Draven’s eyes flash. He puts on a front so carefree and theatrical, and yet beneath the exterior I sense he’d lived a life filled with hardship and suffering.
The swordsman takes a step forward.
“So, you’ve decided to leave. How did the Aurelians react?”
He looks pointedly at the pillowcase I’m holding – the one filled with the fruits I stole from the guest bedroom. Then his eyes turn to the single, mud-stained slipper on my left foot.
“Can you help me?” I plead. “I couldn’t trade my freedom for protection. I… I asked them if I could leave, and they said no.”
Draven nods. He points out at the city. “So, you’re going to be like me, then? Travelling the planets, making your own destiny. Freedom to live.... Freedom to die…”
A breeze picks up and chills me. I’m going to need to get clothes, and fast, if I want to have a chance of escaping this place.
“I know it’s going to be hard,” I tell Draven, “but I’ve been a slave my whole life. I have no intention of continuing to be one. The Aurelians would never have let me go.”
Draven beckons me to come closer. I step up the hillside, my right foot aching and blistered from my escape.
As I step closer to the swordsman, I stare out over the twinkling lights of the city down below.
In all those houses and apartment blocks stretching out in front of me, thousands of people are living lives that are protected and happy. They sit at their dinner tables with their families, or watch the shows on the holo-vids together on the couch. It’s not a perfect life, but it’s something.
I have no family, though.
The closest I have is Danielle, and I left her behind. I had three towering dangerous men who’d promised to protect me and care for me – but they, too, are now in my past.
Draven nods.
“You think they’d never have let you go?” He tightens his lips. “Perhaps that’s true. That’s the thing about Aurelians. They spend their whole lives looking for you – the woman they believe to be their fated mate.”
I shudder, realizing the implication of that.
“If you stay with them,” Draven warns, “they’ll never let you go. They’ll be devoted to you. They’ll protect you with their own lives.” He pauses. “But they will never let you go free.”
Tears spring to my eyes.
It’s stupid, I know. It’s foolish – but part of me wants that.
But I stick to my resolve.
Suddenly, Draven freezes, and I feel my heart stop.
He points a finger upwards, into the sky above.
The unmistakable silhouette of an Aurelian Reaver swoops over the city. The Aurelians haven’t been present on this planet for a decade, but the images of these powerful warships are common in holo-vids and newsreels, so almost all humans recognize them.
Spotlights sear out from the sleek vessel, basking different neighborhoods down below with a harsh, bright light.
The sight chills me. The Aurelians are clearly not about to let me go easily.
“Can you get me off this planet? Draven, I need your help.”
Draven turns from the sight of the Reaver.
“Ashley, the Aurelians would let you off this planet.”
I fume. He evaded my question. I’m not an idiot – I know that I’d be surrendering my freedom for the comfort and security of the Aurelian’s protection…
…and I know they’d never let me leave.
“They wouldn’t even let me out of the mansion, Draven,” I snarl. “If I go back there, they’ll lock me up like a valuable piece of art. They’ll protect me, but they won’t ever let me go.”
Draven holds up a cautionary finger.
“They’ll never let you go – that’s true. But ask them to leave, and they’ll come with you.”
I blink. What?
“Aurelians are devoted to their mate, Ashley,” he tells me. “If you tell them that they need to leave this city behind, they will. They’ll leave it full of slavers and scumbags – but they’ll take you anywhere you ask to go. Anywhere you want in the universe. They’ll always be at your side – always protecting you – but you’ll have the freedom you desire.”
He looks me deeply in my eyes.
“That’s a different kind of freedom – but freedom none the less.
I mull over his words. If he’s right…
He’s not right. I know men like Peter Paradooli. They don’t bow down to anyone’s whim, especially not that of a woman.
“You’re wrong.”
“I’ve been to six solar systems, Ashley,” Draven fires back. “I’ve travelled to thirty planets. I’ve been from one end of the Empire to the other – and Aurelians are all the same. They’re cocky, arrogant bastards… with one weakness.”
It’s hard to think of those three towering warriors having any weaknesses.
Draven continues:
“Once you’re Bonded to them, Ashley, their weakness will be you. They won’t ever be able to stand to see you in pain. They’ll move the whole bloody universe to please you, if you so ask it of them.”
He holds out his hand, and I take it.
“What do you most want in the world?”
I remember my stupid fantasies of singing in the very ballroom that hosted the slave auction. It seems so childish now.
I shake my head.
The truth? There’s only one thing I want: To stop women from having to go through the same terrors that I did.
“I want to end slavery.”
“Then choose,” Draven tells me. “You can come with me if you want. I have a ship. I can take you wherever you choose to go, and you can try to take on the slavers on your own.”
I shudder. One woman, alone against countless men who buy and trade women like objects.
“Or,” Draven counters, “you can go back to the Aurelians. You can work with them to cleanse this city of slavers. Then this planet. After that? Perhaps this entire galaxy, and then the whole Godsdamned universe! Those men think you’re Bonded to them, and if that’s true, then it’s
