The Claiming by Kaitlyn O'Connor Read Free Book Online

she would’ve landed in the compartment area behind the seat. Looking behind them as they bumped along the edge of the field, she saw that the man named Dees was following them. In a few moments, he pulled alongside, the loping stride of the animal he rode easily keeping pace with them.
    They hit a hole. Jana nearly bounced from her seat and looked around a little frantically to find something to hold on to. “What sort of thing is this?”
    Blane’s expression was wry. “A cart. Sorry. I expected you would have baggage and figured we’d need the cart to carry it. The carriage would have been more comfortable.”
    It could hardly have been less.
    They reached a clear stretch of open space. The tiny, pink moon of Orleans illuminated the area enough that she could see that it was a little more than twice the width of their conveyance and curved between what looked like a wall of trees. Blane explained that it was a road, built specifically for the strange vehicles they used.
    Jana didn’t want to complain, but she rather thought the road was worse than the field. After only a few moments, she felt as if the teeth were being shaken loose from her head. She clamped her teeth together to keep from biting her tongue.
    It seemed to take forever to reach ‘town’. It was difficult to have any idea of how far ‘town’ was from where the ship had landed. The wind blasting in her face along with insects and tiny bits of flying debris as they’d bounced up the road had given her a sense of traveling very quickly, but she couldn’t help but notice that it seemed to take rather a long time to overtake the landmarks she spotted along the road and decided that they could not be traveling nearly as fast as it seemed they were. And yet, the sheer misery of having the hard seat pounding against her buttocks seemed to go on forever.
    ‘Town’ was a place Blane called Savana. Jana remembered the name from the message she’d gotten from Dees, the attorney. Looking around, she had to suppose that ‘town’ was something like city, except this looked nothing at all like Carter City. The buildings were short and squat, and made of some material she couldn’t identify. The roads seemed to be made up of some sort of flattened stone, which nevertheless wasn’t really flat. If she’d felt before as if her teeth were going to be shaken from her head, it was as nothing compared to the bone shaking she experienced as Blane drove over the cobbles.
    She was never more grateful in her life than when Blane stopped the vehicle before a structure he said was Dees’ office. Thankfully, Blane leapt from his side and came around to help her down. Jana wasn’t at all sure she could have gotten down by herself without falling on her face. Her knees almost gave way when Blane set her on her feet.
    Blane grinned, not unkindly. “I see you haven’t got your land legs yet.”
    Jana took the arm he offered for support gratefully. She wasn’t sure what he meant by his comment, but she rather thought the bouncing might have shaken the tissues and ligaments loose from her bones. It took an effort of concentration to walk the few steps from the cart to the building. Once inside, Blane helped her to a chair. She sank onto it thankfully, only to discover that it was as hard as the seat she’d just left.
    Dees moved around the table in front of her and pulled a bundle of something from a drawer that crackled as he carefully smoothed it flat. He pushed it across the desk.
    Jana stared at it. It looked somewhat like fabric--thin sheaves, but was stiff, and layered. Some strange design was painted on the white surface.
    “Your contract. We’ll wait while you read it through, but I assure you everything is in order.”
    Jana stared at him for a long moment, then looked at the bundle again. The contract. She’d had no idea they looked like this. She leaned toward it. “Play contract.”
    She waited. Nothing happened. She looked up at Dees, wondering if