“What are you talking about?” Jillian demanded, frowning. “This is a strong tote—I’ve had it for years.”
“If you want to keep it intact, I wouldn’t put the thaelite into it,” the Yonnite Mistress remarked, her scarlet lips curving into a sarcastic smile. “It’s massively compacted—one of the densest and heaviest substances in the known galaxy. That’s one reason it’s so expensive and difficult to store.”
Jillian glared at the Mistress. “Is this some kind of scam? You’re trying to pretend like it’s heavy so I’ll pay you double to transport it to my shuttle, aren’t you?”
The Mistress narrowed her eyes with apparent displeasure.
“Is that what you think? Very well. Kalis, drop the thaelite brick into her paltry little bag.”
The huge bodyslave looked at Jillian with his silver-green eyes, as though asking for confirmation. Those eyes gave her pause—had she seen them somewhere before? Maybe in a dream? But she pushed the thought aside. By now, she was sure this was all a scam—the Yonnite Mistress was just trying to double the price of an already expensive ingredient.
So she nodded her head firmly and held open the straw tote.
“Go on—drop it in,” she said to the bodyslave.
The enormous warrior looked down from his great height and nodded.
“As you please, little Mistress. But I recommend you keep the bag far from your body and be sure your feet aren’t under it when I drop the thaelite in.”
This seemed like a strange request but Jillian did as he asked, holding the tough, thickly woven straw tote away from her body, she opened it wider and nodded again.
“Go ahead.”
The bodyslave held his big hands over the open tote and carefully tipped the solid black brick into her bag.
At once, Jillian felt a massive weight yanking her arm down and pulling her body to the ground. She gasped and lurched but the pressure ended almost at once as the thaelite brick tore a gaping hole right through her tote and landed on the dusty ground with a solid sounding thunk. A puff of dirt flew up around it and when she looked down in shock, she saw that the black brick had sunk down into the compacted dirt until only about half an inch of it remained visible.
“What in the world?” she exclaimed, staring at it.
“I tried to warn you.” The Mistress was positively smirking now. “Still think you can transport it yourself? Kalis, pick it up,” she added, snapping at the huge bodyslave as though he was a well-trained dog.
Jillian thought she saw a flash of anger in those silver-green eyes but then the huge warrior’s face went blank and impassive and he knelt to dig the dense, black brick out of the ground.
It seemed to give him a bit of difficulty but at last he managed the task by digging away the dirt around the thaelite so that he could fit his fingers under the small brick and scoop it into his palms. Slowly, he rose, holding it in both hands once again, and offered it to Jillian.
“Would you like to try holding it yourself?” The Yonnite Mistress inquired sweetly.
“As a matter of fact, I would.” Jillian lifted her chin. Despite the hole in her tote—which, thank goodness, didn’t seem to be big enough to let any of her other ingredients escape—she still thought this was some kind of a scam.
“Very well, hold out your hands so Kalis can give it to you,” the Mistress commanded.
“You’d better let me put my hand under yours first, little Mistress,” the huge bodyslave told her seriously. “Otherwise the weight of it will pull your hands to the ground and crush your finger bones.”
This sounded ominous to Jillian, but she still thought the Mistress was somehow scamming her. Still, she allowed the big bodyslave to carefully transfer the thaelite brick to only one of his hands and then slip his free hand under her cupped ones.
His hands were large and warm and surprisingly gentle, Jillian noticed. But maybe she was just thinking that because she hadn’t been touched by a man in so long. Not since Brad had broken her heart and ruined her life, she thought distractedly.
“Gently now, little Mistress,” Kalis rumbled in that deep voice of his. “I’m just going to let you feel the weight of it without actually putting it all the way into your little hands. As I said, I don’t want to crush your bones.”
Jillian thought about snapping at him to just get on with it—it was such an obvious scam! But the look in his silver-green eyes stopped her. They were deep, those eyes—as deep as the ocean, and she got the sudden feeling that the huge warrior must have seen a lot in his time. She wondered again how old he was—she’d guessed his age around early to mid fifties because of the iron gray in his hair, but at that moment, as they stared into each other’s faces, he seemed ageless.