Page 21 of Warrioress

Chapter 16

Uma handed off the sealed tube containing her report to guardswoman standing at alert in front of her desk. “Jessie, please take the this to the guild foreman.”

“Now?” Jessie gave the tube a curious glance. “Mother’s Night is tomorrow. I doubt that it will even be read.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Uma replied as she frowned back down at her notes. Where would the poisoner be hiding? She would like to get at least this one matter resolved before she was required to escort the triad out of citadel lands. “That they have received my report means I have passed along pertinent information regarding this Ragoru situation in a timely manner. It is supposed to start snowing again tomorrow, so I doubt that there will be a way for me to get it in otherwise. Just go home after you deliver it.”

Jessie cradled the tube against her chest as she gave her a skeptical look. “It just doesn’t seem right that you should be the one to remain here. Surely they can assign someone else for just one day. You are the captain and—”

“And I am the best choice for it,” Uma interrupted, not bothering to look up. She rifled through the pages in front of her. “I have no children at home to care for and no living family to spend it with.”

Or at least none that would acknowledge her. Her one surviving brother, the youngest James—or Jimmy, as she was more accustomed to calling him from their childhood days—had managed to find a comfortable life being married into a founding family and cut off all contact with her since the incident. It was for the best. He had been incapable of understanding her position, or her anger, and she understood that distancing himself from their relationship and humble background helped his social standing after everything that happened. Especially after the Order wasted the life of their eldest brother and branded him as a defector and traitor. That had been the start of their family’s ruin and James’s withdrawal.

She couldn’t blame him. In the end it had destroyed her family—and the fact that she had been a tool for that destruction had sealed their fates.

Suddenly aware that Jessie was still standing there, Uma looked up impatiently. “Is there anything else?”

The younger woman fidgeted in place, a blush working its way through her face. “Are you sure you are going to be... safe? I heard that they go into a sort of rut on Mother’s Night and... well...” She trailed off in embarrassment.

Amused despite herself, Uma settled back in her chair, her eyebrows rising as a smile slowly stretched across her face. “Do you worry about my virtue—that they will burst out of their cages and attack me?”

Jessie didn’t reply but the discomfiture on her face showed her inward struggle. Uma cocked her head, assessing the guard. She was young and naive. It was good to push her a little out of her comfort zone, especially when it came to dealing with aliens and expectations. She couldn’t continue to act like a timid rabbit around them.

“I assure you that the cell will hold up to whatever they deal to it. Or are you afraid that it will somehow cause me permanent damage?”

A choked laugh escaped the guardswoman, but she quickly shook her head. “No, but I don’t know about you, I would be praying for instantaneous blinding,” Jessie replied, and Uma swallowed back her own amusement.

As funny as it was, as captain, Uma could not encourage such irreverence amongst the guardswomen. Even their prisoners had to be treated with dignity. She gave her an arch look until Jessie ducked her head with a muttered apology.

“It will be fine,” Uma finally assured her. “In fact, I intend to be in the holding area as little as possible. I have also organized a cleaning crew to come afterward. While the heightened need of the Ragoru to breed can last a couple of months, my understanding is that the worst of the uncontrollable impulse seems to last around five days. Or at least from the documentation that Arie compiled regarding her own mates and filed with the citadel for increasing public awareness and knowledge of the species.”

Jessie’s face wrinkled up. “Five days? By the Mother, that cell is going to reek.”

Uma nodded in agreement. “Hence the cleaning crew—the very well-compensated cleaning crew,” she added as she repressed her own internal shudder. Gods, the fluids!

“I suppose that isn’t so bad,” Jessie reluctantly agreed. She dragged in a breath, and she shot the door a nervous look. “Another storm system is moving in, so there won’t be anyone on hand to help. But my place faces the station. If anything happens, set off a flare and I will make my way here one way or another.”

Uma regarded her for a long moment but slowly nodded. The offer wasn’t necessary as Uma neither anticipated the need nor was inclined to waste a flare, but the other woman’s willingness to risk her own health and safety struggling against a storm to come to her aid was touching.

“If there is anything that is beyond my control, I will do so. Thank you, guardswoman,” she said somberly.

Her blush renewing, Jessie bobbed her head quickly with embarrassment before rushing away from Uma’s desk. Uma watched her go, her fingers restlessly tapping on her desk. Her lips twisted into a grimace. Cleaning crew aside, there was no way she was going to be able to entirely avoid the males. They would still need food and supplies even if they were safely locked within their sturdy cell.

Which reminded her—with Jessie leaving, she should start the station’s lockdown.

Rising from her chair, Uma stretched and headed for the door. The bolt only took a moment to secure in its latch before she was heading back through to the holding rom. All three males looked up in unison from their respective spots around the room. Laro calmly peered over at her from the chair the enormous bulk of his body was settled on, a stacked hand weight from the training room gripped in one hand, seemingly oblivious to the two males on the floor. Kam grinned up at her from an awkward angle as he lay pinned beneath Vrin, who not only held him in a headlock but had a leg and an arm caught and held by his secondary hands. Uma stared at them in surprise for only a moment before she closed her eyes and shook her head tiredly.

“I’m not going to ask,” she muttered to herself. Opening her eyes once more, she looked over at Laro and tipped her head toward the cell. “It’s lockdown time,” she informed him. “I assume you know why.”

Laro’s head craned as he looked over at the crane and then back at her. “The Withering Days?” he supplied, the corner of his mouth creeping up slightly as if amused.

She nodded. “I am under orders to have you three secured for the next few days. We have another storm moving in soon, but we have plenty of supplies to keep us comfortable. I will make sure you have everything you need.”

A diabolical smile stole over Vrin’s face as he slowly rose off Kam. “Everything?”

She pinned him with an unamused look. “Anything within reason that is necessary to your survival. So it certainly won’t be that,” she retorted.

He scoffed quietly, his tail flicking at her as he walked past. “I did not think that there was anything objectionable about extra cloths for washing.”

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