Page 187 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Now, I burst out of the hotel suite and slammed him into the corridor wall, pinning him to that wall with my forearm pressed to his throat.

“Listen up, you asshole!” I said, my voice a low growl I’d never heard myself make before.

“You’re getting me my damn handheld medical scanner and proper medical kit right now! ”

I shoved him away from me with relish, surprised when his stocky, muscled body actually stumbled back a few steps.

I jabbed a finger at him. “Get me those things, now!” Then I strode back into the suite and hurried to Noa.

She’d passed out in the chair, and I feared for her life.

If she’d been sick for two weeks and was still getting worse…

how long had she been running this fever?

Why was she even working if she was sick?

Gathering her slight form into my arms, I picked her up, brought her over to the unmade bed, and placed her on it.

I took off her shoes, then looked at the snug lace necklace around her throat and decided that one should go too.

I’d seen all the other housekeepers wear it, but it couldn’t be comfortable—not when she was sweating, burning up, her body clearly in distress.

Sliding my fingers beneath her soft black hair, I searched for the clasp to the thing, but while I found the laces to take the silly white cap off her hair, there was no clasp to her necklace.

I found a magnetic lock fastening instead, and when I trailed my fingers along the delicate white lace, I realized it had been shaped around metallic wires.

I stumbled back as a horrible realization sank into me, my brain struggling to wrap itself around the implications.

The sheer horror of the crime my own mother was perpetrating, so openly, so brazenly.

A slave collar, cleverly disguised. Had all the housekeepers I’d seen over the past two weeks been slaves?

How had I not realized it? Sensed it from their emotions?

Noa had been so angry last time, but I had thought she was just angry with me.

I’d felt exhilarated by it, excited that she’d been so blatantly rude to me—something I doubted she would be to other guests, or she wouldn’t have had a job here. Only… this wasn’t a job.

A knock on the door was followed by a swishing sound as the panel slid open.

The cool blast of the guard’s emotions was followed by the even colder tickle of my mother’s.

When I turned around to look at them, I noted that the guard was holding what I needed, deferentially standing just inside the suite, while my mother had glided farther inside.

I strode over to the guard and snatched what he held from his grasp, curling my lip angrily at my mother, who stood in front of the window. She was elegantly dressed in a silky blue gown that clung to her curves, her long black hair piled high on her head and studded with silver and blue.

Without care for my patient, she pressed the button to open the drapes, allowing bright, purple-hued sunlight to filter into the room.

Noa, on the bed, made a soft moaning sound, rolling to her side to face away from the light.

I knew there would be no point in demanding my mother close those drapes; she wouldn’t.

Knowing that Noa was not here by choice, and that my own mother was the one who had put her here, I understood just how little she was valued.

Ignoring my audience and their disapproving stares, I pulled free the handheld and ran it over Noa’s body, scanning the readings as fast as they came in.

What I saw was a shock I couldn’t hide in my own emotional signature, though with my back to her, my mother wouldn’t be able to read it on my face.

I ran the readings a second time, staring at Noa’s precious face as I did so.

The soft curve of her pink cheeks, the plush pillow her bottom lip made.

Then I noticed the deep circles beneath her eyes, her lack of good sleep evident.

She’d been sick since she’d seen me that first time.

I’d done this to her. What if she hadn’t come back?

What if she’d succumbed before she had a chance to return?

My heart clenched painfully at the thought.

“What’s wrong with the damn maid, anyway?” my mother demanded from over my shoulder, just as my handheld confirmed for a second time the diagnosis. I snapped the device closed and gave her a baleful glare while I started rummaging through the medical kit, just so my hands had something to do.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you worked her too hard, since you’ve sunk so low as to use slave labor these days.

Do you even know the nutritional requirements of a human?

” I curled one of my hands around Noa’s fingers and held on tight, just beyond the medical kit and out of sight of my mother and the guard.

With my other hand, I pulled free a hypo-spray that I pretended to depress against the inside of her upper arm.

My mother didn’t even deny the accusation; she just sighed in a very put-upon manner.

“It’s hard to get reliable help these days.

This hotel business is cutthroat.” She click-clacked away on her high heels to look out the window again, and I took the chance to shift my body and press my hip against Noa’s, hiding our clasped hands further from sight.

The pinche monkey scuttled across the room and jumped onto the bed, climbing up the bedpost so he could stare at everyone in the room.

I’d decided to name him Pato, after one of the sacred healers in Aderian myth.

The story of Pyra and Pato was a tale of star-crossed lovers and an inspiration to healers all over the planet.

Pato really didn’t like my mother, and the feeling was mutual, so whenever my mother decided she needed to visit me, the two kept to opposite sides of the room. Pato had good instincts.

“So, is she going to be able to finish her work today or not? I’ve got no use for sick housekeepers,” my mother said in a cool voice, only mild irritation registering from her aura.

It was frightening just how emotionless she was these days, how much she didn’t care.

To her, it was clear that Noa was useless if she couldn’t work and that she’d rather replace her than let her heal.

With fear for her safety tightening all the muscles in my body, I tried to sound calm and rational when I spoke.

“She just needs some help, an hour’s rest, and things should drastically improve.

” I added the only thing my mother really wanted to hear, with a sour taste in my mouth: “She should be able to finish her work for the day.”

My mother gave me a nod. “Fine, I’ll have a guard put her on her cot and then get her back to work in an hour.

If she can’t finish her tasks…” She didn’t finish her statement but swept out of the suite without another word.

My eyes settled on the Rummicaron guard; he was already approaching with a wide smile, displaying all his hooked teeth.

I didn’t want to let go of Noa’s small hand, but I got to my feet and squared off with the male.

“You touch her, and I will put you on your ass,” I said.

“I don’t care about my healer’s oath—I will take you out.

” I made sure he saw just how serious I was about it, and with our scuffle from the hallway still fresh in his mind, I saw how he weighed the pros and cons in his head and decided it wasn’t worth expending the energy.

He backed off without a word and left the suite to take up his post outside.

As soon as the door closed, I slumped back onto the bed, eagerly reaching for Noa’s small hand again.

She pulled it out of reach, her blue eyes opening to glare at me.

“What the hell are you up to?” she demanded as she pushed herself into an upright position, swaying a little when that made her dizzy.

I reached out to steady her with a hand on her shoulder, but she swayed out of reach and nearly toppled over.

I heard her muffled ‘oof,’ but decided the best course of action might be to give her a little distance, just so I could explain the situation to her.

I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be happy with the news.

“You didn’t even give me anything,” she said, rubbing her fingers over the spot where I’d pressed the hypospray.

She was glaring at me, but her emotions were more confused than angry; she was scared too, feeling like she was on unsteady ground.

I meant to reassure her as soon as I could, but I struggled to find the right words.

What happened was a shaking hand as I pointed at the pretty lace decorating her slender throat and a tone vibrating with anger when I said, “That is a slave collar.” Her hand went up to touch the lace while she shrugged with one shoulder, her eyes searching my face as she tried to make sense of what I was thinking.

“I can’t believe my mother has become so…

so…” I struggled for a good description and settled on, “Evil! That she’s running this resort on slave labor, to do something so abhorrent.

It’s illegal on Aderia to own slaves! She should know better than this!

” And Noa needed my touch if she wanted her health to improve, but she didn’t want me to approach her.

She was quiet for a moment while she fidgeted with the lace edge of her housekeeping uniform, her blue eyes downcast. She wasn’t tense now, and her fever had already dropped dramatically from a few minutes of physical contact.

I was taking that as a good sign, but I didn’t kid myself into thinking it was enough.

“So, you disagree with slavery?” she asked, her voice small.

I couldn’t help myself then. I approached, sitting on the edge of the bed again and reaching for that fidgeting hand.

I brought it up to my own neck, grateful that she was letting me, that her aura remained calm.

When her fingers brushed over my skin, I shivered, my skin twitching, eager for more contact.

“Do you feel that line?” I asked her quietly, letting her fingers glide across the small depression in my skin—the mild scarring that had happened. She gave me a nod, her eyes wide as comprehension was already dawning before I said, “I was forced to wear a slave collar for three years.”

She licked her lips, shifted to sit on her knees, and leaned in closer while she intently stared at my neck. “What happened to you?” she asked. Then her eyes flicked to the door, to the guard outside, and she seemed to come to another conclusion. “You’re still not free?”

I nodded. “A gilded cage is still a cage.” I was as stuck in this damn resort as she was—only without the collar.

They confined me to this room, while she was forced to labor, to risk herself in front of misbehaving guests—guests who thought they could take what they wanted.

The very thought made my skin crawl, made my body flood with hormones that strengthened my muscles, prepping my body for a fight.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I thought you were some rich asshole…” Then she bit her lip.

“Wait, your mother is the Dragon?” Her eyes went wide, then she tilted her head and let them slide over my face, drinking in my features.

I almost preened, eager for her attention, but I was more than happy just to feel the soft press of her fingertips against my throat.

“Yes, she is. My family owns the Jihari resort and several other profitable businesses, though this one is her favorite. I’ve wanted nothing more than to be a doctor all my life, but once I finished my schooling, my mother tried to force me into working for her.

” As I explained, I couldn’t bring myself to mention the fiancée my mother had tried to force on me, too.

This was already a lot to take in, and when I explained my subsequent abduction and forced tenure as a healer to Drameil’s gladiators, I sensed her pity—her sadness for me.

“We rebelled, took over the ship The Vagabond, and have been roaming the quadrant since then. I was happy where I was, but two weeks ago, while rescuing animals from a smuggler’s hideout on Jihari’s moon, I was captured and brought here. ”

I shivered as I remembered what a sad, desolate place that old mining base had been—the stacks of cages, the promise of so much animal suffering.

I had no clue what happened to my friends, though I suspected they’d gotten away alright.

My mother would have had no interest in them; her goons had just been instructed to take me.

She frowned. “Okay, so we’re both trapped.

Maybe we can help each other.” She eyed the door again.

“Why did you do that? Fake that hypo-spray and send away the guard?” She touched her arm again where I’d pressed the injector, then looked thoughtfully at the handheld scanner lying on the bed next to us.

“Because what you had—have—it’s not something I can just fix.

And it’s not something we’d want them to know about.

” I didn’t add how I hadn’t been able to stand the thought of that guard touching her, of her being vulnerable and sick while a miscreant like him had her in his control—that she needed to be near me for a while to recharge.

I was amazed to realize that I hadn’t even noticed the symptoms in myself—that she had gotten so sick so quickly while all I’d experienced so far was increased aggression and a bit of light sensitivity.

I’d attributed both of those things to my incarceration, and my vivid, erotic dreams of Noa simply to interest. It had been a long while since I’d had female companionship, and the females on the Vagabond were not available.

Her blue eyes shuttered, but her worry came through loud and clear, so I hurried to say, “It’s nothing terrible. Just, ah… a kind of pheromone dependency? As long as you get a fix somewhat regularly, you’ll be fine.” As it turns out, those words did not, in fact, ease her worries.