Pasting a patently false smile on her lips, she handed Nye over and the bottle.
Emma couldn’t prevent a touch of satisfaction from flickering through her, but she smiled at Nye instead of provoking the giantess like an idiot.
Unfortunately, there was no comfortable rocking chair like she’d had in her own place on Earth. She moved to the bed with him as had become her habit and settled with her back against the headboard. Nye very happily sucked the bottle dry, belched loudly and snuggled against her and went to sleep.
“The king should sleep in his own bed,” the female, who hadn’t bothered to identify herself, said coldly.
Emma sent her a cool look. “He’s a baby and he’s been through pure hell since we were captured. He feels safe with me and he needs that right now until he feels more secure.”
She could tell the woman wanted to argue. Instead, after staring at her for several moments—as if she thought she could stare her down!—she crossed the large room, opened a compartment along the far wall and pulled out a bed.
Emma found it deeply unsettling that the female clearly intended to share the room with them—maybe had been ordered to do so—but she was pretty sure she couldn’t toss her out on her ass.
Maybe one of the guys would help her when, if, they came back?
Acknowledging that possibility made her feel vaguely ill and a lot distressed.
She had no concept of how long this battle, or war, might last or when she might reasonably expect to know something. But she found that all of the tension while she was waiting for she knew not what had drained her of energy. Before very long, she was drowsing, in spite of her uneasiness about the guys and the scary female sharing the room with her.
It wasn’t a peaceful sleep for all that. She kept feeling the falling sensation and jerking awake. Finally, after rousing Nye several times, she carried him to his crib and carefully settled him so that he could rest.
She tried for a while to stay awake, but even the fear that the strange woman might try to knock her off in her sleep couldn’t keep her awake. She fell asleep wondering if she’d get to wake up again.
The splash of water woke her. It was so reminiscent of the time she’d woken and discovered Gaelen in the tank she was convinced it was him. Climbing from the bed, she rushed through the open doorway she saw and into the bathroom she discovered attached to the baby’s suite. She came to a screeching halt the moment it registered in her mind that it absolutely wasn’t Gaelen making use of the water as ‘the female’ stepped out.
“Oh my god!” Emma gasped. “Excuse me. I’m so sorry. I thought ….” She stopped, deciding it might not be a good idea to say what had been on the tip of her tongue until she understood the situation better.
The woman looked her up and down with just the hint of a sneer. “I done. Emma should use,” she said, pointing toward the tank she’d just emerged from.
Emma narrowed her eyes at the bitch. She would’ve considered it a lie to say she was ‘clean’, but she’d done her best with what was available and it wasn’t as if she’d been working outside! She supposed she could have made use of the tank provided for Gaelen, but it hadn’t seemed right to do that when he clearly needed it—or at least she thought he needed it. In any case, it was briny and that didn’t make her feel clean at all. “What should I call you? Or would bitch do?”
The word might not be part of her vocabulary, but it was evident from her expression that she realized, just from Emma’s tone, that it was an insult. “Valee.”
Emma nodded. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where I might get something to put on?”
Valee looked blank.
“Clothing.”
Valee still looked blank. “De king’s man, Prince Kadin, order we bring here clooding an’ toiletries for woman an’ bebe.”
“Well, thank god you learned ‘Engish’,” Emma muttered. “Thanks.”
Dismissing the woman, she headed over to the tank. She hadn’t seen ‘clooding’ or toiletries, but maybe they just hadn’t brought them yet? Or maybe they were stored somewhere in the suite?
Getting in was no easy feat considering it had been made for giant people.
She hoped to god she could get out again without having to summon help.
But she decided to wait until the bitch left to attempt to get in so she wouldn’t amuse the female with her efforts.
She was glad she had. It took several attempts before she managed to leap up high enough to shift her center of balance and fall in.
It was fucking cold! She almost gasped in a lungful of briny water when the chill hit her.
Her teeth were trying to chatter when she surfaced, but at least she could stand up in it, which she hoped meant she’d be able to get out again—soon. There was nothing pleasant about it. The sooner she was done, the better, she thought.
Without soap or wash cloth, she simply used her hands to scrub over herself to clean off the best she could, raking her fingers through her hair in hopes of cleaning and detangling it.
When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she bailed out, pretty much the same way she’d gone in—leaping up to hang over the side and then flipping out—except she didn’t leave head first but rather threw a leg over to hoist herself out.
It was hell on her cooter and ass crack, but she managed to get out without serious damage to her person.
She hadn’t hung around to see where, or even if, there was any sort of towels stored, so she just jumped up and down and slung her hands and arms like a dog, trying to sling as much water off as possible and
