I moved closer and looked her over. She wasn’t wearing any make-up and squinted because of the sun. Strands of her long brown hair had escaped her braid and were blowing around her face in the mild breeze.
I was just about to ask her who she was and if she had any idea what an idiot she was for coming here without any protection when she took a step toward me and opened her mouth.
“May peace surround you,” she said and smiled at me, her face pretty and innocent.
When she took my hands and gazed fearlessly into my eyes, it took me by surprise and made me forget what I wanted to say. I had never physically touched a woman, and no person had ever kept eye contact with me for that long unless we were fighting and they were trying to read my next attack. The expression in her eyes wasn’t hostile, it was friendly – and I was fascinated that her eyes had two different colors, one blue and one hazel-green. She was small and fragile and only reached my shoulder in height.
“Why are you staring at me and holding my hands?” I blurted out, not liking the funny feeling inside of me.
“It’s considered a formal greeting,” she explained.
“I don’t like it,” I said and jerked my hands back. “What I want to know is, who the fuck are you?”
“My name is Christina Sanders, the archeologist your ruler asked for.”
And that’s when I knew I was truly fucked. The archeologist from the Motherlands that I had to protect was a woman, and not only was she a woman – she was ayoungwoman that any man in this goddamn place would want to marry. With a hundred thousand men to one woman, women were the highest-priced commodity, and I would need an army if I were to keep her safe from the thousands of men that would demand her for their own.
My mind was racing, trying to come up with a strategy and at the same time talk to her. She got offended easier than any man I’d ever met and was too weak to put her own luggage in the hybrid. How the hell did women survive without men if they were this helpless?
I was happy when we reached the gates of the Gray Manor, and feeling hopeful that Khan would release me of my duty when he realized Christina was a woman.
Only a few guards saw her when I hurried her upstairs to her room. With her safely inside, I locked the door.
“Hey, did you just lock me in?” I heard her protest as I walked away, but there was no reason to explain to her how dangerous a situation she was really in. Women were too emotionally fragile to deal with worries of that magnitude. Khan and I would have to find a way to solve this.
When I found Khan, he was in the garden doing a walk and talk with his brother and advisor, Magni, who was also a friend of mine.
I ran up to them, signaling the urgency, and both men stopped talking and turned to me.
“Boulder, has the archeologist arrived?” Khan asked.
“Yes, but we’ve got a big fucking problem.”
“And what is that?” Khan had both hands clasped behind his back and watched me closely.
“It’s a woman. Her name is Christina and she’s young.”
“A young woman?” Magni exclaimed. “Here?”
“A youngbeautifulwoman,” I confirmed.
The two men exchanged horrified glances and Khan’s hands went from behind his back to his head. “How could the council be so reckless? We can’t guarantee a woman’s safety.”
Magni looked around and drew us closer, “Did anyone see her?”
“A few guards. I took her straight to her room and locked her inside.”
“Shit, this is bad,” Magni hissed. “Why the hell didn’t you just push her back over the border?”
“I didn’t know what to do so I followed orders.” I looked at Khan. “You told me to get the archeologist and bring him back here. I did that; only change is that he’s a she.”
“That’s a big fucking change, wouldn’t you say?” Magni argued, annoyed.
“I agree,” I said low and looked straight at Khan, “We need to take her back before anyone realizes that we have an unmarried young female here, or you could have an uprising on your hand.”
Khan looked down for a few seconds and then he straightened up with that devilish gleam in his eyes that always meant trouble. “No,” he said. “We won’t send her back. I would like to meet this woman. Who knows? If we charm her, she might want to stay.”
“What? Are you insane?”
