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. “Komak said they didn’t.”
“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