Saved by Venom 3 (Grabbed)(12)
“How?”
“We have a mail service now. Paper letters,” he explained. “We have couriers who route them to your planet. There’s also a new face-to-face visitation program. Relatives and friends from Calyx go through a background check for approval and then we bring them to the observation deck here on the Valiant or the Arctis for the initial meeting. We hope to progress to overnight and then forty-eight hour visits in the near future.”
After all the terrible things she had heard about the brides taken in Grabs, Dizzy was taken aback by the consideration put into the visitation policy. “That’s nice.”
“The top sky and land corps commanders in this sector, General Vicious and Admiral Orion, are trying to be more sensitive to the needs of the new mated couples.”
“Mated?”
“Married,” he clarified. “We call them mate bonds or life bonds on my planet but you call them marriages.”
“We do things a bit differently,” she said with a smile. “You know, dating instead of chasing. That kind of thing.”
“Chasing and dating aren’t too far apart.” His teasing grin made her smile. “We’re doing wedding ceremonies now. Vicious married a woman from Harper’s Well in a proper Calyx-style ceremony. It was the first official one on this ship. They did the rings and everything.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” He tilted his head as if to study her. “Would you like to try something like that?”
“Um…”
“When you’re ready, we can discuss it.” He slid off the bed. “I’m going to get us dinner. Don’t move.”
She gestured to her surroundings. “Where would I go?”
“I meant don’t try to get out of bed or move around too much. You’re supposed to take it as easy as possible for the next few hours.”
Considering how good she felt and how grateful she was for no longer having that stupid sickness, she wasn’t going to tempt fate by going against doctor’s orders. “I’ll be a very good girl.”
Venom’s eyes narrowed briefly. Something fierce and primal sparked in those pale-blue irises of his. He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be right back.”
When he was gone she sat up a little straighter in the bed, adjusting her position slowly and cautiously. She was still taking in the strange surroundings when the transparent door slid open again. It wasn’t Venom who came into the room but a dark-haired, green-eyed doctor in a bright-blue uniform quite unlike the ones the other soldiers wore.
He smiled warmly. “My name is Risk and I’m the surgeon who treated you today.”
Her eyebrows rose sharply. “A surgeon named Risk?”
He laughed as he moved closer to her bed. “My class at the academy was a bit wild.”
“Your class?”
Risk nodded and pulled up a chair next to the bed. “When we’re accepted into one of the military academies they take away our birth names and assign us numbers. Later, when we graduate, we earn a new name at the pinning ceremony.”
“That’s awfully tough.”
“It’s part of the process of building us up into strong men.”
Building them up? It sounded like a way to break them down but she didn’t want to offend him by saying that. “Thank you for fixing me.”
“It was my pleasure. I rather enjoy working on these simpler cases. It’s a nice break from the traumatic injuries I typically treat.”
She could only imagine what kind of awful things this man had seen as a doctor in their gruesome battles. He turned his rectangular tablet toward her. The bright screen was filled with the most amazing animated images. “Is that me?”
“It’s all you—your brain, your auditory system, your eyes.” He tapped each one with a blunt stylus to enlarge them. “Other than the issues you presented with when you were brought into our emergency unit you’re in perfect health. Would you like me to explain the procedure I performed?”
“Yes.”
Risk walked her through the surgery and explained in detail how she had developed the condition and the way it had been exacerbated by the bombing. When he was done, Risk caught her marveling at the tablet in his hands and extended it toward her. “Here. Check it out.”
She hesitated before taking the device. “Thanks.”
“Venom will give you one in a few days.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Everyone uses them here. You’ll be amazed at how much you can do on it.”
“Like what?”
“Do you like reading?”
“So much.” She perked up at the very idea of having access to books.
Risk leaned closer to tap at the screen. Suddenly a digital library appeared in front of her. He touched a title and pages appeared. “You can pack thousands and thousands of books onto your tablet and organize them any way you’d like.”
“Wow. Wow.” She didn’t know what else to say as she flipped through the digital pages. “It’s been years since I’ve been able to read a whole book.”
Risk shot her a strange look. “What do you mean?”
“When I was a kid we had a private library that my parents kept locked up and hidden away from visitors.” She decided to skip the parts about her family losing everything. “Later, when I went out on my own, I started buying my own books but they’re so expensive. I usually visit the library or hit up the secondhand shop a few streets over from my apartment. All of the books I get that way have been censored.”
“Censored?”
“There might be entire paragraphs that are blacked out. Sometimes they cut out the offensive lines. It’s like looking through a window.”
“That’s ridiculous. What’s the point of reading a book if the best parts are missing?” He moved in a little closer. “What kinds of books do you like to read? I heard they recently added a romance section in the library for the wives. Apparently it’s very popular—and steamy.”
She caught his playful tone and smiled at him. “Why do I get the feeling that if I kept browsing your library, I’d find a whole section of romances?”
Risk laughed. “I won’t dignify that accusation with a response.”
As Dizzy tapped the screen to exit the library, she wondered if it would be possible to use the device to help her design her clothes. “Is there a way to draw on this thing? I saw the way you used that stylus to make lines while you were explaining my surgery. Is there a way to freehand draw?”
“Sure.” He took the tablet from her. “There are all sorts of applications you can download. The virtual storefront is fairly intuitive when it comes to searching. Once you’re comfortable with your device you’ll have no problem finding what you need.” He turned the tablet toward her to reveal a blank page with a long stripe along the bottom and pressed it back into her hands. “How about this one?”
She studied the screen. The wide, clear drawing space could be enlarged or minimized. The stripe along the bottom offered dozens of tools to create different effects. “This would definitely work.”
“Were you an artist back in The City? If you are, there’s another wife here, Hallie, who is very talented. She’s part of the wives’ group that meets a couple of times a month. You’ll meet her in the next few days at one of the mandatory information sessions.”
“Like an orientation?”
“Basically,” Risk said. “They used to just have you gals come on the ship without any type of support. Hallie, the general’s wife, has changed all that. The women who arrive on the Valiant attend a couple of mandatory meetings to learn about their rights and living on this ship and in our society.”
Dizzy thought this Hallie woman sounded like quite a force. “I have rights?”
Risk snorted with amusement. “Of course.”
“The paperwork they made me sign before the Grab and after made it seem like I was basically going to be property of the man who caught me.”
“The legal language is rather harsh,” he agreed. “Ownership in our world isn’t the same as it is in your world. To us owning a woman is the greatest responsibility—and a cherished gift. It takes a hell of a lot of valor points to earn the right to take a mate and reproduce so we take our roles as providers and protectors very seriously.”
She thought of the way Venom had treated her so far. There was no way he had been faking his concern over her illness or his relief when she’d woken up without pain or ringing in her ears. “Do you know Venom well?”
“Fairly well,” Risk remarked. “We were one year apart at the academy. I’ve always served in the field hospital that accompanies his battle group. I was even caught in the Sendarian siege.”
She frowned. “What was that?”
A haunted look crossed the surgeon’s face. “Sendaria is a planet that we mine quite extensively for our preferred fuel source. A little over ten years ago we were engaged above the planet with the Splinter faction. This was when they were much larger and better equipped. They caught us by surprise and hit three of our sky ships.”
“What happened then?”