Chapter 5
The seconds tick by, excruciating, but they say nothing. They simply stare me down.
I look towards the open cage. My throat is so dry that the first words almost catch.
“I’m not going in there. I know the laws. I’m not your harem toy. I never signed a contract. You have no right to lock me up.”
The words spill out, but the protest sounds weaker than I want. They are all so huge, all three still visibly aroused, and there is nothing I could do if even one of them decided to take me. I am completely at their mercy.
But I was also at their mercy in the forest when they smelled my scent. They could have easily claimed me there. They could have succumbed to the Mating Rage, but so far, they have fought it down.
Something is stopping them.
My mind races as I try to understand what, because understanding it might be my only chance of getting out of here.
Then I see the collar again and close my eyes.
This can’t be happening. It can’t.
But this is the realest thing I have felt in a long time.
When I force my eyes open, none of them have moved. Their massive chests rise and fall, their slate-grey eyes locked on me.
“I’m sorry I ruined your harvest. It was an accident. I thought you had set some kind of trap. I panicked. I ran. But it was an accident. Trespassing doesn’t mean you get to keep me here.”
The severe one slowly opens my bag and pulls out my wet tunic. He holds it up, displaying the pale, immature strand I used to repair the torn cloth. He leaves it threaded through the fabric.
“You see this?” the severe one asks. “It never had a chance to bloom because of you.”
I bite my lip.
“I didn’t know that was a pleasure-dress tree. I never would have taken it.”
Arrek points towards the open cage.
“Get in.”
“This isn’t legal.”
The leader answers in a low, controlled voice.
“I am Mero. This is my home. These are my lands. You will remain untouched except when it is necessary. You are perfectly safe here. But you were caught stealing, and you will stay here until the Commissioner arrives.”
His attention shifts towards the severe one.
“Talarin. Contact the Commissioner and have him come now.”
Talarin. I file his name away in my mind.
Talarin lays my wet tunic and bag on the long dining table before walking deeper into the house, his white robes swishing around his legs.
The handle of my climbing spike protrudes from the open mouth of the bag.
I glance at it without letting my gaze linger.
These three are tuned in to everything. If I could just get it, maybe I could chisel my way through the wooden bars.
“When? When will he come? How long will that take?”
The words spill out of me, frantic and rushed.
They ignore my questions.
Arrek points towards the cage again.
“I’m not going to ask you again, girl. Get in.”
The cage is tall enough for me to stand inside, but the open doorway is low enough that I will have to crawl.
He made it that way. He thought of it while he was working.
Arrek takes a threatening step towards me.
I pull the blanket tighter and get down on my hands and knees, trying to prevent it from riding up and showing them everything as I crawl through the low doorway.
Mero steps forward and closes the door.
Then I hear the lock shut, and I’m trapped in their home.
I retreat until my back presses against the bars, clutching the blanket around me. I don’t sit on the folded fur or touch either of the pillows.
The shallow stone water bowl is secured to the lowest bar by a fitted metal bracket. I stare at it in horror as I realize it cannot be lifted. If I want to drink, I will have to crouch over it and cup the water into my hands.
I look up. The collar rests above me, its leash hanging down between the bars.
“I’m not putting that on.”
They say nothing in response.
Mero turns away and disappears into the kitchen. I hear a cupboard open, followed by the heavy scrape of stone plates being lifted down.
Arrek crosses to the hearth. Three fat ducks hang from heavy iron hooks above the low fire, their browned skins glistening in the golden light. He takes a carving knife from beside the hearth and steadies the first bird with one massive hand.
The knife moves like an extension of him.
Every cut is effortless and precise. Thick slices fall into the wrought-iron pan beneath the ducks, landing over the thin-cut potatoes, carrots, pearl onions, and pale rounds of milkroot.
Occasionally the falling meat splashes hot fat over the edge, making the fire flare around his hands and forearms without disturbing him.
Milkroot.
I wonder where he found it. I only ever came across it once in these lands and devoured it that night. It was chewy, with a light, creamy taste almost like cheese, something I would have had to go to the village to trade for.
I realize too late that I underestimated them. They know secrets in these lands that I do not.
My mouth waters. A little drool escapes before I can stop it, and I quickly wipe it away while Arrek’s broad back is still turned.
Mero sets three places around the long table. When Arrek finishes carving, he folds a thick towel around the handles of the wrought-iron pan and carries the entire meal from the hearth.
Talarin returns, the lower folds of his white robe whispering around his legs.
“The Commissioner received the summons. He will arrive at first light.”
“Good,” Mero says.
They take their places around the long table as though this is an ordinary evening.
From where I sit, the Aurelian-sized tabletop blocks the meal from view.
I can see Arrek’s heavy combat boots beneath it, Mero’s dark work trousers stretched across his massive thighs, and the lower folds of Talarin’s white robe.
They have not changed. The damp places darkened by their earlier lust are still visible, and their cocks still form thick bulges beneath the cloth, but none of them is throbbing hard now.
The crisp skin cracks beneath a knife. Cutlery touches stone. Arrek tears meat from a bone.
My stomach grumbles so hard it hurts.
The rich scent of duck and spices fills every breath. They keep eating.
The room has grown warm enough that I no longer need the blanket, but I keep it pulled around me. Once I crouch, the high table hides me from their view, and somehow that makes drinking from the bowl less humiliating.
I cup the water in my hands. Some slips between my fingers and runs down my wrists before I can bring it to my mouth. I slurp as softly as I can, not wanting them to hear even that.
There is silence except for the sounds of them eating.
Are they telepathing?
Aurelians can commune inside the Bond, speaking inside one another’s minds. They could be discussing me now, deciding what they intend to do, and I would know nothing about it.
Then Talarin breaks the silence.
“Another request came from the outer settlements.”
The sounds of eating stop.
“Another transport ship was picked off above Ziran II,” he continues.
“The shields we supplied protect them on the surface,” Mero says. “They cannot protect the transports once they leave the atmosphere. They need escorts. Banditry grows worse every day Emperor Doman refuses to change the order.”
Arrek’s fist slams against the table.
“We would have been able to...”
He stops in the middle of the sentence.
No one speaks, but something passes between them.
A moment later, they return to eating.
Perhaps they were never telepathing before. Perhaps they were simply enjoying their meal and did not care enough about my presence to speak.
Or perhaps the words I heard were only fragments of a conversation still moving silently between them.
I cannot know.
I summon the courage to speak. “Do you have anything I can wear?”
The sounds from the table briefly stop.
“We have nothing made for a human woman,” Talarin answers.
I have often wondered why no women ever came to the estate.
With land like this and their fortune, they could fill the house with a harem if they chose.
Even if they did not want women living here, they could summon courtesans from the capital, women who spend years training in seduction and pleasure until they become perfect toys for men like these.
The finest can earn more in a single night than most people can earn in an entire year of work.
After their obvious need in the forest, the way they nearly succumbed to the Mating Rage, I know they have the same insatiable urges as the rest of the Aurelian species.
So why are there no women here?
Were they blacklisted by the agencies that place human women in Aurelian harems, or do women fear coming here? They have not hurt me yet, but they have promised punishment if I disobey. Perhaps there is a darkness in them that I have yet to uncover, a darkness that keeps even the desperate at bay.
Arrek’s heavy boots shift beneath the table. The bench creaks as he rises, and a moment later he appears around its edge carrying a roasted duck leg.
He walks around to the far side of the cage, positioning himself between me and the fire, then crouches.
His pale lips glisten from the rich meal, but there is not a speck in his thick beard or the front of his dark work shirt. There is a precision to him I would not expect from a man this brawny.
His strong jaw is framed by his beard, his slate-grey eyes intense in a bluntly masculine face. Even crouched, he seems to fill the space outside the cage.
He is simply... big.
He brings the duck leg almost a foot between the bars but no farther, holding it near the far edge of the cage. The crisp, browned skin shines with fat, and steam rises from the exposed meat.
I reach for it.
Arrek withdraws it before my fingers can close around the bone.
“You will eat from my hand.”
I retreat, pulling the fur more tightly around me.
He watches me for a moment, then raises the duck leg to his own mouth. His teeth tear cleanly through the crisp skin. He chews slowly, his slate-grey eyes never leaving mine.
My stomach twists.