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She sighed. "If you have your heart set on a god inducing me, you can talk to the other two gods who are not mated. Just try to be tactful and broach the subject delicately."
Gilbert pretended to scowl. "When am I not tactful and delicate?"
Karen laughed. "You're funny."
Dagor
When Dagor returned to the living room, a couple of humans were busy setting up the dining table. They had brought a cart loaded with fragrant dishes and were transferring trays to the table.
"I think Frankie can manage on her own, but just in case she faints again… "
He didn't get to finish the sentence when Mia swiveled her chair and drove into the room he'd just left, leaving him alone with the royal and the humans.
Surprisingly, the servers smiled at Toven as if they knew him, and he smiled back and addressed them by name.
When the humans had removed the last trays from the cart and put them on the table, Toven thanked them, and then they were truly alone.
"Take a seat." Toven motioned at the table. "The ladies will join us as soon as they are ready."
"Are the humans working on this ship from the immortals' village?"
"No. Save for a few exceptions, Kian doesn't allow humans in there." Toven filled his glass with water and offered the pitcher to Dagor. "I'm surprised that you don't recognize them. They are from the Kra-ell compound, which you spied on for five years. When we liberated the Kra-ell, we also freed the humans, and they chose where they wanted to settle from several options that we gave them."
"Yes, I'm aware of that. I just didn't make the connection. The truth is that we should have paid more attention to the humans in the compound. Our job was to monitor the Kra-ell and find the rest of the pods, meaning we were gone for months at a time. The monitoring we did was sporadic."
"Did you find any more pods?" Toven asked.
Shaking his head, Dagor sighed. "To borrow a human expression, it's like searching for a needle in a haystack. We followed rumors of strange materials and places that emitted unexplained radiation. Aru came up with a great cover story for us that made it less suspicious for us to ask strange questions and also supplemented our funds. We searched for flea-market finds and hunted for artifacts. We made good money on the things we found and sold, but we had no luck with the pods." He took a sip from his glass of water. "By the way, we were told that the humans from the compound were settled in a resort that belongs to the clan and that they were given housekeeping jobs."
"That's right. The resort is actually owned by one of Jade's former tribe members, but the clan got a share of it in exchange for investing in the property. I'm told that it was in dire need of renovations."
Dagor cast him a stern look. "So basically, the clan still treats the humans as serfs, just as the Kra-ell did."
"Not at all." Toven didn't seem perturbed by Dagor's accusation. "They were more than happy to return to the ship that brought them to freedom and repay their rescuers with the best service they could muster. Obviously, they were also offered bonus pay." He smiled. "Kian is a great believer in win-win solutions. This is just one example of his philosophy."
The puzzle pieces started to fall into place in Dagor's mind. Toven's familiarity with the human occupants of the compound meant that he had been there, helping to free them. The only reason the immortals would have dragged a god along for such a dangerous mission was because he could do what they couldn't—override Gor's compulsion.
"You must be a powerful compeller." He looked at the god. "You were there when the Kra-ell were liberated, and you helped free these humans."
Toven acknowledged his statement with a nod. "I am a pretty strong compeller, but it wasn't an easy task to free the Kra-ell, especially the purebloods. The humans were a piece of cake."
"The Kra-ell are impervious to thralling and shrouding, and compulsion is the only mental power that affects them. Usually, the strongest female of the tribe has power over her subjects. Gor was a perversion."
"So, his original name was Gor? He wasn't very creative picking his fake name."
Dagor chuckled. "It's easier to remember when the sound is familiar. I chose Doug, Aru chose Uriel, and Negal chose Ned."
"And I chose Tom."
As the door to the bedroom opened and the ladies came out, Dagor rose to his feet and pulled out a chair for Frankie while Toven removed one of the chairs to make room for Mia's wheelchair.
"How are you feeling?" Dagor asked as she smiled up at him.
"I feel great." She sat down. "I'm sure the fainting spells won’t come back."
"I hope not." He lifted her chair and pushed it closer to the table.
Frankie laughed. "My dad used to do that to me all the time. He would pick up my chair with me in it and push it closer to the table."
