Free Stolen Melody (Snow and Ash #2) by Heather Knight Page A

“Those aren’t members. Those are workers.”
    “What’s the difference?” He’d better not mean slaves. He’d better not.
    “If a town can’t make their tax in food or goods, then we take labor.”
    “Slaves?”
    “No. It’s just for a period of time. The next time we go back and they can make their tax, the guys go home.”
    “Sounds like slavery to me.”
    “Well it isn’t. Did your friend look like a slave?”
    “Mia?”
    “She’s a worker. She earns her keep, just like all the others.”
    I’m quiet as I mull this.
    “We work them hard, but they get a place to stay, meals, heat. Hell, Melody, half the planet would love to be in their shoes.”
    I bite my lip. Maybe.
    “How else do you think we built this place? With two hundred guys? No way. We used labor.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’re still stuck in the twenty-first century. If we didn’t make them, half these guys wouldn’t even go home.”
    “Why not just keep them if they want to stay?”
    “If we tell a town that we’re taking their guys for a year and they can have them back if they can pay their tax next year, what do you think happens if we don’t bring them back?”
    “They don’t trust you?”
    “They stop cooperating. People get killed. This system works, Mel. Don’t question it.”
    “Quit calling me that.” I’m about to say I’ll question anything I want, but a couple hours ago I did that and we got in an argument. Then I got angry, stalked off to an unprotected place, and almost got raped. He’d been right about things then. How do I know he isn’t right now?
    He leads me down a street and hangs a right at the third cross street. The houses are all very similar, but there are some differences. A couple are brick. A few are made of logs, but the majority are made of repurposed siding. He’s looking left and right, and it looks like he’s mentally reading off the house numbers. When we get to the sixth house on the right, a log structure with an enclosed walkway leading to the—whatever you call it, wood storage area, he stops.
    He fishes a key out of his pocket, tramps up to the front door, and tries it out. When the door swings open, his eyes brighten and a boyish smile spreads across his face.
    “Is this yours?” I ask.
    His eyes are still sparkling when he turns back to me. “Wait here a second.”
    He darts inside and dumps the packages. He reappears a moment later and scoops me up in his arms.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Just shut up.” His face is carefully blank as he carries me inside and sets me on my feet inside a small living room/kitchen. There’s a fire already going in the fireplace, but other than a couch, a table, and a rug, the place is bare, completely devoid of decoration.
    I think he just…did he carry me over the threshold? Like some kind of bride?
    I feel a little sick at the thought. It makes me think of honeymoons and painful sex. I cross my arms over my stomach.
    Something in my expression dims his smile. He scratches the back of his head. “Why don’t you see if there’s anything to eat in the kitchen? I got a couple things I need to do.”
    I touch the bruise on my face and nod. No sex. Not yet anyway.
    I find a loaf of bread and a hunk of butter as well as a five-gallon container of water with a spout. There’s no fridge, of course, but it can’t be more than sixty degrees in here. Luckily water doesn’t spoil. I’m finding it harder to work my jaw. It’s more swollen now than it was, and it’s starting to hurt worse. I chew carefully, glad that this time it’s not jerky on the menu. Axel’s outside doing something, I don’t know what, and I eye the ugly blue couch with the cabbage-rose print. Soft. I haven’t felt anything soft in what seems like months. There’s a matted yellow afghan hanging over the back. It smells clean, though, and so does the couch. It’s not long before I’m curled up for a nap.

    I smell vanilla. I don’t know how long I’ve been