Starfire by Kate Douglas Page A

as I should.”
    She smiled as she ran her fingertip through the condensation on the side of the glass. “I know how to fight. How to protect myself.” Then she sighed. “At least, I thought I did. Birk’s attack taught me I’m not as strong as I thought.”
    Dawson put the strips of bacon on a paper towel to drain, and stuck some bread in the toaster. Then he cracked and beat half a dozen eggs, poured off most of the bacon fat, and dumped the eggs into the pan. Concentrating on the eggs, he asked her the question he’d avoided so far. “How did it happen? What did you do, that you were beaten so badly?”
    She stared at her hands clasped around the base of her glass of juice and shook her head. Her long, dark hair rippled in midnight waves over her shoulders. “I don’t really know. Birk caught me coming back from a meeting with Roland. Normally, catching one of us in the passageways where we don’t belong would warrant a slap, maybe the loss of what few privileges we have, but he surprised me with a solid punch to my jaw. I wasn’t expecting it. I never recovered from that first punch, not enough to fight back. He was too strong, too fast… .”
    Her voice trailed off as she gazed once more at the sunny window. “I’m afraid to go back to the mines. I know I have to, but I’ve never been so close to death before. It was terrifying.”
    “You were badly hurt. Your injuries might have killed a human woman … or man.” He shoved the eggs around the pan, concentrating on the lift and swirl of brilliant yellow, watching them solidify as they cooked. When they were almost done, he raised his head and caught her sapphire gaze in his own. “When you go back,” he said, “I’ll go with you. I don’t want you to have to face that bastard alone. Never again.”
    She laughed. It was a harsh sound without mirth. “He would kill you. He’s a large man. Bigger even than Alton. Taller. Broader. He’s grown more cruel each year, as if something drives him to terrorize us as much as possible.”
    Dawson didn’t respond. She might be right, and maybe he wouldn’t win a fair fight with the man who’d beat her, but as far as he was concerned, fairness didn’t enter the contest when a man did to a woman what that bastard had done to Selyn.
    Calmly, Daws scooped eggs onto a plate, then buttered a piece of toast and set it next to the eggs with a couple of strips of bacon. He put the plate in front of Selyn along with a small jar of jam. Then he put a serving of eggs into a shallow bowl with a strip of bacon crumbled across the top, and set it on the floor for BumperWillow, next to the water he’d put out earlier.
    Thank you, Dawson. It looks wonderful.
    You’re welcome.
    He would never, not ever, get used to conversing with a dog. Smiling, Daws filled his own plate and sat across from Selyn.
    She stared at the food.
    “Is something wrong?”
    She shook her head. “No. It’s too right. This is amazing.” When she raised her head, she was smiling again. “It’s too pretty to eat.”
    He laughed and put thoughts of killing Birk out of his mind, at least for now. “No, it’s not,” he said, taking a forkful of eggs. “You’re the only thing at this table too pretty to eat, except that’s all I can think of doing with you.”
    Oh, crap. I didn’t really say something that stupid … did I?
    She paused with the fork halfway to her mouth, cocked her head to one side, and stared at him. “What is it you want to do?”
    He felt the blush all the way to the top of his head. She was probably as innocent as a young woman could be, no matter her actual age in years. He shook his head. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “Eat your breakfast.”
    She stared at him a moment longer, and then dug into her food. From the hurried yet efficient manner in which she ate, he figured mealtimes in the slave quarters weren’t necessarily a social occasion.
    Sadness flowed over and through him, a sense of time lost, of innocence