Trade — Catherine Miller

Gullible. Foolish. Weak. She had always done as she was told. She dug in the sands until her fingers bled so that her people could have something to barter. She packed up her sparse belongings without complaint when it was time to flee the Wastes, leaving behind the only home she'd ever known, and the site of the bittersweet memories she carried of her lost family. It was easier that way, to obey and not to question, knowing her own judgement to be faulty. But when her people learn that the exchange for living on alien land and securing their safety is the price of one of their unclaimed women, the limits of her compliance are tested, as she is given in marriage to a man she does not want from a species and clan she does not know. Only to discover that he feels precisely the same about their ill-begotten trade. --- She was a Marzon now. And she had no idea what that meant, other than giving up her clothes, her home, her people, all for a man who like to scowl and grunt and sigh. “By what name shall she be called?” Sladec asked, and she eyed him with confusion. She opened her mouth to answer, to finally inform them both that she most certainly had a name and it was important, no matter what Machrus had said, but the voice that gave answer was not her own. But came from her husband instead. “Renna. Now wife of Machrus of Krahl.” --- (Please note that this is the second in the Deridia Series. While reading them in order is suggested, each novel can stand alone.)