I sigh and close my eyes, shoving the blankets up to my chin even though it's stuffy in the house. "Fine. Let me sleep, then."
He grunts acknowledgment, and I settle in. If I can't ditch him, I can at least try to ignore him, and I'm tired. I'm always tired. Now that I know I'm sleeping for two (so to speak) it explains a lot. Kinda sucks, too, but so has almost everything about being in this world. I've just about drifted off when Aron taps my shoulder.
I bite back a groan. "What?"
"How is it that you were enslaved by the Order of the Axe?"
I have to think for a moment, then realize that the “Order of the Axe” must be his priesthood. "I wasn't. They bought me from the guy that initially enslaved me. They dumped me into a room with a bunch of other women and were going to sacrifice us in your name, remember?"
"Mmm. None of them stepped forward. I recall this."
"Yeah, they were all smart enough to realize that they were getting saddled permanently with you." I yawn. "I'm the fool that didn't know. Can I go to sleep now?"
"I am not stopping you."
"You're talking," I tell him and close my eyes again. "You have to be silent for me to sleep." When he has no response to that, I say, "Well?"
"You said I had to be silent. I am being silent. Which is it?"
This is worse than arguing with a three-year-old. "Good night," I emphasize and close my eyes again.
"How long were you a slave for?"
I stare at the wall and grit my teeth. It's clear that I'm not going to get any sleep while Aron's around. Correction: while Aron is bored. "Like three days, max."
Aron grunts. "I thought it was longer."
I frown to myself. I shouldn't ask. I shouldn't. It's just going to make him keep talking. And yet… "Why did you think that? Did I have a 'slavey' look to me?"
"No. You glared at everyone in the room as if they were a problem. I admit, I appreciated that."
Some of the irritation I have with Aron fades away. "I was pretty pissed at being enslaved. Where I come from, that shit was abolished a long time ago."
"And where do you come from?"
"Oh no, don't change the subject. You still haven't told me why I looked slavey."
He sighs heavily, and his breath brushes against my hair. "Are all mortal women this difficult?"
"Yes. Now answer."
Aron snorts. "Because you had a very appealing body. If I was enslaving females, I would not want ugly ones. I would pick ones like you."
"I have no idea if that's a compliment or not. I'm going to go ahead and take it as one," I tell him with a yawn. "Can I please go to sleep now?"
"Go. Sleep. This is an idiotic conversation anyhow."
I roll my eyes and then settle in again. As I do, I can't help but think about the fact that he said I had a good body. He didn't say I was beautiful, of course. Arrogant Aron would never go out on a limb like that—but he liked my body…a body that's currently pressed against his in the bed.
I shouldn't even think about that.
Or the fact that I pretty much had my hands all over his dick at Tadekha's Citadel. And that I begged for it. A lot.
Like, a lot.
Of course, Aron hasn't brought it up again, so I won't either. It's just a shameful bit of history that I pray won't repeat itself again.
Even as I ponder this, he nudges me in the back. "You did not say where you are from."
"No, I didn't." After the first few rounds of getting the snot beat out of me every time I brought it up, I stopped saying anything at all. Even I'd find it a little hard to believe if a stranger came up to me and said they weren't from my world. It's not something that comes up in casual conversation.
"Where is it, then?" He nudges me again, this time so hard I nearly roll off the damn cot.
“You finally decided to ask?”
“I still don’t care,” he says arrogantly. “But you are…somewhat interesting.”
Wow. I bite back a sigh of irritation. "I told you before. I'm not from this world. My world is Earth. I don’t know how I got here. I kept hearing voices in an empty apartment next door, and when I went to go check