Read Online Terran (Breeder) by Cara Bristol - Free Book Online Page B

which hostages developed sympathy for their captors. You must be stronger , she chided herself.
    Muscles bulging, Marlix still glowered, ready to do battle.
    “You don’t need to worry about Ramon,” she said. “He likes men, not women.” Her employee friend had been having a great time on androcentric, androsocial Parseon, where homosexual couplings were the norm. He’d hooked up with a number of betas, even an alpha or two. “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” he’d boasted.
    Tara pasted her most beguiling expression on her face. “Trust me,” she said. You’re doing the right thing.
    Marlix grabbed his PCD from a bedside table, tapped into it, and handed her the communication device.
    He’d called up a Terran keyboard. Tara’s hand trembled as she wrote. I am OK, but I’m being held captive by Alpha Commander MARLIX at his domicile. Please give him my blue bag from the stockroom. After he leaves, contact the Terran Embassy and report what has happened.
    She handed the PCD back to him.
    “I shall return. Is there anything I can do for you in the meantime?” He peered at her, his tone still uncertain.
    A lump formed in her throat. “I need to bathe. And…and if you have some rags…”
    Before she could blink, he’d flung open the door. “Urazi! Come quick!”
    Tara covered her chest with the bloody sheet as the beta dashed into the room. “What is it— Monto! What did you do to her?” Urazi burst out, his shocked utterance revealing not only concern for her but also the familiarity between him and Marlix.
    “He didn’t do anything. I’m okay. This is normal,” she said.
    “She says it is a Terran female thing,” Marlix explained, looking unconvinced. “I must go to the Bazaar to retrieve supplies she needs. Please bring her some rags.”
    Urazi left and returned to dump an armload of cloth onto the bed. “Is that enough?” he asked.
    Tara didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “That will be fine.”

Chapter Eight
    Tara perched on the stool in the kitchen and watched Urazi prepare lunch. He worked with an efficient economy of motion, his movements sure and masculine as he grated, diced, and mixed using crude hand tools. She half expected him to grab the dagger off his belt to dice the root vegetables. She frowned as she considered the technology she had encountered among the Parseons: the personal communication devices, the lasered weapons, the fusion-propelled tram, the space shuttles, and the advanced medical treatments. The bioscanner had healed her faster and better than anything Terra had. If such equipment had been available on Earth, perhaps her situation might have been different.
    She realized now that just as her body had needed to heal, so had her emotions. By running away, she’d slapped a bandage over her pain, but underneath the wound had festered, until she’d snapped under Marlix’s questioning and all the bad stuff had gushed out. Her inability to bear children still hurt, but she could tolerate her loss, think about it without screaming.
    Marlix had held her as she’d cried. Who would have expected an Alpha to do such a thing? Nor was it Protocol for a beta like Urazi to prepare the midday meal while she sat on her rear and watched. Men did not serve women in any capacity on Parseon.
    Tara widened her eyes as Urazi opened the door under the stove, poked at the fire, and added another log. They cooked on wood fires?
    “Uh…we’re underground,” she said. “Is building a fire wise? Where will the smoke go?”
    “The air ventilation system draws it outside.”
    The technologies contrasted starkly with the anachronisms. She thought of the wagons drawn by sulfur-snorting beasts that appeared to be part horse, part moose and something scarily alien, and the open-air Market, where fowl squawked, bells clanged, and males sold metal tools, foodstuffs, and the use of their females out of the same booths. Every male Parseon carried PCD devices, yet when Commander Tarbek had