Chapter 9
The racing pod docked in a small slot in the side of an extended space-liner with a sleek design.
“You don’t have any clothes in your pack?” she asked in surprise when he climbed from the craft’s hatch without bothering to dress.
“No,” he said, releasing her straps and pulling her from her seat. The borrowed shirt she wore was still damp and she shivered, wanting desperately to change into something dry.
“You can’t check in naked. Shall I go and come back with something for you to wear? And what should I say about why I’m barely dressed and you’re not dressed at all?”
“You’ll say nothing here unless you’re asked a direct question.”
She blinked at his stern tone, but didn’t have time to protest because a door slid open, revealing a passageway with thick carpet and a slight young man dressed only in a pair of brief shorts.
“Sir,” the man with a bow-shaped mouth said, bowing slightly. “We understood that you required this.” He held out a deep blue robe of thick fabric.
Larsinc had apparently sent a transmission to the vessel. She hadn’t even noticed. He put on the robe, fastening the front straps without an ounce of embarrassment.
“Do you refer to your companion as slave or pet, sir?”
A small gasp of shock escaped Gissandre’s lips. She glanced around sharply. There were only a few other people nearby and none close enough to hear, but how shocking! The openness of the man’s questions seemed to imply that her status as a pet or slave would be widely known in the facility. She had not expected that.
The man wrinkled his thin nose in disapproval at her gasp.
“She’s completely untrained,” Larsinc said. “So expect outbursts.”
“As I see,” the man whispered.
“No decision’s been made about her role. I understood I could explore the possibilities here?”
“Yes,” he said, looking her over. “She has a lot of beauty, though very, very raw.”
“Before this, we were on a world with no capacity for preparing to be received in refined company,” Giss said impatiently. “I assure you that I’m not normally found in this state.”
The boy’s perfectly plucked brows rose. “Is there a mistake, Miss? Are you not what the gentleman has said you are?”
“That depends. What has he said I am?” she demanded.
Larsinc turned to face her, folding his strong arms across his chest.
The young man glanced between them.
“He said you’rehis.”
She was silent for a beat, glancing at Larsinc. Another moment. And another. An echo of the one in which they were discovered in the cave. She could deny him. She could call him a liar. She could again say she’d been abducted. If she did, would they summon a magistrate? And what would happen then? Another dangerous incarceration for him? A passage to Orius for her, where the ultimate dangerous situation awaited her?
Larsinc was silent, and his expression gave nothing away.
“In a sense,” Giss whispered.
“In a sense?” the young man pressed with a whiff of impatience. “This isn’t a place for petulant girlfriends to play games. You eitherbelongto this man or you don’t.”
She looked up into Larsinc’s cool green eyes, waiting for him to aid in the explanation.
“Your life is mine. Acknowledge it,” he said.
Her heart thumped hard in her chest. “You saved my life. And you rescued me from a fate worse than death,” she whispered, thinking of Urcolin nearly capturing her.
“Don’t forget the part where you almost cost me my life,” he murmured in return.
