“And what did you say to him?” Mystique asked archly.
Lia flushed. “Something that I shouldn’t repeat, never mind having said it in the first place. Needless to say,” she continued loudly over their snickers, “he won’t be bothering me again.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Reule muttered.
Mystique elbowed him in the ribs and smiled broadly at Lia.
“Makes me wonder what he thinks of me. Ah, well. You just do whatever you feel like doing,” Mystique said sagely. “Prime Shadow has no right to say anything to you about your behavior.”
“That was the nicer way of telling him what I said.” Lia giggled. “Well, I’d better get dressed for dinner. I’ve had to triple my wardrobe since I moved into the keep permanently. Now we are actually entertaining the head of another state. It’s so exciting. I’ve a dress picked out for Derrik’s arrival…I wonder what he looks like. All the Yesu men are so big! I know you say the women are big too, though you couldn’t tell to look at you, but honestly, how big does a girl have to be to not feel small around those guys? They’re giants!”
Liandra was pretty much talking to herself at this point as she hustled past the Prime couple and into the outer hallway. Mystique was used to this habit Lia had of chattering to no one in particular, but she still found it amusing. She looked up over her shoulder at her husband.
“I adore her.” She sighed happily.
“You said that yesterday about Chayne. And the day before about Delano.”
“And every day about you, I hope,” she rejoined.
“Without fail,” he agreed. “Kébé, I’ve something I need to tell you.”
“Oh?” Mystique turned to face him, wrapping her arms around his waist as she tipped up her chin. “What is it?”
“Well…” He cleared his throat and she could tell he was actually nervous. The idea bemused her. She drew back to get a better look at his rugged face.
“Did you do something wrong? Though I can’t imagine…”
“You’re pregnant,” he said in a rush. “I know you don’t know yet, but all males can tell if a woman is pregnant. It’s…it’s a Sánge trait. We can smell the…the change. We can tell if a woman is sterile, or fertile or…”
“Pregnant.”
“Pregnant,” he agreed with a grim sort of exhalation. “I’ve been awfully high-handed about this whole…thing…and I never actually asked if…”
Mystique giggled, her hand flying up to suppress the sound an instant too late, which earned her a black scowl from him.
“Reule,” she chided. “Are you trying to find out if I’m happy about becoming a mother, even though there’s nothing I can do about it now?”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out as his brain tried to untangle the nerve-wracking possibilities. “Yes,” he confessed at last. “And you think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”
“No. I’d never think that,” she scolded him. “Silly, yes. Idiot? Never. Yes, my love, I’m delighted to know that I’m going to be a mother. The first Sánge/Yesu baby and the new heir to your throne. Why wouldn’t I be proud? I love you. Para will be tickled pink. Rye will need some reassurance. And…oh, by the Lady, you mean they all know already?” She gasped. “All of the men know already? How long have you known? How long have all of you known? Just when do you begin to ‘smell’ a pregnancy?” she demanded.
“Um, about seven days after.”
“Seven days?” He nodded and, by the expression on his face, she had a feeling she was about to kill him. “Reule, just how pregnant am I?”
“Well…do you remember that afternoon when we first met the Yesu and you got seriously—”
“A month!” she squeaked. “You’ve known for an entire month and you didn’t tell me?”
“Well, technically it’s three weeks and three day—”
“Reule!”
“Baby, its Sánge tradition. We wait until the first month goes by just in case there’s a problem, so expectations aren’t…”
“Oh, so, if I miscarried you’d be the only one to know? The only one to feel the loss? The only one to mourn? You selfish bastard!”
She shoved him, hard, this time making him move by using her power to weaken his muscles for an instant. He stumbled back, cursing as he caught himself up against the wall. It was a dirty trick, but, damn, he admired her for it. Still, he had her by the wrist before she could flee and jerked her back, pinning her against the door frame.
“It’s tradition, and it’s not selfish. It’s caring and sensitive. Do you have any idea how many women shed a conception in the first twenty-one days in this society? How often it happens to a fertile woman in her lifetime? In a lifetime of four centuries, average, that would lead up to more devastation than you can possibly realize. So no, I wouldn’t feel loss. I wouldn’t mourn. Just a little sad that it wasn’t meant to be. But don’t stand there and condemn me for sparing you that sadness. That is the essence of the love I feel for you, Mystique. I will spare you pain whenever I can. I promised you that, remember?”
“Yes,” she said, softening as a wave of sheepishness flowed over her. “I’m sorry.” She cuddled up to him now, her hands stroking over his back. “I’m focusing on the wrong thing, aren’t I?”
“That’s a fair statement.” He chuckled. “But I hear irrationality is a trait of pregnancy.”
“Hey. Don’t push your luck,” she growled at him sternly.
“Very well,” he said, lowering his head until his lips were touching her cheek, rubbing gently to and fro. “What shall I push, then?”
“You’re a very naughty man.” She giggled. “We have guests coming to dinner and I need to get dressed.”
“Yes. Which will require you to get undressed first.” Mystique felt his fingers tugging at the laces between her breasts. “I’ve been known to be quite helpful in that regard.”
She drew in a deep breath, lifted her gaze to his, and looked at him with nothing short of complete and adoring affection.
“Have I mentioned lately,” she breathed, “how very, very happy I am?”
If you loved DRINK OF ME,
read more of Jacquelyn Frank’s unique blend of
fantasy and romance in
NOCTURNAL.
Amara couldn’t even count the places she ached in.
As usual.
She opened her eyes and for those two instants between waking and awareness, she hoped for the miracle of opening them to her gloriously dismal little room in the county workhouse. She never would have thought she would long for the days when she had worked hard labor just to have a dim little windowless cell to live in. The small gray mattress on the canvas and coiled struts had been big enough for only one person, and the cell itself had only been long enough to tightly fit the bed, and wide enough to fit a nightstand and a small dresser besides. The lights and digital readout clock alarm had been automatically shut off at sleep hour and had awakened her with a blare an hour before she was to report for her shift. It had been a tedious, cramped way to live, but it was better than the alternative of starving or being raped at night in the streets by local gangs because you had no safe roof over your head.
It was better than this.
She opened her eyes to the bright glare of overhead lights and shock-white walls. It gave her an instant headache, all that brilliant brightness, and she groaned as she tried to blink her stinging eyes into adjustment.
As always, within seconds of her first opening her eyes, the door opened and Raul stepped into the room.
“Good morning,” he greeted her with his usual efficiency and lack of sincerity as he went about his morning routine, which consisted of taking several tubes of blood from the permanent port imbedded in her arm. He checked other vital statistics pertaining to her body just as he always did, and she lay there stiffly acquiescent.
It wasn’t as though Amara had much of a choice.
Not anymore.
“How do you feel, Amara?”
> “Sore. Tired. Bitchy.” She affected a sweet smile that was glaringly false. “And I have a headache.”
Raul made his usual “hmm” of comprehension. He never pretended to give a damn, and it was obvious that he didn’t. There was no use being nice to her, she supposed. From what she knew, she was one of many, many lab rats and it wouldn’t pay to get too attached.
Especially when the so-called Phoenix Project had a rumored mortality rate of 90 percent.
“So tell me, Raul,” she said conversationally, scooting herself up in bed and trying to avoid the tangle of leads they stuck in her hair, against her scalp, every night. Most of the women had shorn off their hair, keeping it peach fuzz short or completely bald, the stickiness of the glue from the leads just making it easier to deal with, but Amara refused. They’d taken enough away; she wasn’t going to let them have her long, platinum blonde hair too. Besides, what else did she have to do all day? She could afford the time it took to wash and work free the adhesive. So what if her hair was thinner than it had been from being pulled out in the process? It was still long and it was still hers. “What’s on the agenda for today? Drug testing? Narcos? I admit, I dig the narcos so long as they don’t give me hallucinations. Those last ones were a bitch. Or are we gene splicing? Maybe…ooo, don’t tell me! Radiation therapy? No? C’mon, not even a teensy clue?”
“Do you have your period?” Raul asked, ever-efficient and bored, even in the face of the questions they both knew he would never answer.
“Nope. I might be PMSing though. Bitchy, remember?”
“And all of your implants are comfortable?”
He meant had any broken through her skin. She was very delicate skinned, and her body liked to push out their implants at various intervals, spitting them out in defiance as if to say “take that, fuckers!”
Amara loved her body.
Knowing Raul would check for himself despite his courtesy of asking, she showed him both forearms and calves where she had been implanted with tracking and disciplinary devices. They promised to keep her confined to the grounds or kill her if she dared try to escape. They could inject a reservoir of tranquilizers on command if she got rowdy. They could give her a bitchin’ case of heaving nausea for punishment if she copped an attitude and didn’t comply with the medical personnel and their constant testing and assessments.
Luckily, they didn’t count being a smart-ass as having an attitude. Otherwise, she’d have been puking for the entire three months she’d been there.
“Big day today.”
Raul turned and left after that rare parting remark and she gaped after him.
Big day today? What the hell did that mean? A cold feeling of dread infused her every cell as she wrapped her arms around herself against the chill and hurried into the small cubicle shower off her room. It was the only amenity this place had over the workhouse. A private bathroom. But that was probably because it made it easier to control other bodily samples and monitoring of private behavior. She had figured out there were cameras in her room and bath pretty quickly. She might have to put on a show every time she went to the damn toilet, but at least she’d caught on before they’d caught her masturbating or something. Perverted jerks. What in hell did science need to know about that required them to watch a woman pee?
Big day today.
Ninety percent mortality rate.
She doubted it was going to be a good day.
Then again, it never was.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2010 by Jacquelyn Frank
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4201-2004-2
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Drink of Me Page 33
