Page 63 of Claimed By the Condemned Alien

She tapped the entry. “What stops challenges?”

Dreven’s eyes met hers.

There was the briefest hesitation.

Kesta noticed it.

So did Nethra.

The older woman leaned back and folded her arms. “Tell her all of it.”

Dreven gave her an irritated glance. “I intended to.”

“You intended to dislike telling her first.”

“That is different.”

Kesta waited.

Something about seeing him reluctant for reasons that had nothing to do with hiding information made her curiosity sharpen.

Dreven rested one forearm on the table. “An emergency claim becomes harder to challenge if it is replaced by a direct protection contract negotiated between the parties. It becomes effectively unchallengeable by another camp if the protected person and claimant seal it through voluntary mating.”

Kesta stared at him.

The translator could not possibly have mistranslated that many words.

“Mating.”

“Yes.”

Tavi became intensely interested in an inactive interface port.

Sera’s expression remained professionally blank, which meant she was enjoying this almost as much as Tavi.

Kesta looked back at Dreven. “Sex.”

His nostrils flared slightly.

“Yes, Kesta. Sex.”

Heat rose inexplicably along the back of her neck.

That was annoying.

She had been discussing law.

Her body had apparently skipped directly to remembering the size of Dreven’s hands.

Kesta folded her arms before anyone could notice what the conversation had done to her. “And somebody designed a legal system where sleeping with the person protecting you makes that protection harder for someone else to take.”

“It predates the prison camps,” Nethra said. “The original law was intended to prevent powerful households from trading bonded partners for political advantage.”

Dreven’s expression had hardened. “It has also been used to trap people who believed mating was the only way to remain safe.”

Kesta studied his face. He disliked the law almost as much as she did.

That helped.