Page 73 of Taken to Lemora
I almost tell him, but then I change my mind. “The human female. Is she alright?”
“You ask that every solar.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, nodding. “And I’ll continue to.”
He chortles lightly and shakes his head. “I told you. She’ll be okay.”
During the battle of Wasteland, we left her alone on board Ashmara’s uhh…lovely vessel. In her panicked state, she woke alone and took one of the escape pods — the shooters — all on her own. Without a programmed destination, they all fly to one place…
“She’s alone on Evernor, the Eshmiri gladiator planet. How is she going to be okay? You didn’t see what state she was in…”
“Yeffa, but she isn’t alone. Herannathon went after her and enlisted in the tournament. He’ll protect her.”
“Can’t Ashmara get them out of it?”
“The Eshmiri are good creatures to haggle with, but not when it comes to the tournament. It’s their biggest contest and only happens once every six rotations. They aren’t going to let even one of their own break any of the contestants out of it.”
One of their own. Even though Ashmara might be a human-Drakesh hybrid, it’s only by blood, not by choice. And as I’ve learned, blood means little. Choice is more important. Even if it does make me sad. She might be the only one like me out there, but I’ll never really know her. She’s just as far from me as a four-armed pirate or a soulless assassin. It doesn’t matter if our origins may have started beneath the same star. And since neither Ashmara nor I know of our origins, it wouldn’t matter even if we did.
But we are sisters in another right. Sisters in the battle waged against Tyto. I’m glad that it’s over for me, but my heart still strains for the pale-skinned human female with the bright red mane.
“Besides, Ashmara’s got enough problems of her own.”
I wince. “Rhorkanterannu can’t help her escape Jerrock?”
“Nob. And her contract is too large to buy out. We clan chiefs tried to pool our resources and combine them with what Rhorkanterannu and the Voraxians offered, but it still wasn’t enough.”
“What is her bounty even for?”
“She’s been liberating slaves from some of the wealthiest corners of the Quadrants. Quadrant One alone has a bounty of twenty-eight kintarr tuns on her head. Apparently, over one thousand of their garden slaves went missing over the course of six lunars. Ashmara’s been labeled the culprit.”
Surprise. Warmth. It fills my chest and I nod as we start up a hill towards a beautiful purple sky. “Good. Hopefully, the kintarr she recovered from Tyto will help her stay lost until she’s an old, old reaver.”
“Too bad she didn’t get any of it.”
“What?” I pull up on the pad pad reins and the beast beneath me releases steam through its wide nostrils.
Raingar’s cheeks darken and his eyes drop to my clenched fingers. “We offered to make up the sum, but both the Eshmiri and the Niahhorru refused.”
“What happened to the rest? What Tyto was using to pay off my contract?”
“Jerrock…”
“He took it? But I thought…”
“Nob.” Raingar shakes his head. “A Sky bounty hunter wouldn’t steal tokens for an incomplete contract. He destroyed it.”
“But why…”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the Sky and I hope never to know anything about them.” He shudders and cocks his head. “Now come on. We’re almost there and I don’t want to bring thoughts of assassins or war with you.”
“Of course, my Lord.”
His eyebrows pull together, concerned, beneath his pearly white horns. His horns…mmmm…they shoot up into the sky, arching towards the orange clouds. They are magnificent and I feel myself — and my core — pool with heat at the sight of them, maybe just knowing that they’re mine…
“My Lord?” He scowls so fiercely I laugh, the sound carried away from me on the wind, and then wrapped around me all over again. “Not sure what I did to deserve that…”
“I’m only teas…” We approach the crest of the hill and just as we ride over it, all the words I was going to say are yanked violently from my lips. I can’t say a word. Well, I can say one word. And that word is, “Ohr.”
