Page 97 of Escape Velocity

When she was horizontal, the other woman pulled up the covers.

“No one will disturb you. I’ll be back to wake you when it’s time to get ready.”

“Yes,” Amber murmured, feeling the room start to spin around her.

She closed her eyes and flattened her hands against the silky surface below her, trying to ground herself. She heard Camille leave and knew she was alone, yet it felt like people were crowding in around the bed.

“My imagination,” she murmured. Or was she already asleep? Was this a dream or a nightmare? She thought she could sense Max nearby and behind him a malevolent figure that she knew must be Tudor. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she felt he was staring at her, anticipating the moment when he got her under his control.

She shuddered and once again vowed to die rather than let him kill her. But if the plan worked, she wouldn’t have to see him.

Max stayed between her and the evil man, but there was a crowd behind him, and she realized with a shock of recognition that all the other people were women—women Max would have called beautiful. Were there ten? Twelve? She wasn’t sure because they kept moving, merging and blurring, but she knew they were the other slaves Tudor had brought to Danalon and killed for his own pleasure.

All of them looked at her with pleading eyes—begging her to stop the slaughter.

The knowledge that she had dared to defy this man awed her. Yet at the same time, she knew that it could all go wrong as quickly as Max had tossed the gems on the ground back on Naxion.

She stirred in her sleep, hearing herself moan. Then a soothing voice drifted toward her.

“Charobina.”

If she could have sat up, she would have done it. But her body felt chained to the mattress. All she could do was turn her head as a figure emerged from the crowd.

“Charobina,” the woman said again.

That was the name she had back on Naxion, the name she had been unwilling to tell Max because it was a token of her slavery. At first, she thought it was Esme calling her.

“Yes.”

But the speaker wasn’t Esme; it was Devora, her mother, who had raised her until she had failed to make the change. A fogginess obscured her face so that Amber could not see the “beauty bumps” that covered her skin. Back on Naxion, Amber had thought that was a person’s normal appearance because she had known nothing else until she had been sent to the slave-training facility. Now that she had seen the kind of people who populated the rest of the planets, she felt revolted.

She must have made a sound that gave away her feelings.

“You find me ugly,” her mother said.

“No.”

“Do not lie to me.”

She swallowed hard. “I am ashamed to feel that way about you. You were always good to me. And I knew how you feared for my future.”

“Do not be ashamed. You have grown, and you have changed your thinking about what looks normal.”

“I am sorry.”

“Never be sorry. You have come far. I was so frightened for you when the slave masters came to the house in the night. They gave your father his final payment and took you away. Now I know how well you have done for yourself.”

“And that may end very abruptly. And soon.”

“Your champion will win out against the evil man who bought you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I sense it.”

“But I’m not going with him,” she protested.

“As you say.”

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