Page 23 of Commander's Slave
Both males chuckled, and Betsy gave a timid smile. She had the distinct feeling Edek meant to check up on her.
“Heslla, would you please tell the cook we’ll be inside shortly?” Draken asked. “Do you remember the Kall words? Tell himerrusta amal vottak.”
“Of course, and yes, I remember the words.” She nodded at them awkwardly and rushed to the house, holding her skirt up as she climbed the small hill.
Once inside, she breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall for a moment. Two passing servants gave her dirty looks and whispered in Kall, but she paid them no mind. After weeks of unkind glances and indecipherable whispers, she was nearly immune to their condescending treatment. At least that’s what she told herself. Besides, didn’t Draken’s kindness make up for the servants’ dislike for her?
After sleeping in Edek’s bed, serving him and Draken breakfast felt a bit strange. She was ever aware of Edek’s gaze upon her. Was he watching to see if she would make a mistake? Would he berate her in front of his brother if she dropped a plate or spilled a jug of juice?
She tried to concentrate on the menial task of serving them breakfast, but it wasn’t easy. Not when she felt Edek’s heated gaze following her every movement. Would he hold her as they slept tonight? Flutters rose in her tummy at the prospect.
She really ought to find a way to escape his bedroom. She reminded herself that he was a Kall warrior who despised humans, and he was also a red-blooded male.
Sleeping next to him was dangerous.
What if he awoke groggy and saw a human close to him in bed and lashed out at her? He could easily choke her to death or even kill her with one blow. She glanced at his massive hands and his huge muscular arms. As large and powerfully built as he was, he could take her life in an instant, perhaps before he even realized what he was doing.
She prayed he had enough self-control not to hurt her, but it was a chance she simply couldn’t take. Yes, she would need to find a way to escape sleeping in his bed.
Another thought struck her, causing those flutters to rise in her tummy all over again. As he’d spooned her last night, she’d felt his hardness poking her from behind, his erect manhood pressing into the backs of her thighs. He’d clearly been aroused. Yet he hadn’t forced himself upon her. Would he do so in the future?
Lost in her thoughts, Betsy stood against the dining room wall at the ready, while Draken and Edek conversed in their native tongue and ate a leisurely meal. She wished she understood Kall, but there were so many different dialects that she didn’t know where to begin.
Draken had tried teaching her a few phrases, but many of the guttural sounds were difficult for the human tongue to make. It was no wonder Kall wasn’t one of the alien languages she’d been taught growing up; few scholars on Earth had mastered it. The best she could manage were a few words to inform the cook that Draken was ready to be served a meal.
After breakfast ended, Betsy waited for the servants to finish their morning meal in the back of the kitchen. They wouldn’t allow her to eat with them and she didn’t dare press the issue. She didn’t want to sit at a table with people who didn’t like her anyway. She hovered in one of the kitchen storerooms, dusting the shelves until everyone but the cook vacated the kitchen.
Hunger gnawed at her stomach and she was grateful to find a small amount of porridge-like substance remaining in the large pot that rested in the middle of the table. She grabbed a bowl and helped herself, though she kept casting nervous glances in the direction of the cook. Sometimes he screamed at her to leave and she wasn’t permitted to finish her meal.
Luckily, he paid her no mind this morning, and she was able to sit and finish an entire bowl of the sweet-tasting porridge. She also found a few large berries left in the fruit bowl, and she ate those as well.
The kitchen maid who usually cleaned up after meals and washed dishes was absent, so Betsy decided to get a start on tidying up and washing dishes. The cook seemed engrossed by a dessert he was decorating and mercifully continued to leave her alone.
Technically, she didn’t have any assigned chores in the house, other than serving meals. Draken had asked her to serve meals and told her to help the servants with their duties, but none of the servants had ever given her any instructions. Not that they could easily do so, since they didn’t speak English, but they never even handed her a broom and pointed at a floor that needed sweeping or tossed her a dust rag.
Having grown up in luxury, she’d been at a loss at first and had felt completely out of her element. Her family had employed many household servants. Until she’d gotten an apartment on her own in Los Angeles, she had never even tried to cook a meal before, let alone clean her own bathroom or make her own bed.
Ever since she’d arrived in Draken’s home, she’d had to find things to do on her own. At first, she’d followed the servants around, trying to help them, but now that she understood which chores needed done each day, she had taken to working on her own as much as possible. Anything to keep her away from their nasty looks and taunting whispers.
Perhaps it was a bit strange, but she took pride in the work she accomplished each day. Maybe she wouldn’t feel this way if she didn’t like Draken and wasn’t grateful to him for saving her from Teyya at the auction, but she experienced a certain level of satisfaction knowing she was contributing to the household.
She might be a slave, but she was adapting. It was all she could do under the circumstances—adapt. Adapt and try to find some semblance of happiness in this new life on this alien world.
Aside from serving meals, Betsy was able to avoid Edek for the entire day. She’d spotted him leaving the fenced in property several times, though she wasn’t certain where he was going. Once, from a window, she spotted him wandering into a meadow, where the tall grasses reached to his waist.
She really needed to stop searching for him. She was trying to avoid him, wasn’t she? If he caught her staring at him, it might encourage him to seek her out, perhaps even to push the issue of intimacy as they shared his bed.
As the sun crept across the sky, her nervousness over their sleeping arrangements increased. She flitted around the house, performing various chores that still needed done, and kept glancing out the window and fretting over the impending evening.
Her heart broke, as it always did, when darkness fell and the twin moons appeared over the mountain. Sometimes during the day, she glanced at the blue sky and bright sun and pretended she was on Earth.
Pretending was impossible at nighttime though, and the two moons seemed to taunt her as cruelly as the whispering servants.
As the moons shone down, reflecting off the fountains surrounding the house, she pretended to sweep the stone walkways outside the house. She’d swept them earlier, but it was the only chore she had outside. Outside and away from Edek. At this hour, she suspected he’d already ventured to his bedroom.
At some point, she would have to go upstairs and face Edek. Or did she? She lazily swept the broom across the stones and contemplated her options. She could be stubborn and retire in her closet. But no, she couldn’t hide there anymore, now that Edek knew in which closet she’d been sleeping.
What could she do? How could she continue to avoid him?
