A masked warrior towered in the doorway.
Almost as tall as Borun. There's no way his vision could have penetrated our lodge's darkness to gaze upon my nudity. I hoped. But I pulled a length of soft fur over me and propped upon an elbow.
Not one word fluttered across the room to my ears. Damn my lesser-evolved mind. I'd give anything to tune into their mindspeak discussion.
Borun closed the squealing door and cast the room back into darkness. "Come, little one. Dress yourself. Your guards are arriving." He stepped into light around the fire.
No. I don't want to have anything to do with them.
"I hear your heartsong, little one." He knelt beside me where firelight could catch in his eyes. "We must greet them."
Didn't he care I felt betrayed and powerless? "I don't think I can. Not right now." I pulled a fistful of fur farther up my chest.
"Aisling." His hand reached for my arm and rubbed a jolting caress up to my shoulder. "I swear I will not step away from your side. But these warriors have been honored in the greatest way. They have been selected. And you will insult them if you do not greet them."
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Chapter Eleven
Standing inside her lodge, Aisling could have cried, but the lump of choking dread in her throat wouldn't let the wave of dread in her soul rise to her eyes. This had to be how people passed out from fear, she concluded. Through suffocation. How does a person argue with tradition on an alien planet with her were-mate who knew everything about survival on his home world?
"This is your place among us, little one. These are your guards. I'm not suggesting you bed them now. I'm only saying show them the same respect you expect to be reciprocated. They are as intelligent as you tried to tell the Queens you are. Besides, none of them dares touch you after I publicly denied Kruk's claim to you."
True. There was no way around my politician role.
"Don the same clothing you wore this morning. Look as if you've done nothing but wait for their arrival. We will go meet them when you are ready. They will not know you and I spent the afternoon mating. Nothing will suggest that."
"Except your nudity." When he answered the door.
"Aisling," he whispered a chastise. "Don't let your thoughts run wild or you'll lose your sanity. You are strong. Show the others the same strength you showed me over the past few days."
"You think I'm strong?" How laughable.
"Stronger than the Queens. None of them would have done anything you did since your arrival. Except make demands." He chuckled.
Alright. What else could the Luvks possibly think of to torture me with today? I had their biggest warrior protecting me. I could survive just about everything else.
Before I knew it, Borun donned his mask, marched me through rankled sunlight to a door three steps left of our lodges' door, and shoved the massive planks inward. A fire danced down the long curving space, a room that ringed the outside of our lodge as far as I could tell. Windows allowed natural lighting into the space enough to note the presence of the rising males to my sun-deprived vision in the shadowy room.
These males were enormous. I gulped.
Borun's hand gently pushed my lower back toward my guardsmen.
My harem.
Another choking lump of dread fisted in my throat.
Insulting them would have been as foolish as everything their mothers did in public. I took my first step into the future forced upon me. Into the gaping darkness.
The warriors never flinched or turned a head. They just waited as if expecting something.
Borun stepped to my side and escorted me to the dancing flames of the room's fire pit where he motioned I could halt.
But another fire pit burned down where the long room curved. This lodging had to encircle ours in a long concentric space wrapping around my personal quarters like a layer of an onion. My guard then protected me in an external barrier between the Luvk world and my sanctuary. I counted five warriors. Only one was black and white. The others had a range of orange tones among them. Good. I preferred the warmth.
"Aisling?" Borun prompted me softly.
Oh shit. I couldn't afford to screw up again. I scanned the glowing eyes trained upon me. "Welcome." What in the hell am I supposed to say? Thank you for bringing your gratuitous penises to my lodge?
* * * *
"She isn't from our world. For her to take on more than one mate is as difficult as one of us being refused by our mates and sent home to our broods. Be gentle with her," Borun said in mindspeak to his new guard brethren.
"No warrior here could find fault in that. She proved today, before the Queens, she does not relish their extravagant ways. I almost collapsed on the great hall's floor when I was requested to serve this one," Lehd of the Sunset clan slid his gaze to mine. "She asked for the low-castes." His gaze slid to Mart. "All but Mart who has his own troubles no high-caste must contend with."
"I resent that," Mart of the Sunrise clan retorted. "My interest in things deemed insignificant carries back through a long line of Royal Guardsmen. One day you will wake up to realize that our history and our language should be more important than bedding a queen."
These warriors had to ignore the past or Aisling might completely turn from them. "Let's not argue among ourselves. It's difficult enough as it is for Aisling to accept our ways without tension among her guards."
Lehd nodded, his gaze settling back on Aisling, transfixing with a strange expansion.
I'd seen the look before. Awe. Shock. The realization that a warrior might have a kernel of a future in a female's bed. But not until she extended the invitation. Requesting these warriors' service was only the beginning of a long tormented wait for each Royal Guard who is selected for consort duty.
"Excuse me if you're mindspeaking," Aisling said and shifted her footing looking between me and the others. "But I'd just like to note I hate these masks. I can barely tell you all apart. Back on my home world, the only people who wore masks as you warriors do are a group of women. It's a spiritual tradition that translates into everyday life but is viewed by most as imprisonment. I didn't care for it on earth being the culture I was raised in. Albeit, I realize you probably have taboos associated with these masks. I wouldn't want you to feel you had to wear them because of something I expected from you. I release you from this cultural constraint if you wish to walk freely within these walls. If you don't, I will understand."
"She wants us to bare ourselves?" Proy of the Dancing Rivers clan almost blurted in his mindspeak.
"Only here." I studied his steady gaze. "It's a freedom, an indulgence known only to those Royal Guards serving the Marshal." I'd have to do something to ensure they understood the significance. I yanked off my mask. But would they follow suit given it meant they were mated with Aisling?
The warriors stood there, watching me, blinking.
Lehd, the youngest of the guards, grabbed the edge of his mask, tugged it from his face, shot me a determined stare, and tossed the mask on the table beside him.
The clash of metal against wood was loud enough to startle war beasts but everything I expected from the only warrior big enough to hold me down during a fight. That was why I chose him. He would be here for Aisling if I was called away. Especially since her pregnancies were so risky. She couldn't afford to ride war beasts.
Lehd met Aisling's gaze with his open defiance of Luvk tradition. "I've always thought the masks ludicrous because a man cannot battle when trying to dodge limbs with an accursed mask in the way."
She snorted. "Have you ever tried to crawl into the smallest of caves?" She shot me an all-knowing glance.
I couldn't help but chuckle. Leave it to my mate to miss nothing.
"What is your name?" she asked the enormous orange striped warrior.
"Lehd of the Sunset clan."
"Does this mean your clan resides where the sun sets?"
"She is not stupid, Borun," Lehd said in mindspeak. "Yes," he bowed, showing his black hair to Aisling in t
he action, then met my gaze. "What is her title if she doesn't want to be called Queen?"
I hadn't thought that far ahead.
"Please call me Aisling."
At least she hadn't said little one. The thought of sharing the nickname I gave her almost made my gut cringe.
One by one, the other guards pulled off their masks, tucked them under their arms, and bowed, moving rationally from left to right as if they had planned to introduce themselves around the semicircle in which they stood.
"I am Ovh of the Smoking Lands."
"I am Mart of the Sunrise clan."
"I am Proy of the Dancing Rivers."
"I am Var of the Ice Lands."
Aisling shot me a timid look. "I'm horrible with names. But a few rounds of rattling off names should help."
She had to be exhausted as tense as she was in greeting her guard. I pushed out with my mind. "This is enough for her for one day."
The guards nodded and stepped to one side of the room as if expecting her to take the time to inspect ranks like a mate choosing her consort for the night.
"She doesn't think like a queen," I added. "Do not be insulted that she doesn't follow tradition." But they were well aware of my Breeder's Rights. I led Aisling back to our lodge.
"Maybe it's time for tradition to change," Mart said.
So says the nontraditional warrior.
* * * *
Back among the shadows of her lodge, Aisling tried to forget about the expressive eyes of the warriors who had been placed in her care. My care, she wondered at the ridiculous thought. I had to mate just to survive here. And what of Borun's enthusiasm with this whole ridiculous marriage? Why isn't the man jealous? When those guards whipped off their masks, there wasn't one of them who had a lick of homely in his body. All those bulging muscles bound in sexy black leather and stripes. No wonder these queens took every damn male they could as a mate. But I just don't think I'm toting anything more than monogamy in my cultural baggage. By the look of loneliness in those men's eyes, I've got one big ass suitcase to drag around. I stared into the dancing flames of our fire pit.
"What's wrong, little one?"
I couldn't tell him what I thought about the perfect males he'd chosen. He'd surely be heartbroken the way he doted on me. A little lie just might do us some good. "I'm tired."
"Any normal person would be." He reached for my boot and tugged it off.
But being undressed by a Royal Guard meant sex. I just wanted to rest. Clear my thoughts.
"You'll nap until Morna brings supper." He pulled off my other boot, swung me into those big arms, walked across through the shadows, and placed me on the sleeping skins.
So this was the terrifying Luvk warrior who saved me from the others? "The guards you chose for me-mind you, I should be irate at the moment-I can't think of one thing wrong with any of them. So, why weren't they married off to a queen before?"
He sat down beside me, grabbed a handful of my long ponytail, and mindlessly ran it over and over across the black pads of his fingers. "There aren't enough noble daughters to wed to the noble sons." He studied my white hairs he held in his palm.
That made little sense given the polyandry and multiple husband practice. Some cultural traditions jacked with the odds of a fifty-fifty chance of a child being male or female though. "But the females, your Queens, take on the Royal Guards like they could manage thirty or forty."
His golden gaze rolled up to meet mine and humor glinted in his foggy eyes. "You want more?" The incredulous ring in his voice almost made me nauseous.
"No!" Had he lost his mind? "Thank you, but I only have those I have because you requested them for me."
Humor flickered across his face so quickly that certainly he reveled in the fact I hadn't wanted anyone but him. He better figure out how to be thinking that way. Because I don't want more than one mate. Job description or not. My blood mate is enough for me.
"They are low-caste males, Aisling. No queen would have them unless she decided she required another breeder for large sons to strengthen her Royal Guard," he added as if he could read my mind. "But they are the best of the best. No one but I could ever take one of them down on the battlefield."
Those fine specimens who managed to behave with dignity instead of the beasts I saw on the way here? No woman would have them? "How are they low-caste?"
"They are like me."
And that would be in size. They were all enormous. None stood as tall as Borun though. Or was it they all were just male? "You better enlighten me. I'm lost."
"We aren't Pure Hearts. Our skin is not as pure as yours."
God, I flew who knows how far across the universe, stepped through a magic portal, and walked right back to the same damned crap I couldn't stomach on earth. "I'm white and you're not?"
Borun studied me with the patient gaze of an observant monk.
"You're kidding me. Because all I see when I look at you is perfection."
His eyes flickered again, with something.
Maybe I wandered off into dangerous woods. Time to change the subject. "Now tell me about the number of daughters to sons each queen births. I want to think about the ratio."
He returned to his fingering of my hair in his palm, watching his thumb rub the white strands against his black skin. "My mother took twenty-three consorts, had twenty-seven sons, three of which are high-caste, and two daughters. Seven sons have been killed in battle. Only one daughter is high-caste."
And she's to be wed to the Slaken. Damn, that blows the fifty-fifty odds of a child being male or female back on earth. A downright universal truth given there are only two sexes in the mix in the alien cultures I've studied. Throw in skin color and that shouldn't shake things up too much. Lord, twenty-nine children is a lot of pregnancies to suffer for a female. How many pregnancies made it full term? How many children survived their first year?
And these people didn't give the appearance of a high-tech lifestyle. I doubt they have intensive care units for babies. The Luvks didn't flaunt their technology if they had it. It wasn't like I've seen much in the way of electricity here. The only artificial lighting hung-the glass balls-in the great hall. Without proper medical care the first months of life, a child might not make it to year two. So how does a woman have twenty-nine children, most of which are low caste? Oh, how this subject had to be awfully painful for Borun. "Do you want to talk about something else?"
He shrugged in a nonchalant manner by arching his black eyebrows. "Ask what you will. I am here for you."
Oh well. "Your mother's had twenty-nine children?"
His golden gaze studied me for a moment. "Yes."
Maybe he feared telling me the number. Maybe he thought I would panic. Surely having that many of his children was out of the question with my potential twenty years of productivity left. Unless the Luvks are genetically wired for multiple births. "How?"
His face turned curiously a few inches where he seemed to anchor one eye on me. "That is what sleeping skins are for, little one."
"I'm thirty years old." I couldn't help but chuckle. "I know how females get pregnant. But does your mother have more than one child at a time?"
He wagged his head. "It is common for queens to have forty to fifty children. Only rarely more than one at a time."
How in the hell? "Borun, you can't possibly expect that many from me. I only have about twenty reproductive years left."
His brow pinched. "You are so young."
"I've lost seventeen years of re-productivity in postponing having children to educate myself. And even if I had started at thirteen, I'm hard-pressed to say after studying culture that any human female has ever given birth to that many children." Ain't cultural constructs an amazing factor in controlling the human creature?
"Our species are very different," he said.
He didn't exhibit any signs of concern. So plodding forward had to be okay. What could affect reproductivity aside from litter size? Gestation period. "How long do your femal
es carry their young before they're born?"
"Almost a year."
Nine solar months or ten lunar months was almost a year on earth. He'd probably have a difficult time comparing year length given I have no idea how they measure time on Luvk. Something else had to be the key to such large numbers of progeny. But what?
"What are you thinking, Aisling?"
I met his steadfast gaze. "Just how do your females have so many offspring?"
"It's simple. Females can bear younglings for sixty years."
The numbers tried to sink into my thoughts but just swirled around in the space between our locked gazes. Sixty years? Just how old is Borun? And he had to live that long single? Alone. Celibate because of his coloration? Luvks tortured their males.
His hand reached up to gently cup my cheek. "You're unusually quiet."
What would he think when he realized I would look extremely old in about ten years? Especially given I lack all those miracle creams… "I'm just thinking."
"About what?" His thumb tipped my chin up high so I could do little but look into his serious gaze.
About how I'm old. About how I'll be even older in a few years. About how you're perfect. Just how old are you? And how long will it be before you grow tired of me? At least we have the blood bond. I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
"Little one, I cannot hear your words. But I hear your drumming heartsong. Tell me what dances to that song of dread behind your eyes."
"I'm old. And I'll just keep getting older. So much faster than you."
His black eyebrows arched. "You think I will grow tired of you?"
Why are we having this discussion? He couldn't be any older than I was. And he was determined to be with me around the clock by his behavior alone.
"You don't seem like the type of female to hold back replies." He blinked, almost admonishingly. "But females appear to be the same on both of our worlds. Given I could be killed any time in battle, each of us risks our last breath in one way or another. We are not shallow males on Luvk. We respect our mates, treasuring the one gift we can call our own, a youngling. I can't imagine a female as young as you aging so quickly. But if this is the way of your species, know I have mated for life."
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