"Hey, hold on! I never pressured them into anything like that," Damien retorted.
He had explicitly told Zima that their arrangement wouldn't change regardless of such things, and as for Ithnan and the others… well, their feelings had been so blatantly obvious that he couldn't just ignore them.
"Of course not," Theo agreed. "Even if the laws protecting those kinds of slaves aren't fully functional, there are still protections. If something inappropriate had truly happened, I would have helped them escape."
Apparently, taking advantage of slaves for non-designated purposes was considered a crime.
By all rights, Damien thought grimly, he was already a criminal.
If Zima or Ithnan decided to press charges, there'd be no way for him to win. That said, if a slave in such a scenario escaped and claimed victim status, they could be elevated to third-class citizens, which was considered an opportunity of sorts.
