“My slave is going to try talking to your slave,” Jake made himself tell Tandro, hopefully without showing anything of how he really felt. “The talk may not do any good, but at least we can try.”

Tandro didn’t look as pleased as Jake had expected him to, but instead of commenting the native led the way back to his own bedroom. Inside they found the girl still lying on the pallet with her eyes open, and the way Tain moved close to crouch down next to Ennie showed Jake how reluctant Tain was. But the way Tain smoothed the younger woman’s hair showed she also felt compassion, so Jake made no effort to walk closer himself. The two were speaking softly enough so that they had a small measure of privacy, and intruding on that privacy would probably be a bad idea.

A number of minutes went by, mostly filled with Tain saying something and Ennie listening, but to Jake’s eye Ennie wasn’t also believing. The girl hadn’t even sat up again, so when she closed her eyes and didn’t respond again Jake wasn’t surprised. Tain kept at it another minute or so, but finally she straightened and came back to where Jake and Tandro stood waiting.

“It’s no use,” Tain said in a soft voice, defeat clear in her tone and expression. “Ennie’s spent all her life trying to find someone who would really care about her, and now she doesn’t want to try any longer. She’s given up on everything, including worrying about what will happen to her. She’s completely empty inside.”

“And if she continues like that she’ll die,” Tandro said angrily as Jake gave in to the urge to put a hand to Tain’s arm in shared compassion. “Well, I won’t let her die, not now and not ever. If she’s all that empty inside then what she needs is something to fill her up.”

Jake didn’t know what Tandro was talking about, but it wasn’t long before he and Tain both found out. Tandro went to his saddlebags and got something that Jake couldn’t make out, then the native went over to Ennie’s pallet. It took only a moment for the man to pull Ennie to her feet by one arm, and then they went to the room’s plain chair. Tandro sat in the chair and pulled Ennie across his knees almost in a single motion, then he used both hands to part the girl’s nether cheeks. It wasn’t hard to see that Tandro was putting an insertion in Ennie, but even that didn’t elicit any reaction from the girl.

“Lack of enthusiasm isn’t acceptable in a slave,” Tandro said, and then his hand came down hard on Ennie’s behind. “You’re going to show me some life, girl, or else you’re going to be very unhappy. Tell me you’re sorry for the way you’ve been acting, and that you want to apologize to me in the most pleasant way.”

Tandro had been spanking the girl while he spoke, and her backside had started to go pink before he was through talking. The way Ennie moved looked completely involuntary, and when she spoke Jake wanted to close his eyes in pain.

“Sure, anything you like,” she said in the same dead voice even while she partially squirmed. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting, and I want to apologize in the most pleasant way.”

Tandro had paused to hear what she would say, but instead of looking as appalled as Jake felt, the native looked angry.

“That’s not good enough, and isn’t at all what I want!” Tandro snapped, starting to spank the girl again. “You will do things my way, otherwise you won’t sit down for a very long time! Tell me what I want to hear, and do it in the right way!”

When Ennie began to drone out the same words all over again, not even really reacting to the spanking, Jake realized he’d had all he could stand. He touched Tain’s arm and gestured for her to follow him, then he led the way out into the common area.

“Tandro is trying to get through to her in the only way he knows how, and all I can do is hope he succeeds,” Jake said to Tain once he’d closed the door behind them. “What did she say when you spoke to her?”

“Nothing, really,” Tain said with a shake of her head, not quite looking at him. “She thought you’d ordered me to talk to her, refusing to believe I was there on my own even when I corrected her. She said she knew how I really felt about her and didn’t blame me for feeling like that, so I didn’t have to bother pretending. Then she closed down again into that—that—”

“State of existing,” Jake finished when Tain didn’t, glancing to the door he’d closed. “How do you get through to someone who doesn’t care if she lives or dies? All I can do is hope that Tandro’s method works. If it doesn’t…”

Jake let his words trail off, expecting Tain to finish his sentence this time, but she didn’t. She just stood staring at something he couldn’t see, which meant it was time for their conversation. He touched her arm again to get her attention, and when he had it he led her back into their bedroom. Once the door was closed they had complete privacy, but Tain didn’t seem in the least interested.

“I … can’t help seeing a parallel between you and the girl right now,” Jake said after a moment of nothing but silence coming from Tain. “I hadn’t realized that what I did would hurt you so deeply, and I want to apologize. Never at any time did I mean to actually hurt you.”

“If you’re afraid that I’ll go into moving catatonia like Ennie, don’t waste the time,” Tain said, but she still made no effort to look directly at him. “What you really did was make me understand thoroughly how I ought to be acting, and that’s the way I will be acting from now on.”

And with that she went to the pallet and sat down cross-legged, then stared at the floor in front of her folded legs. But she sat with rounded shoulders and head bent, the picture of complete and total lack of challenge. Just the way a good slave was expected to sit…

“Tain, please,” Jake said, almost in desperation as he followed her to the pallet and crouched down. “We’re completely alone now, so you don’t have to act like that. And I want to talk about what you told me. If you felt that great an attraction for me that you couldn’t bring yourself to talk about it, one stupid move on my part couldn’t have killed the attraction entirely. Please tell me there’s still something left and that we can start over again but this time in the right way.”

“I have no interest in starting anything at all with you,” she said, and there wasn’t even a hesitation that Jake could think of as encouraging. “I didn’t want to talk about the attraction because it embarrassed me, not because it was the beginning of eternal love. You can’t feel more than physical attraction when you don’t know someone, not unless you’re a fool who likes to lie to herself. You have to get to know what that person is really like before you can feel more—or maybe not even feel what you did at first.”

Jake straightened out of his crouch and walked to the windows, looking at the still-pouring rain but not really seeing it. When he first saw Tain Halliday he’d been nothing but surface-attracted, all right, but that shallow kind of attraction hadn’t lasted very long. The more he learned about the woman, the more he saw her, the more he felt that he’d found the mate he’d been searching for so long.

And then I got the chance to actually be with her, so what did I do? I let myself be lured into treating her like the slave she was supposed to be. It was intoxicating having that much power over a woman, more fun than just working with her. Fun. I hope you enjoyed yourself, Jerk, because that’s the only enjoyment you’ll ever have with her.

If Jake’s thoughts hadn’t been so bleak he would have considered them bitter, but bitter was too mild a word to describe his feelings. He’d fallen all the way to self-hatred, and there was nothing he could do to salvage the situation. Tain wasn’t challenging him in any way any longer, which had to mean her original interest really was dead. Whatever he did to her didn’t matter because he didn’t matter.