Page 13 of Tortured

“Let’s go to my room and I’ll call the council on the telesponder.”

She eyes me cynically. “You better not plan on trying anything. I’m not interested. In any male. I just want to go home.”

There’s something in her eyes that looks lost and sad and it makes me want to hug her. Which is ridiculous. She’d probably punch me somewhere unpleasant. She’s got that kind of look to her.

I shake my head and growl at her. It doesn’t even make her look at me. She just walks away and then turns back.

“Well?”

Growling, I stalk after her and then ahead to my room. When I reach it, I put my palm on the pad and it comes open with a small whoosh. She follows me, her mouth falling open.

“Good grief,” she says, chuckling. “Interesting decor.”

I glare at her. “It’s not my choice. This was all here.”

“Apparently our captain has quite the taste.” The walls are covered in deep red. Something that looks like a fuzzy wallpaper. I reach out and touch it, smirking.

“I don’t know. I think I can see you having something like this in your place.” Then she notices the deep red of the bed covering and her face turns a dark red color.

“Why do you look like that?”

“That bed is something else.”

“It is not my taste. I don’t need anything that looks like this.” I can feel my own face heating up and I fight it.

She eyes me and there’s a look on her pretty face that makes me wonder what exactly she’s thinking.

But we have a job. A duty. I touch the telesponder and it immediately connects with the council. I watch Lacey and her eyes widen she sees the darkened room where the council does their job.

The council doesn’t show their face and her brow knits with questions.

But I nod my head and the council leader says, “Commander Koehn of the Arkadian war fleet. We have heard of your seizure of the Carvallian trader vessel and what you found. What is it that you need? You know what our decision is on this matter. That will not change.”

Her head whips around and she glares at me. I can feel it burning into my head.

I nod my head and sigh. “I wish to formally extend my protest. The females are being unnecessarily punished for something that they did not ask for. They wish to go home.”

Another council member speaks up from the side where the shadows are even deeper. “It doesn’t matter what they wish. The council’s laws on this are absolute. We cannot return lesser beings to their home planets, no matter if they left willingly or not, because the threats of exposure to the other members of their species is too great.”

The council leader growls and Lacey groans but covers her mouth when I glare at her.

“I know that. But surely we should take into consideration the lives they were forced to leave and how much they were hurt. One of them is still unable to speak. They were obviously treated poorly. It seems like poor compensation to force them to live with strangers.”

“I realize that you don’t wish to deal with them, Commander but it doesn’t matter. The law is unyielding on this. We will not risk exposure to take these insignificant females home.”

I hear a sharp gasp from the side and move in front of her so that they can’t see her anger. I shake my head at her.

“We have also been attacked by another ship. The damage is light to the ship but in the…the battle we found out that there are more human females that have been taken. They were not found with these ones so they must have all been separated.”

The leader nods their head. “That would be a choice that I would do. That way if one of their ships is attacked with the cargo, they will not lose all their credits. Some of them will remain.”

I run my hand over my jaw. “I feel that we should find the other females.”

“Then you should find them.”

I shake my head, my hair shifting sharply. “That is not our job. Our mission has always been protection of the fleet.”

“Now it’s changed.” The council member that spoke earlier nods towards Lacey’s body. “She has changed it. For now, you and your men are charged with finding these other women and protecting them all.”

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