Counterweave

4. TIFFIN

Instead of accompanying Emree, Chala paused at the door.

"My Lord Salettin," she said.

The hesitation in her voice caused him to regard her with caution. He felt alien thinking nudging her thoughts. It surprised him that his delightfully obedient wife even considered entertaining any non-Xantis-Tey thoughts.

"Yes, Chala?"

"Why is it that we never visit the Lady D'ey Sol and her husband the General?"

Not knowing what else to do, he gave her a condescending smile. "Why do you ask?"

"I saw her in passing not too long ago. I... I don't think she is as cold and uncaring as I believed."

"What makes you think so?"

"I felt something when I looked at her, almost a memory, and she returned it with something like a yearning to be with me. I don't understand what I felt, and you said to come to you anytime I had feelings I couldn't identify."

He gave a sigh of relief, not caring how she interpreted his reaction. Still, he needed to be careful. He wanted her to give up on her family willingly, not forced, the way he had coerced Tiffin, his concubine, to forget everything about her past, including her parents. Unlike Tiffin, he wanted his wife to reconnect with her parents someday, at least as a fond memory.

He placed his arm around her, stroking one shoulder. "Adopted children often love their surrogate mothers," he told her. "Naturally you would have feelings for her. She and the General rescued you from the streets, and gave you more luxury than you ever would have experienced from the thief Snake, no matter how skilled you became."

She leaned against him, relishing his touch, but he felt her unease when his answer failed to satisfy her.

He smiled at Emree as he pushed Chala toward her. "I place her in your capable hands. I have no doubt my wife will be stunning for tonight's event."

Emree bowed low.

Chala gave him a doubtful glance, not distracted by his charge to the slave. Always before, his desire for that she appear radiant to the others around them pleased her. Today some other priority stole her attention.

What could be more important than how you please me in public, he sent as Emree took her down the hallway to her room. But that single look from her mother dominated her thoughts. Will tonight, he wondered from behind the safety of his shield, be a test of my control over her?

From the beginning, the moment he first met her and began the first soft invasion of her mind, he noticed the strong bond between his intended and her parents.

My mother sacrificed herself for me on many occasions, she had told him. To relegate her mother to the position of an adoptive parent with little interest in her daughter, although necessary, might become more of a challenge than he anticipated.

He needed to keep her controlled. If he were ever to escape from his father, she must not demonstrate affections for either parent, not until they held their first child, or his father would claim breach of contract, and bring Salettin under his thumb. She must present herself as truly Xantis Tey who valued only their own kind.

Although Salettin had rooms down the hall from his parents in the guest floor of the Lady Commissioner's mansion, he preferred his apartment. Were it not forbidden, he would have moved Chala into his place from the beginning of the Absorption process.

As he entered his apartment, he intended to plan how to counter her unexpected feelings for her mother, but when he arrived, Tiffin rounded the corner just ahead of Bassford, Salettin's private attendant.

He noticed the tiny hopeful smile on her lips, but it was her full, rounded figure, pregnant with his third bastard child since arriving on this planet, that drew him.

"My lord Salettin," Bassford said when he noticed the direction of Salettin's gaze. "We have no time to dally."

"We have time," Salettin said, petting Tiffin's large belly.

He ignored Bassford's impatient sigh, and took Tiffin into his room.

Inside, he removed her clothing piece by piece, relishing in the disrobing of his concubine. When she stood before him totally naked, he kept her waiting as he removed his clothing. Even then, he refused to take her, but instead sent wave after wave of desire toward her until she trembled before him.

With a single gesture, he told her what he wanted from her. She knelt and complied until his own desire nearly took over. Then he placed her on the bed, settling in behind her so that his hands could stroke her large belly.

Ever since he discovered her pregnancy, he approached her this way, even though she wished otherwise. He wanted nothing to interfere with her pregnancy. He wanted another healthy son or daughter. So far, Tiffin had given him one of each.

More than anything, however, he wanted to hold his babies, and not ship them away to be slaves. He kept his little ones at his Sector One beachside estate and checked on them frequently through a vid comm. His four-year-old son already helped in the kitchen garden, watched over by an elderly Krindarwee nursemaid who took special care of both of his children. His two-year-old daughter joined the woman at her side, not quite helping, he was sure, but nurtured with the same care as his son.

He knew he wasn't supposed to care about his children destined to grow up as slaves, but he did. He also loved Tiffin, not in the same way as he loved Chala, who would give him legitimate children, but the way he loved his pet raska when he was a boy. He hated the fact that once the baby was born, Mother would remove Tiffin's memory of a live birth and replace it with the false memory of yet another stillborn.

When he finished with Tiffin, he turned her toward him and nuzzled her large breasts and caressed her ample buttocks, loving the warmth of her body next to his. Unlike Chala, Tiffin could be as plump as she liked, being a slave. She had no one to impress, no social functions to fill, no expectations to satisfy.

"I must get ready for tonight's party," he said with genuine reluctance. He wished he could spend more time with her, arousing her repeatedly all night until both of them were completely sated.

Maybe later, he thought, after the wedding. He had filled Chala's mind with the expectations of her position as his wife, and forced her to accept his need for his concubine. He knew she understood. He had made it so.

Before he rose, he gave Tiffin one last kiss. Someday, when he was finally free from his father's control, he planned to give her and her children their own suite in his estate. He wanted to watch them grow up. In fact, he found it increasingly difficult to be separated from his two children.

The thought of them growing up as slaves irritated him far too much.

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