9. Chapter 9 #2
“May I go outside? Just the grounds,” I say once I’ve finished a few more mouthfuls. I figure if I look like I’m cooperating, I’ll get more out of him.
“Of course. Once you’re settled, you can go wherever you like. You’re not a prisoner in this house. If anyone tries to stop you, tell Mrs. Nell, and it won’t happen twice.”
He answers that one straight away, which bothers me. If he doesn’t care where I go, then he’s confident that I’m not going to find a way to escape. The wall I felt on the road in will stop me at any height, on foot or on wings. He knows it, and now I know it.
“Thank you,” I say, then go back to my food. He waits as I finish, then rises.
“You’ll be taken to your quarters now,” he says. “Rest well, Kallista Ondrathe.”
I watch as he leaves the room, and then Mrs. Nell takes me upstairs.
The room at the end of the hallway is warm.
A fire has been burning in it for hours.
There’s a bed with a heavy quilt, a wash bowl, a chair by the window, and two dresses hanging in an open closet.
They’re my size, which doesn’t surprise me, because it’s becoming more and more obvious to me that these people know all about me.
“There’s hot water in the jug,” says Mrs. Nell. “Wash the wounds again in the morning, and come to me for fresh cloth.”
I nod as I stare around at the room, then turn back to her. “How long have you worked for him?”
“A long time.”
“And the others too? Who else lives in this house?”
“Staff. Hollis, the kitchen, two girls, the men outside.”
“And him.”
“And him.”
“Does he have family?”
“That’s not mine to talk about. Ask him. He’ll answer you or he won’t.”
“He won’t.”
“No. Probably not.”
“Has anyone else ever stayed in this room?”
She stops straightening the quilt and looks at me, and for the first time all night I can’t read her face at all.
“There are clean sheets on that bed and hot water in the pitcher,” she says. “If there’s anything you need, I’m down the hall.”
It’s clear that she’s not going to reveal anything else.
“Goodnight, Mrs. Nell.”
“Goodnight.”
She closes the door.
No lock turns. Just as he said, I’m not a prisoner in this house. Doesn’t mean I’m free though.
I check the window. Thick old glass. It opens. Cold air pours in over my bandaged hands, and below the window there’s a straight drop to the gravel, and past the gravel there’s open dark ground. I close it most of the way.
And through the gap, I hear voices.
They’re coming up from below, an open window on the floor beneath mine, or a door onto the yard. Two people. Calm. Working through something together, the way people go through a list at the end of a day.
I kneel by the gap and hold still.
“—wants the first one confirmed before the thaw.”
“That’s tight.”
“It’s what’s been asked. The second follows once she’s recovered. He was clear there’s to be proper time between them. He doesn’t want her worn down.”
“And the order? Is it settled?”
“It’s settled. The first is already agreed and placed. The second is still being negotiated. The mountain party raised their offer again last week.”
“They’ll want it born up there, then. Same as the western one wants theirs by the sea.”
“They’ll each take delivery when it’s weaned. That’s the arrangement. Nothing stays here.”
A pause. Paper turning.
“She’s stronger than the last one. That should count for something.”
“The last one didn’t accept her role. Strong or not, we’ll see.”
Then a door closes somewhere below, and the voices are gone, and I’m kneeling on the floor of a warm room with my forehead against the window frame.
The first. The second. An order, and offers, and parties, and delivery after weaning.
Babies are weaned.
Oh my God.
Not one meeting. Not one male.
They’re breeding me. I will “meet” males who will get me pregnant, and then they’ll take my babies. And I’m not the first one they’ve done this to. The last one didn’t make it.
My hands have gone flat against the floor. My stomach turns over and keeps turning. I stay exactly where I am, and I breathe, in and out, slow, until it passes.
So now I know.
In the cells, they wanted my blood because they were testing me as a genetic match. They’re going to keep me here, taking my babies from me, until I can’t produce any more.
I have to get out of this valley!
The warm bed and the bandages and the polite questions are worse than the bars ever were. None of it is kindness. It’s about keeping me healthy enough to breed. They looked after the last one too.
Until she wasn’t useful anymore. Maybe that was a blessing.
I get up off the floor, and I search the room properly. I open the closet all the way. The two dresses I saw earlier hang at the front, in my size.
Behind them, there are more.
Dresses cut wide through the body. Made for a woman in the early stages of pregnancy. Behind those are dresses for a woman further along than that. A whole row of them, hanging in order.
“Holy shit.” I move the hangers, flipping through them. Some of them are not new. One has been washed enough times that the cloth has gone soft. Another has been mended at a side seam.
My mouth fills with a bitter taste.
I put them back exactly the way I found them, and I stand with my hand flat on the closet door until my arm stops shaking.
Then I sit on the floor with my back against the bed, and bury my face in my bandaged hands.
My dragon comes up hard.
She aims herself at one wall. The wall that faces the road we came in on. She leans into it and holds there, and she doesn’t waver.
“I know,” I whisper. “I want out too. Tonight, if I could.”
Then get out.
I shake my head. The creature within me lives on instinct. Acts on urges. Sees things in black and white. And right now, the image she’s latched onto is of a tall man with dark eyes looming in a doorway.
He’ll come.
The words are as clear in my mind as if I’d said them out loud.
“Don’t get your hopes up. We have to figure out how to survive this.”
No. We don’t just survive this.
Scales ripple up my arms. My nails lengthen and sharpen into claws.
He’s coming.