Page 39 of The Omega Slave

Alain looked startled. After a moment, he said. “Well, they’re girls.” Tsaria smiled encouragingly.

“Margaret can’t have boys.”

Tsaria didn’t have an answer for a moment, as the statement seemed so strange. Not that they couldn’t have children but a particular gender. Lots of people couldn’t have children, but it made no sense to say girls specifically. Tsaria sighed. That wasn’t fair. He understood the back-breaking work farming could be,and Alain had been raised by the same father as he had. He was bound to have a little prejudice.

“You said Sascha’s seven?” Tsaria said, then flushed, realizing he had the name wrong. What must Alain think of him that he couldn’t—

“Yes,” Alain said. “Little she-devil,” he added. “Bosses her ma around like she has the right.”

Something cold curled in Tsaria’s belly. “And Annabel? Is she a daddy’s-girl?”

Alain shrugged, and lifted the canvas covering the window. “Think we’ve crossed the border.”

Tsaria’s heart beat a rapid rhythm. He could understand Alain mishearing one name. He had travelled a long way, but Tsaria’s accent wasn’t difficult. He’d practiced at Ishmael’s insistence, and his dialect was practically non-existent, even if they hadn’t grown up together. There was no excuse for Alain not to correct the wrong second name.

Or was he being too hard?

“Tell me about Sascha. Does she take after you in her coloring, or Margaret?”

Alain frowned but mumbled something about Margaret. And it was the second time Tsaria had mentioned Sascha, notSarah.

Annabel, notArrabella.

Tsaria opened his mouth because he really needed to know, but in his heart he knew there was something very wrong. “Are you sure you have daughters?” Tsaria said in defeat, but the carriage gave a little jerk, and he could hear many horses ahead.

Ahead not behind. Which meant they didn’t come from Cadmeera.

He met Alain’s uncomfortable gaze. “What did you do?”

Alain pressed his lips together. “What I had to,” he snapped out as the horses came nearer, and the carriage slowed to a stop. “Some of us don’t have a prince in their pockets.”

Tsaria closed his eyes briefly in defeat. What had he done?

Chapter sixteen

“You have a visitor, my lord.” Gabar looked up as his slave-master bowed. Ibrahim wore his freshly powdered wig as usual, a scarlet tunic over black silk leggings, and leather sandals. His brown eyes gleamed with excitement, which meant he was probably fresh from whipping a slave bloody for some imagined infraction or had accepted the slave’s daughter as payment. She would be lucky if she were still alive. He knew Ibrahim’s taste ran to children. As a man, Ibrahim disgusted even him, but as a slave-master he was excellent. He was also his right-hand as much as Gabar would ever allow anyone to be.

Not that Gabar questioned the age of his own whores, but he needed them to do more than to lie frozen in a comatose-inducing terror.

“An envoy from the endless desert.”

Gabar frowned. The endless desert wasn’t a kingdom, simply a huge stretch of sand. People did traverse it. It was the only way to get to Marston Keys across land, although any sane person took a ship. It was rumored to have a hundred hiddencatacombs, even the remains of a city buried in a single week by a catastrophic sandstorm. He sighed. He really didn’t need this today. He had barely six days until Kamir would be forced to show himself, and he needed everything ready. The Rajpuran Imperial Guard weren’t falling into line as easily as he had hoped, saying they would only take orders from the true emir, and the assembly members he had spoken to said that the line of succession should only run downwards, meaning one of his two sons. And both Iskar and Damatrious were next to useless. Iskar cared for nothing except that his wine goblet was kept full and he had enough whores to fill his bed. Damatrious was a soldier, but he often dared to challenge what Gabar mandated, and he couldn’t have that. He would make him a general or something to keep him busy. Stir up a war.

And he’d heard rumors that the Anti-Shifter Alliance was gaining popularity because Kamir hadn’t shown his face.

Gabar was tempted to tell the slave-master the envoy could spend the night cooling his heels in one of the cells, but as he was getting nowhere and could use a useless diversion, he granted his assent for him to enter. He could always get rid of him when he was bored.

Excepthewasn’t ahe.

Gabar stared open-mouthed at the vision in front of him. She was barely clothed in silks. Gold chains ran from her left ear to her throat, to dip between her breasts and wrap around her waist. The chains were adorned with gems. What he knew to be real sapphires, rubies, and emeralds littered the chain. Then his gaze dropped, and his body stirred. The chain continued down until it stopped over the juncture between her thighs, and a brilliant diamond sparkled in the exact place her cunt was hidden.

Gabar wanted nothing more than to rip it away and see what other secrets the silks were hiding. She bowed low, almosta curtsy, and bells tinkled from under the silks. She was breathtaking. “I am Elainore. Daughter of the Sand. I bid you greetings.”

Gabar jumped to his feet so quickly he nearly tumbled, but he hastened to cover his clumsiness, and took the hand that was offered. “I’m delighted to meet you. I am Lord Gabar Anslar, Acting Emir of Rajpur.” Or at least in Kamir’s absence.

Soon to be the true emir, if he had anything to do with it.

She allowed him to take her hand, and he clung on far too long, but he was distracted by the feeling of peace that bathed him. He’d been frantic since both Kamir and the slave had escaped, and it was utterly glorious to have all his worries fade away.

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