The Price of Pleasure (20 page)

Chapter 16

“Well, at least we’ve found her,” Seth said tightly. The two men sat in a bar, sipping
bakrah
and discussing their next move.

“They’re set up pretty nice,” Jax said. “They seem to have a lot of students staying with them. I took one of them out to a bar this afternoon, bought him a few drinks. He can’t say enough good things about them. They take good care of their guests, are quiet, the children seem happy. And no men, either.”

Jax seemed uncharacteristically pensive as he made his report, and Seth stared at him suspiciously. What the hell was he up to this time? It didn’t matter, of course.

Nothing mattered but finding Calla.

It was a good thing there weren’t any men, Seth thought darkly. He didn’t want to have to kill anyone, but he’d long since come to the realization that anyone who touched Calla would face his wrath. The very fact that she was running a hostel was more than he’d hoped for–a small part of him had been terrified that she’d decide to continue her career as a pleasure worker. Normally a life mate wouldn’t be capable of being with another man, but the whole concept of mating with non-Saurellian women was too new to know if the old rules would hold true.

“So what do you want to do now?” Jax asked.

“We’ll go and get her tonight,” Seth replied thickly. The realization that within hours she would be his again was almost too much for him. He leaned his head back and took a deep breath. “I need her.”

Jax looked at him sympathetically.

“It’s going to be hard,” he said quietly. “Somehow you’re going to have to work through all that’s happened if you ever want to have a decent life for yourselves. It’s not a good thing to be at war with your life mate. You have to let your anger go.”

“I know,” Seth said. “But it’s not that easy. Even if she comes with me voluntarily, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to trust her again.”

“At least you have a life mate,” Jax said after a long pause. His customary good humor seemed to be fading. “The Goddess is merciful, but there are still so many of us who can only hope.”

“Well, we have hope, now,” Seth said. “So many of our brothers have gone to their deaths without even that much.”

Jax took another long drink of his
bakrah
without responding. Seth gave him another penetrating look, but the younger man refused to look at him. With a shrug, Seth turned back to his own drink, content to think about his reunion with Calla.

* * * * *

Jax hadn’t come home that night, although Calla had monitored their guests’ arrival from the office all afternoon and evening. It was paranoia, she told herself wearily, but she just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Until she saw for herself that he wasn’t one of the Saurellians who had been at Jenner’s hostel, she wouldn’t be happy.

Finally, though, she needed to sleep. Sarai and the children had retired hours earlier. The alarms were set; the door was locked. It was time to go to bed.

After making sure all was secure, she made her way to the private part of the hostel.

She and Sarai had rooms that were separate from the guests rooms. Her room–a luxury that always sent a thrill through her–was cool and dark as she stepped inside and locked her door. She kept a window open in the evenings because she loved the sounds of the animals in the darkness. Small insects chirped, and occasionally a night-loving bird would call in the distance. She would never get over the simple pleasure that came from living on a planet.

Pulling her dress off, Calla stepped over to the window wearing only her shift. The darkness was alive, she could feel it outside. Their small hostel was on the outskirts of town, and she could see the rainforest behind their small, walled garden. At first, the sight of all that teeming wildness had frightened her. Now she loved it. She raised her arms and stretched, enjoying the stretching sensation that raced through her muscles.

This was freedom.

“Hello, Calla,” a smooth, familiar voice said in the darkness. Her heart stopped, and she froze, excitement coursing through her. It was Seth, somehow he was there, in the room with her. Her eyes moved frantically over the window, trying to decide if she could jump to the ground. Was it was too far?

“Jax is out there, just in case you try something stupid,” Seth said softly. “Why don’t you turn around so we can talk.”

Slowly, Calla turned. She couldn’t find him at first, then she realized he was actually lying on her bed, leaning back comfortably against her pillows. How long had he been waiting for her?

“What do you want?” she asked, feeling foolish. The sight of him sent a tingle of sensation through her traitorous senses. She knew his presence wasn’t good, but her body was overjoyed to see him again. She wanted him.

His face was like stone in the darkness. He simply stared at her for a long moment, and the tension rose between them. He wanted her, too.

“We never finished things, Calla,” he said.

“Seth, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did what I had to do. We’ll pay you back for the ship, I promise.”

“I don’t care about the damn ship,” he said tightly. “I have enough money to buy a hundred ships. What I care about is the fact that you lied to me, that you left me behind.

Why didn’t you trust me? I would have helped you.”

Calla snorted in disbelief.

“Right, like I should believe that,” she muttered. “You were plenty interested in fucking a slave, but I didn’t see you offering to set me free.”

“You never gave me that option,” he said quietly.

“Why would I take that chance?” Calla replied. “Do you have any idea what happened to slaves who didn’t meet Jenner’s standards of morality? They got sold to pimps. Would you risk dying on your back in a mining camp to have a fling with guest in a hostel?”

Seth caught his breath; the thought of her being subject to men like Calvin made his skin crawl.

“No, I can understand that,” he said finally. “But all that time together–why didn’t you confide in me then? You can’t believe I would have sent you back to her.”

“I had to think with my head, not my heart,” Calla said bitterly. “And I had to rescue Jess. Would you have understood that?”

A flash of jealous anger went through him at the name.

“Jess,” he said slowly, dragging the name out on his tongue. “What about Jess? Did you ever find him? Did he send you away? How is your
husband?”

“I didn’t try to find him,” Calla said quietly. “I had no idea where to begin looking, and Sarai and I needed to get away. It was enough to know he had escaped.”

“You would leave behind a man you love so easily?”

“Jess is not my husband. I already told you that. He was my crèche-brother, we were raised together on the slave farm. He always wanted to escape, but he wouldn’t go without me. If I hadn’t been so scared he never would have ended up in that mining camp. That’s why I had to find him.”

“He was never more than a brother to you?” Seth asked, jaw tight. His tension was a palpable presence in the room.

“No, never,” Calla said, willing him to believe her. “Even when we were younger, we never experimented together. We were too close for that, even if we weren’t related biologically. Of course we might have been, for all I know. Both of us were synthesized out of the same genetic material.”

“I don’t know whether to believe you or not,” Seth said finally. He sat up and swung his legs down off the bed.

Calla sank to the floor, trying not to look too closely at him. It was too hard to be in the same room as him, feeling his hatred. He remained silent for several minutes, contemplating her as she sat. Then she grew angry. Who was he to judge her?

“Why should you care whether or not I’m telling the truth, now or then?” she finally asked. “All we had was a contract. I provided you with sex, you provided me with money. I know it didn’t work out quite right and that I still owe you, but in the long run why should you care, as long as I repay you? It’s not like we could ever have had anything more together. You must have told me a hundred times that a Saurellian could never stay with a non-Saurellian woman.”

“Maybe I was trying to convince myself of that,” Seth said finally. “But it didn’t feel that way. I wanted to stay with you.”

Calla stared at him, unsure of what to say. Part of her thrilled to his statement, but another part wondered if it was just some vengeful game he was playing.

“Well, you never told me that,” she said finally. “How was I supposed to know? If I’d told you the truth, I would have been totally in your power. I’ve seen what men can do to women. And I noticed you didn’t do a damn thing to help Sarai or her children.

Why should I believe anything you say?”

“I needed to get information from Calvin,” Seth said after a long pause. “I wasn’t going to let him seriously harm Sarai, and I was going to help her escape from him.”

“After you’d gotten what you needed from Calvin, right?” Calla said skeptically.

“And just when, exactly, was that magic moment going to arrive? Did you see the bruises on her face? I don’t know how you could have missed them.”

“I saw them,” he replied. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but the information was more important. I needed to know if the Pilgrims were a threat to the occupation.”

“Well, it looked to me like the Pilgrims were all dead,” Calla muttered. “Sarai and her children were still alive, but at the rate Calvin was going they wouldn’t have been for long. I don’t regret what I did.”

“The Pilgrims weren’t all dead,” Seth said, eyes glittering with anger. “They arrived not too long after you left, actually. Bragan and I had to hide out in the mines to survive.

Oh, he’s dead by the way. He died saving my life, no thanks to you.

“And this may interest you, too,” he said, growing harsher. “They also attacked Discovery station. More than a hundred people died in that attack alone. It might have been prevented if I had been able to get more information back to the Saurellian council in time. It took us six months to regain control of the system. In fact, they’re still out there, just waiting for us to show a weakness. Then they’ll attack again.”

Calla’s face turned pale in shock.

“W-was anyone from the pleasure house injured, or the hostel?” she whispered, thinking of her friends.

“Not that I know of,” Seth said, sighing heavily. His anger seemed to evaporate in the face of her distress. “Most of those killed were Pilgrims.”

“What about Mistress Jenner,” Calla said. “Was she part of it? She’s a Pilgrim.”

“I don’t know what happened to her,” he replied. “I heard she disappeared shortly after the attack. They were coming to arrest her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, I did,” Seth said. “All you had to do was trust me.”

“And all you had to do was trust me,” she whispered back. “So, now what? Do you want your money back? We can sell the hostel. Or are you going to turn me in as a runaway slave?”

“Come here,” Seth said, patting the bed next to him. “What I really want to do is touch you again.”

Calla gave a brittle laugh. “Well, sex is certainly one thing we’ve always been good at. But forgive me if I say I’m not in the mood. I’m a little preoccupied with what you plan to do. How did you find me, anyway?”

Seth decided to ignore her little bit of rebellion. “It wasn’t hard,” Seth said. “The only time we had any trouble at all was with your friends at the hostel on Calindra Station. They managed to throw us off the trail, at least for a while. But you and Sarai were pretty noticeable no matter where you traveled. I guess people took note when neither of you understood how to do simple things, like catch a flight or use a credit transfer chit.”

He was right, Calla thought with disgust. They’d had to ask for directions and help no matter where they went. Neither had traveled before, never mind selling a space craft. It had been naive to think they hadn’t left a trail a quadrant wide.

“So, you didn’t answer my question,” she said. “What are you going to do?

Whatever it is, I hope you’ll let Sarai and the children go. She was only trying to protect herself and the kids. The whole thing was my idea.”

“No, as far as I can tell, the whole thing was Bragan’s idea,” Seth said with a harsh laugh. “He and I had plenty of opportunities to discuss your actions while we were hiding out together. And as for Sarai, I don’t blame her for what she did. I can understand it.”

Then why can’t you understand why I did what I did?
Calla felt like asking, but she didn’t want to push him.

“Come here,” Seth said again. His voice was smooth and persuasive. She wanted to sink into his arms, have him hold her. Realizing she had nothing to lose, she stood and made her way over to the bed. If she
was
headed back to slavery, at least she would feel his arms around her one more time.

Seth pulled her down on top of him as he stretched back on the bed, reaching both hands up to cup her face. She could barely see him in the moonlight, but she could feel the tense urgency in his body. He was rock-hard against her, and she felt an answering rush of sensation course through her own body.

“I was so angry with you,” Seth said quietly. “I told myself that if I ever saw you again I’d strangle you. But now that I’m here, now that I can feel you, all I want to do is be with you. Do you know what that means for a man of my culture? To only want to be with one woman?”

Calla shook her head. She had no idea, but she understood how he felt. Just touching him was enough to bring her to life again. This time there were no lies between them, and whatever the morning held was no longer important. She dropped her lips against his, pressing little kisses against his mouth. He kissed her back hungrily, then broke off the kiss.

“Usually, when a man and woman in Saurellia feel this way about each other, it’s because they’re life mates,” he said.

“What are you saying?” she whispered. Horror filled her; he had come to get his revenge. Nothing else could explain such cruel teasing.

“Not long ago, our priestesses confirmed that at least one Saurellian has found his life-mate outside of Saurellia,” Seth said. “She was the daughter of slaves. Imperial slaves.”