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“You’re going to have to work sometime,” she said. “It’s not so bad. We’re all here for the same reason.”
Okhet was kind. She risked getting in trouble for me and all I’d done was ignore her. Something about her choice of words caught my attention.
“The same reason?” I said. “You’re slaves?”
“Slaves?” Okhet said. “What makes you think we’re slaves?”
“Shrisa bought us.”
“Not most of us.”
“Wait,” I said, rolling over to look at her. “You chose to be here?”
“Sure. We all did. We’re looking for our soul mate. Some of us would prefer for that mate to be a Titan rather than our own species.”
“What’s wrong with the men in your species?”
Okhet rolled her eyes.
“Boy, that’s a long conversation right there,” she said.
I couldn’t help but smile. It seemed like something one of my friends would have said. I rubbed a hand over my face. It felt dry and splotchy.
“Then what am I doing here?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Okhet said. “No one does. Except Shrisa. She might seem a bit harsh but she has to be if she wants to run a business like this. If you want to know what happened to you, you should go speak with her.”
“I’m not sure she’s in the mood to speak with me,” I said.
“When it comes to business, she’s always in the mood.”
It felt good to have a friend, even in a place like this.
“Your name’s Okhet, right?” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Vicky. Nice to meet you.”
When she stared at my hand, I reached out and took hers and shook it. The grin that spread across her face was slow but warm. She shook my hand back—with a little too much vigor.
That afternoon, I knocked on Shrisa’s office door.
“Come,” her sultry voice said.
I took a deep breath and opened the door.
“Ah,” she said. “The great sleeper. I was wondering when you would darken my office. Take a seat.”
She sat there behind her cheap desk with a pile of paper on each corner. Everything about the room seemed so… normal. And yet, I was on a distant world I couldn’t even imagine, surrounded by strange aliens.
It was enough to make anyone bonkers.
“I wanted to know how I ended up here,” I said. “Did you abduct me?”
“No. I didn’t abduct you. I didn’t have you abducted either. And I didn’t order you. I didn’t want a human. Not after the last one we had. You humans… you’re so complicated and difficult. It surprises me why any Titan would want you. There’s someone for everyone.”
I glanced up at the poster behind her. Beneath the STAR CROSS’D LOVERS company title was its tagline: THERE’S SOMEONE FOR EVERYONE.
“What am I doing here?” I said.
“There was some kind of error with your master,” she said. “I always like to see what the market throws up. Sometimes there’s a rare item here and there. If you have the eye for it. He planned on sending you to the pleasure houses but got caught red-handed in a police sting operation. You were still sleeping soundly in your pod. As you’d been abducted, I figured you’d prefer not to end up in a place like that. I took pity on you and bought you cheap.”
