The Kindred Warrior's Captive Bride

“My Lord, are you all right?” The girl’s soft voice cut into his reverie. “You seem…very far away,” she said

“Just thinking.” Need cleared his throat. “So you’re to be the Primary Bride?” he asked again, trying to get back to the topic of where he could drop her off.

She nodded eagerly.

“For Senator Pouncenblast says he’s tired of his current Primary Bride—apparently she was not able to give him an heir and so she’s going to be demoted when I go to him.” She bit her lip. “If I go to him,” she corrected herself.

Need told himself he didn’t give a damn what happened to her, but he couldn’t help frowning at this small window into Lan’ara’s future life.

“So he’s discarding a female he promised to love and cherish just because she can’t bear him an heir?” he demanded. “And what will happen to you if you can’t bear him one either?”

“Oh, I’m certain I can,” she said quickly. “The women in my family are extremely fertile. Why, my own mother had me and my four little brothers. They…” She looked down at her hands, her voice catching a little. “We were all fine, healthy children. I’m sure I can provide the same for Senator Pouncenblast.”

“Hmm.” Need said noncommittally. He still didn’t like the idea of giving her to a male who felt free to discard females as easily as pieces of clothing he’d grown tired of.

“He’s a very kind man—really he is,” the girl said quickly. “Almost like a grandfather to me.”

“A grandfather?” Need’s eyebrows shot up. And he’d thought he was too much the girl’s senior! “How old is he, anyway—this Senator Pouncenblast of yours?” he demanded.

The girl twisted her fingers together in her lap.

“Maybe…eighty-five cycles?” she said softly.

“Eighty-five?” Need could scarcely believe it. “But you just told me you’re only nineteen cycles, girl!”

“Almost twenty!” she said defiantly. “My name day is coming up very soon.”

“Still.” Need shook his head. “That’s a sixty-five-cycle age difference. Are you saying you want to bed a male that old and bear his children?”

“What I want doesn’t enter into it.” The girl’s dark eyes flashed in a rare display of temper. “He offers me a safe life—security and the promise that I’ll only have to service one man—not hundreds like I would have to if I went to the Flower House.”

“The Flower House?” Need frowned. “Where’s that?”

“It’s a place run by the academy,” she explained. “Or it was. I don’t know if the pirates raided there too or not. Anyway, it’s where all the girls whose contracts weren’t bought by rich patrons were sent. A place where they were forced to service all kinds of males all the time.”

“A whorehouse,” Need said flatly. “You’re talking about a whorehouse.”

“Whatever you want to call it, I didn’t want to go there.” Her eyes flicked up to his for a moment, then back down to her hands. “So when Senator Pouncenblast offered to buy my contract and make me his Primary Bride, I jumped at the chance.”

Need supposed he could see why. Even being with a male old enough to be her grandfather would be better that being forced to work in a whorehouse the rest of her life.

“I see,” he said shortly. “Well then, to this Senator Pouncenblast on Genu Six is where you want to go?”

She bit her lip again.

“If…if you would truly take me there. The Senator has only paid the first half of my contract,” she added quickly. “And I’m almost certain he wouldn’t mind paying the second half to you, if you deliver me unharmed. So maybe you could make back some or even all of that forty thousand you spent on me.”

Well that would be nice, Need thought. But somehow the idea of getting his money back didn’t make him as happy as he might have thought. What else was he going to do with the girl, though? Where else could she go?

“I’ll see if Captain Glo’ll will allow me to plot a course to or near Genu Six,” he said at last.

“Oh, thank you, my Lord!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands between her breasts and giving him a grateful look. “Thank you with all my heart!”

“Not promising anything, mind you,” Need said quickly. The decision isn’t up to me—we’ll have to see what Captain Glo’ll says.”

“I understand.” She nodded, her enthusiasm muted just a bit. “But thank you. For asking him and for being willing to take me where I belong, my Lord.”

Need nodded a welcome, then decided he’d spent long enough in the same room with the distractingly pretty Lan’ara. (Sometimes he couldn’t help thinking her name, though he tried not to.)

“I must go,” he said abruptly. “Get dressed and be ready for Last Meal when I come back—just in case I can’t get you out of it.”

“Get me out of it?” She stared at him blankly.