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On the outside, it sounded almost like he was drunk.

“A few more minutes would have been better,” he muttered in Arabic.

I glanced at him, and saw him finish fastening up the front of his pants.

His light exuded a pulse of post-coital heat that caused a flare of reaction in mine, even given where we were. Dalejem’s arm squeezed my waist, his hand gripping my ass harder. His own light exuded a dense whisper of the same frequency I’d briefly felt on Revik’s. I felt that heat, enough to react to it.

Which of course brought another flare of reaction off Revik.

Clearly, the sheik-guy in front of us felt most of that, as well, although Dalejem managed to make it seem as if he was attempting to shield his reactions to me, either out of politeness or embarrassment for letting me get to him.

“Surely you must have noticed this one, brother?” Dalejem said to white robe. “Can you blame us, really, for taking a small taste? And everyone else was so busy…” he added, grinning as he motioned vaguely over the pier.

While Dalejem continued to caress my neck and rear, using both of his hands now, I subtly highlighted several structures in my light that I’d gained from working for the Lao Hu. I tried not to be too heavy-handed about it, more using them to pull gently on Dalejem’saleimias he touched me.

Once I had, I felt a flare of reaction off him again, and that time, it didn’t feel quite as scripted. When he pressed against me the next time, I realized he was getting turned on for real?enough that I looked down before I’d thought about whether I should do that, either.

Yep. Definitely getting turned on.

A more cynical, or maybe just a more possessive side of me wondered if it was from me, or from the fact Revik was watching this.

Behind me, Revik’s light had gone unnervingly still.

In any case, the seer in front of us, the one wearing the robe, blinked up at the space above my head not long after I highlighted the Lao Hu structures.

I saw him notice those structures for the first time.

Once he had, his light sparked in interest.

“Ah,” he grunted. Understanding reached his voice, even as he switched to Prexci, the seer tongue. “She is one of those Lao Hu bitches. I heard we had some in this shipment.”

Shipment?

But my mind understood the word just fine.

As it turned out, the rage that must have risen to my eyes or light wasn’t an unusual sentiment for seers in my position.

“Your sexy little bauble does not like this,” the seer sheik said, smiling at me knowingly. He waggled a finger in my face, clicking in mock admonition. “Get used to it, sister. This is a new world we are in. Chinese whores like you don’t get to play high and mighty to the rest of us anymore. No matter how good they are with their tongues.”

My mouth twisted into a darker frown.

“Yes, this is, indeed, a brave new world,” I retorted, using the more formal version of Prexci, the same version I’d learned as a consort of the Lao Hu. “Where seers enslave other seers… after fighting for generations against our human cousins for doing the same.”

The robed seer laughed, his light exuding indifference.

Clearly, I wasn’t the first seer to lob those words at him.

Glancing at the soldiers behind him, the sheik clicked his tongue, looking at Dalejem and then at Revik. His eyes held sympathy now.

“I see why you took her,” he said, patient. “I do, my brothers. But do not do this again.” Making his mouth firm, he gestured sharply with his hands to reinforce the point. “The bosses, they do not like this. If they caught you at it again, you might receive more than my gentle rebuke. More than a loss of your jobs, even,” he added darkly. “They want the cargo to go right to the markets?especially the expensive ones. It is my own ass on the line, you see. And these Lao Hu cunts may be difficult to train in manners, but they are also very rare. Especially now.”

I found myself pausing on his last words, turning them over in my mind.

I didn’t have long to do that, though.

As soon as he finished speaking, he motioned with his head and eyes to the waiting soldiers. Two stepped forward at once and caught hold of me, one at each arm. They pulled me away from Dalejem without so much as an apologetic look to either of us.

Dalejem released me when their pull grew insistent, but I felt the reluctance in his light.