Champion(21)

Corsair shook his head. “The only women on this caravan are travelers who’ve paid their fare. Women who are known to me.” A look of distaste flowed across the man’s face. “I never allow prisoners to be transported on my caravan.”

Saff studied Corsair, and saw Blaine was, too. She got the feeling that the man was telling the truth.

Corsair swept a hand out. “You’re welcome to take a look.”

“Thank you.” Galen jerked his head to Raiden and Harper. The couple slipped through the vehicles and beasts to meet the travelers. They were back minutes later, Harper looking upset. She shook her head.

“Fucking Thraxians and Srinar.” Blaine kicked a boot through the sand. “This was to lead us out here and off the trail.”

“Srinar?” Corsair straightened. “We were followed and attacked by sand pirates. They drove us off the main route, and before they died, one pirate mentioned the Srinar.”

“What did he say?” Blaine demanded.

Corsair’s mouth firmed into a hard line. “I didn’t keep him alive long enough to find out more.”

“There was a Srinar spy in Harmony,” Galen said.

Saff’s mind spun as she tried to piece it all together. “They wanted us out of the city.” By the stars, she hoped they hadn’t sent the women off-world.

“But they also wanted Corsair off the regular caravan route, and for you to follow him,” a small voice piped up.

Everyone turned to look at Duna. She was leaning against her tarnid.

Galen nodded. “Duna makes a good point.” He stared out across the vast desert landscape. “They may have still transported the women into the desert and just sent us in the wrong direction.”

Saff followed Galen’s gaze. So where had they taken the women?

“Or this is all just a ruse to keep us off the real trail,” Blaine said. “And they’re back in Kor Magna.”

“We know they aren’t with the Corsair Caravan,” Galen said. “So, we’ll keep looking. You have my thanks, Corsair.”

The caravan master inclined his head. “I will keep an eye out for your missing women. If I spot them, I’ll get word to the House of Galen.”

Galen nodded. “Let’s go.”

They moved back toward the beasts, and Saff saw Blaine, hands by his sides, staring out across the desert. “Blaine?” Her shoulder brushed his arm.

“If they’re out here, it’ll be like looking for a grain of sand in a sandstorm.” Emotion vibrated in his voice. “God, what are they going through? Do they know we’ll come for them?”

“I know it feels like an impossible challenge.” Saff gripped his arm. When he pressed a hand over hers, she felt his need for the connection. “Once, freedom looked like that to me.”

He glanced down at her. “Who took your freedom, Saff?”

A part of her didn’t want to talk about the past. She’d buried it long ago, and never let herself think of it. But for some strange reason it tumbled out of her. “My father.”

Blaine sucked in a breath.

“I was born without my freedom. My mother was a concubine in my father’s harem. He was an emperor on a distant, backwater planet.”

“So you were a princess?”

She snorted. “Hardly. I was a slave. From the time I could walk, I was trained to fight. The abilities I inherited from my mother gave me just enough of an edge that I was earmarked as a fighter early on. My father loved to hold huge and lavish fight exhibitions for his guests. He had hundreds of concubines, and hundreds of children. The perfect pool to choose his fighters from.” Her heart felt like a hard knot in her chest. She hadn’t thought of her mother, or the man who’d fathered her, in years. Saff looked out across the unforgiving sands, thinking of things she would never understand. “My mother loved him.” Unresolved anger chewed through her like burning poison. “Despite him having so many other women, despite him owning her, and despite him putting her child—their child—in the arena to fight, she loved him.”’

Saff had never understood the sad, desperate emotion her mother had called love.

“What happened?” Blaine asked, quietly, tangling his fingers with hers.

Saff had never held hands with a man. Most men feared her, were in awe of her, or found her not feminine enough. She looked at the way his blunt, scarred fingers looked against her more slender ones. “My father offered me in marriage to a man three times my age. A despot who ruled a nearby moon. My destiny was to fight or to be a commodity in an alliance to a man I disliked.” She looked up at Blaine, and saw the sympathy in his eyes. “I defied my father, and in return, he sold me to the Kor Magna Arena. Sometimes things look bad, impossible even, but you have to believe things will get better and keep moving toward it.”