Kaitlyn O'Connor (6 page)

Both men looked slightly taken aback. Dakaar frowned. Clearly he hadn
‟
t liked the suggestion that he
‟
d only offered because he wanted to protect the pussy and he felt as torn as she had when Balen had made the offer. “Take care ob little ting because need protect. Too little protect self. Dis is duty ob warrior. Take care ob weak.”

Loren hesitated. “I
‟
m sorry. I didn
‟
t mean to insult you.” She struggled with her discomfort for a moment and moved a little closer, trying to ignore the fear churning in her belly. “You wouldn
‟
t…? I mean…. I would be your woman if you wanted me to,” she finally managed to say, feeling her face turn fiery red. “I…uh…I wouldn
‟
t feel right if you risked so much for me and I didn
‟
t…offer…uh…you know…something.”

“You be our woman…yes. Take care,” Balen said. “No. Still take care.”

The two exchanged a look and turned and left. Loren watched them leave, unhappily certain that she
‟
d stuck both feet in her mouth and insulted them mightily. She wasn
‟
t sorry she
‟
d offered even though it would never have occurred to her to make such an offer before. They were right, though. She wasn
‟
t capable of protecting herself and she needed someone to protect her. It still didn
‟
t seem right to expect such a thing, regardless of their „honor
‟
, and offer them nothing at all and she didn
‟
t have anything else to offer.

They
‟
d seemed interested, but maybe she
‟
d just jumped to the wrong conclusion?

25

For that matter, she didn
‟
t even know if she had sex to offer, she realized abruptly. Lecur had said she was one of the prizes of the winners and she knew what that meant.

Dismissing it after a few moments, she returned to the bench and struggled to lift the lower end to the wall. She succeeded, but it was a near disaster. She had to strain so hard to lift the thing so high that she was afraid for several moments that she
‟
d torn muscle or damaged her back and the thing damned near went over the wall and landed on the toilet. She had no doubt that it was heavy enough it would have shattered the thing, or crushed it, and creating a real mess, but she managed to balance it.

She had to go lie down for a few moments to recover before she could even muster the energy to drag the blanket off the bed. Once she
‟
d thrown the blanket over the bench, though, she was almost deliriously happy to discover she had a hiding spot to take care of nature—and showers!

She was so exhausted from her labors and her ordeal that she pulled her thin shift off and showered on the toilet. She could
‟
ve brushed her teeth at the same time, too, but there was no tooth paste and she wasn
‟
t ready to try the soap.

The bastard that had kidnapped her had no doubt sold her bag and everything in it—including her toothbrush and her toothpaste!

Anger hit her for the first time when she finished showering, scrubbing off the sticky residue from her stint in the pod on the ship and the soiled feel that remained from when the gladiators had pawed her, only to discover she had nothing to dry off with. It made things worse that the moment she turned the water off she began to feel like she was freezing.

“Damn it! Damn it to hell!” she growled angrily. After thinking it over for a few moments, she added a few more curses she was familiar with. “Fuck! Shit! God damn it to hell!”

She felt marginally better after she
‟
d expressed her frustration, but she was still fucking wet!

Uttering another expletive, she snatched her „toga
‟
down and dried with it.

She discovered when she pulled the blanket down to wrap up in it that she had an audience.

She glared at them and then stalked to the bed and climbed in, turning her back to them. She shouldn
‟
t have been able to fall asleep with eyes boring into her back but the knowledge that all they could do was look—not get to her—added to emotional exhaustion and physical exhaustion was enough to knock her out after the therapeutic effects of her hot shower.

* * * *

Kael glanced at Dakaar and Balen when they returned to the cell the three of them shared.

Neither looked any happier than he felt and surprise flickered through him. It had seemed to him that the pretty little maid their master had bought to torment them with appeared to favor them. It was that disappointment and anger that had sent him back to his cell when he had wanted to stay and simply drink his fill of looking at her and listening to the sound of her voice. He would have stayed to indulge his hunger to learn what he could about her if jealousy had not risen to turn his mood so sour that he hadn
‟
t dared to linger for fear it would repel her when now it was only a matter of her being less interested in him than the others because he was not as appealing to a maiden
‟
s eyes or as clever with the gift of charming with his tongue as they were.

If things had been different, he told himself, she would have looked at him with as much admiration or more, for although he was not as well favored in his face as either of the others and 26

knew it,
he
was the better warrior and she would have seen those qualities that were hisassets—his cunning in the fight, his skills, and his strength—and she would have looked upon him in an entirely different way.The urge smote him to question their mood, to discover, if he could, how they had apparently failed to capture her interest, but he quelled it. They would not be able to keep whatever was bothering them to themselves and he would know soon enough without asking.

They settled on their own bunks wordlessly and sat frowning at nothing in particular for a while before Dakaar finally broke the silence. “She is not at all like a Hirachi woman,” he said finally.

Kael sent him a sardonic look. “I saw that for myself. A strong breath of wind would blow her away. She is the tiniest female that I have ever seen.”

Balen considered that. “Lecur
‟
s concubines are no taller—not much anyway.”

“They are far wider, however,” Kael retorted dryly and would have been repulsive to them if they had been as shapely as Loren.

“I did not mean in that way!” Dakaar said irritably. “I have eyes in my head. When the light shines upon it, her hair is…the color of the sunset on Ach. Her skin is like the
tokflower
and her eyes are like the summer sky. I have never seen any creature with eyes that color. Even the other little female does not have eyes that color. Though I feel obliged to say that Ka-ren is very pretty, she is not beautiful to my eyes as Lau-ren is.”

“I am surprised your eyes have not fallen out of your head when you have stared at her so hard,” Kael said sardonically, though he could have bitten his tongue. It was obvious to him that he resented her interest in his friends above him, even it was not obvious to them—and it would be soon enough if he could not control the urge to lash out at them for his disappointment!

Dakaar studied Kael angrily for a moment and finally shook his head when he saw that it was not true anger that had inspired Kael
‟
s sharp tongue but rather disappointment. He wrestled with the ugly sense of triumph the thought produced, striving for a balance of fairness in the contest that was no true contest when they all knew that there would be no way to win this battle to breed the fair maid their heart
‟
s desired. “She was upset when you left. I saw it in her eyes.

You feel that Balen and I have unfair advantage because we are more accustomed to
having
to sway a maid
‟
s interest with pretty words when you have never had to, but I cannot see that she looks upon either me or Balen with more interest than she does you. None of us will be allowed to breed her, you know, even if we succumb to the fever. We cannot expect more than a welcome as lovers and in that sense, I think you are as welcome to her as we are.”

Kael felt his heart skip several beats, but he refused to rise to the bait. “I have nothing to court her with,” he said tightly. “Not that there is any point to it…in this place.”

“Truthfully, I cannot say that she is nearly as anxious to accept
any
of us as a lovers as we are to take her as a lover,” Balen said unhappily. “She is frightened…and small wonder when it is as clear as day that she is no warrior woman. A Hirachi woman might be afraid, but she would know that she could defend herself well against any male stupid enough to try to take what was not offered.”

“She is too small and weak to be a warrior of any sort. She could not even lift the bench—not that I needed to see that! She is soft all over,” Dakaar said. “That is what I meant. She does not have the heart of a warrior maid of the Hirachi.”

Kael studied him for a long moment. “Do not try to tell me that you give a damn that she 27

does not! You would mate with her in a moment if you could reach her. Balen would and I would.”

Dakaar flushed. “I did not try to deny it! You misunderstood me, gods damn it! I was trying to say that she is not fierce and she is not strong—in her tiny little body—but she has spirit and strength for all that. She has not cried or screamed as the other two have. She is intelligent. She knows that she has reason to be afraid, but she is very brave. A Hirachi woman would be brave because she would have confidence in her strength and her training. Lau-ren has neither and yet she is still brave. I do not understand it, but I would not have any qualms about passing that strength to my off-spring—if there was any possibility of it—which there is not!”

Balen looked troubled. “I told her that we would protect her and she offered to be our woman. She said that it wouldn
‟
t be right to take and not give something in return. We tried to explain that it was our duty and honor as warriors to protect the weak, but she offered herself.”

Discomfort flickered through Kael at that news, embarrassment that they had all obviously made their desperation to get their hands on her so abundantly clear that she seemed to think that was all that motivated them. He did not like to think that their lust had made them appear less in her eyes than what they were—warriors of the Hirachi, men of honor. As he considered it, however, his resentment that they could not court her properly rose to the forefront of his mind again and it occurred to him that, mayhap, she realized that and had taken it into consideration.

“Mayhap she sees the offer as a courtship gift?” he suggested.

“You think that is it?” Balen asked hopefully if somewhat doubtfully. “I would be ashamed to accept if she thought that I had expected it of her in exchange for protecting her. And it seemed to me that that was she thought.”

Kael felt his belly clench with dismay. He did not like to think that she perceived them in that light—as dishonorable creatures that would take advantage of her frailty. It
would
bring shame upon them if she offered herself for that reason and not for the only reason acceptable—that she desired them as they did her. Frustration flickered through him. Their awkwardness with the only language they had to use to communicate only exacerbated the situation. They would not know if she truly welcomed any of them until and unless they were given the opportunity to take her as a lover. He shook his head and rose abruptly to pace the room. “It does not matter,”

he said harshly. “She is a slave as we are. Even her body is not hers to give and she must know that.”

Dakaar frowned. “You are saying that she did not mean it when she offered to be our lover if we would protect her and her friend?”

Kael paused to stare at him miserably. He was as bad as Balen,
wanting
to believe that he had seen something he might not have to soothe the sting so that he could take what she offered without shame! “Did she seem sincere?”

Dakaar turned to look at Balen questioningly.

Balen shrugged. “She smiled at me and she seemed sincere, but I could not help but notice that she seemed afraid to come very close.” He grimaced. “She is so tiny, I suppose it is no surprise that she is afraid of us when we must seem like giant, hulking brutes to her and we
are
Hirachi warriors, after all, but it is disconcerting to have a maid quake with fear, let me tell you!

I have never encountered that before!”

“She smiled at Dakaar, as well, and I could see that she was glad to see him,” Kael said slowly. “She is afraid because we are not the same and look as strange to her eyes as she does to 28

ours. And she is naturally afraid because she can see that we are much bigger and stronger. She has no reason to trust that we would not hurt her.”

“But we are Hirachi warriors!” Balen said indignantly.

“And she does not
know
our culture!” Kael retorted angrily. “Hers would not be the same—anymore than any of these others have a culture like ours. When Lecur said that they might examine her, they did not hesitate to touch her when she had not given permission either by look or word that she would allow it. She knows that we desire her. She thinks that we will behave as the others have behaved.”

Dakaar stared at him for a long moment, digesting that, wondering if there was any way that he might convince her that he could and would be as gentle a lover as he would be thoughtful of her pleasure. A thought occurred to him abruptly, however, that was even more unpleasant—in fact, horrifying. They were nearing their spawning and they were as near mindless beasts at that time as made very little difference. They
could
not control their urges. If they were given access to her then—or managed to get to her without being given access—they would be fortunate if they did not scare her to death. They could not trust that they would have enough control to be gentle for that matter. He had gone through three spawnings himself before his capture and he could not recall anything that he had done with any clarity
after
the fever had finally left him.

It would not have mattered if she were a Hirachi woman.
They
not only knew to expect it when that time came, but they were as fevered to mate as their counterparts—and beyond that strong enough physically to exert some control over their mates. Lau-ren was
not
Hirachi, no matter how much she reminded him of his own people. They could not even be certain that she would come in to her spawning season at the same time when she was so different! “We cannot say that we will not when we are near the spawning…and I am as certain as I can be that she cannot possibly have any idea of the mating fever that comes upon a Hirachi male at that time. If we warn her, she will only be more afraid of us, and she is trapped. She cannot escape even if she wanted to. I would not worry so much if I believed that she would be safe from me, but I do not think those bars will keep me out once the fever is upon me. I am fair certain I could bend them now and we are far stronger at that time, you know.”