by Zara Zenia
I didn't bother to answer the call. The traditional hour for invitations had passed hours ago. Only one person on the planet would call a warrior during the dinner hour.
"Your mother, Kai’ben," Ingendia whispered. Not out of reverence, but something more like reluctance. More than once in recent days, my mother had sent messages through her that no maid should ever repeat to her master.
"What does she want?" I didn't care, but honor and duty dictated that I ask. My mother, a veteran of Xicret social politics, knew this better than anyone. She always wielded that weapon too liberally for my tastes.
"She asks that you reconsider your plans for the evening." As the words left her lips, Ingendia pressed a button on the console, plunging the screen into darkness. Her eyes tightened as she leaned against the back cushion.
I leaned my head back against the cushions and grunted. Both of my parents had made it clear that they expected me to find a mate before the year was out. Most mothers would have just been happy their eldest child was finally doing something to move the family line forward.
“Should I send her a response, Kai’ben?”
“No. She would only try to talk me out of it again on the return message. Don’t tell her anything until after I’ve made a purchase.”
There was nothing scandalous about finding a mate at Carzon’s auction house. But my mother insisted that it was somehow unseemly. How could using the services of our leader bring shame?
Ingendia and I grew up together. She and I were both born in my father's house. But she was born into service, while I was born the son of a warrior. I knew her expressions as well as my own. More than well enough to know when she was holding her tongue.
If we had been born of equal standing, Ingendia might have tried to talk me out of it herself. Our women held a deep-rooted distaste for the auction house which I'd never understood. It's not as if the human women in Carzon's stock posed a great threat to Xicret women.
The humans had no status to gift a child, no public face on which to rely or use to increase their position. But to the women, it didn't seem to matter. They were beautiful, in a way. Exotic, and with half the fuss of a typical Xicret partnership arrangement. Too many advantages for strange pale creatures from another world.
"You may as well speak," I said.
"It wouldn't be proper, Kai’ben." Her voice hitched as she looked out her window, a small sign that gave her impatience away.
"I can't have you casting nasty glances at the woman I bring back, so get it out of your system now."
“One of our own kind—”
“Would be more interested in my family than in seeing to my needs,” I said. “And likely, far more used than any human I’ll find at Carzon’s.”
Ingendia snorted softly. "I've seen their women in the market, you know. All skin and bones, no strength or muscle to speak of. Weak backs. No fire in a single one of them. “
"I'm told that once they're in your bed, there is little difference." But the path to my bed would be much smoother with a human woman. More so with one provided by Carzon.
"Which does not bode well for you," she said. "You'll be bored with her before the moon rises again."
"I'm told they can be very imaginative when they want to be."
“Maybe, but I know you, Kai’ben. You could never fall in love with one of them.”
Ingendia looked back at me, holding my gaze for a few minutes before shaking her head. "You don't care.”
"Not in the least." I held her gaze, reminding her of her place without saying a word. The fiery spirit of our kind flared in her eyes for a moment, then cooled as she looked away.
Sometimes, I wondered if one of Ingendia's ancestors was a fallen warrior.
An instinct came over me to reach for her, to offer her some physical display of comfort. I suppressed it. “You know, some masters might think you’re jealous that you can’t be my mate.”
“None of them have known you as long as I have.”
A burst of laughter erupted from my chest before I could stop it. Ingendia had no interest in being my mate, a fact which I didn’t need her to tell me. But she never hid the fact that she hoped I’d find a mate worthy of my bloodline. Interfering was unbefitting behavior for a maid. Withholding advice was unbefitting of a friend.
The transport pulled over. Ingendia pushed a button on the console, the light from the digital screen casting a shadow over her scowl. She wouldn't bring the subject up to me again.
It didn't give me any pleasure to scold Ingendia. Most Xicret maids in her position would long since have sought other employment. It was hard to increase your social standing when your master was on the verge of losing his.
Two women stood on either side of Carzon's auction house. The other buildings in the district favored traditional architecture, with its wideset structure and rounded corners. The auction house, however, was a new construction, and Carzon spared no expense in its design. According to the sales pitch, the boxy silver structure was designed to resemble buildings on the human home world.
Why the humans liked their buildings tall for an enemy to ram a ship into, I didn't know. But I wasn't there to appreciate design.
Two unaccompanied men waited in the hallway beyond the door. The younger of the two, Farran, was the first soldier in a family of merchants. Some years before, his father had made a series of bad investments that affected the quality of his stock.
Though Farran didn't follow his father into the sales trade, ineptitude anywhere in a bloodline rendered the entire family suspect. The scandal must have burned deeper than I realized for Farran's father to pass up the opportunity to lock up a business arrangement via partnership.
The older man, Harran, was a warrior, but his bloodline had never progressed beyond civil peace enforcement. The bronze emblem on his robe pin hadn't been shined in years. There had been no honor ceremonies for his family. No days of celebration. Harran nodded to me, pressing a hand to his weapon and a fist to his chest.
As warriors, both men had better resources than some Xicret, but not as much as I did. Outbidding them would only be a problem if they joined forces. Only Farran would be clever enough to suggest it, but a merchant's son would be shrewd enough to double-cross his partner. He and I stood a good chance of leaving with a woman.
Ingendia released a breath, as if the presence of a warrior older than me in the same situation made my sordid method of finding a mate more acceptable. But I could see the discomfort in Harran’s eyes as they moved from Ingendia to the bronze medallion which held my robes in place. He didn't have a prayer of outbidding me, which pushed his odds of successfully finding a mate at the auction out of his favor.
Another set of double doors at the end of the hallway flung open. Farran’s body jerked slightly, a motion which he tried to pass off as a yawn. Too late. Carzon smiled as he approached us, flanked on either side by two human women, spreading his hands in welcome.
"Welcome to auction night," he said. Of the four men in the room, he and I alone stood with relaxed shoulders and easy postures. But Carzon had decked himself out in his finest robes and best pins, far better than a man of my status could afford. As befitting the man who had scrapped, fought, and slaughtered his way to leading us.
Chapter Three
Ella
I lost track of how long Blue 3 let me lounge in the bathtub, not that I had a way of keeping time anyway. For a few blissful minutes, I floated in the citrusy water, letting the warm suds wash the filth and grime off my skin. The fiberglass barrel in my apartment wasn't anywhere near as nice as this. It was so nice that for a few minutes, I forgot where I was and why I was there. But when Blue 3 knelt beside the tub, I remembered.
She skimmed her hands across the water and grabbed hold of one of the green flowers. She wrapped her free hand around my shoulders, pulling me closer to her. What in the world? I leaned back and held my hands up to stop her.
"I'm good, lady."
Blue 3 crushed the flo
wer between her fingers, sending a flood of soap suds and water down her arm. She opened her hand, her eyebrow quirked as she revealed a mass of soft material where the flower had been.
I wrinkled my nose and plucked the soapy green mass from her open hand. "A loofah? It's a loofah?" For the second time in an hour, I felt stupid, but in my defense, it's not like anything on this planet made any sense.
Blue 3 muttered something in her own language and reached for another flower, this one purple and twice the size of the green ones. She dipped her hands elbow-deep in the water. A burst of fragrance wafted into the air as she came back out with a soapy purple cloth which she rubbed across my arm.
"I said I'm good." I took the purple rag from her too and dragged it over my skin to prove that I knew how to wash my body. "See?"
I moved deeper into the tub until the water came up to my neck. I couldn't make her leave, but nowhere was it written that I had to let her feel me up. Well, it may have been written, but nothing said I had to make it easy on her.
The glamazon shrugged and went back to her seat beside the massive tub. She leaned back and folded her arms, her eyes locked on me. When they wanted to communicate, the aliens knew how to get their point across.
This time, Blue 3 only gave me a few minutes to finish the job before she took me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. We weren't that far apart in height, but she showed off her superior strength by locking her arms around my waist and hoisting me out of the tub in one smooth motion. I didn't try to fight her. What would have been the point?
She muttered another string of words as she turned around and took a robe of the same cream-colored fabric as the drapes and slung it over my shoulders. The softness of her voice made me wonder if they were words of encouragement, and I wished I could understand her. Somehow, it felt like the whole thing might be easier if I could just understand what the blue-skinned models were saying.
Blue 3 took me by the shoulders and turned me toward the only wall in the room that wasn't covered in shelves. She pressed a square metal switch on the wall, and a square area of it slid to the side.
Racks of clothes blocked the walls of the room and swallowed all but a few feet of the available floor space. From their positions on the hangers, it was hard to tell things like cut and size on sight. There were a few leather and suede pieces sprinkled through the collection, but most of it trended toward flowing jewel tones.
A modeling area of sorts had been carved out in the middle of the chaos. Only eight standing mirrors kept the piles of fabric from swallowing the empty space again. Another alien woman, a different one from the three glamazons, sat on a footstool beside one of the racks. She looked up when Blue 3 cleared her throat, a smile spreading over her full lips.
The two of them had a lot to say to one another, judging by the fast words and clipped tones of their exchange. It wasn't until New Blue climbed to her feet and walked toward me that I realized they had been talking about me.
New Blue walked around me, her emerald eyes roaming my body as she moved. She reached forward and tugged the robe loose, letting it fall to the floor and pool around my toes. On instinct, I bent forward to grab it. Blue 3 grabbed my wrist and pulled me back upright. The string of words that left her mouth didn't sound as friendly this time.
Apparently, whatever was about to happen required me to be naked. I opened my mouth to complain but stopped myself. The glamazons couldn't understand me any more than I could understand them. Even if they could, why should either of them save me?
Did I even need saving? On paper, my life had absolutely gone sideways. I was on another planet, about to be sold to an alien for reasons I tried my best not to guess at. Where was the knot in my stomach, the lump of lead that had lived there since I was ten years old? I should have been afraid. Terrified. But all I could manage was vague embarrassment because two alien women saw me naked.
The women grabbed ahold of my arms and guided me to the semi-circle of mirrors. I looked at myself in them, trying to reconcile the woman who stared back at me with the woman I thought I was.
Blue 3 kept whispering to me in their language. I still didn't understand, but the rhythm gave me something to focus on that wasn't New Blue's eyes combing over every inch of my bare skin. She put her hands around my waist, mumbled something, and disappeared into the racks.
When I couldn't stand the silence for another second, I turned to Blue 3 and quirked an eyebrow. "A spa soak and a fitting. Women back home would pay a pretty penny for this. I mean, if you re-think the ending part."
The glamazon didn't even crack a smile at my little joke. My gibberish probably didn't make any more sense to her than hers did to me. Whoever bought me probably wouldn't know English either. My stomach flopped as it dawned on me that they might not be as kind as Blue 3.
New Blue popped out from a different rack in the row, each arm covered in flowing warm-toned dresses. She held the mass of fabric up and compared it against my skin. Every few seconds, she whispered something to Blue 3, and the other woman took away one of the dresses and set it to the side. Of the original dozen, only six made the cut.
But the two women didn't seem to agree which of the six dresses to shove me into. Blue 3 plucked a sheer orange from New Blue's arm and held it against my naked body. The fabric felt softer than it looked, but didn't cover anything at all. They may as well have marched me into the auction room naked.
The thought made my stomach flip again. I closed my eyes, hoping to call visions of puppies or baby seals to my mind. Instead, I got a hulking hairy man with bright yellow skin and three horns. Plan B. I looked at the mirror, focusing on my reflection and blocking out the blue women's gibberish.
Days and days of the gray slop diet had stripped a few pounds from my body, but my curvy frame was mostly intact. The chocolate brown waves I usually flat ironed into submission had gone rogue in the dry air of the dressing room.
"Maybe I'll be saved by an epic case of helmet hair," I said.
Blue 3 and New Blue paused and looked at me, exchanging a glance between themselves. This time, I understood what New Blue said perfectly. What the hell is wrong with this one?
The thought had crossed my mind too. Women about to go on the auction block didn't crack jokes. Normal people didn't keep trying to talk to people who couldn't understand them. A normal person would have been afraid. Why wasn't I afraid?
New Blue shrugged and separated one dress from the others. She held it up in front of me and slipped it over my head, letting it fall into place over my hips. The soft light from the wall sconces bounced off the fabric as it brushed across my toes, making it look like liquid gold. My eyes widened in horror as New Blue stepped away to reveal her handiwork.
From my hips to my toes, the dress was fine, elegant even. From my shoulders to my belly button was a different story. The entire bodice of the dress was made from braided strips of the gold fabric weaved together. The fabric wasn't as sheer as the orange dress Blue 3 had selected, but the heavy fabric clung to my curves so tightly that it didn't matter. It covered my vital parts . . . barely.
Nothing about the outfit said Ella Browne, but neither woman had asked my opinion on anything so far. Nobody had asked me a damned thing since they’d snatched me and shoved me in the back of a spaceship. What I wanted to wear didn't matter to the women. It probably wouldn’t matter to whoever bought me either.
But my mind couldn't stop freaking out over the image of myself wearing such a skimpy dress. Never in all my life had I felt so exposed. Mama would have called it a hussy's dress. Daddy wouldn't have been so nice.
The thought of my father made my stomach clench again. I wasn't supposed to be in the room with those women, wearing a dress that would have looked better on a celebrity housewife than on me. I should have been at home in bed, nursing a hangover and ducking my parents’ calls. Daddy had campaign events coming up. He would blow a gasket when he couldn't get ahold of me to give me the schedule.
Blue 3 took me by the
shoulders again. This time, she didn't speak, but her eyes said more than her staccato words could have. Fear wouldn't save me from what was coming. It might even make it worse. If I wanted to get through the night, I needed to be strong.
Chapter Four
Zarbonov
The Primen's eyes swept over all of us, lingering on me the longest. "I stand before you tonight not as your leader, but as your purveyor. Based on your status and blood history, I have selected three women for tonight's sample. I assure you, the women in my stock have been thoroughly examined."
Carzon continued his speech, moving on to the care his servants took in selecting just the right group of human women for our auction. I could have pointed out that moments before, he swore that he had made the choices himself, but such an interruption would reflect more poorly on me than on him.
Only a fool would believe that a man staying at the top of the Xicret hierarchy would bother walking through a room of mating stock.
Instead, my eyes focused on a trio of weapons fixed to the wall above Carzon's desk. Two of them, a curved sword with live edges on either side and a metal staff the length of my forearm, were our martial weapons.
The third, a smaller blade without the curved hilt our weaponsmiths favor, was positioned between and above the other two. Small flecks of blood, some Xicret and some I couldn't identify by sight, adorned the edges of both blades.
It wasn't unusual for warrior caste to display weapons that had served them well in a place of honor, but it was rare to display an unclean weapon. Even rarer, a foreign one.
Carzon approached me as he finished his prepared speech. A tight smile appeared on his lips as he clapped his fist to his shoulder. "Zarbonov vin Xarran, well met.”
I returned the gesture. In any other circumstance, a Primen with my name and the name of my father on the tip of his tongue would be cause for celebration. The complications that came with Carzon's unique tenure as Primen often turned traditional meetings on their head.
