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I clear my throat delicately, because this is taking a weird turn. “My mate is praxiian, and he’s a good man.”
“Yeah, well, my owner is a praxiian jerk and I’ve had to live on an entire planet of them for the last few years, so you can’t convince me they’re decent people. They’re monsters. They don’t care about anyone or anything except other praxiians.” She’s utterly vehement as she speaks, and I can’t disagree with her that most aliens are jerks. “They think humans are worse than parasites and they dragged me out here because my ‘owner’ can’t go without his human toy for one night. Never mind that he’s traveling with his wife and they’re visiting family. He still needs to get his dick sucked—”
“Wait,” I interrupt, horrified. “Did you say your owner’s traveling to visit family?”
Sophie pauses. “Yes…wait. Is your mate Nassakth?” Before I can even answer, she lets out a hoot of amusement. “Oh man, they are going to shit themselves when they find he’s married a human! I almost want to stick around for that.”
I swallow hard, trying to focus. Just when I think I’ve got a handle on everything, life throws another sucker punch at me. This human slave belongs to my father-in-law. He’s going to be utterly livid if I help her escape…but how can I not? How can I turn my back on a fellow human?
And Nassakth? What will he think?
I close my eyes and think of my mate. His cat mouth curling into a smile. He’d tell me that I’m a person too and he’d stand by me, because I trust him. He knows what it’s like to be a slave. So I stop Sophie’s hard laughter with a quick gesture. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”
She goes silent. Her fingers press to her mouth, and then she leans in. “Please, please help me escape.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend. I—”
“It’s okay,” I promise her gently. I nod at Kaspar, who’s still watching us. “If you want to escape, tell him the word ‘hamburger’ and he’ll help you out.”
The words are barely out of my mouth before Sophie’s at the door, hissing the word. “Hamburger! Hamburger!”
Kaspar glances at me, then at Sophie. “You really want to do this right now? I can’t help her and keep an eye on you here.”
“I know,” I tell him. “I’ll be fine. Just help her.”
And I settle back in at the table to wait for my husband to finish meeting his awful, awful parents that I hate already. Maybe it’s a good thing I got sent to the kiddie table.
66
NASSAKTH
My palms are sweaty as I scan the cantina for my father’s familiar cresting mane and my mother’s elegant stance among the seated patrons. I see no one familiar, and turn to Bethiah. “You said they would be here.”
“I said they’d be in a private room. Does this look like a private room?” She mutters something under her breath but I catch the words “keffing” and “sack of shit.” She is irate this day, which does not sit well with me—I am plenty irate myself, as I’ve just abandoned my mate to a disgusting room set aside for humans and livestock. She cannot sit with me because in the eyes of those that frequent this cantina, she is not a person. She is a thing.
It makes me so angry that my entire body shudders. I clench my fists, trying to calm myself.
“Don’t freak out on me,” Bethiah hisses. “Just…come on already.”
She slinks through the sea of tables, all confidence, and I have no choice but to follow behind. I head after her and she nods at the barkeeper, who points at a door in a shadowy corner of the cantina, behind the stage with an ooli cyborg playing a synth ballad of some kind. I ignore the “entertainment,” thinking longingly of nights with Kim where we played Slapjack and ate noodles and watched arena matches on the vid-screen, cuddled together. All at once, it hits me. What am I doing here? I could be home with her. She is happiness. She should be all I need.
And yet…it gnaws at me, this curiosity. I want to know what my parents seek after all this time.
Bethiah cracks open the door and sticks her head in. She glances over at me and nods, then waits by the entrance.
I take a deep breath and plunge inside.
The interior is lit brighter than the rest of the cantina, and several elegant gaming tables have been set up. This is likely a sticks den, where those with big pockets come at night to burn through their money. Right now, it is a meeting room. There is a clean plas-film tablecloth tossed over the table and seated across from an empty chair are two elegant, elderly praxiians.
