Read The Tracker's Quest: (Forced To Serve #6) for Free Online

investment.”
    Ji closed his eyes and turned his head to swear viciously in Siren. He would like nothing better than to cause Suzerain Trax more pain than his daughter had suffered.
    “Release your anger on my behalf, Ji. I appreciate your sympathy over the matter, but you cannot erase what was done before I even knew you existed.”
    Seta walked into the dressing area and hung up her uniform. She ran a light hand along a rack of beautifully woven fabrics that had been turned into colorful decorations for the female form. Her smile was bittersweet. Instead of reminding her of any male, they reminded her of the sibling she had loved and lost.
    “When we were young females in the progeny zenana, Rena used to tease me because I loved dressing up. Oh, not to be put on display in the gallery, but in our room, in private. When a female was required to be presented in the gallery, a dochenta picked her seductive clothing. Such a task was done with no more regard than that of a shopkeeper displaying wares on a convenient rack. No one ever knew how much I used to want to wear beautiful clothing all the time anyway. It was my guilty pleasure to love the very thing which signaled the female’s destiny was about to change for the worse.”
    “Is what you describe the life of every Ethosian female?” Ji asked, appalled at her story. He kept his face turned away, trying to hide the angry tic in his jaw.
    Seta pondered the question philosophically for a moment. The sad reality of being Ethosian and a female was something she and Rena had often discussed.
    “Yes. A rare female or two might have things easier, but even those lucky few with decent mates were still confined to their homes. More females—most really—had to resign themselves to being property which could be traded, bartered, and used any way their mate deemed worthwhile.”
    Ji turned away, unable to look at her while he listened to the rest. “What recourse do females have in bad situations?”
    Seta shrugged as she thought about it. “Most females in the Suzerains private corral spend their time learning how to manipulate and seduce what they want from him, since they accept their value is in his service. I have known some in the progeny zenana to try and hide in the shadows, hoping the suzerain would forget about them. Hiding never lasted long because his administrator records every birth. Reports about each female are sent regularly with ratings on achievements, beauty, and other saleable factors. Arranging a mate for a female with little beauty or grace is seen as an arduous task, but also as a good businessman’s challenge.”
    To keep from shaking the complacency out of her voice, Ji went to a chair by the window where he could watch Seta and still keep a lookout. “What happens to females like you who manage to escape Ethos?”
    “The suzerain might never admit it, but I think Rena and I were the first to do so. Of course, we were being aided by an emissary and a demon. Escaping was not a circumstance either of us controlled at the time it happened, even though I mostly have a full memory of it. Rena and I argued many times after she was returned to her body about why it happened to the two of us and not to others. She wished us both dead because she saw our survival as an abomination to her beliefs. By that point I was glad my life had been extended, whoever the benefactor. The fight over our destined fate was the first genuine disagreement we had ever had in our lives. It turned out to also be the last one.”
    Ji made a sound low in his throat. “You have a demon you haven’t mastered controlling and a half-mad Siren who wants to kill every male who looks at you. I don’t think your odds are quite as good as they were last time. The emissary was probably your edge.”
    “Yes. Perhaps my current reality is a bit more of a challenge. I can almost hear Malachi laughing at my predicament and telling me how much I will learn from it,” Seta said, crossing