Page 6 of Healer Hunted

“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 dramatically dropped from physical contact for just a few minutes. 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, which 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 fiancee my mother had tried to force on me too.

This was already a lot to take in, and when I explained about my subsequent abduction and then 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, when we were 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.

Chapter 4

Noa

I was feeling so much better that it was hard to deny what Luka had just told me. I still didn’t want to believe it, and I wanted to be angry about it, with him. Except he was trapped, just like me, when I thought about it, that made so much more sense, with the guards, and the lack of clothing that first day.

I’d finished my floor of rooms in record time after I’d sat with Luka for an hour. I’d rushed out of there and made short work of things. Letting out my frustration, my sense of feeling even more trapped than before. I wanted to smash things, so I’d vacuumed with a vengeance and scrubbed tiles with fury.

I was exhausted by the time I sat down for my evening ration bar with the other women. The kind of tired lack of food, sleep, and hard work got you. Not the kind from that raging fever, of feeling sick, so it was still a marked improvement. Aradne even gave me a pointed glance and then a sharp nod, “Good, are you going to get back to your normal work now?” When I nodded at her, she gave me a grin full of sharp teeth, “Excellent.”

That night, I slept without dreams, and that morning my appetite was back. I felt a little off-center, like I had that first time after I’d left Luka’s presence as if I had a slight balancing problem. I hated that all he’d said was that my body had developed a sudden need for his particular pheromones and that he didn’t have the means to fix it. How could this have happened? Why? But I realized as I left his room that maybe the dependency wasn’t as one-sided as it appeared, I’d caught the way he’d almost moved as if to go after me. He didn’t like it when I left, he’d even grimaced as if he was in pain.

As we assembled in the kitchen that morning to receive our assignments for the day, a hush fell over the crowd just before the Dragon swept into the room. At her heels trotted the Dumb duo, kitted out in the black and gold uniforms standard for the resort. I shivered at their appearance, my skin breaking out in goosebumps just at the sight of Dumber and his glare as he spotted me. He had definitely not forgotten how I’d taunted him.

This wasn’t the normal way things operated, the Dragon rarely got involved with the standard day-to-day operations. Now she launched into a speech that served as a warning for punishment to come if we didn’t get this resort into tip-top shape in the next five days. There was no explanation as to why we were suddenly required to tackle a lot of extra maintenance, but we could all hazard a guess, someone very important was coming.

My task list that day was twice as long as it normally would be, with instructions on how to deep clean things like the carpet and the bathroom for each suite. Just looking at the list made me a little dizzy, this was going to take forever. As soon as the Dragon swept out of the kitchen, grumbling erupted among the gathered crowd. A peek at the lists of some of the others near me told me they had lists of similar lengths.

When I headed for the basement with the other housekeepers to prep my hovercart, I made sure to stay near Aradne and her bunkmate Moira. While Moira was anything but fierce, their presence would probably deter any kind of shenanigans. I had a feeling that Dumber was going to try and look me up so I needed to make sure he couldn’t catch me alone somewhere.

The cart was heavy with all the extra cleaning supplies, so I really had to put my back into it to get it to steer right. In the elevator, to the top floor, I actually landed the damn cart and then leaned over it so nothing rattled out of it, but I still had to collect two stacks of towels and place them back on the thing.

The ever-present guard was at Luka’s door and I contemplated doing his room first, my skin was itchy with the need to go see him. The very reason I’d spent two whole weeks already trying to avoid him, I refused to be dependent on any man. I hadn’t relied on one back on Colony Four, I was going to here on Jihari.

With how long my list was, I decided to put Luka’s visit right in the middle. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but I had a feeling he might help me, and maybe I could actually take a break for a few minutes. This was going to be exhausting but there was nothing for it but to put my back into it.

By the time I was done with the first four suites I was a hot, sweaty mess. At least three of those rooms had been vacated, so I didn’t have to tiptoe around someone’s personal belongings. I was faint with hunger, but I had four more to do before I could head for Luka’s room. I stepped out into the hallway to head for my next one, my arm clutched around my midriff to press against my rumbling belly. My skin prickled, the back of my neck crawling with sensation.

I spun around in time to watch Dumber step out of the service elevator with a smug grin on his face. In his security uniform, he looked dapper, like a space cadet freshly kitted out for some formal occasion. His short hair curled slightly over his pointed ears which were studded on the lobes with a glittering red gem. All he did was give me the creepy crawlies.

The Rummicaron guard was watching with interest as Dumber approached and I backed up, dragging the cart with me. I kept it between us while I grabbed my trusty glue gun. Since Luka’s arrival I’d kept that thing some place for easy access just in case; I wasn’t taking any risks.