Page 39 of Commander's Slave
As Edek stalked backto the dining room, his anger began to return. By the time he walked through the large archway and took his seat across from Draken and the general, a cloud of fury hovered over him. Rage boiled his blood and when he reached for his wine, he noticed a slight tremor in his hand.
“I trust your slave got what she deserved?” General Amak asked with a gleeful smirk.
Edek didn’t answer. He glared at the general for a tense moment, then took another long sip of wine. His gut twisted with the knowledge of how Betsy would be treated if she belonged to another master. A cruel master. Someone like the general, or Draken’s rival, Teyya.
Draken cleared his throat, still looking quite pale. He kept glancing at the doorway and fidgeting in his chair, a concerned expression deepening the lines on his face, making him look a full decade older.
He’s worried about Betsy.Edek waited for his brother to catch his gaze, and when they finally locked eyes, Draken’s stare turned accusatory.Does he think I actually beat her? Does he truly think I took a baton to her?
Fluxx. Edek fought back a growl and decided to get rid of the general in the quickest way possible—by refusing to accept one of his daughters.
“General Amak,” Edek began, “I cannot accept one of your daughters as a wife.”
The general placed his utensil down and stopped chewing. For a long moment, he stared at Edek with a look of confusion, then he swallowed before reaching for his wine. He took a long drink, placed the goblet down, and sighed deeply.
“Do you not find them attractive enough?” the general asked.
“I do not believe I’ve ever seen any of your daughters, General,” Edek replied, trying to force a polite tone, even though everything inside him burned to throttle the general. “However, it is not their beauty, or lack thereof, that is a deciding factor for me. I am simply not looking to get married at this point in time.” Why did Betsy’s face appear in his mind at the thought of marriage?
“I see.” The general sighed again. “I suppose I approached you too soon. I know your wife perished less than a year ago.”
Edek clenched his jaw as he saw red. How dare the male mention his belated wife? He drew in a deep breath, prepared to tell General Amak to leave at once, only for Draken’s deep voice to reverberate in the dining room.
“General, I am no great warrior, but I am a man of immense wealth and power. I have friends on the High Council, many of whom I advise from time to time. I’m also well-liked in Sumlin District. Furthermore, I come from a respected family and own a vast section of this mountain.” Draken peered confidently at a visibly shocked General Amak.
The general wasn’t the only shocked party in the room. Edek couldn’t believe what he was witnessing—his own brother, who’d never held aspirations of marriage before, to Edek’s knowledge, in any case—trying to sell himself to a male with four daughters.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the age of your oldest daughter?”
“She has just turned nineteen,” the general replied after a thoughtful pause.
“And her name?”
“Her name is Lissa. Now, if you don’t mindmeasking, what kind of bride price are you willing to offer?” General Amak looked Draken up and down, then narrowed his eyes and leaned closer, greed sparkling in his dark gaze.
“I will offer you ten thousand galactic credits,” Draken said, “but I expect certain conditions to be met.”
“Did you sayten thousand?” The general’s eyes widened.
“Yes, but I want a contract drawn up stating that I will pay this bride price for Lissa, under the condition that you willnotmarry off your two youngest daughters until they come of age. Ten thousand should be sufficient to get you by until then, in the case that you are having financial difficulties. I assume it is finances that have brought you here in the first place?”
The general flushed and coughed, appearing uncomfortable and deeply embarrassed.
Edek was stunned and felt a whole new admiration for his older brother. Draken was saving two adolescent females, both of whom he’d never even met, from the possibility of being sold off to wealthy older males. Of course, this meant Draken himself had to take one of the general’s daughters—but he’d asked for the oldest one. A female of nineteen.
Plans were made. In several days, Draken and the general would visit a solicitor in town to finalize and sign the contract. A wedding would take place on the eve of the next lunar cycle, and as soon as vows were exchanged, ten thousand galactic credits would be transferred to General Amak’s account.
Edek listened to the negotiations in a daze, still stunned that his brother was finally going to take a wife. Once the planning was complete, the general offered a rare bow to Draken before departing. Edek and Draken stood on the porch, watching as the general’s small airship lifted off the ground and ascended into the night sky. Once the airship was out of sight, Edek spun on Draken, preparing to question him, but before he could get a word out, Draken growled and shot him a deep scowl.
“Where is Betsy?”
“In my bedroom. Where else would she be?” Edek said, curling his lips at Draken with a snarl of his own.
“Did you hurt her? Did you take one of those awful electrified—”
“No!” Edek roared, taken aback that Draken would even think such a thing. “Gods, no. I was only pretending that I was taking Betsy upstairs for a beating for her sake, and my own sake too. Even if he is as destitute as people say, the general is still quite powerful and I do not want him suspecting anything is amiss with my slave. I needed to get her out of the dining room and away from that vilerefluxxliaas quickly as possible.” He dragged a hand furiously through his hair.
Draken breathed a sigh of relief and shot Edek an apologetic look. “Forgive me, brother, for even worrying that you might hurt her like that, but you appeared so angry that I-I had a difficult time reading your true emotions. The emotions beneath your anger, that is.”
