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“What are you so dressed up for?”
“I may later regret this, but I have matters of importance to deal with today. I could leave you in a secure location, but I am not certain that any location is secure where you are concerned. I am curious. How did you support yourself on Earth?”
“A little of this, a little of that.” My reply is evasive because I’ve learned over time not to incriminate myself. It’s not as if I can be punished for what I did back there. Right? Right. Or maybe? Hard to say. Definitely easier not to say.
Ark gives me a stern stare through golden eyes. “I am not trying to trick you into confessing past crimes,” he says. “But I do find it interesting how quickly you were able to break out of your crate.”
“It’s just not a very good crate,” I explain with a grin that I cannot help because I know that answer drives him fucking mad. It’s one little piece of control I have in a world and existence that feels very much entirely out of my control.
“Obviously you were able to manipulate the latch.”
“Obviously.”
I cannot get the shit-eating grin off my face. The harder he stares at me, the funnier I find this.
“You have some talent for escape and for evasion, pet,” he says. “I can see that. I’m simply curious where it came from.”
His question sends my mind cartwheeling back to darker times and worse places. I don’t like thinking about Earth. I yearn for it because it is home, but when I think about specifics, I feel a certain dark curtain falling around me. Life was not easy before I was taken.
“Let’s just say it was a skill borne out of necessity and leave it at that, shall we?”
Ark crouches down next to me, taking one knee next to the bed, his golden gaze on a level with mine.
“I want to know, pet. I want to know everything about you.”
Something inside me wants to break and tell him my whole sorry, sordid story. But there are stronger impulses. Like the one to shut up and protect myself.
“There’s not much to tell,” I lie with a little shrug.
“I will hear your stories one day, pet,” he says. “But for today, I need you to resist any temptation you have to run. I have serious business to attend to, and I am going to have you with me. You will wear a collar, and a leash, and you will behave yourself.”
I start to grin again as he tells me I will behave, but his eyes narrow and his features sharpen with a certain kind of intensity that tells me I don’t want to fuck around.
I have been punished multiple times in the last twenty-four hours. I am ready to take a break from being in trouble.
“Okay,” I agree. “But only because you made me pancakes.”
“Good. I’ll take your good behavior for any reason at this point,” he says, standing up. “Stay there,” he says. “I have something for you.”
* * *
Thesomething for meturns out to be a blue silk dress in fabric very much like the fabric his own attire is made of. We are going to be matchy-matchy, and suddenly I am very much here for it.
The bodice fits nicely, and the skirt comes down to just above my knees. It looks like a proper piece of clothing, not some animal costume. With matching boots with gold laces that run all the way up to my knees, I feel comfortable and stylish and only slightly like a professional wrestler slash anime girl.
I stand before the mirror in his room, turning back and forth to see how the skirt flares with my motion. It doesn’t just look good, it fits me perfectly. I have curves. I have a big ass. Usually skirts that fit in the chest and waist cling to my rear like an anaconda attempting to devour a sheep. But this is cut to fit my pear shape as if the maker had studied my body for years.
“You had this outfit all ready to go?”
He pauses for a moment, as if considering whether or not to confess something to me.
“I had this made after I captured you, and before you were sold.”
I frown a little. “Does that mean you were intending on keeping me?”
He nods. “Yes. But my brother was not aware, and so you were sold, and once sold, I thought you might find a happy home with your new owners.”
“That didn’t happen, obviously,” I point out bluntly.
