Читать книгу The Morcai Battalion: Invictus - Diana Palmer - Страница 8

Madeline was impressed by the number of guards and the obvious wealth and prestige of the guests who attended the ceremony. She wore simple robes in a pale blue gossamer fabric, her hair left long and clean and flowing in red-gold waves down her back.

Beside her, Dtimun also wore robes, similar to the ones he’d worn to the Altair embassy when he’d blackmailed her into accompanying him. She had to restrain a smile, remembering some of their earlier battles.

He glanced down at her with twinkling green eyes, amused at her thoughts. She curbed them. It really wasn’t a time to be humorous.

Caneese herself officiated at the brief ceremony. She welcomed the guests, who seemed to be shocked about some aspect of the affair, and joined Dtimun and Madeline at a small altar at one end of the spacious chamber.

She instructed them to join hands. Then she read the ceremony in High Cehn-Tahr, the ancient tongue of her people. Madeline barely understood a word of it. She was far more aware of her surroundings and the experience to come, apprehension having kept her sleepless. She had taken Caneese’s advice and used a small bit of sedative. But it wasn’t doing much good.

In a heartbeat, the ceremony was over and Caneese was smiling at them. She nodded.

Dtimun glanced at Madeline and indicated the back of the room. She followed him, aware of the silence as they left the guests behind.

He didn’t look at her as they approached a door guarded by two Cehn-Tahr soldiers in full dress uniform. The guards stared straight ahead, their eyes never deviating to the bonded pair.

One guard touched a switch and the door to the suite opened. Madeline went in, followed by Dtimun, and the door closed behind them. It was pitch-black inside. The only sound was a sudden, deep growl emanating from her companion. It was reminiscent of the cry Cehn-Tahr made when in battle, the death cry called the decaliphe. But this one had a more bass pitch.

She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but the growl was slowly escalating. She felt hands suddenly grasp her from behind. She felt his teeth on her shoulder, his claws digging into her rib cage. His teeth moved to the back of her neck. She recalled, with growing unease, his comment that if she bent her neck to his teeth he would make her pay for it. Her heart jumped into her throat. He was her commander. She’d known him for three years. But this creature was alien in a way she’d never expected and as threatening as a charging galot.

He felt taller and more massive than he appeared. The growls and the brutal grip of his hands would have been enough to frighten any woman not battle-hardened. She wasn’t certain whether or not to fight at this point. He wasn’t really hurting her.

While she was considering her options, he suddenly lifted her and literally tossed her across the room.

Gasping at the shock of movement, and the raw strength that had propelled her such a distance, she landed on her back, thankfully on a soft surface. The impact still knocked the breath out of her. Before she could catch it, Dtimun had pinned her, facedown, so that she could not escape. There was a cry, much more like the decaliphe, that chilled her to the bone. Behind her, the growl grew louder. She felt a crushing weight as sharp teeth bit into the back of her neck. To that pain was added, quite suddenly, another pain. Shocking. Humiliating. Infuriating! She clenched her teeth in fury.

“Like…hell…you…do!” she raged at him. Her head whipped around and she caught the muscular forearm beside her and bit it as hard as she could. She tasted blood.

He growled again, and his teeth bit in harder.

She cried out furiously, struggling as the pain increased. She lashed out with one leg and connected with his shin. While he was reacting to that attack, she launched another on his arm with her teeth. He pinned her with ridiculous ease and brought his teeth to her neck again, pushing her down with his formidable weight in a surge of pure aggression.

“How dare you!” she rasped indignantly. All her imagining hadn’t prepared her for this sort of domination. When she got her hands free, she was going to pay him back royally!

There was a louder growl, unrelated to her resistance, and then a brief lessening of aggression.

She increased her struggles, sensing weakness, but with all her combat training, she couldn’t budge him. She groaned furiously, all her resentments combined in the angry sound.

He whipped her onto her back. His fingers locked into hers. In the darkness, she could see only the green glow of his eyes as he looked down at her.

“This is not as I wished it,” he said in a voice that sounded odd, different, as if the Standard words were being formed in a throat unaccustomed to making the sounds. “The violence is our shame, the penalty we pay for daring to experiment with our own genetic structure. I would not hurt you for any reason, if the choice were mine. It is not. This is my nature,” he ground out. “This violent, animal ferocity.”

She was still trying to reconcile her anger with his guilt and find a balance. She had rarely been bested in combat, even by an adversary so superior. She swallowed, hard, and struggled for breath.

His head bent and he brushed his face against hers, tenderly. “Now you can understand why Komak’s genetic mix was necessary,” he whispered. “Without it, I would have killed you.”

There was torment in his deep voice. She realized that he wasn’t exaggerating. His claws would have punctured her lungs, as they had on Lagana even when he was in control of himself. His strength was so superior, even with her modifications, that she would have bruises. She recalled hearing him talk about Hahnson’s broken back from only the preliminaries of his mating with an exiled Cehn-Tahr woman. Dtimun had said that no method every discovered by science could lessen the aggression. As she had been three years ago, she could not have survived this.

She was realizing something more, as well. Her mental neutering was supposed to cause excruciating pain if she attempted to mate. It had not. Although, there had been another sort of pain…

“That could not be helped,” he said at her ear. His voice was calmer now. “Something a physician should know.”

There was almost a teasing note in his voice. She felt herself begin to relax, despite the discomfort. She would never admit that he had frightened her, of course.

“Of course,” he murmured dryly.

“You stop that,” she said firmly. “My thoughts are my own.”

He drank in the scent of her. “My father said that my mother attempted to jump out a window at their first mating,” he whispered.

That surprised a laugh out of her. “A window?”

“Yes, on the top floor of a very tall building.” His tongue brushed her throat as he inhaled the floral scent of her hair. “My father was quick. He caught her as she fell.”

His fingers felt odd. Thicker than they appeared. He was incredibly heavy. She also had the impression of massive physical presence, strength, raw power. He seemed much taller, broader, than he appeared. Despite her reengineered bone mass, he was many times her superior in strength. Was the darkness to hide him from her eyes, she wondered, so that she couldn’t see what he really looked like?

“An astute guess,” he said huskily. His fingers, strong and thick, speared into hers, sliding in between them. “We do not mate as humans do, but as the great galots do. Males dominate by pinning the female at the back of the neck. An undignified, shameful process, which we hide from outworlders. I told you that you might learn things about us which you would not like.”

His deep voice was harsh with regret. She began to understand why the Cehn-Tahr were so secretive about their behaviors. Her body slowly began to relax. It wasn’t fair to blame him for something that was inborn in him, in all his species. She had agreed to this. It was not against her will. Securing the timeline required sacrifice. Certainly, this episode was as difficult for him as it was for her.

“Yes,” he answered the unspoken question somberly. “Intimacy requires a lowering of barriers which is difficult for me. I have always been alone, apart.”

“So have I, really,” she confessed. She moved and winced. There was a lot of discomfort.

“You must heal the damage, Madeline,” he said softly.

“You said the physicians would have to examine me. Couldn’t they…?”

His hands contracted. “You misunderstand.” His tongue caressed her throat again, producing exquisite sensations. “I have not finished.”

Her mind was fuzzy. “But…?”

“Do you think I wish to go through the rest of my life with a memory so brutal and unfeeling as what we just shared?” he asked at her ear. “You will forget. I will not.” He stilled. “Heal the damage.”

She hesitated, but only for an instant. She was curious about what he meant to do. She used the wrist scanner and activated its drug banks. For an instant, when the screen lit to calculate the dosage of nanocells, she got a glimpse of a huge hand with broad fingers which looked nothing like the commander’s.

He put his hand over the screen, shielding the light. “You will not look at me,” he said firmly. “And you will not touch me, regardless of what happens.”

Now she was truly curious. She deactivated the unit. “Why?”

He moved down against her. His tongue rasped against softer flesh, creating sensations that overwhelmed her. She gasped and her fingernails bit into his muscular arms. Involuntarily her hands slid to his back and encountered a long, soft line of fur over his spinal column…

He pulled her hands away and smoothed them over his broad, hair-covered chest. “You will not touch me, except here,” he whispered again.

“O…okay,” she whispered back. She was barely capable of rational thought, awash on a wave of delight so intense that she shivered.

“Our first encounter did not produce a child,” he said huskily. “This one will.”

“How can you know…?”

He laughed softly as he felt her shocked reaction. His tongue slid down her throat, over her collarbone. His teeth bit in, gently, and she shivered again.

“This is how we mark our mates,” he whispered. “It is a ritual older than time. But I promise you, there will be no pain from it.”

She felt thick, soft hair against her skin; more like fur than hair. His mouth opened. She felt his teeth. But at the same moment they bit down, explosive sensations blinded her mind and her body to anything except a wave of pleasure so overwhelming that she gasped and then sobbed helplessly.

“What are you…doing?” she cried out.

He laughed deep in his throat. “Something that you will never learn from falsified black market vids,” he whispered.

Her nails bit into his chest. “You wouldn’t tell me, and there was no other way to find out,” she accused shakily. She groaned and caught her breath. “Dtimun!” she exclaimed.

It was the first time she’d ever used his name. The effect it had on him was explosive. His reaction drew sounds from her that she’d never heard herself make. She hoped the doors were tightly closed.

He heard that thought and chuckled. “The room is soundproof,” he whispered.

She cried out, a sound that was almost primeval, piercing and poignant.

He put his mouth over hers and pressed down, hard, a Cehn-Tahr mating custom that they shared with humans. Her cries most likely would not penetrate the walls. But, just in case…

She came back to consciousness very slowly. She was aware of movement. The air stirred around her. A wisp of fabric was draped around her, just before the lights activated.

Dtimun was wearing a red pant-skirt like the one that comprised the Kahn-Bo fighting garment that martial art enthusiasts wore in matches aboard ship. His chest was bare, muscular and covered with thick black hair. He pulled her up so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed and as the fabric dipped, momentarily; his eyes found the unique mark of bonding that he had placed just below her collarbone. The marks reflected ancient hieroglyphs for certain words, whose meanings were an indication of the male’s feelings for his mate. There were also other lacerations, deep and painful. Most of them would be on her back. The court physicians should not comment on them; however, the eldest, a female whom Dtimun did not like, might be so bold. He did not want Madeline upset. She was shivering. The vulnerability, even briefly, of such a strong and independent spirit touched him.

His fingers brushed her cheek. “The physicians are waiting. You must be examined. It is the law.”

She nodded. Her eyes met his and searched them with silent awe. The experience was beyond anything she’d ever encountered. And now she knew, most certainly, that he was far different than he appeared. He must use a sensor net to disguise his true face, one which would be weakened under emotional stress. Hence, the darkness in the mating chamber.

She knew he saw that thought in her mind, but he ignored it.

He turned away and activated the door. Five female physicians in gray robes, headed by a taller gray-haired one, walked stoically into the room. The gray-haired one stood in front of Madeline and looked at her with blatant distaste. She said something in Centaurian in a harsh, cold tone.

Dtimun had started to leave, as custom dictated, when he felt the sudden sense of unease, of embarrassment, that rushed into Madeline’s mind as the haughty physician looked at her. For the first time in almost three years, he saw her vulnerable, sensitive. It was such a rare reaction for her that all his protective instincts rallied and bristled. He turned, frowning when he saw the way the head physician was studying her. He felt a surge of possession stronger than anything he’d ever experienced in his life, mingled with anger. His jaw tautened and he walked back to stand beside her. He was defying convention, and he did not care. It disturbed him that Madeline was being denigrated by this smug physician. He would not tolerate it in his own house.

The eldest female physician gasped. She made a haughty remark. Dtimun snapped at her in his own tongue. Shocked, she moved back, bowed and abruptly turned to Madeline and reached out, removing the fabric that covered her and dropping it to her waist.

Madeline was puzzled at the physician’s behavior. She looked up and saw Dtimun’s eyes on her, lingering where his teeth had marked her. But they were appreciative of her soft skin, the delicate form of her body.

The female physician examined the lacerations on Madeline’s back with growing distaste. She used her instruments abruptly, without kindness, and then spoke to Dtimun in Cehn-Tahr. Madeline didn’t understand the words, but they sounded quite indignant.

He exploded with anger, his tone so cutting, his eyes making such a threat, that the elderly female actually backed away. She lowered her eyes and spoke in a respectful tone, almost toadying.

Dtimun didn’t unbend one inch. He gave a curt command. The physician looked shocked, and started to argue. He cut her off and made an imperious gesture toward the door. The female regained her composure, bowed again, paler than when she entered the chamber, and left, very quickly. A younger physician moved forward, bowing to him, smiling gently, and speaking softly. He nodded, obviously still preoccupied and angry.

The young physician treated the wounds on Madeline’s back and hips and used a disinfectant only on the scar of bonding. Then she, and the remaining three physicians, bowed, smiling, and started to leave the chamber.

“Could you tell me what that was all about…?” Madeline started to ask the question when she was suddenly sick all over the floor. She fell to her knees, shivering.

“Get Hahnson!” Dtimun called in Cehn-Tahr to the young physician. “Now! Bring him here!”

The next few minutes went by in a blur. Hahnson came running. Dtimun held the fabric around Madeline’s nudity and growled furiously at Hahnson when he approached her.

Hahnson stopped in his tracks. A man confronted by a charging galot couldn’t have felt more threatened. The alien’s posture, barely altered, added to the black of his eyes and the growl would have stopped a decorated combat soldier in his tracks.

“I will not harm you. You must ignore the threat. I cannot help it,” Dtimun said tersely, wincing at his own frustrating lack of control even now.

Hahnson smiled. “I know. It’s all right. Maddie, can you tell me the symptoms?”

“You can see them…on the floor, Strick,” she said with black humor. “I feel so nauseated! My stomach hurts. It’s like a knife…!”

“It is the child,” Dtimun said huskily. “The growth is immediate, and exponential.”

Hahnson grimaced as he looked at the small screen of his wrist unit. “We have to slow the growth. I’m not prepared for this.”

“Caneese has a preparation,” Madeline said weakly. “She told me about it.”

Dtimun called the young physician back into the chamber and rapped out an order. “She will bring it,” he told Madeline.

“Can’t Caneese…?” she asked, confused.

“Caneese is not allowed to see us,” he replied curtly. “It is a breach of protocol.”

“Oh.” She was confused, but much too sick to argue.

Hahnson injected a drug into the artery at Madeline’s neck. “That will help the nausea. But it’s only treating symptoms right now. I have no experience with Cehn-Tahr/human babies,” he added with a wry smile. “I think this is going to be on-the-job training.”

“No doubt,” she managed. She was stunned by the notion that she was pregnant. Despite their earlier discussions, even with Komak’s assurances, she hadn’t really expected it to happen. Her knowledge of pregnancy was limited to a rare assistance at childbirth, but this was far more personal. The physical manifestations were new and startling.

Hahnson looked from one of them to the other. “I don’t suppose either of you would like to explain what the hell you think you’re doing? I mean, we’re talking capital punishment…”

“Chacon is in grave danger. The princess has gone to Benaski Port to warn him,” Dtimun told him. “Komak has traveled in time and knows the future. He said that Chacon’s death will create a disastrous timeline. Madeline and I must go to Benaski Port in an attempt to save them both, but the masquerade can only work if she carries my child.”

“They’ll space you both, if you’re caught,” Hahnson said worriedly.

“That’s why you aren’t telling anyone, old dear,” Madeline told him. “Not even Edris.”

Before he could reply, the young physician was back with a cup of what looked like herbal tea. She offered it to Madeline and left the room. Madeline’s hands shook as she held the beverage.

“You must drink it all,” Dtimun told her, steadying the cup with his own hand. “It will retard the growth of the fetus.”

Fetus. The fetus. The baby. She sipped tea and tried to wrap her spinning mind around the fact that she was pregnant. When she and Dtimun had discussed this possibility, she had asked what they would do with a baby. She was a soldier, she had said, she had no place for a child in her life. But now, with the reality of it, she felt a connection with the baby that overwhelmed her. She was carrying a child in her body. She touched her stomach with a sense of awe and fascination. It wasn’t, she thought, anything like she’d expected.

Hahnson examined her again, and nodded when he saw the readouts. “You’ll do,” he told Madeline. “I’ll compound some of this for you in Caneese’s lab, in a laserdot. She and I will confer on a regimen, as well, for your trip.” He looked from one stoic, impassive face to the other. “This is very risky.”

“We know,” Madeline told him. “But the future is at stake.”

He sighed. “Then I’ll hope for good results.” He got up and forced a smile. “Good fortune.”

Dtimun locked forearms with him. “In my lifetime, I have had very few friends. I have always considered you one of them.”

“Same here. Take care of each other.”

He nodded.

Hahnson left, and Madeline began to feel better. She got her second wind and looked up at Dtimun.

“Sir, do you think you might consider telling me what the devil happened with the physicians?”

His lips made a thin line. “The elder one made a remark I did not like.”

“Yes?” she prompted.

“She pointed out that your wounds were in the wrong place. Then she referred to the length of time we spent in the mating chamber.”

She cocked her head. She didn’t understand.

“Madeline, our mates are subjugated, as female galots are subjugated. The process is brief, and brutal, and it leaves wounds on the chest and abdomen, not on the back. Also it is a breach of protocol to enjoy it.”

“It is?” she asked, and mischief suddenly sparkled in her green eyes.

He glared at her expression. “You will never speak of this,” he said abruptly.

“Would I do that, sir?” she murmured innocently. “As you know, I always obey your every order.”

“You never listen to an order unless it suits you,” he correctly curtly. “But if you ignore this one, you will pay for it.”

She gave him a wry look. “I’m not in the habit of discussing intimate things,” she replied. “Besides, people may speculate, but no one will ever know what happened in here, anyway.”

He lifted an eyebrow haughtily. All at once his own eyes went green with amusement. “For which we are obliged to the architect who soundproofed the chamber,” he said with the straightest face she’d ever seen.

He had rarely seen her speechless. It was amusing. Her face was almost as red as her hair. She averted her eyes with obvious embarrassment.

“You fought me,” he mused.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she said, thinking it was probably another breach of protocol.

“You need not apologize,” he chuckled. “I quite enjoyed it, once the shock wore off.” He knelt beside her and touched her long, damp hair. His eyes met hers. They gleamed like pure gold. It was a color she’d only seen in them once before. “I do not like submission,” he said in a husky, deep voice. His hand gripped her hair, hard, and pulled her face under his so that he could see directly into her eyes. He looked down his long, aristocratic nose at her with blatant possession. Her breath caught. The sensations the action aroused were new and shocking.

“That’s a good thing,” she said unsteadily, “because you’ll never get it from me.”

He smiled. He rubbed his head against hers in an oddly feline way, making a caress of it. His hand relaxed and speared through her long hair, savoring its softness. “We mated only to produce a child, to enhance a covert mission…or so it began.” His hand contracted again and he growled softly as the contact with the soft skin at her nape produced delicious sensations. She felt them, too. “It is strange, to find such compatibility between two such different species.”

She touched his chiseled mouth with her fingertips. She lowered her eyes to his bare chest. She fought a laugh. “The physicians seemed quite shocked.”

He laughed, deep in his throat, and rubbed his cheek against hers affectionately. “So was I. I have never taken so much pleasure from a female,” he said bluntly. His hands pulled her gently to him and enfolded her. “I deeply regret the violence at the beginning. But I did tell you once, did I not, that passion is always violent.”

She slid her arms around his neck and held on tight, closing her eyes. “You did, but I didn’t understand what you meant until now. Despite those—” she pulled back and stared at him suspiciously “—those dreams I had, that you said you weren’t responsible for.”

“I lied. The discomfort began to affect my ability to think rationally.” His hands smoothed her shoulders gently. “The ‘dreams’ are one of several coping strategies we employ in order to survive the long abstinences,” he told her. “Each time we mate, a child is created. One is dangerous. Two at once is a death sentence, even for a Cehn-Tahr woman.”

He was explaining something, very discreetly. “You mate only to have children?”

“The customs and culture of our society dictate that,” he agreed.

She cocked her head and her eyes twinkled. “Dictate it. But do people really abstain between children?” she asked.

“Since we do not discuss such intimate behaviors openly, the question is not easily answered.”

That brought to mind something that had piqued her curiosity before. She sketched his face with soft eyes. “Those holovid generators at Kolmankash,” she murmured. “Are they really used for vid games?”

He smoothed back her damp hair affectionately. “When we are separated from our mates,” he said, “they permit an intimacy which is almost indistinguishable from reality,” he said after a minute. He looked at her sternly. “This is another thing you will never share with an outworlder.”

She saluted him.

He glared at her.

She laughed. “We agreed a long time ago that I’m discreet” she reminded him. “I never tell anything I know.”

He sighed. “No. You never do.” He looked down at her body in its thin covering. “How does it feel?” he asked suddenly.

“Feel?” she repeated curiously.

“My child lies in your womb,” he said slowly, as if the idea, the concept, was a source of awe. His eyes, softly gold, met hers. “How does it feel?”

Her lips parted. She searched his eyes. “I don’t have the words,” she faltered. She touched his face and all the intensity of her feelings for him made her radiant, as if she were glowing inside with some secret heat. “You’ll have to find them, in my mind.”

Her awe and delight were there, along with her feelings for him, so intense that he almost felt the impact physically.

He seemed fascinated with her. And not just with her. His gaze dropped to her stomach. He reached down and touched it with just his fingertips, and caught his breath.

She frowned. He looked shocked.

As he was. The Dacerian woman had told him, decades past, that she carried his child. And now he knew that it was a lie. He knew it, because he felt his child, communicated with his child at some molecular level, sensed the child in every cell of his body. His teeth clenched as he relived the anguish just after her death. He had blamed his father. Now, horribly, he was forced to face his own error. If she had lied about one thing, it was certain that she had lied about others.

He recalled the Dacerian’s easy acceptance of him when they mated, her bland submission. It was different with Madeline. Madeline had fought him. But then, she had become as fiercely responsive as she had been fiercely resistant. Madeline loved him. The Dacerian woman…never had. And he only now realized it.

She felt the indecision and sorrow. She smoothed her hand gently over his black hair. “You can feel the child,” she whispered, surprised that she knew that so certainly.

He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Sensation overwhelmed him. He felt comfort, sympathy, joy in her touch. “Yes,” he said after a minute, and he smiled gently. “I can feel our child.”

She leaned forward and touched her forehead to his. It was a moment out of time, when she wished the clock would never move again. She wanted it to last forever.

There was a faint noise at the door, like scratching. He lifted his head and stared into Madeline’s soft eyes for another few seconds. His were still that incredible shade of gold. She didn’t know what it meant. But before she could ask him, he stood up, suddenly remote and stoic, as if they were in his office together discussing strategy. The intimacy fell away at once.

He turned. The door opened and a tall, somber woman with her black hair in a bun approached them. She bowed.

Madeline looked at her with curiosity. She smiled shyly. The smile was returned.

“Sfilla,” the woman told her. She pointed to herself. “Sfilla.”

“Madeline,” came the gentle reply.

Dtimun turned to her. “Sfilla will be your companion on our journey. She will act as cook and personal aide as well. She has been with my family for many years, and is one of its most trusted members. You will go with her now to your own quarters.”

“Yes, sir,” Madeline acknowledged.

Sfilla looked at her with astonishment. “You call him ‘sir’?” she exclaimed, and worked hard at pronouncing the unfamiliar Standard. Still, there was hardly a trace of an accent.

Madeline blinked. “I’ve been calling him ‘sir’ for almost three years,” she explained and smiled as she looked at him. “Habits are hard to break, even under the circumstances.” She shrugged. “Hey, at least I’m not saluting you,” she said in her defense.

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Do that at Benaski Port and I will lock you in a bath cubicle and lose the key,” he threatened.

In defiance, she stood at attention. “Notice I’m not saluting,” she said with irrepressible humor.

Sfilla giggled. Dtimun sighed. “It is a complicated situation,” he told the woman, with a wry smile.

“As you say,” Sfilla replied.

“Are all those people still out there?” Madeline asked suddenly, bringing Dtimun’s amused eyes back to her.

She was tugging at the flimsy fabric and looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“They have been told that the mating was productive,” he told her. “They have retired to the great room, where they will consume beverages and food for another little space of time, and then they will go home.”

“They won’t…I mean, they can be trusted?” she worried.

“Even if they could not, Caneese can be quite intimidating,” he chuckled. “I assure you, no word of this will reach the Dectat, if that is what concerns you.”

She nodded.

His eyes swept over her and narrowed with pure possession. She was more beautiful now than he had ever seen her. And she was his.

She didn’t understand the look in his eyes, one she’d never seen in them, and he didn’t answer her curiosity. He turned away and abruptly left the room.

Chuckling, Sfilla went to fetch a robe out of what passed for a closet and helped drape her in it.

“You must not be embarrassed,” Sfilla said softly when she noted the discomfort in Madeline’s expression. “It is part of life. And you have a child from it. A noble result. A son!”

Madeline hadn’t thought to use her wrist scanner. She touched the slight, hard mound with wonder. “A son.” The word sounded as if it held magic.

Sfilla laughed. “You have been a soldier for many years. Now you must become a Cehn-Tahr aristocrat’s consort, so that you are not identified at Benaski Port as the soldier that you are. That will be my chore, to tutor you.”

Madeline raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Sfilla pursed her lips. “And perhaps you can teach me the art of hand-to-hand combat,” she said, smiling at some private joke.

Madeline grinned. “Deal!”

Later, after she had bathed and a small meal had been brought to her, she sat in the sunlight filtering through her window and tried to make sense of what had happened. Everyone said that the mating was brutal and barbaric, that Cehn-Tahr women sometimes would forsake bonding because they were so frightened of it. Madeline had not found it barbaric at all, except just at first. She wondered what other females had found so terrifying.

“Passion,” Dtimun replied to her silent question.

Her head turned, her expression questioning. He was dressed in robes, as he had been when they attended the Altair reception. He looked elegant.

She smiled. “You said once that I would have nightmares.”

He chuckled. “I underestimated you. In many ways.”

“Sir?”

He groaned. “Madeline, you must stop referring to me as ‘sir.’ It will arouse suspicion.”

“Sorry.” She peered up at him. “I really have to stop saluting you, too?”

He glared at her.

“Okay, I’ll try. I promise.” She cocked her head. “I thought I might have sprains or broken limbs from the way everybody talked about it,” she said. “It wasn’t brutal. Not as I define brutality.”

He moved closer. “Cehn-Tahr women dislike physical boldness. A predator attacks weakness.”

She began to understand. His aggression had diminished when she fought him.

“Exactly,” he replied. He perched on the edge of the bay window that overlooked the formal garden. His eyes were a soft golden color as they searched hers. “You were not afraid of me.” He pursed his lips and reconsidered. “Well, perhaps a little, at the beginning.”

“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me deliberately,” she said simply. She glared at him. “Although…”

“It was unavoidable.” He chuckled softly. “And you were not without defenses,” he added wryly, and held up a forearm with tooth marks to show her.

“Sorry,” she said with a grin. “It was unavoidable.”

He smiled. “You bit me as a child when I helped your father rescue you from terrorists,” he reminded her. “I prefer spirit to acquiescence.”

“Fortunately for you, I’m never acquiescent,” she said.

He searched her eyes. It was only beginning to occur to him how large a place she occupied in his thoughts, in his life. “You know me as few people ever have,” he said after a minute. “I find it difficult to relate to most outworlders.”

“I know how you feel. I don’t get along well with most humans,” she agreed. “I’m very fond of Strick and Holt, but even so, I could never talk to them about things I could say to you.”

That made him feel warm inside. He didn’t like her closeness to the other males, but he didn’t remark on it.

“Would you have attacked Flannegan, that day in the gym?” she asked abruptly, alluding to an incident that had almost betrayed his need of her to the military authorities, before her nearly fatal crash on Akaashe. It would have cost him his life, if his government had found out.

“I would have killed him,” he said bluntly. “Possessive behavior is part of the mating ritual. Even now, Stern and Hahnson are not safe if they come near you.” He laughed shortly. “I had to fight my instincts to permit Hahnson to treat you. It was difficult.” His eyes narrowed. “I do not want another male to touch you.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m glad to hear it, because I would go ballistic if any other female touched you,” she confessed firmly.

Her possessiveness of him was a delight. He smiled. “Jealousy. It is an odd concept. I have never felt it until now.”

“It’s just the mating ritual,” she assured him. “When we save Chacon and the princess and the child is gone, and my memory is wiped, you won’t feel it anymore.” She didn’t look at him as she said it. The removal of the child was something that hurt her even to think about. Amazing, since regressing it had been her own solution to the aftermath of their covert mission.

She felt a tremor in her stomach and put her hand on it with mingled delight and scientific curiosity. The cell division progressed at an exponential rate. Cehn-Tahr babies, she’d learned from researching in the fortress’s extensive library, grew at a vastly accelerated rate. Odd, that there were no pictorial depictions of them in any of the literature, she thought idly. She could not know that Dtimun had ordered the images concealed when he learned of her research efforts.

“Anything you require will be provided,” he told her. “And Hahnson and Dr. Mallory will be nearby until our departure.”

She nodded. She drew in a long breath. The child was growing quite rapidly, despite the herbs that were meant to retard the growth, and it was painful. She had nausea, as well, that became debilitating from time to time. She had to carefully monitor her health. The disparity in sizes between human and Cehn-Tahr was going to be a real problem if the mission lasted longer than expected. “When do we leave for Benaski Port?”

“In a few days,” he said. “The child must be visible when we arrive there.”

She looked up, frowning. “Why couldn’t I have pretended to be pregnant?”

“It would have been discovered. Cehn-Tahr are not the only telepaths in the three galaxies,” he said, surprising her. “The deception, once uncovered, would destroy any chance of saving Chacon and Lyceria.”

“I see.”

He was looking at her intently. She lifted her eyes to his and found turbulence in them. “Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked.

He reached down and touched her hair, smoothing it with his fingers. “What we imagine the future to be is usually quite different from the reality. In another place, another time, many things might have been possible that are not, now,” he said quietly. He stopped, letting the thought trail away, as his voice did.

She was confused by the feelings he aroused when he looked at her. She shifted in the chair. Her eyes met his again, and were puzzled once more by their burnished gold shade. It was one she’d never seen before.

“It is a color which is not shown to anyone outside the family,” he explained patiently. “That is why you have not seen it.”

“Oh.” She laughed, then frowned. “But I have. Your eyes were that color when you rescued me, on Akaashe,” she added, puzzled.

“A result of the mating behavior,” he lied. It had been more than that, but he didn’t want to think about it just yet. He traced her cheek, his gaze still intent on her face. “So many differences,” he mused. “But in many more ways, we are alike. We must concentrate on the similarities during our time in Benaski Port, so that we do not arouse suspicion.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll arm me for the mission?” she murmured mischievously.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Only under threat of immediate attack by squadrons of Rojoks.”

She sighed. “I might have known.”

“You will not require a weapon. I will protect you and the child,” he said.

Odd, the feeling those words provoked, in a very capable and independent spirit. They made her feel warm inside, in a way she never had before.

It made him feel the same. It was disturbing. He turned away. “I have duties to attend to. If you need anything, you have only to call. A servant will answer.”

“Servants, luxurious clothing, every whim attended to,” she said. “It’s difficult to adjust.”

He smiled. “Despite how it may seem, my own life has been quite regimented and sparse in the way of luxuries. It is a change for me, too, this new lifestyle.”

Her gaze slid over his handsome face. “It’s only temporary.”

He nodded. His eyes went to her belly, where his child was growing. His face hardened and he turned away. It wouldn’t do to get too involved with her pregnancy.

She watched him go with sad eyes. She touched her stomach with wonder. She hadn’t really believed it was possible. She was amazed at how much she wanted the child. That possibility hadn’t even occurred to her. She turned back to the balcony. It would be unwise to dwell on impossible things. She looked up as a small, personal transport flew over and sighed. It was going to be a long few days.