Page 86 of Ren: Warlord Brides
“You can go back and reopen. Find a new location.”
Gemma remained silent, mulling the option over. “I don’t think I want to. The bakery was for Dad. We did that. I want to do something new.”
“Like what? A café?”
“Maybe. I want to stick with you. Wherever you want to go from here, back on another interstellar cruise ship, a private client, or a café on a moon, I don’t care. I’m in.”
Emry mulled over Gemma’s words. The idea appealed to Emry. She enjoyed cooking more than baking. Cookies, even unicorn macarons, day after day got tedious. For all the trouble working for Pashaal ended up being, Emry had enjoyed exploring new cuisine and the challenge of adapting Earth recipes for new ingredients.
As clearly as she could envision that future with Gemma, that wasn’t what she wanted.
“I’m staying with Ren,” Emry admitted.
A throat cleared. Ren stood in the doorway, a stunned expression on his face. Heat flooded her cheeks. They hadn’t talked about what would happen next, after he found Gemma. It was always unspoken, an invitation to stay and the agreement that she might.
“I need to question Gemma,” he said.
“Sure, I’ll go,” Emry said, rising from the bed.
“Stay,” Gemma said, grabbing her wrist.
“Okay.” She pulled up a chair next to the bed. She held Gemma’s hand while Gemma recited the facts about how the people she paid to remove her from the Mahdfel Bride Registry decided that they’d make more money selling her at auction than blackmailing her. They jumped her one morning at the back of the bakery where the security lights didn’t reach.
“That damn light. I told you it needed to be fixed,” Emry muttered.
“I think I may have been in a stasis thingy. My memory gets fuzzy. I don’t remember leaving Earth, or an auction, just waking up in that warehouse with the other girls.” Gemma paused, rubbing her throat. Emry handed her a glass of water. “Thanks. Are the others okay?”
“Dehydrated and malnourished, much like you. One has a severe case of poisoning from the stasis chamber. Nothing they will not recover from.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” Emry asked, secretly asking what would happen to Gemma.
Ren’s eyes flashed, as if he heard the question she really wanted to be answered. “They will receive medical treatment and be returned to their homes.”
Emry squeezed Gemma’s hand. “Gemma is coming with us. It’s a big ask, but she’s not safe on Earth on her own.”
Ren remained silent for a moment. Eventually, he said, “As you say.”
“Did you catch them?” Gemma asked.
“No. The traffickers had long departed before we arrived.”
“They weren’t traffickers. They were Suhlik.”
Ren
Impossible. The Suhlik did not abduct females.
“You don’t believe me,” Gemma said, slumping back into the bed.
His mate looked at him furiously, accusation in her eyes. “I believe you.”
“Perhaps you saw another species. There are reptilians who bear a passing resemblance,” Ren said.
“I know what I saw. At least one of them was Suhlik. I heard them talking. They bought all of us and left a few of us behind.
“The Suhlik do not purchase people. They slaughter, nothing else.” Except he knew that was not entirely true. Sometimes the Suhlik abducted Mahdfel children for experimentation, and sometimes those children survived and returned to their clan. Foundlings were not uncommon. The warlord’s second-in-command was a Foundling.
“You think there’s anyone from Earth who doesn’t know what the Suhlik look like?” Gemma asked.
