She did not want to believe that the lord would’ve been party to keeping a slave, but he had once said something that had never made much sense. She couldn’t remember his precise words, but it was something to do with relationships and how they could be kept simple if one could afford to pay. She’d thought he might be referring to membership at a gentleman’s club where loose women lived and were paid to engage in sexual acts. That was another thing she wasn’t supposed to have read about.
The commander reached his peak and pulled free of girl. His organ appeared different now, less aggressive.
She tried to decide how to proceed. Before she could make up her mind however, the poor creature on the bed looked directly at her.
Oh!
The girl spoke, and the enormous commander turned his head and saw her. A jolt of fear shot through Brandese.
The commander stalked to the glass door and jerked it open. In an instant, he’d grabbed her chin, forcing her face up. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she struggled not to flinch as she stared up at his battle-hardened and scarred face.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Nothing as interesting as what you were doing,” she said defiantly.
The girl made a shocked sound, clearly never having spoken sharply to the commander for fear of him. Brande tried to jerk her chin free, but he was too strong.
“You are hurting me,” Brande said, inserting as much iron into her tone as she could.
After a brief pause, he released her.
“Who is she?” Brandese demanded, trying to look around the commander at the bed.
The girl, clearly upset to have a witness to her humiliating situation, had curled into a ball like a frightened animal and pulled the blanket over herself, including her head.
“It’s not your concern,” he said.
“Are you all right, child?” Brandese asked.
“What do you want?” the commander barked.
“I want to know where you acquired that girl and whether she is all right.”
“She’s fine. There is no need for you to know more than that.”
“I will hear it from her own lips that she is not hurt and not a prisoner.”
“The intimate relationship between men and women is something you know nothing about and shouldn’t. If you want to protect that girl, leave here and don’t speak of what you’ve seen.”
“Is she—? I only wish to satisfy myself that you did not acquire her as a war prize of some sort.”
She wouldn’t have thought it would be possible for the commander’s expression to turn more furious, but it did.
“I am quite well, your majesty,” the girl whispered. “I have not been abducted or anything like that.”
Brandese stepped away from the hulking commander and looked at the girl who’d sat up, wrapped in the blanket.
“Then who are you?” Brande asked.
“I—”
“Nothing further,” the commander interrupted.
The girl nodded, scooted off the bed, and hurried into the bathing room.
“Explain yourself,” Brandese said, looking up at the man who had slaughtered hordes of cannibals. She should be running from the scene, but she would not.
“No,” he said.
