It was an interesting explanation, but once again, Dax’s blithe cheerfulness was annoying me. “Weren’t you upset when you figured it out? Andhowdid you figure it out, anyway?”
“I was doing a lot of research on Alliance culture. My job – aside from supporting my master – is to help support other soldiers who have been injured or suffered traumatic situations. I was trying to find out what some culturally appropriate activities would be for them to do. And reading about Alliance culture, I kept stumbling upon articles that said slavery is illegal. And that made no sense either. Henderson is a colonel in the Alliance military. Why would he be purchasing a slave for my master, when slavery was illegal? And then I read an article about a dimari who was found after the ship he was travelling on was shot down, and the rest of it just fell into place.
“As for how I felt about it, I was a little shocked at first. But this was only a couple of months ago, and it was very clear to me by that point that not only did my master desperately need my help, but that he very much enjoyed my company as well. In the end, I decided not to mention it to him, and we’ve continued living happily together despite the difficult beginning.”
I heard the back door open behind me, and my master stuck his head out. “Hey, Jai. It’s about time we got going. You ready to wrap things up?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, standing up. “Thank you for the conversation,” I said to Dax. “It’s been very interesting.”
We said our goodbyes to Zeke, then walked back to the train. My master seemed tense, though I couldn’t begin to tease out the reason for his apprehension. Presumably, Zeke had said something to him after I’d gone outside, and given all the various dramas that could go on in the military, it wasn’t likely that I’d be able to guess what the problem was.
When our train arrived, I slid into the seat by the window and sat silently, watching the scenery of the beautiful city scroll past. Dax’s words kept running through my head, over and over. Slavery was illegal in the Alliance. Dax himself had not been bought, but ratherfound. At the same time, Zeke had told me what I now realised was a rather fanciful story about how my master had bought Kade after his intended owner was killed.
But slavery was illegal in the Alliance. I made a mental note to look that up, once we got home and I could find a few minutes of privacy. Because the story that fit much more neatly than Zeke’s supposed plot twist, was that my master hadn’tboughtKade at all. He’dfoundhim. What was less clear was whether or not Kade knew that, but I made the bold assumption that if Dax had been smart enough to figure it out, then Kade most likely had as well.
But the real revelation in this whole mess was not the idea that Kade had not been deliberately purchased.
It was thatImost likely hadn’t been, either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AIDEN
Iopened the front door of my villa, glad to be home, but also aware that the mere fact that we were back somewhere familiar didn’t mean the roiling thoughts in my head were going to magically go away. Zeke had been quite insistent that I should tell Jai that I wasn’t his intended master. Jai felt no loyalty to the man who had paid for his training, Zeke had said, and moreover, he was enthused about the idea of ending up with an entirely different master.
But while that might have sounded very much like an open and shut case, I was all too aware of the distress it could cause when a dimari found out they weren’t quite as wanted as they’d assumed they were.
Jai stepped through the door behind me, and I waited with resignation for him to turn his scales black. He’d turned them purple at the last possible second before we’d left this morning, and given his silence and his ongoing scowl on the way home, I didn’t expect anything to have magically changed since then.
He bent down and took off his shoes, his scales still purple, and I undid my boots and toed them off, leaving them kicked not quite neatly beside his. Then Jai closed the front door and let his gaze drift across the living room, his eyes avoiding mine.
Finally, he changed his scales to… blue. Very similar to the deep, ocean blue that Kade’s naturally were, just a shade or two darker.
Blue. I hadn’t seen him voluntarily be blue since I’d met him.
Zeke had said their conversation had ended on a tense note, and that Jai had all but bolted from the room when Zeke had given him permission to leave. So what the hell could have happened between then and now that could have inspired him to let his guard down enough to be blue?
I shoved the idea aside, adding it to the pile of issues I’d have to find a solution to later. Instead, I swiftly checked the kitchen, then headed for the bedrooms when I didn’t see Kade. The spare bedroom was empty, but I found him comfortably propped up in my bed, reading something on his comm. He smiled as he saw me arrive.
“How are you feeling?” I asked him. He had the bandage off his arm now, and I could see the neat line of stitches, along with a bright patch of purple bruising.
“I’m fine,” he said, in the sort of tone that meant ‘please stop fussing over me’. “I took another dose of painkillers, and I put a cold pack on the worst bruise on my thigh. It’s down to a dull ache, and I’ve been thoroughly entertained reading a detective novel.”
I felt a little of the tension I’d been carrying evaporate. At least one of my dimari was fine. So I could put more of my energy into worrying about the other one. “I had a thought that maybe we could all go out to dinner this evening,” I suggested. “Somewhere nice on the waterfront. That’s if you’re feeling up to it, of course. We can call a taxi to drive us down, insteadof walking.” The idea was designed to be partially a reward for Kade, for his good work during the mission, and partly a bribe for Jai, to hopefully convince him that there were positive sides to life here, regardless of his aversion to acknowledging them.
Kade looked at me with poorly disguised amusement. “A taxi? It’s a ten minute walk. I take it that reminding you of all of the exertions of my combat training would not be appropriate right now?”
I scowled at him, though I was trying not to smile at the same time. “Just because youcanhike for two hours in the jungle with a broken leg, doesn’t mean that youneedto, when there’s a perfectly civilised option available.”
Kade graciously conceded the point with a tilt of his head. “Then by all means, call a taxi.”
I left him alone to rest, intending to send a message to Bryce, letting him know what Zeke had said about Jai. I was heavily leaning towards telling him the truth, but planning out exactlyhowto do so was going to take some effort. I pulled up Bryce’s contact in my comm, but before I could start tapping out a message, an alert popped up, a bell chiming at the same time. It was coming through on the military channel. With a frown, I opened the message, wondering if there was another emergency at the base, or if something had gone wrong with one of the dimari we’d just found homes for.
“Fuck!” I spat the word out, cursing the thought I’d just had about the dimari. Because, of course, no sooner had I opened the message than I found out that that was exactly it. Sora, the dimari who’d been trained as a pilot, had apparently just found out that his master, Captain James Gell, hadn’t bought him after all. James had sent me a frantic message, urgently requesting help to deal with the crisis that Sora now found himself in.
On my way to the base, I responded.Tell him that you like him very much, you’re very pleased with the work he’s beendoing for you, and that I’m on my way to explain to him what happened.Having a dimari find out they hadn’t been bought was always a tough situation, but for it to happen so early in the process of bonding with his master was a disaster.
I didn’t bother with my military uniform, just pulled on my shoes and grabbed my wallet and keys. Then I dashed into the bedroom. “Kade, I gotta go to the base. Sora found out…” I cut myself off sharply, aware that there was a chance Jai could overhear me. “He found out something he shouldn’t know,” I finished, giving Kade a look of alarm. Hopefully, he’d figure out what I was trying to say without me actually saying it. “Don’t know when I’m going to be back, but if it gets too late, you and Jai are free to make some dinner. We might have to postpone that trip to the restaurant.”
