The Raiders

by Angelique Anjou

  She got up to stretch the kinks after a little while and then looked around. “Why don’t we sort this by what looks like it can be repaired, what might be repaired, and what will never work again?”

  The Prince looked dismayed. “I don’t think my father would like for us to move things around like that.”

  Noelle frowned. “Well, we need some sort of system. Is your father more interested in weapons, then? Or maybe in useful tools? Or trade goods?”

  Those questions seemed to throw the boy. “We have tools and weapons. I suppose he might be interested in things that we might be able to trade but we usually just raid and take what we need. And that’s mostly food. The winters here are long and very cold—unlike the seasons on K’naiper. We can only grow things that will reach maturity very quickly and even then the winter sometimes catches us by surprise and destroys the crop. So there is usually no one here to trade with or even to raid for food.”

  Dismay flickered through Noelle, and pity. No wonder they’d become raiders! Not that their circumstances excused that sort of thing! They should have made more of an attempt to work out some kind of trade to get what they needed, but she understood, now, that it was a thing they did that was necessary to their survival rather than something purely for amusement or enrichment.

  That changed things pretty drastically, or at least her opinion of them.

  “Well, there’s nothing to be done about the climate itself, but technology could certainly improve things around here. Has anyone considered using greenhouses to grow food during the cold months? I mean, do you have them?”

  There wasn’t a word in their language, that she knew, for greenhouse. That should’ve been her first clue that greenhouse technology wasn’t something they were familiar with. The blank look on Prince Terl’s face cinched it.

  “Things will only grow during the spring and summer and those are not long seasons. It is cold in the fall and very, very cold in the winter.”

  Noelle studied him for a long moment. “Do you have … something I could draw pictures with and on?”

  He fetched her a pencil and a sheaf of crudely made paper. Fortunately, she was familiar with both because her grandmother had been prone to cling to the things familiar to her.

  Settling on the stool once more, she struggled with the crude tools she had and made a drawing, explaining how the greenhouse would work as she went. Prince Terl didn’t seem particularly interested—at first—but when she explained that it would keep the snow off of the plants and allow them to grow food all year round, she had his undivided attention.

  He leaned closer to study the drawing. “Your people have something like this?”

  Uneasiness flickered through Noelle. She debated whether to admit that or not—fearing it might endanger the colony if she admitted it—and finally decided on a different truth. “When I was young my grandmother had one. It’s something my people have used over many, many generations—because it’s fairly simple and it works. The critical part is having glass or something like glass that will allow the sunlight to penetrate to the plants but keep the temperature inside constant. It’s like … making spring all year.”

  Prince Terl settled his elbows on the workbench, studying her drawing, clearly thinking about what she’d said. “I don’t think our workers would be skilled enough to build something like this.”

  “Well—it isn’t that hard. I guess if I’m still here in the spring I could show them how to do it.”

  The Prince turned to look at her. “Why wouldn’t you be? It’s not ….”

  The movement brought him a lot closer than either of them had anticipated since they were both hunched over the drawing.

  “I see the two of you have … become friendly.”

  It was really unfortunate that Prince Drak took that moment to arrive because they both jumped guiltily when they heard him and it just made the completely innocent situation seem that much more damning.

  Drak’s expression was hard and his eyes glittering with suppressed anger when Noelle leapt from the stool and turned to look at him.

  He dismissed Terl coolly and caught her upper arm, marching her from the room like a child he’d caught that was up to mischief.

  Chapter Eleven

  Drak was stewing as he escorted Noelle back along the corridor to the stairs. He wasn’t certain who he was most pissed off with—his son or Noelle.

  He supposed both.

  But he was having some difficulty swallowing that his son had tried to filch his woman when Terl hadn’t shown that he was particularly aggressive and had never defied him before.

  It was almost as impossible to imagine Noelle seducing his son. She’d yielded to him every time he had initiated intimacy, but she certainly hadn’t sought him out and he rather thought she would have if she was that type of woman.

  She couldn’t possibly prefer a male that was barely old enough to be considered a man!

  So if what he thought he’d seen wasn’t what he’d thought, what was it?

  “It wasn’t what you thought,” Noelle said, almost as if she read his thoughts.

  “How would you know what I think? Do you read minds?”

  Noelle considered just allowing the subject to drop, but she couldn’t see doing that when it seemed to her that the incident might have caused friction between father and son. “We were studying the drawing I did and I said something and we just happened to glance at each other at the same time. I didn’t realize he was so close and obviously he didn’t either.”

  “What did you say that made him glance at you?”

  “I don’t remember,” Noelle lied. She glanced up at Drak to see how he took it and realized he didn’t believe her—not that part anyway. “Ok, so I said if I was still here in the spring ….”

  “Why wouldn’t you be?” Drak said quickly.

  “That’s what he said, but exactly how am I supposed to know how long I’ll be here when nobody told me?”

  Drak stopped and looked down at her with a mixture of annoyance, amusement, and curiosity … as if he was trying to figure out how she could be so dense! After studying her for a long moment, he shook his head and resumed walking, tugging her along with him as he had before.

  Noelle gaped at him as it slowly sank in that she had no idea whether or not they ever intended to return her to her people again. She didn’t know where or when or how or why she’d gotten the idea that they would eventually take her home and let her go, but it dawned on her then that she’d made a baseless assumption … because they had all assumed that the women of this species lived alone on their new colony world. And when she’d discovered there were men of the same species on the sister planet, she’d decided they must have a reason for living on separate planets and that the men must only hold the women in captivity briefly and then return them.

  Otherwise wouldn’t there be women on this planet?

  Faulty reasoning or not, it was that assumption that had made it possible for her to remain calm and assume a positive attitude about her situation. Not that she would’ve tried to fight anyway. That only provoked men’s aggressive tendencies and in a contest of strength between a man and a woman the woman always lost. The only option to that sort of thing in her situation was to comply and hope yielding would prevent the male from deciding to break her instead. Unfortunately, that didn’t always work, but a woman stood a better chance at soothing the savage beast than overwhelming him with superior strength.

  And there was no sense in lying to herself about it. He hadn’t had to rape her.

  She’d realized as soon as she’d calmed down from her original fright that he was a damned fine looking specimen and he had lulled her fears of assault both by distancing himself and by not forcing himself on her. By the time he’d gotten around to having sex with her she’d been willing. It hadn’t been an act of self-preservation. She’d been pretty damned wound up and ready to test the waters.

  Her interest in him had developed into something unex
pected, probably something it shouldn’t have.

  Unless one considered the possibility of psychological effects from being captured.

  Truthfully, as far as they’d been able to ascertain, the reaction women had of developing affection for their captors was as primitive as the male propensity toward aggression when it came to sex. Self-control was a civilized veneer that was so thin it didn’t take much to over set the balance and step over the line onto the wild side.

  So she knew she couldn’t actually trust her feelings toward Drak. She did find him physically attractive and she’d seen a good bit to admire about him beyond that in the way he behaved toward others and the respect his men clearly felt for him.

  But she was still a captive and her primitive instincts for survival were in play.

  Maybe she truly felt an emotional bond developing and maybe it was all in her head.

  In any case, all she could really do was to play and along and make the best of the situation while she waited for it to be resolved.

  She couldn’t leave. She knew she wouldn’t survive five minutes on this hostile world on her own and she didn’t know that she could find the ship that had brought her or pilot it if she did. The colonists might or might not try to mount a rescue mission once they found out where she was.

  Otherwise, all she could do was wait to be released and, right or wrong, she’d convinced herself that was not just a possibility but a likelihood.

  She’d figured, while she waited, she might as well make the most of her situation and further her understanding of these ‘neighbors’ both from a scientific standpoint and from a political one. They needed to understand the customs and thought processes of these people in order to promote peace between them and enable the colony to thrive.

  She supposed that misconception had been bolstered by Terl’s somewhat insulting statement that Drak was trying to find some use for her since he had no interest in breeding her—that and Kadin’s earlier comment that had been very insulting.

  Well, Drak himself had said he was trying to think of a use for her.

  So, evidently the use he’d decided to try was to see if she was technologically savvy enough to figure out how his ‘treasures’ worked and fix any that could be fixed.

  She tried not to feel insulted that he considered her brain more desirable, apparently, than he did her as a woman.

  She was relieved he’d decided he didn’t care to breed her!

  Because she sure as hell didn’t want to be bred by him!

  She was pretty sure he couldn’t breed her even though one of the requirements of being a colonist was to dispense with birth control for the first couple of years and limit the use of it thereafter—What was the use in building a colony, after all, if they had no progeny to leave it to after them? They weren’t the same species even if there didn’t appear to be much difference physically and that made crossbreeding an unlikely possibility.

  She couldn’t be certain, though, could she? Unlikely didn’t mean it was impossible.

  Could she really afford to ignore that and just keep hoping for the best?

  But what else could she do?

  She wasn’t on the same planet as the other colonists! It wasn’t as if all she had to do was sneak out and run to the colony and bolt the damned door!

  If she could get clean away, escape and actually reach the colony, even if he came after her—and she couldn’t see that she was valuable enough to him for him to do that—she’d be safe because she was sure they didn’t have the technology to breach the colony’s security features.

  The question was, was there any possibility in hell that she could pull that off?

  Noelle was so deep in thought that when Drak stopped her and opened a door panel, pulling her through, she was completely disoriented when she discovered it wasn’t the same door they’d gone through when they’d headed down.

  She didn’t recognize anything about the portion of the castle she saw when they emerged.

  But maybe it was just the different perspective?

  She realized almost as soon as he turned down a narrow corridor that it wasn’t her viewpoint that was at fault. They hadn’t emerged from the same door they’d used when they’d gone down. They weren’t even on the same floor.

  Apparently, she’d missed a landing.

  Drak escorted her to a door that led directly into the great hall. A meal seemed to be in full swing—or possibly a party. It was hard to say. The men seemed to have been partying almost non-stop since they’d returned from the raid.

  She’d assumed that from the level of noise that filtered up to the room where she’d been staying but maybe they were always that noisy? After all there were a lot of people—the room was huge but still full enough to be crowded.

  Drak led her to the same area where she’d been taken before—a seat before the enormous fireplace that was used to sort of heat the room.

  She actually thought the people generated as much or more of the heat.

  This time, however, there was a table set up.

  Drak looked around when they reached the table. Spying a chair close at hand, he grabbed it and shoved it up to the table opposite his own chair.

  The unfortunate man who’d been using the chair failed to notice Drak had taken his chair when he stood up. He sprawled on the floor when he made to return to the seat and everyone within view laughed uproariously.

  Noelle had a hard time refraining from joining them, but she thought her own reaction was more from shock than actual amusement.

  The man scrambled to his feet with a roar of fury and whirled to see who’d snatched his chair out from under him.

  The expression on his face when he met Drak’s cool look was almost more comical than the fall. It instantly deflated his anger. “My lord!”

  “Yes?” Drak responded coolly.

  The man grinned a little sickly. “I beg your pardon.”

  Drak nodded imperiously and moved to his own chair. “Send someone to fetch my dinner and my woman’s.”

  The man blinked at him rapidly and finally nodded, turned, and staggered off.

  Drak propped an arm on the table, supporting his chin with his fist as he watched the man’s progress. “I wonder if he will make it to the kitchen,” he muttered.

  Apparently he was sober enough to realize he’d been given a task he was expected to complete. He appeared to be lost for a little while, but he finally managed to collar a server and sent the youth back in the direction he’d come from.

  When Drak returned his attention to his companion, he discovered a look on her face as she surveyed the great hall that he could only interpret as revulsion.

  Surprised and vaguely insulted, he turned to study the room himself, searching for what she’d seen that she found disgusting.

  He didn’t see anything in particular and glanced toward Noelle again. She was studying the table top, her hands in her lap, but as he looked at her, she transferred her gaze to the floor and then the occupants of the room, flicking a glance at first one and then another.

  Still somewhat insulted and confused, he focused on trying to see whatever it was that she was looking at and, slowly, his vision adjusted until he was seeing what he generally ignored.

  Filth.

  And, almost as if the expansion of his vision to see what he’d previously ignored enabled his other senses to expand, he began to notice the unpleasant smells that surrounded them—and felt his ears begin to vibrate from the excessive noise.

  This, he realized, abruptly feeling as if he’d stepped out of his own body and become an observer rather than a participant, was what Noelle saw, heard, and smelled as an outsider.

  He abruptly fully understood why she was repulsed.

  And he was angry that she had the audacity to judge them!

  Who was she to judge them!

  An outsider! An alien being who clearly thought she was better than them!

  He was still angry enough when the boy finally arrived
with food and drink for him and his companion that he it took all he could do to refrain from knocking the boy flat when he discovered the tray used to bring his food looked as filthy as the floor!

  Instead, after struggling with his temper for a few moments, he dismissed it. Lifting his mug, he drank deeply.

  Noelle, he saw, hadn’t touched either the food or the drink.

  Feeling his gaze, she glanced at him, reddened, and then began to pick carefully at the food.

  Drak brooded over it for a while, still angry, wrestling with the urge to pick a fight so that he could tell her what he thought about her superior attitude.

  He was still more than a little miffed at catching her virtually in the act of kissing his eldest son if it came to that—her lame explanation be damned!

  He wasn’t in the habit, however, of allowing his temper to gain the upper hand. On the battlefield, it could mean a swift and ignominious death. Politically, a habit of allowing his temper to overrule good judgment could end up costing him his realm.

  Instead, he focused on his food—ignoring the dirt as he generally did, although it was harder now that it had been brought to his attention. He was also careful to go easy on the brew in his mug and not drink enough to muddle his thinking.

  The food and drink soothed his temper as he filled his empty belly and as his anger cooled, he studied his surroundings with a little less bias than before.

  It was filthy. There was no getting around that or even excusing it on the grounds that it simply couldn’t be helped and therefore had to be accepted. They were crowded, but that just made it all the worse that no one made any attempt to clean up the mess they made. The servants were no better. Clearly, they only made the minimum effort to serve, bringing the food and drink when necessary and collecting the mugs, plates and utensils afterward but very little beyond that.

  Nothing that was spilled on the floor was cleaned up beyond what the rodents, insects, and hunting maks took care of.

  He could recall his father saying all creatures needed to eat.