2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
W rage
By Freyd’s balls, a mronck must have kicked me in the head. And my left shoulder? Did I fall into the raging fires of hell?
My eyes fly open and I see the hotel curtains. I’m not in hell, I’m on the Love Lagoon on Paragon. My mouth tastes like someone shit in it, my temples are throbbing, and my arm is burning.
I remember drinking last night, but I’ve drunk that much before when a master rewarded me with spirits after I won an important match. It never made me feel like this. If this is what havaché does, I vow never to take a sip again.
Although I don’t remember much from last night, I remember my big win at the klempto tables. I think I’m rich.
I feel something warm and feminine at my back. I don’t recall what we did, but I’m certain I can replay my role now that I’m sober.
Before I turn to see what lovely piece of feminine flesh has joined me in my bed, I lift my arm to inspect my—Gods! What the holy drack happened to me?
As I turn to look more closely I can’t help but notice the female at my side is the terrible singer from the lounge.
“You!” I accuse, wondering how she managed to burn me so badly.
Her blue eyes fly open, her face hardens, one eyebrow arched as she repeats, “You!”
“What are you doing here?” I wouldn’t, not in a million annums , have invited this female to my bed. She was mean, talentless, and looks like Sibyl.
“You bought me. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to.”
“I . . . I paid your owner to have you for the night? I wouldn’t have done that.” No. Certainly not.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” She rolls her eyes and shoots me a knowing smile.
She’s smirking. If I remember correctly, I wasn’t very nice to her. If she’s happy about something, I have a feeling it’s because it’s going to make me unhappy. By the gleeful look on her face, something’s going to make me very unhappy.
“Tell me,” I command.
“Tell you what?” she asks, trying to look innocent.
This is going to be bad.
“Tell me why you’re here!” I thunder.
“Okay, asshole. You bought me.”
“No.”
When I was fifteen and first sent to the ludus where they began my training, I was pitted against a male twice my size. I ran from him so fast and hard that I accidentally slammed into the stone wall that surrounded the outdoor arena. It struck me senseless for long minimas . I feel like that now.
“I can’t believe I bought you for the night, but I guess that’s why you’re here. Let me hurry you back to your owner.”
“You didn’t buy me for the night, Big Blue. You bought me. Till death do us part so to speak.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Beats me.” She shrugs.
“Where’s your collar? Was your owner too cheap to make it part of the sale?”
I don’t know why I’m asking, I’m still baffled by the fact that she’s saying I bought her. I was a slave two lunars ago. I don’t believe in slavery. If she’s telling the truth, I must have been drunk out-of-my-mind.
“I have to pee,” she says as she wraps the bedspread around her and walks to the bathroom as if she owns the hotel. Her resemblance to Sibyl is striking. If I was a different male, I’d want to hurt her.
“I wouldn’t have bought you,” I call to her through the door. “I don’t believe in slavery.”
“Good,” she calls back as she pisses. “Cause you don’t fucking own me anymore.”
“You’re talking in riddles,” I roar, then notice it makes my arm throb. “And you burned me!”
I don’t know what she’s doing in there. I hear water running and then wait long minimas for her to return. She’s making me wait on purpose.
I get up, stalk to the bathroom, and pound on the door. “I demand to know what happened last night!”
She opens the door, her blue eyes wide in innocence, then sits at the little table under the window. She’s still covered in the spread.
“Drink too much to remember?” she asks sweetly.
“Yes.” I drop into the chair, put my elbow on the table and pierce her with my gaze. “Tell me.”
“First, you mercilessly heckled me. Remember that?” Her blue eyes are harsh as she looks at me.
“It’s hazy,” I admit. “But yes.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘Your owner should put you in a job where you don’t have to open your mouth except to suck cock’. Remember that?”
Drack . That was mean. Although I’ve spent the last fifteen annums among rowdy gladiators, I wasn’t abducted until I was fifteen. I know better than to speak to a female—any female—like that.
“I apologize.”
Her head whips toward me in surprise. I must have been a total dracker to her if my meager apology shocks her.
“So after our verbal hugfest, and after you evidently won a prodigious amount of money at the casino, you bought me. Then . . .”
Her blue eyes fly from mine. I know this look. I saw it from Sibyl. It’s what females do when they’re evasive. I wait.
“Then you mated me.”
“Mated in your language means dracked ?” I ask even as a bolt of fear flashes through me. I haven’t felt that emotion since I ran into that stone wall fifteen annums ago.
“Mated as in mated. Married. Participated in nuptials. Tied the knot. Took vows. Got hitched.”
I stand to leave, then sag back into my seat and lean toward her, inspecting her face to determine if she’s lying. I don’t think so.
“You forced me? How?”
“Look at us! How could I force you ?”
“We need to get divorced,” I say levelly.
“I couldn’t agree more.” She crosses her arms over her chest and nods.
“You said you’re a free female now?”
“A slave can’t get mated. You had to free me in order to mate me.”
At least I did one thing right. I can’t bear the idea of owning anyone. Even her. Especially her.
She grabs her clothes off the chair and returns to the bathroom, slamming the door.
“And how did you burn me?”
“The marriage ceremony included the Paragon ritual of branding.”
“You have one, too?”
She sticks her right arm out the door and flaps it. It’s a fiery mess of flesh. I can’t make out the design.
“Hurts?” I ask.
“What do you think, Blue?”
“My name’s Wrage.”
“My name’s Elyse, but it doesn’t matter,” she calls over the sounds of her shower, “we’ll be divorced in an hour.”
T he Office for Divorce is located in a small room at the back of an obscure building on the mainland. We had to take a ferry from Fornication Island, then hover past state government buildings to this little outpost.
The male we needed to speak with was on lunch break, and we’ve been waiting in the beating sun for what seems like hoaras .
“I’m Analac, officer of the court for dissolution of marriages. I’m certain you must be in the wrong place,” he informs us.
“Oh, no,” Elyse insists. “Dissolution of marriages? That’s what we want.” She nods as if that explains everything.
She’s still wearing the low-cut red gown she sang in last night. Evidently, I didn’t buy her clothes from her former owner. I’ll give her some credits as soon as this paperwork is final and she can go her own way.
“My position is in name only,” the older man says. He’s a thin humanoid with wild gray hair and pale yellow skin. He looks ready for retirement. He leads us into his tiny office. It’s sparsely furnished and devoid of windows.
Just as I’m wondering who he pissed off to deserve this job, he says. “I’m the mayor’s uncle. I sit in this office and read all day waiting until I’m old enough to collect my pension. There is no such thing as a Paragonian divorce.”
“No one on your planet gets divorced?” Elyse asks, dumbstruck.
“It’s not allowed. This position was created to give me a job.”
“Certainly, there must be a way.”
“It’s illegal. Who conducted your mating ceremony? Was that person not clear that we mate for life on this planet?”
“Yeah. He mentioned something like that. We have that back where I come from, too. You swear to that, but can get divorced when you start hating each other. Like now,” the female says, her eyes narrow to slits and flick in my direction.
“Not on Paragon.”
“You don’t understand,” she leans farther over the desk, “we need to get a divorce.”
“No, you don’t understand. There is no divorce. Did the branding ceremony not signify the permanence of the arrangement?”
Elyse sighs, takes another deep breath, then rises. “Come on, Blue. We’ll just have to arrange to go off planet to get one.”“Uh, ma’am? I’m afraid that’s not possible either.”
“What do you mean not possible? You can’t legislate what’s outside your jurisdiction.” Her nostrils flare in anger.
“All planets in the galaxy have reciprocity. We acknowledge marriages from every other planet. By the same token, our rules must be followed. No divorce is allowed if you were married on planet Paragon.”
“Okaay,” she says, obviously all out of patience. “We’ll just go our separate ways without benefit of paperwork.” Once again she moves to leave.
“Uh, ma’am? I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
My gut clenches. This can’t be happening.
Elyse
I’m back in my chair, giving him my full attention. There was something about his tone of voice and the ultra-serious look on his face that makes a slice of fear jolt up my spine.
“Go on,” I say, leary.
“When your officiant branded you, he placed a tracking device under your skin during the procedure. Here.” He taps his keyboard furiously, then swings the screen around so Blue and I can see.
“See the two blinking purple dots? Those are you two. Our computers track all matings. Should you be apart for more than an annum —three-hundred-seventy days on our planet—we assign a peacekeeper to go get you and bring you back to Paragon for punishment.”
I’m quiet for a long moment. One thing you learn quickly when you’re enslaved is how to play every system. Right now my mind is flipping facts and information like a kid trying to solve a Rubick’s Cube. Aha! Got it.
“So as long as my . . . beloved and I are together one day out of every three-hundred-sixty-nine, then we stay within Paragon law?” I ask sweetly.
“Oh no, Ma’am. We have algorithms.” He nods his head proudly. “You can’t do that more than once unless one of you is in the military. If that occurs, we check with the branch you’re serving in to corroborate the evidence.”
Algorithms. Smug bastard! And he says it all in such a helpful tone of voice.
I glance over at Blue. He’ll be of no help. He looks as if someone struck him a hard blow to the head—more than once.
“Doesn’t it seem prudent that if two people hate each other they shouldn’t be forced to stay together?” Under my breath, I whisper, “This is bullshit.”
“What would be more prudent is for two people who hate each other not to mate in the first place,” he replies as if he just issued an obvious fact instead of a scolding.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Is there no way out, Analac?” I ask, my voice a dry whisper.
“You could try to make the best of it. Maybe become friends,” he says hopefully.
I take one look at Wrage, what a fitting name. Although now instead of his usual glower he looks near tears.
“Any other suggestions?” I ask through a frown.
“No.” He rises. “But I have to thank you. This is the most fun I’ve had on the job in a decade or more.”
Fucker.
“You’re welcome,” I say wryly.
Blue and I shuffle out of the office and wind up sitting on a nearby park bench.
“This is all your fault,” we both say at the same time.
“What part of ‘I was a slave’ do you fail to understand?”
“I didn’t want to be mated,” he moans. I hate to admit that his devastation gives me a moment of glee.
“So tell me your circumstances,” I say, still wondering if there’s a way out of this. I need more facts. “You obviously don’t live on this planet.”
“I was a gladiator-slave until about two lunars ago. We revolted and fought for our freedom, then were welcomed aboard a space vessel manned by other escaped gladiators and their human females.”
“Humans?” I ask, my interest piqued. “I thought humans were outlawed.”
“Yeah, they’re outlawed, but slavers keep abducting them anyway. You have to know this, you’re human.”
“I am not,” I reply angrily. If people knew I was human, they’d re-enslave me. I’ve always maintained I was Morganian.
“You’re going to begin our sacred mated relationship with a lie, Elyse? That’s a bad omen.”
Am I crazy, or does he look genuinely hurt? Couldn’t be. He has to be punking me.
“Morganian,” I say, doubling down.
“I may have been enslaved for the last fifteen annums , but I know a human when I see one. Or hear one. I’ve lived with them for the last two lunars . I’ve heard you use the words ‘fuck’, ‘asshole’, and ‘buellshit’. Those are Earth curse words.”
Busted.
“A girl can’t be too careful,” I say, then inform him, “It’s pronounced bullshit.”
“We’re in this together now,” he says. His face is so alien it’s hard to read him, but from where I’m sitting, he doesn’t look any happier about this mating than I am.
“So, you live on a ship? There are other humans on it? We might be able to make this work. We could get separate cabins and avoid each other like the plague. Our purple dots would still be travelling together in space.”
“Excuse me. Ma’am, sir.” It’s Analac who snuck up behind us. “I forgot one thing. Here.”
He hands me a flat cardboard kit about three inches wide and a foot long. I don’t know what’s in it, but my heart feels heavy in my chest. On some level, I know this isn’t a wedding present.
“As I said, you’re the first couple who’s come to me requesting a divorce. I had to re-read the manual. I’m glad I found you.”
He looks quite proud of himself. I think he’s actually tried to spit-comb his hair.
“Since you seem to have been telling the truth about hating each other, I’ll need proof of the . . . consummation of the mating.”
That old expression you read in novels that sounds so corny, the one about someone’s heart stopping in their chest? Yeah. That’s me.
“Proof?” my voice is high and whiny, like a child protesting their bedtime.
“Why, yes.” Analac nods his head gravely. “This kit . . .” He extends his hand, palm up. “May I?”
Be my guest, Analac. I don’t want anything to do with the heinous thing.
After I hand it to him, he blows the dust off the lid, then opens it.
“You take the wrapping off this stick here after the completion of the . . . marital act. You simply insert . . . then swab the contents into this tube here, and return it to me within the lunar . We on planet Paragon want to ensure a happy, productive union. Frankly, it’s never been used before, but in your case, I thought it was prudent to require this.”
That little Rubick’s Cube in my mind, the one that’s always searching for the easy way out of every situation, has slammed to a halt. How do we wiggle out of this?
“And before you ask me if you can’t simply take a swab from Elyse, and combine it with a swab from Wrage, I’ll inform you that our doctors know the exact ratio of what this would look like when accomplished according to the rules. If you try to circumvent them, we’ll know.”
He has the good sense to look contrite after this last bit of news. Perhaps because he sees the look of utter defeat on my face.
“Look on the bright side. You have a lunar to accomplish this.”
“We leave Paragon in six days,” Wrage says, his face a thundercloud, which is saying a lot when you consider he’s no picnic even in his best moment.
“There’s a dropbox in my door. You can drop it off any time, day or night before you leave.”
He turns and takes a step, then returns. “You’re of the Wryth'N race, correct?” he asks my unhappy companion and receives a tight nod in response. “Might I mention, though it’s none of my business, that for some reason your race can’t tolerate our local brew, havaché . I’d suggest you avoid it. It’s said to affect Wryth'Ns ten times more than other races.” He taps his temple. “It’s kind of a fun fact I’ve always remembered.
“And by the way, I couldn’t help but overhear your plan to sleep on opposite ends of a ship, in separate quarters. That won’t work. You have to cohabitate. And now that you’ve alerted me to your plans, I’ll be watching you.” He points to his eye.
A moment after he leaves, I rise and call his name. “Can I ask,” I say when he returns, “what the punishment is if the peacekeepers come after us?”
“Life in prison. You wouldn’t want that.” His face is deadly serious as he shakes his head as if he’s a concerned friend urging you not to drive drunk.
I sag back onto the bench and put my face in my hands. My mental Rubick’s Cube is immoble. If we were playing a game of chess it would be ‘check’ and ‘mate’. I’m out of moves.