“Maritza.”
The sharpness in Elentinus voice made my heart race.
I sheepishly turned toward him.
He glared at me with a narrow-eyed expression that made my insides twist.
“You don’t shock her at all, do you?”
Nayjoor kept focused on me as he spoke.
Elentinus leaned back.
“She only wears her collar for protection.
I disabled the shock mechanism.”
I blinked a few times.
(I heard Whore groan somewhere off in the distance).
Nayjoor jutted his hand toward me in disgust.
“But she’s impudent, Elen.
She needs to be corrected.”
“No.”
The anger remained in his voice.
“This is what I tried to explain to you.
The age of Shindray is over.
Women may speak freely now.”
Nayjoor was aghast.
“Pah!
In front of guests?”
“Absolutely not!” Rolf-Tem said.
“Don’t make me argue with you,” Elentinus said.
“You know Pakpo’s position as well as I do.”
“Of course I know.
He’s a good druid, and he’ll bring about good things.
But you want me to turn my house upside down.
I know some changes are necessary, but I can’t abide chaos, Elen.”
“You haven’t made any changes whatsoever.”
He refused to look at Nayjoor.
“You run your house exactly as your father did.”
Nayjoor reached for another cracker.
“My father was a good man.”
I took advantage of his chewing to jump in.
“Lord Elentinus treats me as much as an equal as he’s able to, given the circumstances.
I am devoted and loving to him because of that.
We’re happy together.
If you want to start getting the same thing from your marriage you must start by disabling the shock mechanism.”
Nayjoor gave me a disapproving look that said,
Now, now.
You know better than this.
He wiped his mouth on a napkin.
“How embarrassing for you, Elen.”
Elentinus was massaging one of his temples.
“I’m not embarrassed in the slightest.”
“Feh.”
He made a snide smile.
“I can tell you’re disturbed just by your posture.”
“I’m disturbed because you’re exposing my wife to a harsh reality I sought to protect her from.”
My lips parted.
Nayjoor frowned.
“Oh, Elen…I didn’t realize.”
He touched his hand.
“I apologize, my friend.
She’s you’re little candy drop, isn’t she?”
Elentinus looked at me.
“I adore her.”
“Aww.”
Nayjoor put his hand to his chest.
Nayjoor had just promoted me from someone impudent to a candy drop.
I could have stayed sugary for him, but I was on a mission.
Fortunately the words were coming to me much easier now.
“Don’t worry, husband.
I already knew women were being treated like subhumans.
I think it’s good that Lord Nayjoor gets to know me.
He can start to get used to the idea of a wife who’s an equal partner to him.”
“I don’t treat Inga so bad!”
“You should treat her the same way you would like her to treat you.”
“Maritza, stop,” Elentinus said.
I turned toward him fretfully.
As I expected he looked angry.
“I told you not to do this.”
I lowered my head.
My heart was racing again.
Nayjoor clucked his tongue.
“Perhaps now you see there’s some virtue to correcting them.”
He shoved a mushroom thing in his mouth.
***
Inga needed to do some breeding cycle stuff and Nayjoor wanted to go online for a while.
Elentinus offered to bring Nayjoor to a console.
He shot me a look that said,
Stay here
, but I booked it back to our bedroom.
I got on the bed and closed the curtain.
Inga wore me out, Nayjoor pissed me off, and Elentinus was mad at me.
I needed some time alone.
I guess I was being childish.
I didn’t want to be scolded…or worse.
I heard a domestic rolling toward the bed.
Kang pulled back my curtain.
“I believe Lord Elentinus is looking for you.”
“You believe?
Or did he ask you to find me?”
“I saw him searching for you.”
I chewed my bottom lip.
“Mistress…in the time of Shindray, if a wife hid from her husband she’d be beaten most severely.”
“Uh…who says I’m hiding?
I just wanted to lie down for a while or something.
Maybe I have a headache.”
Kang bopped an invisible panel on the wall and a deep drawer popped out.
I crawled over to see what he was doing.
He dug around for a bit and pulled out a flask.
“This will get rid of your headache, mistress.”
He held it out for me, but I didn’t take it.
All my focus was still on the drawer.
The control unit for my collar was right there.
“I…I don’t have a headache.”
Kang replaced the flask and closed the drawer.
I flopped back on the bed.
That nauseating ice in my stomach feeling had taken over.
I wished I hadn’t seen the fucking thing.
“All Domestics, locate Maritza.”
I sat up again with wide eyes.
Elentinus’ voice had come through one of Kang’s speakers.
After a few moments Kang said, “Mistress Maritza is in your quarters, Lord Elentinus.”
I swallowed.
“She has a headache and went to lie down.”
This made me smile.
I assumed the position of someone lying in bed with a headache.
I could hear Elentinus walking across the vast room.
I stayed huddled under the blanket.
The side of the bed dipped and I heard him sigh.
I ventured a peek.
He sat on the edge of the bed closest to me.
“Did you really have a headache?”
I considered lying for one too many moments and lost the opportunity.
I cleared my throat.
“Inga is exhausting.”
“As is Nayjoor.”
Silence followed.
I pursed my lips.
Elentinus was keeping his back to me.
“You knew I had to try, husband.”
“Why couldn’t you trust me?”
“I didn’t think it would hurt anything.”
“That’s because you don’t understand.”
I thought over the situation.
Elentinus was right.
“Explain it to me.”
“Nayjoor is my enemy.
Everyone on that council is my enemy.
They’re all old men who’ve never ventured off the home world.
They make decisions for the empire based on statistics and theories, without having ever fought a battle.
I’m a soldier and a governor.
The man who reinvented Dornovonia, and then conquered the elusive planet Earth.
Each council member is old enough to be my father, and yet I’m wiser than the six combined.
They resent my wisdom, but have to concede to it time and time again.
Their rancor towards me…it’s intolerable.
So childish, and yet, at times, they’ve found ways to humiliate me.”
He finally turned around to look at me.
“This is why I left our home world.
I’d much rather take missions Nayjoor considers the work of a ‘petty viceroy’ than stay in the capital.”
I nodded.
Elentinus caressed the side of my face.
“Nayjoor knows he has no effect on me.
If you try to engage him you’ll make yourself his prey.
He won’t consider your ideas.
He’ll only search for ways to hurt me by hurting you.”
I leaned my face into his caress.
“But Inga…”
“I told you it was pointless.
She gets a reprieve here.
That’s all.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in and out.
I didn’t let the actual thought of what I had to do form in my mind, but I knew.
It made a sob shudder up my chest.
Elentinus soothed my hair, but he didn’t know.
He had no…no idea.
“I told you not to take on the weight of her suffering.”
I tried to collect myself.
It was tough.
My only solace was clinging to the hope that there might be another answer.
“I wish she’d never come here,” I said.
Elentinus puffed out a forlorn sigh.
“It’s my fault.
I really thought that imbecile wanted help to change.”
He climbed into bed beside me.
“I’m naïve, Maritza.”
I kissed his soft lips and managed to laugh.
“So am I.”
He continued to caress my hair.
“It’s strange…how the two of us have turned out to be alike in so many ways.”
This gave me such a warm pang inside.
Looking into his eyes was like drinking ambrosia.
“That makes me think it was destiny,” I said.
“You and I were meant to be together.”
“I feel so certain of that.”
His voice had gotten breathy.
“I could never explain why, but I know it.
You were a gift to me from the gods themselves.”
I kissed him again.
He brought his hand around my head and lavished my mouth.
The kisses went deeper.
Our tongues started to slide against each other.
Then he rolled on top of me.
“We have to have dinner with them soon,” Elentinus said.
I wrapped my arms around him.
“Fuck them.”
“Such impudence!”
He sat up and threw me over his knee.
The dress didn’t allow me to wear the girdle underwear.
My skirt was thrown up and I was exposed.
He gently smacked his hand against my ass cheeks one after the other.