gaze lazily travels up to meet his. I quickly look back at the female. “Oh yeffa. I mean…I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. Would you say that again?”
The female glances between Raingar and me a half dozen times more before her lips quirk up into a wry smile. Her head tilts even further and her eyes narrow as she places both hands on the tabletop in front of her and leans her weight onto her palms.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Essmira.”
“I’m Lyla.”
“It’s a pleasure,” I tell her, fighting the urge to bow. Merquin told me once that Lemoran find it strange to bow. It makes them uncomfortable.
“I think the pleasure’s about to be all mine,” she says.
I just smile back, unsure of what she means.
“Huh.” She looks again at Raingar even as she speaks to me. “So you two are…”
I understand what she’s implying and smile at her brittlely. Brutally. Longing floods my arms, making them hurt. Raingar makes a throaty, horrified sound behind me that just makes everything hurt that much worse.Of course he wouldn’t be courting a female like me. One who cost him all that kintarr. I’m a charity project for these clan chiefs. An expensive one.
“It is so generous of you to assume that Raingar might have chosen someone…might have chosenmefor companionship. It was only his kindness and bravery that brought me here from Quadrant One. You see, I’m…” I swallow, unable to meet her gaze — or anyone’s — as I say stiffly, “I was in the care of Igmora and Tyto before Raingar and the other clan chiefs purchased me. I’m…” I stagger, struggle, ashamed that this is so hard. “I’m a pleasure female, currently just a guest of the Lemoran clan chiefs until I find my place in the community.”
“A pleasure female!” The female shouts.
The male at the counter spits out whatever he’d been drinking all over Raingar and then steps onto a wooden crate, breaking whatever was inside, before toppling over. “You purchased her!” He shouts from the floor.
But Raingar reacts to none of it. Instead, I feel his gaze on me, colder and more distant than it was. I look into his eyes and a fire sparks, hot and wild, restless energy drawing a small gasp from my lips.
“Isthatwhat you think is happening here?” He hisses and a splinter of fear cuts through me.
“Which…which part?”
“A pleasure female?” Lyla bellows. She drops whatever she’d been working on, good progress lost as pins scatter wildly across the floor.
She comes to stand directly in front of me, blocking my view of Raingar and stamps her foot onto the wooden floorboards, making them all rattle. “Don’t youdaretell me, Raingar, that you have in any way used this stunning creature for your own personal pleasure.”
“Pagh! Of course not. But even if I had, it would be none of your ohring business!” I can see him shaking his fist over the top of Lyla’s shoulder. This is expected. What isn’t? Her growl.
Even the male on the floor manages to shoot up onto his feet, his one bare foot spearing through the bottom of the crate as he drags it along with him. He stomps towards Raingar and the female closes in and I panic, worried that a fight’s about to begin.
“Are you telling us…”
“How dare you come into my shop…”
“You know that we don’t deal with…”
“We need to alert the clan chiefs…”
“We won’t stand idly by and let you abuse this creature!”
“Pagh! Ohring asteroids, strike me down! Come outside, the both of you,” Raingar roars, cutting into their babble. He grabs both the male and female by the scruffs of their necks, making them look like younglings despite the fact that he’s only marginally larger than the male. He hauls them out of the front door, which he kicks shut behind him with a loud thwack.
My skin prickles with goosebumps.
I curl my left hand into a fist around my palm, fingering the raised skin there. There’s no scar, but the skin is puckered slightly from where I cut myself on the window. It serves as a reminder that I was a pleasure female once, but that I’m also a female who fights for her freedom.
I never truly minded the idea of being a pleasure female. I thought it would be nice, to be good at something, to be valued for it, and to be treated well — even revered — for being good at a thing that brings pleasure to others.
