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I swallowed my resentment and the few choice words that came to mind. Lowering my head, so she couldn’t see the fire in my eyes, I replied demurely, “I’m so very sorry I ruined that beautiful dress last night.”
“Hmm, hmm, are you?” With her cup of tea in hand, she moved around me, assessing me from all sides, sighing loudly. “What my people see in your species is beyond me. Mekarry bond, hah!” From my lowered lashes I watched her shake her head with an expression of honest confusion on her face. “Who needs mekarry bonds when arranged matings are so much easier to plan? So much more profitable to both parties. What will a Pandraxian get out of you?”
I kept very still, biting my lip and silently agreeing with her. What indeed?
“I, for one, have decided to speed this process along. I’m getting tired of your ungrateful attitude and whining.”
Alarmed, I forced myself to keep my head down, but a slow pulse took up residence in my throat. What was she going to do?
With terrifying clarity, the hopelessness of my situation dawned on me. I had nowhere to go. I had no money. If Lady Natoi kicked me out, I would… would… I had no idea what I would do, where I would go. Living on the streets of Pandrax, I supposed. It wasn’t like I had a caseworker or anything I could contact for help. Among all the people I met during my stay here, Lady Natoi was the only constant, the only one I formed any kind of relationship with. Besides the emperor, a small voice reminded me, and I nearly snorted in disgust. Like I could just show up on his doorstep and ask for help.
The only people who might help me were the other human women who had already found their mekarry bonds but I didn’t even know how I would contact them. If Lady Natoi decided to call in guards and have me escorted out of the palace, there was little or nothing I could do about it.
I swallowed whatever pride I had left and apologized again, “I’m so sorry Lady Natoi. I am truly grateful for everything you are doing for me.”
“Are you? Are you truly? I remember how high and mighty you were yesterday when the emperor invited you and you demanded a new dress for the occasion.”
I hadn’t demanded anything and she knew it damn well. I had, in fact, protested against her buying me another dress and would have been more than happy to wear anything but that ghastly thing she forced on me.
“Well.” She stopped her pacing and breathed out loudly. “Let’s see how you behave today, shall we?”
“Thank you, Lady Natoi,” I swallowed more of my pride and looked up at her, let her see my red, swollen eyes, let her assume they sprang from remorse and not from Daryus’s rejection last night. My life was complicated enough without a powerful man like him in it, confusing the hell out of me. I wasn’t even sure why I had cried, it wasn’t like I was falling in love with him or anything like that. He was a stranger!
A stranger who kissed you, my heart piped up.
And what a kiss it had been!
I would be lying had thoughts of my own Cinderella story not invaded my mind. How easy it would be to fall for a man like Daryus. Emperor or not, I liked being with him. He was easy to talk to. I sensed a deep vulnerability in him, one that called to me to soothe. I wasn’t hypocrite enough to not admit that part of my attraction to him came from his power, because with him I would be safe. Strangely though, I sensed I would be safe with the man Daryus just as much as with the emperor Daryus.
“We will meet some more of my friends today and I expect you to be on your best behavior.” She took my chin in her hand, scrutinized me from every angle. “It won’t hurt you to smile a little at them, encourage their bonds to come to the surface. First though, we’ll need to do something about those bags under your eyes. It’s just like you to willfully avoid sleep just to look haggard and make me appear as if I’m not taking good care of you.”
“Yes, Lady Natoi.” I nodded. “I’ll go ready myself.”
A few hours later I found myself in the company of four men, plus Lady Natoi. All four vied for my attention, touched me, stared at me with those hopeful eyes I had come to know so well over the last few weeks. I smiled politely, said the appropriate things, nodded, and even forced my smile to deepen, aware of Lady Natoi’s watchful eyes on me, just burning to find a fault with me.
On the inside I was screaming, wanting nothing more than to get out of here. I nearly prayed that one of these men would claim me as his mekarry, just to get this whole affair over with, to get away from Lady Natoi and her hateful ways.
I didn’t even know precisely how this mekarry bond worked. I mean, I understood the Pandraxians would recognize their soulmate in one of us, but what about us humans? Did we get a say in this? Would we experience any feelings for the Pandraxian?
I was getting to a point where I didn’t even care any longer, I just wanted to stop being paraded around like an object, smiling and meeting new men every day. Other humans had it a whole lot worse than me, I knew that on an intellectual level, but this was my hell and I was sick of it.
Instead, I smiled again, nodded politely, and thanked the man whose name I had already forgotten for a compliment he gave me. Most of them were nice, respectful, but I had a few proposition me when Lady Natoi wasn’t around. Asking me if I wanted to spend the night with them because they wanted to experience what it was like to fuck a human, as they so eloquently put it. I had been offered credits, jewelry, even an apartment once, and damn, if that offer didn’t sound tempting right about now.
I still had my pride though. No matter how much I hated being under Lady Natoi’s thumb, the idea of prostituting myself abhorred me even more. Not only because of the act, which would have been off-putting enough, but because of the after. I worried that if I did it once, I might not stop, and I would lose the only thing I still held on to: self-respect.
I had considered other options, like finding a job, but even my suiters told me that nobody would want to hire a human, except for the sole purpose of showing him or her off. One time I had even asked a man who had been particularly nice if there was a way for me to return to Astrionis, the planet system Lord Protector Garth was populating with humans.
The man patted my hand affectionately and told me that I didn’t really want to go there. He mumbled something about it being dangerous and too hard work for a pretty thing like me, so I dropped it. I wasn’t afraid of hard work, but I was afraid of making too many waves and Lady Natoi finding out about it. Had I been certain she would have been enraged enough to send me to Astrionis I might have pushed it, but there was something sinister about Lady Natoi and after a few veiled threats, I wasn’t so sure if she would send me to one of the colonies or to the Cryons. I wouldn’t have put it beyond her to arrange an accident for me either.
So I drank my vepo, ate my cubes of food, and smiled at my suitors. Allowing one day to melt into another and listen to Lady Natoi’s tirades about my failure to become a mekarry to one of her friends.
After another unsuccessful lunch, we returned to her suite, where she gleefully informed me that Sir Vodin would like to meet with me again—alone—for dinner. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but she was positively beaming and I used her good mood to sneak back into the park to find some peace.
Part of me hoped to see Daryus again, but the park bench was empty as usual when I sat down. Deep in thought, even the swucks couldn’t lift my gloomy mood as they gracefully glided over the water, diving every now and then to snack on a fish. Instead, I found myself feeling sorry for the fish as it dangled from the swuck’s beak, flopping in its death throes, and somehow reminding me of myself.
“You do know this bench is reserved for His Imperial Highness?” a man’s voice startled me.
It took me a moment to place the orange Pandraxian, Sir Vodin, with whom I had a dinner planned tonight.
