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We enter a long room lined with shelves and cupboards. Herbs are drying on a steel grid hang from the ceiling over a large table by a thick chain. There’s an archway leading to another room beside a stone hearth with a small cauldron on the other side of the room.
Healer Reyn is at his workbench, grinding something in a pestle and mortar. When Gwennie goes to him and murmurs something, he looks up as if he was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed that we’d arrived.
‘Ah, good,’ he murmurs, putting the pestle carefully into the mortar and turning towards us as Gwennie goes to stir the pot on the fire.
Reyn’s eyes travel over me slowly as if his interest is purely as a healer, but I know better, and it makes my skin crawl. I realize I’ve moved closer to the nearest of The Cunty Trio, which happens to be Grey. He glances down at me with a fathomless expression.
‘You’re very welcome in my home,’ Reyn says, coming forward.
The three fae go over to Reyn and begin talking in low voices. Gwennie approaches me cautiously.
‘You’re looking better,’ she says quietly as she tidies the table close by.
‘Thank you,’ I murmur. ‘Healer Reyn knows his craft well, I’ll say that for him.’
Gwennie gives me a small smile. ‘He does.’
‘How long have you been … his?’ I ask.
‘About five years, I believe,’ she answers, wiping the table slowly. ‘And you? How long have you been with those fae warriors?’
‘Not long. A few days.’
Gwennie nods. ‘They seem to treat you well, though Healer Reyn thinks they should be releasing you more often than they are. He says you’re too tense at the moment for breeding.’
I blink at her. ‘I don’t think they’re going to breed me yet.’ I choke out the words as smoothly as I can and then feel dirty for even pretending to be fine with any of this. But I just need to play my part.
‘If you like, I could do it for you,’ she says almost shyly.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I frown. ‘Do what?’
‘Release you. I’ve gotten very good at it. Some of the girls who are brought in are scared, you see? So Healer Reyn taught me because they’re usually calmer with another woman.’
I shake my head. ‘Oh. No. Thank you. I think my … my masters want to release me together later.’
‘Oh,’ she murmurs with a small smile, glancing up at the others who are still across the room. ‘All of them? Healer Reyn only lets his bull have me. Lucky you.’
‘Uh … yes.’ My eyes widen as her words register. ‘I mean, no! I mean … I’m sure it’ll only be what Healer Reyn does to you … They wouldn’t,’ I search for the right words, ‘breed me themselves.’ I frown at her. ‘Isn’t that against the law?’
‘Sort of.’
I see her nod a little absently, and I glance over at where The Cunty Trio are still chatting to Reyn, wondering how much of this conversation she’s going to tell her master. She’s trying to get information out of me, I realize.
‘Do you like it here?’ I ask her, wondering if it’s a stupid question, but her movements pause, and she seems to consider.
‘Yes,’ she says finally with a shrug. ‘I remember how it was before. It was worse for us, and Healer Reyn is fond of me.’ She winces. ‘I could do without Enrek … the bull that mounts me. He’s rough sometimes, but Healer Reyn keeps him in check. He watches us most of the time to make sure Enrek breeds me properly and puts a stopper in my cunt to keep the seed in so it takes root.’
I open and close my mouth twice before I can get my next words out. ‘Do you … want that?’
She shrugs again. ‘I know my place. It doesn’t matter what I want, but Healer Reyn has promised not to sell my first babe for any price, so I’ll have my little one.’
‘Bring her here,’ Reyn calls, and Gwennie gives me a rueful look.
‘Could be worse,’ she whispers, taking me to the others and then leaving me to stir the pot again.
Reyn gestures for me to come to where he’s standing near the large middle table, and when I hesitate, Grey pushes me gently with a look of warning.
I walk slowly over to Reyn, whose shrewd, beady eyes survey me as a gem merchant might a diamond.
