She didn’t want to be a whore, which was what the Chechens intended for her, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. Except the Kildar. When the Chechens made the mistake of kidnapping one of the Keldara girls, the Kildar had responded with his usual understated manner.

After he had the girls in the van cleaned of the blood, though, he had a problem. None of the girls had homes to go back to. To their parents they were “no deposit, no return.” Not only were they, presumably, no longer virgins, the farms in the area were too marginal to bring another mouth back to feed.

The Kildar had, therefore, brought them into his own household as concubines. But he had a very odd view of what to do with harem slaves. The first rule he’d laid down, damn him, was that the girls had to be sixteen before he’d bed them. It was, as he pointed out, younger than his culture would consider “okay” but given that twelve was considered marriageable in the area it was a good median. The second rule he’d laid down was that the girls had to learn. When they were old enough he intended them to move on, to go get a job, go to university, get a husband, have kids, have a “real life.”

And he’d been careful and considerate in bedding them. Yes, he occasionally had an evening just to relieve his need, but most of the time the girls returned to the harem half unconscious with endorphins and ready to go back as soon as they recovered. The Kildar was as good in bed as he was in battle. None of the girls who had done so minded bedding him, not one bit.

And then there was the matter of status. This region was very backward and she’d come to understand that. It was not a normal place compared to the U.S. or Europe. But it was the culture she had been raised in. And in that culture, the Kildar had very high status. The Keldara, and the Kildar, were legends in the region long before the present Kildar arrived.