Authors: Kaitlyn O'Connor
The Spawning (44 page)
“He has,” Teron said tightly.
Miranda’s uneasiness deepened instead dissipating, but there didn’t seem much
point in questioning Teron and Gerek. Either Khan hadn’t told them why he’d sent for her or they just had no intention of telling her.
She saw the women as soon as she entered the gates. An unpleasant sense of
dejàvu swept over her when she saw that they were naked—and chained together at the ankles. She wondered if she’d looked as terrified and thoroughly confused as they did, but she was pretty sure she had. Empathy stirred in her.
The were tall women, reminding her the trader had promised to try to bring
women closer to the Hirachi ideal of beauty. Even though they had curled in upon themselves, their knees drawn to their chests and their arms wrapped tightly around their legs, she could see that their arms and legs were long. Five of the ten were black women, ranging in skin tones from very dark to one who’s skin was so light her heritage was harder to place. Two clearly had Asian blood. The other three were white, or pink as the Hirachi called them, all brunettes.
They looked startled when they saw her. She smiled at them reassuringly,
ignoring the prickle of territorialism that swept through her, and looked around for Khan.
He’d been standing with the trader at the far end of the line of women, but when he looked up and spied her, he broke off and strode toward her purposefully. His expression was grim when he stopped. “He wants to trade for them,” he said flatly.
The mixture of pity and territorial resentment warring inside her rose a little higher. Miranda studied his face. “And?” she said questioningly.
Annoyance flickered across his face. “And we have our women,” he said,
lowering his voice. “But they are your people.”
Understanding dawned. Smiling at him lovingly, Miranda went up on her tiptoes and kissed his hard cheek. “And you can’t stand the thought of what might happen to them if he takes them away and you can’t abide slavery. Pay the man, Khan.”
He nodded, but she could see something was still bothering him. “It’s liable to cause trouble in our midst,” he said finally.
Miranda was pretty sure it would. She thought she was as confident in the love her men felt for her as any of the women, and even she hadn’t liked the women looking at her men. They had to consider everyone, though, and beyond that, even if they’d had total peace and everything was absolutely perfect, it didn’t change the fact that they couldn’t allow the trader to take the women away again. “Mary Jane and Carla’s men have no one since … since they died. They’re lonely and they have babies that need mothers. And then, too, Carol, Lynn, and Julia have divorced so many of their men, and they’re miserable. They at least deserve a chance to find a women who’ll appreciate them. It isn’t as if there aren’t single men here that might want them.”
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She could see Khan agreed with her—to a point. “If they are only more
troublemakers like Carol and her group, though ….”
“There is that chance,” Miranda admitted, “but there’s also the chance that,
among them, are very warm hearted, caring women.”
Khan’s gaze flickered over her face and the tension left him. “One even half as sweet as you would make it worth whatever trouble the others bring,” he murmured, lifting a hand to squeeze her shoulder affectionately and then patting her cheek. Before he could return to speak to the trader, however, she grabbed his wrist and stopped him.
“I’ll talk to him.”
He looked surprised, but he allowed her to precede him. Miranda didn’t make
any attempt to tamp her anger as she strode purposefully to where the lizard-man was waiting, eyeing her and Khan curiously. Reaching him, she halted to face the trader, studying him through narrowed eyes. “We’ve decided to buy them and give them their freedom,” she said tightly. “But if you pick up one more woman from my home world, you slimy son-of-a-bitch, don’t come back here. I’ll cut your damned throat myself! Are we clear on that?”
The trader looked taken aback. He stared at her in disbelief for a moment before he glanced at Khan. Khan bared his teeth at him. “She will. Count on it.”
“If you want to trade with the Hirachi,” Miranda continued more mildly, “we
don’t trade in people. Bring us actual trade goods—seeds, either flowers or vegetables, though the food will be most welcome, domesticated animals for farming, household goods, staples like flour or potatoes, yard-goods, needles, thread, or yarn—anything we can’t get at all, or easily, here or make ourselves will be welcome.”
When the trader had taken his shackles and his blood money and left, Miranda
told the women firmly, but kindly, that they were to go with the men to the village where they could be sheltered.
Khan dropped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close for a kiss. “Did I tell you today how much I love you?”
Miranda smiled, thinking it over. “I’m not sure,” she said teasingly.
Amusement gleamed in his eyes. “You are more precious to me than ten loads of
jasumi
,” he murmured back provocatively. “I can barely believe my good fortune in buying you for less than half a load.”
Miranda elbowed him in the belly. “Only ten?”
He chuckled, but sobered almost at once. “You know you are my entire world,
dear heart. This world could not contain enough to equal what you do to me.”
Gerek snatched her away before he could kiss her, twirling her into his own
embrace. He grinned at the look of indignation on Khan’s face before burrowing his own face against Miranda’s neck. “I’m not as good with sweet words as Khan. I think I’ll just show you how much I love you tonight.”
Teron disentangled her from Gerek. “Nice try,” he said coolly. “She comes to my bed tonight. If anybody is going to be worshipping her tonight, it’ll be me.”
“Tonight is your night to tend babies,” Khan reminded him.
Gerek scowled at both of the others, but shrugged and grinned at the look
Miranda sent him. “Adar’s better with Maya. You know she gives me hell. I’m far better with our little man than babies.”
Miranda smiled at him. “Then you should get lots of practice in while you can.”
THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 198
He looked at her curiously for a moment and then let out a whoop, snatched her from Teron and spun her around in a circle. “Mine?” he asked when he’d set her on her feet and ran his hand experimentally over her belly.
“Yours,” she confirmed.
He matched his forehead to hers, his eyes gleaming as he met her gaze. “I love you, woman. You know I adore you, don’t you?”
She touched his cheek. “I know I adore you.”
He kissed her thoroughly before he finally yielded her up to Khan and Teron who fell in on either side of her to walk her back to the village.
“Poor Adar,” Gerek said after a few moments, chuckling. “He’s going to be
pissed when he finds out he missed again.”
“The next one’s his,” Miranda said firmly, throwing a glance back at Gerek.
“And then I’m out of the breeding business. Four is enough.”
Teron and Khan both looked down at her with bemused smiles. “A good thing,
too,” Khan said. “If you’d picked any more lovers I would’ve had to object. It’s bad enough sharing you with those three.”
The End
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