Free Claiming Crystal by Kayleen Knight Page B

when she awoke in the morning she felt the slightest sensation of crawling skin on the back of her neck.
    Perhaps it was the morning draught.
    Perhaps not.
    But whatever chill had overcome her upon waking also informed her of the day’s events, for no sooner had she crept to her door and placed a single ear against its wood than another ominous pall made its cloud known to her.
    Eavesdropping was something she always did in the early morning hours, hoping to catch the conversation of the guards outside and learn what was in store for herself or her kingdom's many subjects, for she had variously caught word of hangings, banishments and royal presentations that were sought to impress messengers and emissaries in the months before her coronation ceremony for the arranged marriages. She was never told directly about any of the plans her family had for the kingdom outside of her, and the slit underneath the door to her bedroom was in many ways the only small window she had into the lives of others outside of her. As it happened, these men were speaking about the rogue wild man she had bedded out in the open stables before the maid mothers could talk any sense into her. Initially she mistook the tones in their voice to be the soft lilts of jealousy or envy, but the longer they spoke their muffled gossip the more she realized they seemed outright nervous about the subject of conversation.
    She pressed her head against the length of the door alongside her single ear. She went very still and very quiet, so that her breathing would not interrupt. She even held her heartbeat, as she had been trained to do by the many physicians who came to see her, and the healers who taught her meditation and other techniques to keep her temperament cool for the many challenges that a woman named after a jewel would face in her lifetime.
    ‘ ...they say he was...’
    ‘ ...they left him right where...’
    ‘ ...no good ruffian...’
    Crystal was about to stop her eavesdropping, assured she was only listening to the bickering of two men who were talking just loudly enough so that one of the house servants might hear and relay their disapproval favorably to her family, so that they might win favor with the lord for criticizing the rogue he also did not approve of, when she heard mention of the dungeons that lay underneath the kingdom's ground, and felt that familiar rise of trapped dread cage not only her gut, but her heart as well. It seemed that her father had put the man in the stockades with the other crooks, thieves , and murderers.
    ‘ ...deserved as much for what he did...’
    When Crystal finally did pull away it was a mercy for herself; pity for the woman who was owned, and who was prevented her coveting if that coveting was not approved by the owners nor their committee. Her choices were not hers, and when she forgot that simple rule of slavery life she was reminded in the most brutal terms imaginable.
    ****
    No one came to see her for the rest of that day. The seclusion was a relief, although Crystal was not young enough to make the relief for reprieve. Her family had surely arranged more suitors than the four oddities that had already showed themselves, and lacking that, the four suitors she had already met probably had more things to show her yet.
    It was a blessing to be left by herself, for whatever little time she knew that she had. She teased her thoughts, waiting to see what might surface, and was somewhat dismayed to find images of the roguish wild man rising when other thoughts could only sink. It was not that she feared for him in the dungeons of this kingdom – a man such as that probably had seen his fair share of prisons, and handled their torments with the same good cheer with which he had handled the lecturing of her father the day before. She was simply preoccupied.
    The image of the wild man locked away called to her.
    By midafternoon she summoned some guards and asked to be taken to the dungeon. Knowing that this request