NovelEnglishTo distract my mind, I tried to focus on the here and now.
“What happened to Vesa and her friends?” I asked Rose.
Fuji answered for Rose. I wasn’t supposed to know. She was here, but she would not be speaking to me. Everyone had been given instructions not to talk about what had happened to her and to keep us apart.
I sighed and shook my head. If I wasn’t supposed to know, Fuji would make sure I never did. A command from her owners was all it took. Their word was law.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt“I would like,” Rose said formally, “to swim with you in the ocean. The activity would be good for both of us.”
I could not believe I’d heard her correctly. When she asked the Keepers to remove her ornamentation and stepped into the sea with me, I was more shocked. The pool in the mountains had seemed Like torture for her everyday. She’d always done just the required laps and jumped out.
“I must learn to be less afraid,” she said as we stood in waist deep water.
I took her hand and we walked a little farther out. She wasn‘t truly comfortable in the water, so we just walked in the waves.
“My…family,” she said softly, “is working on changing their mindset. They have requested I also change mine. I have clung to old fears for too long.”
Again, I wasn’t sure I had heard her right. “Your family, not your owners, wish you to change?” I asked.
She looked so animated suddenly as she talked.
“I thought it was just the mountains and the way your daughters treated them. When we cback here, I thought it would be as it was before. Perhaps away from the influence of your family they would change back, but they have not,” she said excitedly. “I have a chair at the table now, Ciara. I am invited to sit with them by the fire.”
I was shocked. “You didn’t tellthey treated you different,” I marveled.
“Oh, you were so busy with the Little one and I wasn’t sure it would last…They offered,” she said suddenly shy, “they offered to sendback to Earth.”
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmI couldn’t believe my ears as I Looked at her. Jealousy exploded inas she talked. No one would stop her if she wanted to leave.
A N G E L A ‘s L I B R A R Y
“I said no, of course,” she continued blithely. “I still look like a twenty year old girl and thas gone on for so Long. Who would I tell my family I was? I wouldn’t know where to work or what to do. Besides that the portals on Earth are so dangerous. Leaving here just to be crushed in an intergalactic portal would be foolish. It would just be a terrible idea.
“Basin toldI am no longer a sex slave. I explained the concept of lovers to him and he said that’s what we were. They would care forand I would continue to love them.”
I looked out over the shining sea and imagined myself pushing Rose beneath the surface of the waves until she stopped moving. It wouldn’t be hard. I was certainly trained and I definitely outweighed her.
“I want to swim to the grate,” I said brusquely shaking out of my weird daydream. “I’ll meet you on shore.”
Before Rose could react, I dove forward and swam out through the inlet toward the grate. The water was deep here and the current pulled harder. There was no way Rose would follow me, which was good for her. I wanted to kill her.
How dare she turn down freedom! The risk of the portals was worth it. This was no way to live. I was furious with her for making her choice and jealous it had been offered.
A memory ctoas I clung to the grate and looked into the dark sea. I’d asked my men to make the schoice. When I’d feared them rising against the women, I’d asked them to just stay put. Being mad at Rose didn’t make any sense from that perspective.
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