Chapter 3:
“Hell no!”
Margie’s indignant yelp hung in the air. Jeval glared at her and her hands went to her hips, her foot tapped at the floor, and she glared at him, her temper rising with each passing second. Her teeth sank into her lips and her throat worked as she managed to get a few words out, “Why me?”
Jeval slapped a hand down on the back of his neck. His tone was surly. “I don’t like this either.”
“Oh, I bet you don’t! You aren’t the one who gets to pretend to be a sex slave!” Her temper flared again, and a glint of wickedness lit her eyes. “Though you could be. I mean, why not? I could dress you up in a cute little collar and some shiny pants and haul you—”
“Woman, stop!” His roar held outrage, and for some reason that struck her as funny, but it didn’t help her anger to abate.
“Oh no I won’t! For all I know you will sell me off to some…some critter!”
“Critter?” His eyebrow lifted, and so did his upper lip. “Did you just say critter?”
Her chin came up. “I did. I worked in your hall on Orbital, remember? There were plenty of critters there.”
“Not going to argue that one with you.”
“Good!”
They stood there scowling at each other. Margie’s eyes surveyed his lean and tall body and that unbidden desire hit her all over again.
He said, “Listen, if I didn’t have to do this and with you, I would absolutely refuse. The truth is we need information, and we need it fast. The Federation is planning something major, and we need to know what it is. They’ve declared martial one rule over every planet in the universe. Even this one.”
Her mouth fell open and hung ajar. “You can’t be serious! They have no rights here! This is a private planet. It’s a private system. The resources are so few because the planets are so small that they’d be a mere drop in The Federation’s bucket. Why on earth would they bother with us?”
Jeval said, “That’s what we need to find out. They’ve broken every promise to every system, and yet they still have loyal supporters and followers. At some point, someone is going to have to come up with some information that breaks The Federation’s back in its stranglehold on this universe. I don’t know that we will gather anything of any real importance, but we have to try.”
Margie looked down at her feet. “Okay. I can see your point. But why in the hell do I have to pretend to be your sex slave?”
His voice was soft; it probed at all of her senses. “Would you prefer to actually be my sex slave?”
“Keep it up,” she muttered, “and I will slap you right across the face.”
It actually wasn’t a bad idea. He always seemed to bring out the worst in her. She always found herself torn between the desire to punch him and the equally ardent desire to throw her arms around him and press her body close to his. He was the most bothersome creature she had ever met, and he had a way of getting under her skin and rubbing against every emotion she had ever possessed. Not to mention he also had a way of making her body go hot, flushed with desire every single time he shot a glance in her direction.
Pretending to be his sex slave?
That was a recipe for disaster.
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why can’t I pretend to be your assistant or your wife or something of equal footing?”
His hands came up in a gesture of helplessness. “The places we have to go don’t respect those things. Most of them don’t even respect women. That role is the only one you can take on because I need you to talk to the women. They won’t open up to a woman who’s not undergoing the same situation that they are. They will confide in you if they think you too are a slave and unable to speak to me.
“Also, when it comes to sex, all creatures have a tendency to talk more than they should. So those sex slaves that you will be meeting will know things, things they should not know. Things that they will never say in front of me or in front of a woman who is a mate or spouse or an assistant.”
He had a point. Dammit! The whole idea made her uncomfortable. She had come close to actually becoming a sex slave at one point. And she hadn’t met that fate because of him and his brothers. They had rescued her from that slaver ship and that horrible fate. She owed them a large debt, whether she wanted to or not, and she had to repay it.
She had worked as a gurley on Orbital, in a dance and gamble hall that he and his siblings had owned there. She had earned quite a few credits and had paid a huge chunk of her safe passage from those credits. For a while, she had thought she would be okay.
Life on Orbital had been good, but very expensive. The pleasure planet charged for everything—even air! Her earnings had let her pay her debt to the brothers and live well, drinking real water and being clean, and she had not really minded the dancing—even if there were times it left her feeling like she was just an animal in a cage.
She’d just begun to dream of a future. She’d heard that there were large expat communities of humans across the universe and that many of those expats lived in large worlds where the living was cheap. She had hoped, she had, that once her debt was paid, she could find a way to live more cheaply on Orbital then retire from the gurley life and head off to some far-flung land where she could just spend her life in peace and with some semblance of ease.
She’d been so close. So very close. But once The Federation had discovered where a lot of those credits had come from, they had immediately issued an order to take the siblings into custody for treason and the crimes of wrecking and war. They had had to flee that pleasure planet in order to survive The Federation’s order. So her debt had remained unpaid for the large part.
Her dream had died, but it had been resurrected by the trip to Revant. At first glance, it had been something she had not wanted.
