The General ✔️ (Zolan Book 1)

13

"What?" Malik frowns at my request. "You do not simply summon The General. He is a busy man who comes to you if the urge strikes."

I know this. By calling for The General, I'm borderline insulting him, but I don't think he would mind. He seems to always drag me to his presence, anyway.

"Please call him for me. Consider this a last favor before you leave."

He pauses. "No. I don't do favors. I am thinking logically for you, since you can't seem to do the same. It is best if you stay away from The General. He does not think like the rest of us do."

I know this, too. I've seen firsthand how that anomaly of a man looks at me while his subjects walk around me as if I don't exist.

"Then I will get him." I raise my chin, and Malik narrows his eyes. He's not used to my head being this high, because all I do when he's around is keep my head down as I stitch and whisper calming words when he gets frustrated with his work.

"Very well. I will check if he is in a good mood. If he is foul, I will not tell him anything so you can forget about seeing him." Malik stands, and I let out a shaky breath that's either relieved or terrified.

He stops by the entrance and says, "Your teachings were admirable."

That's his last goodbye to me. He doesn't say thank you, or that he'll miss me, but this awkward compliment. I'm still stunned, because I didn't expect those words from a Master.

I don't say goodbye back. There's no need to. I'm not letting Malik be taken away.

When he leaves, I pace. My fingers tremble over the tie that keeps my dress in place. This is supposed to be easy— becoming a whore. I offer my services, set my price, and I fulfil my end of the bargain.

The price is Malik. I'm doing all of this for him, and it should be easy. I've gained many titles in life— slave, bartender, homeless, thief, seamstress, liar, servant. Adding 'whore' to the list more won't make much of a difference.

Still, my fingers tremble as if they're holding an invisible pen. I don't want to write that damn title. I want to write 'fighter' instead of 'whore', but I can't because all I do is lose.

Moments later, The General tears into my tent. The. familiarity of Malik is gone and replaced by this cold, unpredictable beast of a man. I don't think I'll ever relax around him. He fills my tent to a point of suffocation, those broad shoulders of his blocking the sunlight and my breath.

He's fully clothed, but my sex still clenches in fear because it knows what hangs behind his hide pants.

"Joan."

He still can't pronounce my name right. Malik can't, either. It's a subliminal reminder that I'm not one of them. The message lives on their tongue. When they speak to me, all I hear is that I don't belong.

"Hi."

That word came from me. Short, squeaky, mousy. The chin I raised at Malik is now pressed against my breastbone.

"I heard Malik is being relocated."

"Yes," he confirms. "Those are matters of the military."

He's telling me to mind my business. This is my business, though, because I can't shake off the feeling that Malik is being dismissed because of me.

"I was wondering if there was a way you could let him stay." My accent gets thicker. It always does this when I'm overwhelmed. "If I could convince you."

"What?"

I'm beating around the bush again. Masters don't like that. They're as direct as the blades they carry.

"Will you let Malik stay if I fuck you?"

The silence reminds me of when I was teleported off Earth and onto Tulis. It's so silent, I think it's a near-death-experience.

"Why..."

I left The General speechless. A verbal defeat anyone rarely achieves.

"Why would you make a negotiation from our coupling, as if is an inconvenience to you? It is an honor to fuck a General."

Rage. Rage like the sun that my beautiful planet Earth rotates boils in my chest.

"Because it is!" I scream, the walls of my tent pruning from my shrill scream. "I'd rather have a knife up my sex than your cock again. You hurt me so bad. It was awful, but what hurts more is that I thought I could out-smart you. That you would lose interest in me and finally leave me alone, but you just keep coming back, casting dangerous attention on me. You don't get it! I'm not strong enough to fight my bullies off. I can only survive by keeping my head low and going unnoticed. You make that impossible because you keep thinking with your cocks and not your mind!"

His eyes widen and lips part, but I keep shoving facts into him, not caring if he explodes. I will die for my insolence, but at least I will go with my last words set in stone.

"Most Zolanos treat me as coldly as the food they eat. They care only for themselves and you are the same! For a man that's so calculative and strategic, you are ignorant when it comes to me. Don't you see what position your attention puts me in? The Entertainers will ruin me."

I push him, but he goes nowhere. That only makes the sun in me burn hotter.

"I - I don't know why I was taken to this place. Why not someone smarter, braver, and won't embarrass the human kind. I have no purpose and just want silence until I die, but you destroy that just like you destroy my insides. Why don't you leave me alone!"

I inhale once, twice, and fall to a heap of tears at his feet like a useless old rag.

There is more silence, and I guess he is granting me my wish of silence before death. I broke all sorts of rules— touching, glaring, screaming. I've utterly disrespected the most decorated Master at camp.

"Stupid girl!"

The entrance of my humble tent is ripped apart by the Headmistress when she enters. I'm really in for it now.

"I could hear you from across camp, you fool! Don't worry, General. I will take care of this."

"Get out," I hiss at the cruel old woman. I've had it. "You will not disrespect my home. Not the only place I built with my sweat by patching a million holes because you never found me worthy of new materials. You don't even give me socks!" I cry. "I'm not a Zolano, but I'm still a person!"

"You..." she seethes.

"Get lost, Headmistress," The General intervenes.

"I beg your pardon?"

He must have given her a look, because all I hear next are her sandals— the ones I recently cleaned, scurrying out.

"This is impossible," The General mutters. "I hurt you? But... how?"

I say nothing. I've said everything already.

"You should have stopped me!" Now he's the one pacing.

"I knew something was wrong. Foolish. What a mess. Damnation. I should have known your reactions weren't normal. You should have told me. Stopped it."

His words aren't coherent. They're a mess of blame for the both of us. I don't think he's angry at me for my deceit, and that's a small relief.

He drops to his knees with a loud thud that makes the ground shake. "Does it still hurt now?"

His hands reach for my skirt, and I yelp a fearful, "no!"

He stops and looks confused because he's anything but a healer. He's frazzled, at a loss for what to do with me because I'm far more complicated than battle strategies. I guess that is the one feature of humanity that I represent well. Our unpredictability.