He didn’t say anything for a long moment, before giving a single nod. “You’ll do fine. If you can remember the ‘no talking’ thing.”
Jayne rolled her eyes and shoved past him.
Dlahik was a beautiful city, if someone based it purely off the underground part. And if they didn’t know the things that Jayne did about this place, how corrupt and vicious it truly was. The streets were cramped and crooked, like the old cobbled streets Jayne read about hundreds of years ago in Europe. Her feet carefully avoided any cracks or breaks in the stone, trying not to trip, and she watched as the locals, including D’Anil, moved about with complete ease.
To make it even harder, since they were underground, it always looked like it was nighttime. The lanterns hanging on the tall lamp posts did their best to illuminate the streets, people even hanging lights from their doors to help further.
“Keep your eyes on the ground,” D’Anil ordered, his voice low. They stood close together so as not to lose one another, and he kept a protective hand pressed against the small of her back to guide her. He had always done it before, the times they’d been out in public, but that was to stop her from escaping.
Now they were both on the same page, him helping her with doing just that. Jayne didn’t know if he was doing it for show or if he simply was used to doing it by now.
“Why?” she asked, looking at him instead, but he stayed staring straight ahead, like he’d never said anything at all.
But she could hear the building irritation in his voice when she didn’t listen to him. “Because you’re a slave and you’re beneath everyone here. So act like it.”
The words stung. Even when she knew she was just playing pretend, it felt degrading to listen to him, to look down at her feet and the broken pavement of the street, and not because she was watching her step, but because she was ordered to do it, because no one thought her good enough to look at them. “I don’t remember your friend’s slave having to look down in the auction house,” Jayne muttered, her eyes lowering.
“Phreema?” D’Anil asked, still so quiet that only she could hear. Did people think that masters didn’t engage in conversation with their slaves? Or was it normal practice just for her to wait in his bed with her legs open for him at all hours of the day? “She’s not a slave. She was- isn’t anymore. Kani freed her.”
“From who?” He made a low noise in his throat, a growl. Jayne sighed. No questions, she reminded herself. “Sorry.”
She couldn’t see his face, but she felt him tap her back lightly. Whether it was as reassurance or as a reminder of there being a punishment, she couldn’t say. “Just stay quiet. We’re almost there.”
The lower half of the capitol building was much different than the top half. In fact, she had seen it before, when she first entered the city. It was the thin, glass tube that would take them to the giant pyramid.
As they got closer, she tried to get a better look through the glass of the shaft itself, but never saw anything. Not before she was caught with her eyes off the ground, D’Anil tilting her head back down with another warning. Now that they were in the lion’s den, he was even more adamant that she play her part as an already-claimed lamb, him as her lion.
Walking through a set of doors, the two entered an elevator-like contraption. It made more noise than Jayne was used to, though, the pulley system running on metal chains instead of the strong cables and cords that made for a smoother ride. Instinctually, her fingers grasped onto D’Anil’s forearm, nails digging into his warm skin. He looked down at her. “Don’t have these on Earth?”
“We do,” she replied through grit teeth, “Just… A little less bumpy.”
She could hear the smirk in his voice. “Well, we’re only going up a few more floors.” Jayne didn’t let go of him the entire way, a breath of relief escaping her as the contraption lurched to a stop. “We’re here. I really mean it this time. Be quiet, look at the ground, and don’t go poking your nose around, got it?”
Jayne nodded just as the doors opened. He moved his arm away from her hands and put it back around her waist possessively. She kept her eyes concentrated on the floors. It was dark, no indication of what time it was outside. The pyramid above-ground didn’t shimmer at all.
In fact, it looked like the only thing unaffected by the sun, still stuck in darkness even as the beams hit it. She tried to get a good indicator of what room she was in, how many floors she had gone up, to try and narrow down where she was, but she’d lost count as soon as that elevator started to shake, and even now, she wasn’t able to see anything.
D'Anil left her side. She could hear him talking to someone and only lifted her gaze slightly. He was talking to a pretty blonde sitting behind a desk. It was the same blonde that had taken Sophie down from the stage at the auction.
The way she looked at D’Anil made Jayne feel uneasy. It was like she was asking him for something, begging, and he wouldn’t oblige her. Was she in love with him? If she was, what did the receptionist think of her? Just as she thought it, the woman looked over at her, and Jayne immediately cast her eyes back down.
“Is that… One of them?” she asked him, as if Jayne was some sort of weird science project.
“It doesn’t matter,” he answered gruffly, “I asked you where he was.”
The blonde shook her head, “I just… I didn’t think you… You were interested in that market, D’Anil,” she tried to explain. Her voice sounded so nervous that Jayne almost pitied her. But there was also this unexplained hatred for her, purely by the fact that she thought she knew him.
Jayne had only known him for a month, and she would never go so far as to say she knew D’Anil. But she knew enough about him, enough that she knew no one would ever truly get to the bottom of him and his mind. He was too withdrawn, and he liked it that way. “After all, you don’t like when women stay-“
“Amara, is he in or is he not?” D’Anil interrupted. Jayne smiled to herself with satisfaction. See? she mentally asked the woman behind the desk, It’s all business with him. She couldn’t blame the girl, though, remembering when she’d watched his eyes rove over her and feeling that same feeling, that she meant something, or was something. That he actually liked having his eyes and hands on her. Maybe even his lips and his body, not that Jayne wanted him to admit that or anything.
“Oh, um, right! Um, no. He’s not in. He always has these days off for his family, remember? Cassila has her dance lessons-“
“Thank you, that’s enough.” He was keeping the conversation short, keeping the details away so that Jayne couldn’t narrow down who it was. “I was told to drop this one off for him at his private quarters.”
There was a pause. Jayne couldn’t help it, looking back up. The blonde was actually smiling now, her eyes lit up with realization. Of course, she thought, Now that she thinks I’m not his. Was this someone in D’Anil’s life that mattered to him? Was she part of what he meant when he asked Jayne if she really expected him to lay his entire life on the line for her?
“I see,” Amara nodded. She still sounded nervous, but she was happy as well. “It’s strange. He hasn’t had a slave since, well, Phreema, and that was years ago. And now two?”
D’Anil shrugged. “I don’t ask him about his personal life. I just drop it off.”
“Right, well, he still has the other. She’s in his private chambers now. I can take you two down there.”
“That’s fine,” he said, “You know how I like working alone. I can drop her off myself. I’ll just need to have you unlock it while I’m down there.”
“Okay… But you’ll have to be quick. I’m not really allowed to unlock the door at all, not when he’s not here.”
D’Anil chuckled. “Yeah, well, I chased this one down in the middle of a desert, and I’ve seen the other one. They wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”
Jayne almost opened her mouth right then. She wanted to tell them to stop calling her “this one” or “it” or “that” or “one of them.�
�� She wanted to tell Amara to mind her own business and to quit smiling. She wanted to argue with D’Anil and remind him that she had almost gotten away from him, had gotten the farthest besides Meta, and he’d been just as out of breath as she’d been by the time they crashed on the sandy floor.
But she was so close to Sophie. She could feel it, and she wouldn’t ruin the chances of saving her friend purely for pride and anger, though it was really starting to feel like jealousy. Jayne couldn’t admit that she was jealous, though.
So, she stayed quiet as Amara tapped away at something on her desk. She stayed silent, playing the perfect slave, and waited until D’Anil came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, we’re going,” he told her, tone rough.
“Yes, sir,” Jayne replied in her meekest voice. She knew it surprised him more than anything, D’Anil almost stopping his walk entirely before he realized himself and guided her back to the elevator.
The second part of the ride should have been easier, given the fact that Jayne knew what to expect, but she realized too soon that she didn’t know what to expect still. That realization came when the elevator lurched sideways.
There were tunnels all around the pyramid. She laughed softly despite her fear and the nausea twisting in her stomach. It was getting harder to look down the higher they climbed, being able to see the entire shaft beneath her feet.
“What?” D’Anil asked.
She shook her head. “This elevator reminds me of this old movie. A really old one,” she mused, “My grandma had me watch it with her once. Some guy with a candy factory and a glass elevator that went every direction.”
“What’s a factory?” he asked, and Jayne realized that they wouldn’t have those. Not out in the middle of the desert.
She pressed her lips together, trying to think of a better way to explain it. She was grateful for the distraction anyways. The elevator didn’t move as fast as it did in that movie, and she didn’t remember it shaking as much as this one did.
“It’s like a large farm,” she told him, “Except it’s not outside. It’s mostly all in one giant building, where everyone makes stuff. Back in the day, people used to work in them. Now, it’s all machinery and a few people that run the machines.”
D’Anil nodded, then moments later, just as the elevator stopped. “What’s a ‘farm’?”
Jayne groaned softly. Right. Desert. “We’ll do the vocab lesson after we get Sophie.”
Wherever they were, it didn’t indicate what floor they were on. When the doors opened up, it simply led to a small foyer adorned in red. The walls were soft, covered in some sort of velvet. “So he has a separate place he keeps his slaves?”
“Slave. Just one,” D’Anil corrected.
Jayne looked at him sardonically as they got to the door. “I know I’m not supposed to ask questions, but you seem to want to defend this guy pretty quickly.”
D’Anil shrugged, twisting the knob and pulling. “Guess I’m used to it. It’s what he hires me for.”
His job was still a mystery to her. Jayne didn’t see how security detail for slaves could help whoever this politician was, besides the fact that he purchased them. What else did D’Anil do for him? Was he simply a devoted bodyguard? If so, what were the “bigger” jobs that he was missing out on? She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t. And with the door open, Jayne had something else to take care of.
“Sophie?” she called out. D’Anil stood behind her keeping the door open with one foot while his hands moved along the walls to find a light. “Sophie, it’s me, Jayne!”
Finally, he did find a light. With their surroundings no longer bathed in darkness, Jayne was able to see everything. It was a small apartment, and an expensive-looking one at that.
The walls were all soft to the touch as well, covered in the same red velvet as the room outside. To the left, there was a small kitchenette, and she could see a platter of sweets sitting on the counter. Her eyes searched frantically over the fancy furniture, trying to find a flash of orange from Sophie’s hair. Everything here suggested that she must have been comfortable in the past month, but she didn’t trust it. Not when her friend was missing.
“Jayne?” a small voice asked.
She followed the noise to an open doorway, and Jayne could see a bed behind her. But there was Sophie, hanging in the doorway. She was completely naked, her hands covering her breasts and in between her legs.
“Sophie,” Jayne breathed. Happy to have her back, Jayne couldn’t help but feel a little shame at the fact that this young girl was definitely used in a way that Jayne hadn’t been for the past month. She didn’t care how obvious it was, scanning the girl’s arms and legs and torso for any bruising, but she found none. There was only one thing different about her. “Your hair…”
Jayne moved forward, Sophie backing away slightly, cowering into the darkness of her bedroom. “He… Had me dye it,” she whispered. Jayne frowned, her fingers brushing over the ends of her hair, now a bleach blonde.
“I’m so sorry, Sophie…” she murmured. She hugged the girl tightly, pulling away with tears brimming in her eyes. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”
It was the first time Sophie noticed D’Anil, and her blush deepened at her lack of clothing. “But… I… He told… Told me I wasn’t allowed to leave the bed… He’s going to get so mad if he realizes-“
“Jayne, we have to get going,” D’Anil interrupted, avoiding making eye contact with the naked girl, focusing on the green of Jayne’s eyes instead when she turned back to look at him, “Amara can only keep the door open for so long.”
“Amara’s working with him,” Sophie whimpered, “You see? He’ll know!”
“I don’t care if he knows; he’s never going to see you again; do you understand?” Jayne pushed Amara forward into the bedroom. “Seriously, get dressed. We have to go.”
But Sophie showed a moment of stubbornness. “I saw what they did to Meta. I saw it in the newspapers-“
“That’s not going to happen to us,” she explained, interrupting her. Jayne motioned back to D’Anil. “We have him to help us. D’Anil will take us back through the desert, to the military base, and then we’re going home.”
Her voice dropped, her eyes pleading. She knew D’Anil would not wait much longer, that none of them could really wait at all. But Jayne didn’t want to leave without Sophie. She didn’t want to break her promise. “Don’t you want to go home, Sophie? To your friends in London and your parents and little brothers in Blackpool? Don’t you think they miss you and want you home now?”
Sophie’s eyes widened, becoming wet with tears as well. Jayne could see that she still felt afraid to leave, but there was a moment when those blue eyes remembered who she really was, not the person that her master made her into.
“Okay… Okay, I’ll go,” she said, turning back into the room.
Jayne looked to D’Anil with an affirming nod. He surprised her with a gentle smile and a nod back. Their journey was just starting, sure, but she had him to guide her and was fulfilling her promise. Even if Meta died before she could see it come to fruition.
Chapter Seven
Leaving the capitol building wasn’t hard to do, not when D’Anil knew exactly where to go. The only trouble they had was with Sophie’s speed. She lagged behind, stressing over what to bring with her, what to wear.
Jayne knew she was distressed and tried to work with her, but it was clear that D’Anil wasn’t used to working with people so much. He grew visibly frustrated with her, ready to drop Sophie back off before they’d even reached the bottom floor and re-entered the streets of Dlahik again.
“Can you at least pretend to like her?” Jayne asked as they moved through the streets, “Give her one compliment.”
D’Anil sighed. “She does better with shutting up than you?” Jayne couldn’t help but shove him slightly, causing D’Anil to let out a small chuckle, though he tried to hide it by clearing his throat. “Put your goddamn head down, will
you?”
He was right though. Sophie was much better at playing slave. She’d been submissive before it even started, Jayne remembered. So emotional as a roommate on the ship. It was only a pity that she hadn’t gotten someone like D’Anil, someone who just wanted a maid and something pretty to look at when he got home from work.
Jayne didn’t have to ask to know that the man she’d been with had done things to Sophie that she wouldn’t forget, and Meta’s words came back to her, the ones the warrior princess uttered as Sophie smiled and beamed on stage. She will have to do more than just smile and nodding in thirty days.
They exited the underground city the same way they came. D’Anil explained that the main access was too risky, and normally he went through the lobby of Sophie’s owner. But that would be impossible with Amara working the front desk still, and him with two slaves following closely behind him out into the desert.
“We travel at night,” D’Anil told them as they followed him through the back roads of the town, all the way to the outer edges of the cave, “It’s sun season right now, too hot for anyone to be outside during the day and survive.”
“What about those people that live on the surface?” Jayne asked. She remembered passing by a few different parts of town that were still inhabited, inhabited by people covered in sand and grime and living in abandoned homes.
D’Anil shrugged. “There’s not enough room for everyone,” he explained simply, “The ones that get stuck outside try to survive… But they rarely do. Only a couple dozen will make it to the cooldown, if that. We’ll need to hide out in their hovels, though, the empty ones. And if there’s any leftover clothes, try to take it. They’re built to protect against the desert heat, and you’ll blend in more.”
That was the last advice he gave the both of them, and even then Jayne questioned it. She was wearing light clothes already and was sure that the desert heat wouldn’t be as bad. New York was not the hottest place on Earth by far, but she’d been to Hawaii during the summer, where it was hot even as the rain showered down on her young head. They went up familiar steps and as they reached one of the homes in disguise, Jayne could feel the heat emanating from the surface. That was when she started to re-think her outfit.
Alien Romance: Stranded With The Alien Assassin: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 3) Page 6
