“I am trying to explain why the women should be unbothered for a while.”
She raises an eyebrow, still not backing down or bowing.
“Do you know where they have been?”
“My queen told me most came from the breeding pens,” the king says.
“That’s right. They were tied to a table, treated like chattel, and still walk among us. These women are not fragile flowers who will crumble at any man’s attention. We knew what we signed up for when we met Estela outside the Zlosian Palace.”
My cheeks heat, as if Melisa slapped me across the face. I’d thought them weak… but to hear what they had been through…
I’d been too harsh.
More emotions gather inside my midsection. A new thought surfaces in my mind. Something I’d been too blind to see before.
For months, I had grieved my brother. I’d blamed the humans and my king. That thinking had blinded me to the true enemies and led me to ignore my brother’s vision.
He’d had a large, generous heart. He wanted a future for the Enduares and the humans.
My throat closes. I’d been selfish with his dreams.
“Not everyone seemed happy in that room with Estela,” Teo says.
She shrugs, and her silky hair spills over her shoulder. “They just finally have a voice. Don’t fault them for wanting to use it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want to be here.”
How had I not realized what a beautiful, eloquent creature Melisa is?
“Estela is a wonderful woman, but she was never in the breeding pens. They consisted of a large expanse of rooms. Women were kept in close quarters, unable to work or leave for a period of four months while their cycles, temperatures, and bodies were monitored closely for signs that it was time for them to be placed in a room with a man.”
I hold my breath. The name alone gives a picture of what happened inside, but… gods. The cruelty. The injustice.
I can hardly believe what a complete ass I’d been to women who’d lived through that.
Melisa continues.
“Then, they are left there for three days. Once the man is spent, the women are returned to their beds. If they are pregnant, they are gifted a hut. Some men go along with it and become proper fathers, while others beat their women. Some forced them into any manner of painful positions.
“So that is where all of these women come from—four small walls. Sure, they are wounded, some already carry children, and they all are tired, but don’t think for a second they aren’t strong. They want what Estela has promised—homes, mates, families—lives where they work for what they eat and nothing more,” she finishes.
Everyone is silent, but my ears ring. I was surrounded by broken humans who only wanted a semblance of peace after a storm.
Had I not been born into the storm myself? And deep down, did I not long for the same thing?
Keio steps forward. “I will gladly care for a woman with a child. I spent all of last night rearranging my things, and there is space.”
Melisa returns to my side. As her body heat leeches into mine, my muscles relax. I turn to look at her and start to say something just as Vann comes into the crowd. He nods to me, and I catch a warning in his eye.
As a fellow council member, I step away from Melisa and fall in line behind him, but not before glancing back at the woman in red who has my heart racing.
Lord Vann leans over and whispers, “There’s been a problem. Go get weapons. Meet us on the way out of the city.”
“Understood.”
I look back one more time.
Chapter 8
MELISA