Between Darkness and Light

by Lisanne Norman

  Still following her scent, he crossed the bridge and rejoined the path on the other side. It meandered through more thick shrubbery, this time in full bloom. Rounding the first bend, he found himself facing a small clearing with a narrow grass-covered path off to his left. At the far side stood a couple of low benches, a long table, and a pile of mats. Beyond them, the path continued.

  Her scent drew him on, through the picnic area and toward the clearing he could see beyond. As it grew stronger, once more he began to doubt the wisdom of agreeing to this meeting. At the end of the paved area, he hesitated briefly, then hearing the sounds of someone moving in the water, stepped hastily back into the cover of the bushes. Zayshul’s head came into view as she reached up to grasp hold of the safety rail of a small ladder and began to climb out of the pool.

  Naked, she stepped out onto the grassy area, reaching for the towel she’d left over the handrail. He caught a flash of iridescent markings on her flank then it was hidden as she rubbed the towel briefly over her upper body before wrapping it round her waist and beginning to walk toward the mats and him.

  He retreated further into the bushes, praying she hadn’t seen him, embarrassed at watching her without her knowledge.

  She stopped some ten feet from him, bending down to pick up a blue robe from her pile of cushions. Turning her back on him, she began to put it on.

  Her scent called to him, teasing his nostrils, evoking memories he’d tried to forget, memories that he now remembered had haunted his dreams before coming here. Memories of cool, faintly textured skin, of a firm body pressed close to his, and a tongue and hands so versatile that . . .

  He shook his head, trying to dispel the images—and found himself standing behind her, taking hold of her robe. Intending only to help her, his palm accidentally brushed against the bare skin of her neck. Where they touched, it was as if a river of fire flowed between them. Instantly, his every sensation was intensified. He’d have pulled back, as he had at dinner that first night on Kij’ik, but he found it impossible. His mind was wide open as her emotions surged through him, and her confusion at this strange attraction between them exactly matched his own.

  While part of his mind recoiled in terror, the rest betrayed him by welcoming it. He forced himself to concentrate on the back of her head and neck, trying not to notice her scent but instead to focus on how different she was. The fact that her neck was long and slim, qualities guaranteed to excite any red-blooded Sholan male, didn’t help.

  His vision began to blur, and he remembered the Prime analgesics he’d taken. They were what was destroying his self-control, muddling his feelings for her. She was green-skinned and utterly hairless, how could there possibly be anything about her to attract him? But there was a more primitive, reptilian, part of him that couldn’t—wouldn’t—let her go, that wanted her again, and that compulsion was every bit as strong as his Leska Link to Carrie had been.

  He closed his eyes briefly, not wanting to think of the life he’d had to leave behind, aware that his hand, still resting intimately on Zayshul’s neck, had begun to caress her. As if in a dream, he found himself leaning forward, touching his cheek to hers, drinking in the aromatic smell of her skin.

  At first startled by his sudden appearance, she began to tremble, doubting her ability to carry through her plan to release him from the scent marker. It was one thing to intellectualize about becoming intimate with him, quite another to find him standing behind her, feel the heat of his body, and his scent, laced with hers, radiating his desire for her.

  Trying to keep the tremor out of her voice, she said, “You’re early. I didn’t expect you so soon.”

  He began to purr softly, his cool nose nuzzling against the edge of her jawline. She caught herself leaning against him, matching her body to his, and tried to pull away, but his hands grasped her by the shoulders, preventing her.

  “We were going to talk, Kusac,” she said, trying to buy time. Dear Goddess, but she was responding to him physically as if he were one of her kind and the scent marker really was hers! How could that be possible? She’d miscalculated—he was too different, she didn’t have the courage for this!

  “We’ll talk later,” he heard himself whisper as he moved closer. Talk wasn’t what either of them wanted, he knew that even if he knew nothing else. His hands slid over her shoulders, pushing her robe down till she clutched at it, stopping him.

  “Kusac, we must talk,” she insisted, making a token effort to free herself from his grasp.

  “Later,” he growled, his tongue rasping across her cheek. Her skin tasted of almonds, a taste that brought back even more images of that night. Primal instincts took over as his eyesight narrowed, becoming huntersight as he continued to lap at her skin.

  Her scent altered, becoming stronger, deeper. He recognized it instantly. Suddenly light-headed, he forced her round to face him, ignoring her halfhearted attempt to pull away.

  “I’m afraid,” she began.

  “No need for fear,” he interrupted, his voice hoarse as he cupped one hand around her neck and with the other, teased the robe from her grasp so it fell to the ground. “It isn’t as if we haven’t done this before, Zayshul.”

  As his lips touched hers, another wave of vertigo swept through him. Images of J’koshuk’s sadistic smile, mouth full of tiny pointed teeth filled Kusac’s mind, making him pull back in shock. For a moment, reality tried to return: this was a dream, it had to be. He was really lying asleep on the sofa in his quarters—the alternative was unthinkable.

  Her hands grasped his face, pulling him close again. “Hush,” she said, the ridges round her eyes meeting in concern. “That time’s over.” Her tongue flicked out, caressing first his cheek, then the inside of his ear, as her fingers slid sensuously through his hair.

  Shuddering with pleasure, he felt the fire kindling deep in his belly, spreading outward as his muscles clenched. His hands reached for her waist, tugging the towel she wore free.

  “What have you done to me?” he whispered, not expecting an answer. “Why do I feel like this?”

  He searched her face, seeing not that she was Valtegan, only that her skin had flushed to a darker tone, highlighting the rainbow iridescence round her green eyes. Her pheromone-laden scent surrounded him now, as it had on the Kz’adul, its aromatic smell deepening yet again as her body responded to him. His hands tightened on her hips as his groin muscles clenched violently, betraying his need for her. With a low moan, part distress, part pleasure, his genitals descended. Pulling her close, he pressed her body tightly against his in a vain attempt to stop himself swelling any further. His mouth covered hers in a bruising kiss. Her scent and taste were intoxicating, like a drug, and he couldn’t get enough. Somewhere at the back of his mind, the memory of being drugged by her the last time stirred, but her tongue was teasing his and her hands were reaching between them for the buckle on his belt. The last time wasn’t important, all that mattered was this moment and his urgent need to lose himself deep within her.

  He released her, pulling back just far enough to remove his belt. As he let it drop behind him, she was already parting his tunic and urging him to remove it. While he did, she slid her hands across his hips, her nonretractile claws plowing furrows through his pelt as she began to knead the powerful muscles across his hips, finally reaching the root of his tail.

  His body tensed instantly, teeth closing on the side of her neck as his hands instinctively went to the small of her back. Beneath them, he felt her skin suddenly grow hot, as if she were burning up with a fever.

  With small, gentle hissing sounds of pleasure, she sagged in his grasp, her sudden weight pulling them both down. Staggering, he managed to land on his knees on the adjacent cushions.

  He laid her down, seeing for the first time the iridescent markings that flowed from the small of her back across her hips before sweeping down to outline her belly. He leaned over her, his fingers lightly tracing the path before his tongue and teeth followed.

 
; Her hands clenched in his hair as her body trembled beneath him, anticipating his every touch and nip. He could feel it all, accepting it, never questioning how or why, driven on by the need to explore her body as she’d once explored his, all the while trying to ignore the intensifying needs of his own body.

  Finally she could stand no more and pulled him sharply upward, her teeth nipping feverishly at his neck and shoulders, one hand reaching for him while the other raked paths of fire across his back.

  As her hand closed over his naked flesh, he began to swell again, his fight to hold back his secondary erection instantly lost. A brief wave of panic flooded through him, then he remembered she could easily accommodate him, unlike Carrie. The thought of his wife was like a douche of cold water, threatening him with reality until Zayshul’s teasing hands abruptly banished it again. Once more her scent enveloped him, and he was again transported back to that night on the Kz’adul. This time, though, he was not the passive one.

  His whole body throbbing with his need, he pushed her hand away and grasped her by the hips. Forcing himself to enter her slowly, he moaned softly as her heat surrounded him. She reached back to caress him, but it was too much. Pushing her hand aside, he withdrew slowly, utterly lost in their shared sensations. When her hands clutched his hips and her mouth fastened on the side of his neck, he allowed her to pull him back again. As their bodies began to move rhythmically together, he forgot all else.

  Her nips, at first gentle, became bites as her claws raked the length of his back. He winced even as his body began to spasm, sending wave after wave of pleasure through him, the sensations heightened by what he was experiencing from her. Unthinkingly, his mind reached out for hers just as Zayshul’s teeth bit down hard on his neck and she arched herself up against him in an almost feral flurry of limbs, claws, and teeth.

  As he fought to protect himself, his senses began to spin in a sickening upward spiral as if he was being dragged from his own body. Gasping, he sucked in lungfuls of air, desperately fighting against it and trying to break free. He could feel her every sensation, smell every nuance of her scent and his own—the potential to merge with her mind, to form a link, was his for the taking. Shocked, with a nauseating jolt, he pulled back mentally, retreating from her behind every barrier he could erect. She was Talented and she didn’t know it! Enough presence of mind remained for him to scrabble for her arms, pinioning her to the ground with his weight as his body finally exploded into hers.

  When the fight had left Zayshul, and she lay quiescent and panting beneath him, he relaxed his grip on her, finally able to give in to his own exhaustion and shock. Sanity had returned now. He rolled to one side, lying there, body satiated but his mind numb at the thought of what he’d done and what had so nearly happened. If their minds had linked and she’d discovered he had his Talent back . . .

  A feather-soft touch against his cheek made him turn his head in time to catch sight of her forked tongue flicking out to caress him, its tips just grazing his lips. Lifting his head, he looked down at her, both fascinated and repelled by what he saw.

  “Are you all right?” she asked softly, sitting up.

  “No. What have you done to me, Zayshul? Have you any idea the effect being near you has on me? Your scent . . . the taste of your skin . . . It makes me forget everything but you!”

  She looked away from him, reaching for her robe, pulling it around her shoulders and across her lap. “You’ve been scent-marked,” she said, her voice sounding suddenly remote. “With my scent. The males can inject one of two poisons with their bite, we can release a chemical internally when we’re coupling which scent-marks the males. But I didn’t do it, Kusac. It was a female called N’koshoh. She, not I, came to you on the Kz’adul.”

  He sat up angrily, ignoring the ache in his injured arm and the discomfort of the shoulder she’d gnawed. “Don’t start lying to me again, Zayshul! You promised me the truth! You’ve already admitted it was you! Do you think I’m stupid? How could another female use your scent?”

  “I’m telling you the truth, Kusac. I couldn’t tell you at the time or it would have threatened our treaty with your people. And until your first night here, at the dinner Kezule held, I didn’t know that you’d been scent-marked.”

  He made an impatient gesture. “Just tell me what it does.”

  “Scent-marking binds the female’s scent to the male, identifies him as a desirable lover,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands. “All my people can smell my scent bound to yours, Kusac. They believe we’re lovers. Chy’qui wanted to breed tame hybrid Sholans for the Directorate to use in their plan to reunite the old Valtegan Empire . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear this, Zayshul,” he interrupted, starting to get up. “I should have known better than to trust you.”

  “You wanted answers, Kusac,” she said, reaching out to catch his arm. “I’m trying to give them to you. Listen to me, please.”

  He hesitated. It was why he’d come. “I’m listening,” he said coldly, settling back down on the cushions.

  “As you know, Chy’qui took breeding samples from all your telepaths, except you because he’d hoped to keep your presence on the Kz’adul secret and transport you down to our world. When Prince Zsurtul found out about you, you were put in my charge and Chy’qui was ordered to stay away from you. He needed a breeding sample so he sent N’koshoh to you to get it. Somehow he managed to mask her smell with mine so you’d trust her. When you and she coupled, she scent-marked you with my scent.”

  He looked disbelievingly at her. “Why? Why the hell would anyone go to those lengths?”

  “To put the blame for your rape onto me,” she said quietly. “You’d trusted me, and when you remembered what had happened and accused me to your people, it would destroy the Treaty. What better way to get rid of me and ruin the Treaty at the same time?”

  “Nice try,” he said dryly. “You almost had me believing you. Just one thing. Chy’qui had me programmed to kill the Prince at the hostage handover, remember? I wasn’t expected to survive that.”

  “It must have been his backup plan, because that’s how he created Shaidan and the others!” she said agitatedly. “I arranged for us to meet tonight so I could turn off the scent marker because somehow, it has reacted differently on your system. It’s created a far stronger attraction between us than is normal. I’m a doctor, Kusac! I wouldn’t risk marking you with something alien to your system after having to treat Jo for poisoning because of M’ezozakk’s bite!”

  He barely heard her last comment because several things had suddenly becoming clear. Even he’d recognized on some level that there was something compulsive in his behavior toward her.

  “I don’t believe you, Zayshul,” he said, trying to keep his temper. Did she really think he was that much of a fool? “I think there’s a much simpler explanation. You’re Shaidan’s mother. I think I became your personal experiment, that you came to me that night either out of curiosity, or to get the breeding sample. Perhaps you didn’t intend to mark me, but you did, and when you realized you had, I became an embarrassment. That’s why Kezule used your and Shaidan’s scents to bring me here, and why he’s kept us apart!”

  “No, Kusac, you’re wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “Kezule has been keeping us apart because he didn’t want you to know the truth.”

  “I’m not interested in your idea of the truth! My son is the only one of the cubs with any Prime genes, let alone yours, so you must have given him life somehow! What I want to know now is how K’hedduk got hold of him!”

  She reached out to touch him imploringly. “He’s your and Carrie’s son,” she said, tears flooding her eyes when he pulled away from her. “Even in the labs on K’oish’ik I couldn’t have created him! Our species are just too different! I don’t know how my genes came to be bound with his, but Shaidan is one of the eight hybrid cubs Chi’qui created for the Directorate, you must believe me! Even if it were otherwise, how could you think I’d let K’hed
duk have him? Do you really think I could be that heartless?”

  “I’ve heard enough of your lies, Zayshul,” he said coldly, getting to his feet. “Of all the Primes, I trusted only you, and now I find out that even you’ve used and betrayed me.”

  “If you really believe I’m Shaidan’s mother, why did you come here tonight? Aren’t you afraid I might do it again? If you were still a telepath, you’d know I was telling the truth!” she cried, then realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it that way!”

  He hesitated. Had they not paired, he probably would have tried to read her. For the first time, he wondered why his ever vigilant torc hadn’t warned him about her Talent and the risk he’d just faced of forming a mental link with her. Perhaps there was more to the whole business than met the eye. He had to admit there was some justification for believing what she’d said about K’hedduk taking his son with the other embryos. From what little he’d seen and picked up about the way she treated Shaidan, she wouldn’t have willingly let the Directorate have him.

  “Perhaps you didn’t intend for Shaidan to be conceived,” he said awkwardly, picking up his tunic. “I agreed to meet you because I knew you wouldn’t be foolish enough to let it happen a second time. And I accept that K’hedduk took Shaidan with the other growth tubes.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Don’t thank me,” he said harshly, pushing his injured arm into the sleeve of his tunic. “I’m still angry about your other lies.”

  “Wait! You can’t go like that,” she said, struggling to get up without dropping her robe. “My scent . . . yours . . . everyone will know what we’ve been doing.”

  With a snarl of anger, he threw his tunic down and strode over to the edge of the pool. Diving in, the warm water enveloped him, making him grunt in discomfort as it stung his wounded arm and the scratches and bites he hadn’t realized till now she’d inflicted on him. At least now he knew the attraction he’d felt for her hadn’t been his, it had been due to the scent marker. A small voice in his mind reminded him that she’d wanted to remove it at the first opportunity, but he pushed this thought aside, refusing to acknowledge it. She’d stolen his free will, tarnished what he felt for his life-mates, and somehow, whether or not she’d planned it, caused him to sire a son with her. He kicked out for the surface, trying to envisage the water finally washing him clean of her taint.