Chapter Three
“You’re a Mondi healer?” she asked suspiciously. The man appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties and was fit without being excessively muscled. His wavy hair was shorn short, unlike that of the Ketturan warrior or the former slave, whose name she’d learned was Wex.
“In addition to my other roles, I’m the ship’s medic. Remove your gown.”
“No.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Wex and I have a wager. He thinks he’ll have to come in and cut the dress from your body. I think you’ll be smart enough to remove it yourself, so it won’t end up as rags that you’ll use to clean the floors with. If you help me win the bet, I’ll make sure you get a sweet snack as part of your rations tonight.”
“Rations? Are the food stores that limited?” she asked in alarm.
“No. It’s part of the first phase of your punishment. It took Linc two weeks to find fruit. Until then it was sandbugs and—”
“Stop!” she said, her stomach churning. “If you tell me I might get sick. I don’t have a weak stomach about most things, but the thought of eating certain things... just no.” She walked to him and turned. “If you unfasten it, I’ll have an easier time taking it off.”
“Good girl,” he said.
“Tell me your name.”
“Rollow. You can call me Roll.”
“How many men and women are on the ship?”
“Four men at the moment. And you.”
“I know you, Linc, and Wex. Who’s the other?”
“Wex’s brother Tokurn. He’s the one with the hunter tattoo.”
She swallowed. She remembered him all right. That dark glare of his had haunted her.
Zawri draped the gown over the padded table, but Roll moved it. “Shift and everything else off.”
“Roll, we’re alone here. You can certainly report that you examined me without actually examining me.”
“Tok wants to know if you’re a virgin.”
“I am.”
Roll rolled his eyes again. “The doctors on your planet do thorough examinations. Are you going to pretend this is going beyond what you’ve already experienced?”
Zawri’s cheeks flamed. “The exams were unnecessary. And when I became the head of my household, I declined them.”
“Here you’re not the head of anything. Clothes off. Up on the table.”
“Please?”
He shook his head. “Come to terms with this. You’re a beautiful young woman whose prisoner status is ship’s handmaiden. You’re not going to be wearing dresses or shifts.”
Her eyes widened. “What are you thinking I’ll wear?”
“There’s a short woven skirt, gold cuff bracelets, a golden choker, and some trinkets for your nipples.”
The room swam, and Zawri had to lower herself to the floor before she fainted. “You can’t be serious,” she whispered. “Prisoners are not used for sex. They’re not—”
“You don’t know much about prisons, do you?”
She looked up at him. “Women—no. On my world, women of my class aren’t ever imprisoned in a facility. If they get into trouble, they’re married off or taken as a slave into a wealthy neighbor’s household, but even then they’re never paraded about in an exposed state.”
