you soon.”
We were a distance away, Mattis dragging me through the halls of Torrin’s scary palace, when we ended up outside. The dust hit me in the face, and I pulled my scarf up to cover my nose and mouth. Mattis didn’t bother. Maybe he was used to it. Walking with his head down, he eventually slowed his steps when he realized I wasn’t keeping up.
I tugged on his hand, and he indicated that we should walk through a door. I looked around. The place was well-furnished and not much different than other bars I’d been in. Not that there had been many. Tables and chairs filled the center of the room, with the chairs currently upside down and dangling off the sides of the table.
Taking off my scarf, I had to catch my breath before speaking. “What happened back there?”
He ran his hand up my arm. “Torrin ordered me to brand you. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world.”
That part I’d understood. “Look, I handle pain very well. I’m not thrilled about it, but it is what it is.” Not to mention when I figured out how to get off this planet, I was getting the brand off first thing. Brent would probably want to pray over it. “No, the rest of it? What happened?”
“Astor and Torrin?” He sucked in an audible breath. “Torrin is having me brand you with his numbers. That means that you will have the City-State on you here.” He indicated where that would go. “And Torrin’s number beneath it. Astor took exception to that, and Torrin promised to turn you over to him afterwards, which I suppose will mean you will have to have it changed. But that won’t be hard. Torrin has a zero and Astor is an eight. Adding the line. That’s lucky.”
We were getting off track. “What does it mean that I’m Torrin’s number?”
He blinked. “You belong to him. You are his woman.”
“In what sense?”
Mattis ran a hand through his hair. “In every sense. Please don’t tell me that you don’t know what—”
I held up my hand. “I know.”
“You will be safe.” He put his hand on my cheek, cupping it. “Astor had Torrin swear you would not be harmed, and in return, Astor gave him his sacred jewel. That is in an unbreakable oath between them. Because of Astor’s gesture, you are under the protection of the City-State, and no outsider may harm you.”
I had to understand… I had to somehow get a handle on this, before the reality knocked me on my rear and I couldn’t get up. This was a primitive place. Torrin had heads hanging from the ceiling, he sat on bones, and they couldn’t read books. They said woo and beautiful. All of them hated monsters called Reamers, and yet it was a real planet. Their planet. Of course they’d have customs different from what I knew or was comfortable with.
“Mattis…” I forced my breathing to slow. “What happens to women here? I see that Dreama is a warrior. Do women and men fight together?”
Instead of speaking, he took my hand and showed me the street. “Dreama is indulged because she is Torrin’s sister. She guards him, but she has never seen battle, and never will. Women have many roles. They cook, they clean, they tend to the men in their lives. And they…” He pointed down the street. “They sell their bodies. The whorehouses on this street are high-priced. The women live well.”
A headache formed between my eyes. Whorehouses? Premarital sex? That was…unheard of. “They have clients like you? You asked me how much I charged.”
“My apologies. I…I shouldn’t have said that.” He put his hand on my waist. “I will take care of you. I promise.”
He hadn’t finished what he was going to say to me. “And further down the road? What happens to those women?”
His voice was soft. “We are often at war. When we don’t win, they don’t live very long.”
I’d been keeping it together, mostly. But tears flooded my eyes and fell down my cheeks. I never thought I would miss Brent, but I did. Oh…how I did. What was this horrible place, and what had I done to the holy ones to deserve this?
Chapter Four
When I was younger and my immune system was fighting so hard my heart couldn’t keep up—that’s how my mother had described it—I often had to be isolated, which meant a lot of downtime, alone time. I spent a lot of that