To be fair, though, she had always expected to be sold to the highest bidder. But not this way, never this way…
The Twyleth Tigg Academy for Young Ladies of Beauty and Breeding had been Lan’ara’s home for the past four cycles. She’d been barely fifteen and picked for both her beauty and her genteel breeding, when she was chosen to go to the exclusive school where only the finest brides were trained.
Lan’ara had hated leaving her family but it was the only way she could help. They had always been poor but when her father died in a fire at the silk mill where he had been supervisor, the money had dried up almost completely.
On the genteel world of Title One, women were forbidden to hold a formal job, so her mother was left with five hungry mouths to feed and no way to feed them.
As the oldest, Lan’ara did the best she could to help out. She picked burnah berries when they were in season and stayed up late into the night with her mother, both of them doing their finest needlework to sell at the market. They had taken in washing from all over the town and sold fresh-baked gerla-wheat bread—her mother’s specialty—and made jams and jellies to sell when they could afford the sugar syrup to make them.
But even with all their hard work, Lan’ara and her mother couldn’t make enough between them to feed her four little brothers. They cried at night because their bellies ached with hunger. Lan’ara’s heart ached in turn as she watched her mother turn into a ghost of her former self, working her fingers to the bone to try and make ends meet.
So when the scout from the Twyleth Tigg Academy saw her at the market, selling the few scanty jars of burnah berry jam they’d managed to eek out of the latest berry crop, Lan’ara didn’t turn away as she most certainly would have done when her father was still alive.
“You’re a pretty one, my dear,” the man said to her, his sharp gray eyes sliding over her figure and taking in her face. “Those big dark eyes with the golden flecks—most unusual. And you’re ripe enough—nice heavy breasts to make milk enough to feed plenty of babies and good round child-bearing hips—though I can tell you’ve not had enough to eat in many a day.”
In the past, Lan’ara would have turned up her nose with frosty dignity and left at once—or maybe even slapped the man for his impertinence. How dare he critique her body in such crude terms? And right to her face?
But now she only listened quietly as the Twyleth scout talked about her most intimate features.
“That lovely, creamy brown skin of yours,” he went on. “That’s rare, it is. I’ve never seen the like.”
“My mother’s mother was taken from a planet called Earth,” Lan’ara explained quietly. “Many people there have my same coloring.”
“But none here do. With such rare beauty I’m surprised you’re not whoring yourself out instead of trying to eek out a living selling jam.” He gave her a sharp look.
“Oh, no, Sir—I would never!” Lan’ara felt the blood rush to her cheeks at the very thought.
“I thought not. You have a look of modesty about you. You’re a good girl—a chaste girl. You’ve never had a cock between your thighs, I’ll warrant.”
Her cheeks got even hotter as she cast down her eyes and gave her head a quick shake. Even speaking of such things was horribly embarrassing. She wished she could slap the man or run away, but she knew she could not.
Yes,” he went on, nodding as though he was confirming his first opinion. “I think you’ll do nicely.”
“Do for what, Sir?” Lan’ara asked meekly, though she knew well enough what he was getting at.
“For a Twyleth Tigg Bride, of course!” the scout exclaimed, frowning. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen any of our scouts roaming around before. We buy girls from your town quite often for they’re known to be both chaste and fertile when the time comes.”
Lan’ara had known a few, of course. A year or two before, a girl named Ra’chell who had been one of her best friends had been sold by her parents in order to get money to make it through a long, hard winter. Ra’chell had cried and begged to stay but her father had sold her with a stony look on his face, despite her mother’s weeping.
“We must have money to feed the other children, woman!” he’d shouted when she tugged on his arm and begged him not to sell their daughter. “She’s old enough to be wed so cease your mewling.”
The scout had led Ra’chell away, tears still streaming down her cheeks, and Lan’ara had never seen her again.
She had run straight home then, and told her mother all about it, her eyes full of tears as she poured out the tale.