CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
KADE
About an hour after Aiden left to rush over to the base, I felt my stomach growl, and I glanced at the clock beside the bed.
I was a little startled to realise it was already one o’clock.
I’d been so absorbed in my novel that I hadn’t noticed the day slipping by, and it occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d had the freedom to simply while away a couple of hours however I saw fit.
Being injured wasn’t a pleasant experience, but the rare opportunity to relax almost made it worthwhile.
I closed the reading program in my comm and climbed out of bed, stretching carefully. My hip was the worst, but there was a noticeable ache over my ribs, and I cut the stretch off before getting too carried away.
I meandered towards the kitchen, wondering what Jai was up to.
I hadn’t seen or heard him since he and my master had arrived home.
I found him sitting at the kitchen table, reading an article that included several diagrams of engine parts.
I noticed right away that he was blue, not black.
Was that because he’d been left alone for a while and felt more comfortable as a result? Or was there another reason?
“What are you looking at?” I asked, not sure if he’d respond. There had been plenty of times in the last few days when he’d been quite terse.
“Reading about the latest propulsion systems the Alliance is using,” he said, glancing up with a sheepish smile. “I know I need to read the Alliance military protocols, but this is more interesting.”
I chuckled. “Some of the procedural manuals are rather dry, I agree.” I wandered over to the pantry, doing a cursory inspection of the options for lunch. “I’m going to heat up some soup,” I told him, holding up a can. “Do you want some?”
“Yes, please,” he said, then he jumped up, switching his comm off. “I can do that for you. You were injured.”
I paused, looking him over curiously. “The injuries are not serious. But when did you become so concerned about my health?” It wasn’t an accusation, as such. At least, it wasn’t intended to be. But we hadn’t exactly gotten off to a warm start in our relationship.
I caught a ripple of violet shimmering across Jai’s collarbones; a typical sign of unease in a Vangravian.
“I thought I should… that maybe… Perhaps it would be better to…” He took the can out of my hand, but at the same time, his shoulders slumped.
“I talked to Zeke and Dax today. And they said some interesting things.”
That got my attention. I stepped back, letting Jai take over the cooking. “Dax tends to be very insightful,” I said, hoping to prod him into continuing.
“Zeke said he’s too intelligent to just be a domestic servant.
He said Dax’s trainers thought he was difficult, but they really should have taught him something more interesting.
” Jai concentrated on the soup for a moment, adjusting the heat and then fetching some bread.
“Toast?” he offered, popping a couple of slices into the toaster.
“Yes, thank you.”
He worked in silence for a minute or two, and I waited. The fact that he’d offered to help me make lunch was a noticeable shift in his behaviour, and I suspected there was more he wanted to say about it. But perhaps he needed time to find the right words.
“Dax told me…” he began, as the soup began to steam, but then cut himself off.
“Well, no, Zeke told me first. He said he didn’t choose Dax.
Henderson chose him to help Zeke manage his injuries.
But because Zeke didn’t know all that much about the dimari, they had trouble working together to begin with.
And then Zeke said…” Jai glanced at me, worry lining his face.
“He said that Aiden wasn’t supposed to be your master at first, either. ”
I stood very, very still at the roughly spoken words.
My understanding of the excursion that morning had been that Zeke was going to help my master assess Jai, to decide whether or not we should tell him the truth about having been found, rather than bought.
But from the sounds of it, Zeke had already dropped that bombshell on Jai.
And if that was the case, then it was no wonder he was feeling off balance.
Perhaps he was latching onto me as the most stable thing in his environment?
But before I could begin to panic, he went on. “Zeke said that you were trained in some special skills, for a particular master, but then that person died before they could buy you. And then Aiden came along and thought you’d be useful for his military operations and bought you instead.”
I was very grateful for the fact that Jai’s attention was on the steaming saucepan.
It gave me the time to properly disguise my reaction to his commentary.
It was a clever sort of ruse, on Zeke’s part; telling a collection of half-truths, presumably to assess Jai’s reaction to the idea.
I took a mental step back in light of the story.
Jai seemed unsettled, certainly, but not overly distraught.
“It was a little awkward at first,” I confirmed.
“He wasn’t quite what I was expecting in a master.
I found it confusing, until he figured out what the problem was and explained what had happened.
I was still a bit upset about it,” I admitted.
In reality, ‘upset’ was a major understatement.
What I’d actually found out was that Aiden hadn’t bought me at all, and then we were told that my original intended master wanted to snatch me away from Aiden and claim me for herself.
Jai nodded. He busied himself pouring the soup into two bowls and spreading butter on the toast. I took one portion to the table, limping only slightly on my sore leg, while Jai brought the other bowl.
We sat and ate in silence for a few minutes, though the tension in the air meant we both knew the conversation wasn’t over.
Then, as he stared blankly into his bowl, a half-eaten piece of toast dangling from his fingers, Jai said, “I think that’s what happened to me, as well.”
He was putting this together very quickly, and I knew I was going to have to steer him in the right direction. Otherwise we could end up with a very messy outcome to all of this. “Which part of it do you mean?” I asked him, giving nothing away. “What happened to you?”
“I don’t think my master was supposed to buy me.
Or at least, not at first. I think maybe…
” He clenched his jaw and his fists, before making a concerted effort to relax.
“I think the person who wanted me to be trained as an erotic companion was someone else. And I don’t know what happened to them, but my master now isn’t the same person that was supposed to buy me. ”
Oh stars, why the hell did this all have to happen when Aiden was away?
What was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to confirm Jai’s theory?
I’d have to explain it to Aiden in a hurry, so he was abreast of the supposed ‘truth’ before Jai caught him in a lie over any of the details.
But was even this neat little twisting of the truth an acceptable version?
Aiden was eager for Jai to know that he wasn’t responsible for his harsh training, but what if there were some holes in this story that made the whole thing unravel?
But having Jai continue to believe that his master was a heartless bastard was surely a worse position to be in. Could I just say I didn’t know? I didn’t think that would be believable. I’d already proven I knew a great deal about my master’s affairs, both military and personal.
“Have you talked to Aiden about this?” I said in the end. It wasn’t quite a confirmation or a denial, leaving myself room to backpedal if things went sideways.
“No,” Jai said, rather more emphatically than I’d expected. “I can’t say that to him. Or, I couldn’t, at least, while we were out. Because if I’m wrong, then he could get very angry about…”
“About what?”
“About me wanting to have a different master. Dimari do not…” He shook his head abruptly and stood up, stalking away across the room, his meal abandoned.
“Dimari do not dislike their own masters. Zeke said something similar, that I would find it strange if I’d been bought by a fruit farmer.
And I told him I would have preferred that,” Jai admitted, violet rippling over his neck again.
“But masters can get very angry if their dimari say that they don’t want their master to be their master.
I was just hoping…” He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, hands waving, his face a riot of emotions.
“My master has not asked me to do anything sexual. Well, no, he tried to touch me in the shower,” he amended, and he seemed to calm down abruptly at the recollection.
“But that was nothing more than he’d have asked of any dimari, no matter what their training was.
I just can’t see how a man who wanted me to have the stamina to ride fifty men would fail to make use of those skills for three whole days.
And it’s certainly not for lack of opportunity. ”
As far as Jai was concerned, my answer to his question seemed entirely obvious.
He desperately wanted to believe that Aiden was not the man who’d ordered his training.
And so I decided to confirm his suspicions.
I’d just have to make sure I helped Aiden muddle through the details later.
“You’re right,” I said. “Aiden isn’t the one who asked for you to be trained that way.
We saw that you were being advertised and that you had excellent combat skills, so he bought you in the hope that you’d make a good addition to our team. ”
Jai barked out a laugh. “And I’ve been as difficult about the whole thing as I could possibly manage. He must be rather disappointed, regardless of what he was expecting.”