Still he wasn't finished. He kissed a trail from breastbone to belly, rubbing his cheek against the gentle swell. "The shaauri are wrong," he murmured. "There is great delight in this smoothness."
No fur, he meant. Cynara opened her eyes. "Did you… you and the shaauri females… is it possible—"
His laughter rumbled into her skin, half hiss in the shaauri way. "Never." He looked up, hands grasping her hips. "Is this what you feared?"
"No. No." She closed her eyes again, appalled at the direction of her thoughts. "How do shaauri judge beauty?"
"It is not physical perfection that draws one mate to another. Among va'laik'i it may be status, or desire for alliance and strong children. Sometimes it is simply for pleasure."
"Oh, yes. Affection doesn't enter into it."
He cupped her buttocks. "Between lifemates, emotion is all. There can be no bond without it."
"But we… are not lifemates."
What was she saying? She tried to distract herself from the heat of Ronan's breath at the tops of her thighs. "I mean—"
"We are human," he said. "I care for you, Cynara."
It was the last thing she'd expected him to say. There was nothing of the courtier in it, the seducer seeking just the right words to open a woman's thighs.
No. Ronan meant what he said. She did not know what he meant by it. Friendship? Affection? Surely not love…
"Ronan," she said. Her throat was blocked, and she found it difficult to speak. "I—"
Ronan had a way with more than words. He rose to his • feet and sealed her lips with his fingers.
"How do you wish to mate, Cynara?" he whispered. "Tell me what pleases you."
The images that leapt instantly into her mind were quite astonishing. Certainly those memories she had taken from Ronan—his encounters with Kinswomen on the shaauri world—were not nearly so inventive. He and his partners had been more intent on the result than the process.
But what she pictured did not grow solely out of her own overstimulated imagination. It was Ronan's thoughts she was sharing, a veritable catalog of fascinating and challenging ways to join two bodies. In each image the female was herself.
Ronan couldn't know how strongly he was projecting. He wasn't that advanced, or that skilled. She must be reaching out more than halfway, strengthening his thoughts without any conscious purpose but desire.
'Today I went into your Middle Town," Ronan said, licking her neck. "I observed humans in a place where mating occurs frequently."
Scylla's teeth. He'd gone to the Prostitutes' Quarter. She was afraid to speculate how he'd managed to eavesdrop on the doings there.
"I am not… like those women," she said.
He began to draw back, and his absence turned the room cold as an ice floe.
"No," she said, reaching for his hand. "I didn't mean—"
"I will penetrate you in the way you find most comfortable."
She groaned. How could such clinical words have such an unbearably erotic effect? "I thought you said… that shaauri don't use words in… mating."
"I am sorry." He lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck while his other hand was busy elsewhere. She leaned her head against his scarred shoulder. By the black tides of space, he had no need for speech.
"I can't believe," she murmured, "that the men who patronize the Quarter are… quite so expert."
He didn't answer. Every part of her was kissed and caressed and stroked by lips and tongue and fingers, and all the while she shared the pictures in his mind.
Unbidden, her mind latched on to one of the images and would not let go. Ronan rumbled deep in his chest. He took her hand and pulled her down to the floor.
"Ronan… I think the bed is better."
Without hesitation he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. For a moment he crouched above her, staring with such intensity that she felt flayed bare all the way to the bone.
"The shaauri are wrong," he said, wonder in his voice. Carefully he eased her into position, supporting her waist with one strong arm, and knelt behind her. He steadied her hips with his hands.
Poseidon. There was nothing rational in Cynara's mind, only the excruciating awareness of Ronan pressed to her buttocks, the indescribable feeling as he slid between her thighs.
He entered with a single, unerring thrust, rocking her forward among the pillows.
Pleasure exploded in her mind. Not only hers, but his, joined in a way she had never dreamed to experience. The images he had projected, the sharing of emotions, were as nothing to this. She knew, to the very center of her being, how much Ronan had wanted her. She knew how he had tried to stay away, how every moment in her presence was a kind of agony, desire beyond mere human lust.
It was hunger, to know and be known, to fuse with another of his kind in a way that he had only imagined, that she had only imagined. Each thrust drove him deeper into the core of her very self, body and bodiless. There was no separation. Only rocking, rocking, and a joy so profound that it surpassed every definition of pleasure.
"No," he whispered.
She heard the protest like waves in an undersea cavern, muted and remote. It drew her from ecstasy, to the mundane sensations of the quilt under her palms and Ronan's heat between her thighs.
"Don't," she begged. "Don't stop."
"I must see your face."
He withdrew and turned her about, pulling her into his lap. Suddenly, irrationally, Cynara was afraid. There was no escaping those eyes, no forgetting.
"Cynara," he said, cupping her face in his hands. "Don't fear me."
All she could think, in that moment, was that Ronan had used a contraction like an ordinary human. "I'm not afraid."
He brushed her hair back from her face. "Look at me, Cynara." With infinite tenderness he laid her back, cradling her head among the pillows. He entered her slowly, watching her face.
Humans called this "making love." They used the word "love" so freely, but he knew it for what it was: one more trap to sabotage his resolve.
The struggle to control his simple physical desires required nearly all his attention. There was powerful satisfaction in entering Cynara's body, pleasure beyond any he had known with the other women. But his pleasure was unimportant. She must trust him, give herself to him utterly, or he would never penetrate her mind.
Humans, even telepaths, are mentally most vulnerable in the act of sex, the Kinsmen had told him. Even the strongest shields may falter at the moment of climax.
And Cynara's shields were not impregnable. But what he had found beyond the surface of thought and word and physical sensation, what he felt now when her defenses were at their weakest, multiplied his treacherous doubts a thousandfold.
She feared, yes. Not him, nor the act that joined their bodies. No living being could arouse her terror but one: this creature she envisioned when she thought of herself, when she was not captain or leader but a female poisoned by her world's prejudices.
Damaged goods. That was what they said, these Dharman males. She had stowed away aboard the Pegasus, unchaperoned among a crew of men. But that was not the ultimate shame. Her own cousin had seduced her—not with his body, but with his mind. She had employed her dormant, forbidden telepathic skills and accepted his thoughts, his male nature into the virginal sanctity of her soul.
It didn't matter that she had saved the Pegasus. Nor was she absolved when the Council elevated her to captain, the first Dharman female ever to hold such rank and power.
Freak, they judged. Neither male nor female, with no place except on her ship. In the months before she had learned to protect her mind from the thoughts of others, their contempt and disgust and horror had bombarded her night and day, strengthening her own harsh judgment of herself, multiplying her doubts until all the confidence she had harbored as a child vanished.
If she was captain, she could not be Cynara. If she was a woman—if she ever let them see a moment of female weakness—she would lose everything.
>
Ne'lin and First, Woman and Captain. A telepath who feared her own abilities because of what they had brought her, and because of what they might set loose.
"Ronan," she whispered. She had closed her eyes again, surrendering all of her body and none of her mind. They moved as one, together and utterly apart. Ronan arched to kiss her breasts without losing rhythm, making her feel, drawing her toward release.
She tossed her head on the pillows, delaying the final Reckoning. Believing that her secrets were safe.
Ronan severed himself from sensation and allowed his body to continue while his mind prepared for the final thrust. It must be timed perfectly. And she must let him in. She must.
Her breath came in short, sharp pants. Her fingers pushed into the quilt. Finish it, she cried. Wanting, dreading, demanding.
He moved again. She shuddered, arching against him. He slipped into her mind like a phantom, invisible, enveloped in the blazing brilliance of her release. For an instant all her knowledge lay naked to him. The Pegasus. The great discovery. The secret humans held against their enemies.
Her mind closed like an iris to shut him out, reflexive and belated defense, oblivious to what he had done.
"Ronan," she whispered, her hands moving over his chest. "Ronan."
In all the years of his youth, he had never loathed himself as much as he did now. Yet he was safe. If she had sensed even a little of his true purpose, she would not be here with him. His shields held.
But he did not have what he needed—only fragments, pieces of a greater whole. It was not enough.
"I don't know if what we've just done was a very good idea," Cynara murmured.
"Do you regret it, Aho'Va?"
"No." Not even if it creates exactly the complications I can least afford.
Ronan almost answered before he realized that she had not spoken the second part aloud. He was so deeply attuned to her that reading her outer thoughts had become effortless.
The fact that she was unaware of his violation did not make it less terrible. But he needed to know the source of the technology—neither human nor shaauri—that generated the ship's drive, and how to gain access to the engine room of the Pegasus if none of the design information or schematics were available on Dharma itself.
And then, of course, he would have to find a way to escape Dharma.
"You're holding back," Cynara accused, rubbing his shoulders until he found it very difficult to concentrate. "You spent all your effort on me and didn't take any pleasure for yourself."
I took very great pleasure, Cynara. My mate.
"But you—" She sat up suddenly. "What did you just say?"
He realized at once that he had made a mistake, and there was no repairing it save by following Cynara's lead. "Did I speak?"
"You called me your—" She stared at him. "I heard you, Ronan. I heard your thoughts. Do" you realize what you've done?" She shook her head in bewilderment. "I've been able to project to you, and I've read some of your memories and feelings. This is different. You've transmitted verbal communication in the most explicit way possible. That takes great control. If you've already learned so much… there's no telling what you might do. How deeply can you read me, Ronan?
Obvious deception would only arouse her suspicions. "I have heard you, Cynara," he said. "I have shared your feelings."
"Is that all? Did you encounter… any resistance?"
He put on a mask of bewilderment. "I do not understand."
"I wasn't prepared for this. I should have been."
"I have disturbed you," he said gently. "It was not my intention."
She swung her legs over the bed. "It's my fault, not yours."
"There is no fault in you, Cynara."
"If you believe that, you can't have looked too deeply." She smiled at him, sad and earnest. "I tried to steal a little time for us. I didn't think beyond the fact that we wanted each other. It's my job to consider the consequences of what I do, and in that I've failed."
"Because of what I might discover in your mind?" He frowned. "Is this why you have tried to stay away?"
"There's so much I can't explain. I don't want to shut you out, Ronan. What we've shared, today and before… I won't dismiss it as if it never happened. But there are considerations beyond personal desires." She gathered her robe from the foot of the bed. "We have to remain apart from now on."
He should have made promises then, assuring her that he could never hurt her, that he would sooner die than betray the smallest part of her trust. If he did not do so, her mind, and all it contained, would be closed to him.
"Remain apart," he repeated. "Because I know what you fear most?"
She cinched the robe about her waist, keeping her back to him. "I think we both fear the same things, Ronan. I can no longer be objective where you're concerned. My duty comes first. You have your own future to determine, and I'll soon be gone again."
He moved silently up behind her. "And if I offer my service to you, Aho'Va?"
"I can't accept." Her hair fell over her face. "Someday you'll understand."
"Then you, like Janek, believe that I am more shaauri than human."
She turned to him, stark and grim. "If you were shaauri, you wouldn't be here."
"If I were shaauri," he said, grasping her arms, "I would not care once the mating was over."
"Let me go, Ronan."
"You send me away, Aho'Va," he said, "because you are ashamed. Ashamed of this… thing you imagine when you see yourself."
Her face lost its color. "And what do you see, Ronan, when you look in the mirror? A man who can never be one of the beings who despised and abused you all your life?"
They stared at each other, shocked into silence. Ronan let her go. She had tried to close her mind to him, but he knew he had the power to force himself in, hold her paralyzed like a myl'vekk's prey and drive past her weak defenses. He could bind her will, just as he had done with the guard on the Pegasus, so that she could not act to stop him until he was gone from this world with the knowledge he had come to steal.
It was his one chance. His duty.
And when it was finished, he would have earned her hatred—she, who saw him as only one other had done. She who had welcomed him, ne'lin though he was, into her body.
Her hatred was an unnecessary complication when there were far less clumsy methods of achieving his end. All they required was patience. His hunger for her remained, but Sihvaaro had taught him well. Let Cynara believe her Reckoning had discouraged him before the battle was joined.
"You are right, Aho'Va," he said. 'This body is human. For a time it gave you pleasure. I am grateful for the honor." He tossed his shirt and trousers over his shoulder and strode for the door.
"Ronan."
Her voice was so full of regret that he knew his ploy had worked. It was the human way to accept guilt easily. Guilt was a wedge that would leave her vulnerable to him. Next time he would not hesitate to use every means available to defeat her.
"There is no need for more words," he said. "I understand you."
"No, Ronan," she said. "I don't think you do."
Her grief was past bearing. He left her, seeking the open air beyond Jesper's walls. The garden hung heavy with the scent of white flowers. He stripped three of them from their stems before he achieved tranquillity.
We are not lifemates, she had said. Of course they were not. Humans did not truly lifemate, heart and soul and body joined until death. Even if she were shaauri, he could not win her unless he cast away his purpose, his very reason for being.
The stars seemed unusually bright here in this high place, as they had been on the mountain with Sihvaaro. The Dharmans had not yet polluted their skies with countless motor vehicles and factories.
The technology Ronan brought back from the Alliance would prevent humans from polluting shaauri worlds and culture. This alien drive the Dharmans and their allies had discovered—no human could have invented such a marvel, but they were quick enoug
h to exploit it.
The Pegasus was only a prototype. She carried among her crew a Persephonean observer—Janek—because the Concordat was eager to produce an entire fleet of similar hybrid ships. Once the Alliance—the Nine Worlds and the Concordat—had many such ships, they could escape shaauri vessels at will. Nothing could prevent the humans' eventual expanse into shaauri-ja or inhibit their rapacious appetite for conquest.
Ronan crouched and ran his fingers over the groomed lawn Magnus Jesper kept so tame. Tomorrow the Council that ruled the Pegasus and its crew would interrogate him. He must appear cooperative and innocent of all deception, playing upon their hatred for the shaauri with the display of his scars.
Above all, he must sustain his guard against Dharman telepaths of more formidable talent. He had no doubt this Council would employ them, if its own members were not sufficiently skilled themselves.
They, like Cynara, would not be prepared for the enemy they faced.
Ronan scattered white petals at his feet and cleared his mind for a long night of meditation.
* * *
Chapter 14
« ^ »
Breakfast at Jesper's table was not nearly as tense as Cynara had expected. Ronan came from his room, greeted Jesper courteously, and took a place at the end with an impartial glance in Cynara's direction.
Lizbet seemed aware of a change, though she kept her thoughts to herself. Jesper made oblivious small talk. Earlier that morning Cynara had given her uncle some idea that Ronan's telepathic skills were stronger than she'd suspected, but she hadn't confided the whole truth. Not even to him.
When the conversation turned at last to the Council meeting, Ronan listened and responded exactly the same to Cynara and her uncle.
Last night did not happen. Ronan had taken her warning to heart. All his restrained anger had vanished, and with it the bond that had begun to grow between them. The incredible bond that had convinced her she dared not trust herself to protect the knowledge she carried in her mind.
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