“I did nothing special,” she murmured, overwhelmed by the praise.
“Nonsense,” said Rhyasha. “You’ve taken the time and trouble to be genuinely interested in them. They’ve obviously appreciated it.”
“It’s not just me, it’s all of us, otherwise they wouldn’t want to be part of our community.”
“True, but it was you, personally, they took to. I’d love to handle this, Rhyasha, but I’ve got too much to do over at Shanagi with this treaty and the Clans. Can you see them tomorrow? With Mara, of course. Find out exactly what it is they want and make the necessary arrangements.”
“Of course, but I’m not the one best suited to this, you realize,” she said. “My knowledge of the Touibans isn’t great.”
“Kusac will straighten out any loose ends when they return.”
“Konis . . .”
“He will return,” stated Konis firmly, ending the conversation.
* * *
Day 27
“Even if she is Keeza, what can we do?” Lijou asked Kha’Qwa as he escorted her to the waiting aircar. “If she’s evaded all the searches so far, then what makes you think we’re going to find her now? She’ll be found when she wants to be found, as will Kezule. We’re powerless till that moment. Besides, I think she’s dead, eaten by him.”
Kha’Qwa shivered, her claw tips pricking his arm through the fabric of his robe. “Don’t talk like that! Rhyaz thinks she’s alive.”
“He likes bodies,” he began, then stopped, remembering his life-mate’s increased sensitivity to these subjects so near the end of her pregnancy. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it.”
They stopped at the steps up to the vehicle.
“You tell Noni I was asking for her,” he said. “I wish you’d agree to go to Shanagi’s medical center. Much as I trust Noni, I want you to have the best treatment. There’s still time for you to change your mind.”
“I am getting the best,” she said, leaning forward to rub his cheek with hers. “Look, there’s Brynne now, with Jurrel and Banner.” She pointed across the courtyard to where the three males were walking. “I knew Jurrel would be good for him. See, they’re laughing. When did you see him laugh before, or allow another to touch him?” she added as Jurrel draped an affectionate arm across Brynne’s shoulders and drew his attention to a small group sitting on a grassy mound at the side of the wall.
“So complex, these Humans,” murmured Lijou, watching as the three joined the others. “Too many inhibitions, and it takes them so long to lose them.”
“Brynne was a special case. The day he set down on Shola, he Linked to Vanna. He had no chance to get to know us as a species before being tied in an unbreakable relationship. At least this one is of his choosing.”
“You try to twin people too often,” Lijou said affectionately. “Just watch you don’t get it wrong one day.”
“I have a good success rate,” she purred, nuzzling him under his chin. “I chose you for me, after all.”
“I know, and I’m glad you did,” he said, tilting his chin up and enjoying the caress. “As a mere priest, I’d never have had the nerve to approach a warrior like you otherwise.”
“Mere priest indeed! In you, strength and compassion go hand in hand,” she said, moving back from him and turning toward the aircar. “I must go. Noni’s expecting me.”
“Take care,” he said.
* * *
She’d reached the Retreat by the time dawn’s light hit the horizon. The land was rugged around the temple, built as it was into the side of the mountain. There’d be many more caves and crevices like this in which she could hide. It was cold, though, this high up. The plains had been warmer, but the couple of days at the old one’s house had given her her strength and most of her health back.
The fever was gone, and the wound on her thigh was beginning to knit at last. She leaned forward, fingering the dressing. Suddenly she was back there in the forest with him, feeling his hands holding her tightly about the thighs as he pulled her closer. She struggled, whimpering with fear as she tried to scrabble backward away from him. The hands tightened, claws penetrating her hide, cutting her almost to the bone as he tried to mount her.
Pain lanced through her leg, breaking the trance, returning her to the present. She’d managed to sink her claws into the wound, she realized, watching tiny pinpricks of blood welling up through the dressing. That was what had brought her back.
She shivered, wrapping the blanket she’d stolen from Noni round her. It wasn’t her way to repay kindness with theft, but she’d had no choice. The taste of civilized life had softened her: she could no longer face living that rough again.
There’d been more memories, of blood spraying around a white room, coating the walls till it dripped from them in lazy, red runnels. She felt sick at the thought of it. Is that what he’d done to the others before taking her as a captive? She shuddered again, glad she’d escaped with her life.
And others, of a male in robes edged with purple. A telepath. She tried to remember more, focusing on him. They’d landed in a clearing. Her captor had been angry with the telepath, she remembered that. He’d hit him, hard, just like he’d hit her many times. Reflexively, she put her hand to her head, feeling old scars and still tender spots. No, not like he’d hit her, because he’d killed the telepath, then taken his spare clothing.
Her head hurt now, with so much remembering. She lay down, wanting to sleep. Her feet hurt too. She wondered again why she was here as she began to drift off to sleep.
* * *
When Kaid came to, he found himself not back with the others as he’d feared, but in another, smaller room. Hunger growled deep in his belly. They’d kept him drugged for some time. He moved, discovering he was free to climb out of the bed on which he lay and move around the room. This bed was high, totally unlike the ones in their living quarters. And there was no discernible door—all the walls seemed the same until he approached one and it began to de-opaque, giving him a view into the next room.
Carrie lay supported on a cradle, bathed in an eerie blue glow from a force field of some kind. As he watched, two gray-robed Primes, followed by one in white, came into view and began to work with the console by her head. Were they the same two he’d seen? One did look to be smaller. The glow surrounding Carrie started to flicker and fade. Around his neck, the crystal began to warm and in his mind, he felt the now familiar pulse. This time there was no pain, no difficulty breathing, only the pulse.
He felt her scream begin to build in his mind long before her mouth opened and she started to whimper.
Against his chest, the crystal felt as if it was incandescent. He pounded on the wall, desperate to attract her attention—or theirs. Then he remembered what he was, what they shared, and reached mentally for her. Like a swimmer afraid of drowning, his mind was seized and almost submerged by hers. Incoherent terror rushed through him, threatening to take him down with her. He needed all the strength of his mental disciplines to fight back and contain her, and he knew he couldn’t hold her for long. He continued beating on the wall, shouting to the Primes, even though he knew it was futile.
“Leave her! Let me wake her! You’re risking her sanity doing this!” Even as he cried out, the field around her darkened and her scream began to fade, as did her presence in his mind.
He sagged against the wall in relief. They’d heard him and realized what was happening to her. Now he could try to take in the fact that she really was alive. Against all odds, she was alive! His vision blurred and he put up a hand to his eyes, surprised to find them damp with tears. A movement from the room caught his attention as the smaller Prime turned toward him. Against his shoulder, the wall seemed to quiver, then move. Staggering back, he watched the section he’d been leaning against begin to slide open.
Hesitantly, he stepped into the room. It was cold, the air chill on his unclothed pelt.
“You will wake her,” said the translator. “You will then take her to your room. Food will
be left for you. See that she eats. We will question her later.” He turned and began to walk from the room.
“Not if I can help it,” he murmured before approaching the remaining Primes at the console, and Carrie.
She was thin, painfully thin, her cheeks hollowed, her eyelids shadowed.
“What have you done to her?” he demanded, moving closer, anger trying to force back the sudden fear that she might yet die.
“We healed her, but she does not thrive. We told you this. Do not touch her till I tell you it is safe.”
Again the light faded, but this time it dimmed more quickly around her head and upper torso. The white-robed one stepped forward and put a hypo to her neck just as she began to stir. The tension left her body and she went limp, head rolling toward him as the drug took effect.
“She will sleep for a short time, then wake. Take her and go.”
He hesitated, afraid of what would happen to them when he touched her, afraid it was what he wanted.
“Take her.”
He moved forward, picking her up in his arms, cradling her close against his chest. In his mind, her presence began to grow, but only to the level it had been before. He sighed with relief. Maybe he’d been wrong about their Link.
He breathed in her scent, smelling the alien drugs that still clung to her skin, and more. Eyes blazing, he looked up at them. “You’ve removed her contraceptive implant,” he snarled.
“She is your mate. What need had she of such chemicals? They interfered with our treatment.”
“Take your mate and leave,” said the gray. “Be thankful we found her.”
Tightening his grip on her, he backed off, almost stumbling in his haste to leave the stasis room. His mind was reeling with the implications of what they’d done. The opening slid shut behind him, opaquing the wall again until they were alone. Carefully, he laid her on the bed, pulling the cover over her, his hand lingering on her cheek. It was like a physical pain to stop touching her, but he had to.
Food, in insulated bowls, had already been left on the night table. They obviously expected her to wake very shortly. He went over to the far wall and squatted down, leaning back against it. Right now, he needed to think. She was there, in his mind again, a part of him that he couldn’t ignore. He’d gone from thinking her dead to this; he should be ecstatic, but he wasn’t, because no matter what the Primes said, he knew why they’d removed her implant. They wanted her pregnant, like Jo.
His anger rose again. They had to escape as soon as possible, no matter the cost. The Primes had no intention of freeing them, he was sure of it now, and he had no intention of letting them breed his people like slaves. They were being treated like experimental animals! How could he pair with Carrie and make her pregnant under these circumstances—and how would she survive the lack of Kusac if he didn’t?
In his mind, he could almost hear Vartra’s sardonic laugh.
“Some things are not dependent on me, Tallinu. That rather depends on your actions, doesn’t it? Cubs are Ghyakulla’s gift to us all.”
The memory triggered more, like a string of beads that had come undone and were tumbling free. His obsession with Carrie had been his alone, no one had gifted it to him. Vartra had told him that. He knew now that the pulse, or heartbeat he’d heard had been his memory of the long, drugged trip from the monastery to Stronghold when, as a three year old, he’d lain with his head on Carrie’s belly, listening to the heartbeat of her unborn cub, Kashini. That was when his desire for Carrie had been forged. With unforgiving clarity, he faced the fact that it was then he’d decided the next cub she carried in her belly would be his.
His head began to pound and he lowered it to rest on his forearms. Now he’d never have the opportunity to ask her himself. If she had any chance of life with Kusac dead or missing, he had to step into his sword-brother’s place, and she would become pregnant. How could he do that to either of them? He loved them both too much for that.
Through the pounding in his head, his thoughts turned back to Carrie’s current condition.
She should have started to wake by now, surely. Tiredly, he got to his feet and went over to check on her. She looked so frail that it caught at his breath. Even as he touched her for reassurance, he felt the pulse of his headache change, felt the swirling power of the gestalt begin to slowly build.
He’d have recoiled in fear if Carrie hadn’t stirred and grasped his hand. Their eyes met, and as they did, so did their minds.
Senses expanded, and as his heartbeat increased with the pounding of the pulse that echoed through them both now, her scent, more potent than any aphrodisiac, overwhelmed him.
She knew everything. “You want to share your cubs with me.” Her voice was quiet, rougher than he remembered.
He’d nowhere to hide any longer, not even from himself. “Yes,” he whispered, though it tore him apart to admit it to her. “I’m not Kusac, Carrie. I’m not trying to replace him, but I don’t want to be second . . .”
Her hand tightened on his. “Never that, Tallinu,” she whispered, shifting her head so she could look up at him. “Kusac will always be my passion, but you’re my rock, my stability from the first. I love you for that.”
“I can’t father another bastard cub, Carrie. I can’t do that to us!” But he let her urge him closer till their lips touched and he felt the Link compulsion start to build.
It wouldn’t be. The Triad’s registered at the temple. We’re life-mates, too.
We didn’t make vows, didn’t share our blood.
She bit down hard on his lip, making him yelp and pull free at the sudden pain. Bite me, she sent.
I can’t! Distracted, he touched a finger to his lip, feeling it begin to swell.
She lifted his hand to her mouth, closing her lips round the fingertip, purposely triggering his claw. He tried to pull it free, but the claw caught, cutting her. Then she released him.
“Kiss me!”
He did, tasting their blood as it mingled on their tongues and lips.
Now we’re of one blood, she sent.
We’re of one blood, he agreed, trembling as the pulse grew stronger before exploding in a surge of energy they knew was the gestalt. Already their minds were merging, becoming one. He hadn’t much time left he realized, seizing control of the gestalt and trying to hold onto his own identity.
Will you share this cub with me, Carrie? he sent, not trusting his voice.
Yes, and others, Tallinu.
Moving the cover aside, he eased himself onto the bed beside her. Seeing her move, about to turn round, he caught her shoulder, holding her back.
“Not this time,” he said hoarsely, as he knelt. “I want to see you, watch your face.”
Looming over her, he untied her sleeping wrap, pushing it aside as he drew trembling hands down her ribs. He felt the bullet scar and stopped, checking it with gentle fingers. There was barely a trace of the life-threatening wound. Whatever the Primes had done, they’d saved her life, and for that he was grateful.
He kissed the soft flesh of her belly, caressing it before drawing the gentle tip of his tongue across her as he reached for her hips. Leaning forward, ready to join with her, ready to let go of the tenuous control he had on the gestalt and their Link, he stopped, afraid he was taking advantage of Kusac’s absence.
“We need each other to live,” she whispered, her hand closing on his arm. “En’Shalla. Let it happen, Tallinu.”
He let go. The beat pulsed once more, sending fire coruscating through bodies and minds as they were swept up together. There was no him, only them as he simultaneously felt himself moving within her and experienced her flesh being penetrated by his. It was too much, too intense: they had to stop, but couldn’t. They became one entity, swirling in a sea of shared sensations.
Just as it seemed they could bear no more, the explosion of relief came and he was himself again, clutching her shuddering body against his. He caught his breath, supporting her as he lowered them to the bed. There was
no need for words, she was there, in his consciousness, part of the fabric of his mind.
He felt her retreat a little from him, start building a shield he’d never sensed before, knowing instantly that it was the means she and Kusac used to give themselves mental privacy. He felt her wave of sadness that she quickly suppressed.
Do the same, she sent. Set it where you will, then you’re in control of how much of your thoughts I know.
The sheer amount of information passing between them confused and fascinated him. He knew from moment to moment how she felt, what she was thinking.
Not yet, he sent, sliding his hand across her belly as he watched her from half-closed eyes. “I’ll know when,” he whispered, remembering the vision of their daughter’s birth. Now he could see the mother’s face, and it was Carrie’s. “I’ve feared and wanted this for so long.” Then his hand tightened briefly and he released her only to take her into his arms, kissing and caressing her.
It’s done. We’ll find Kusac, Carrie. I won’t stop till we do, believe me. I’m getting us off this ship as soon as possible. Our daughter will not be born into captivity, I swear.
* * *
Hands bound behind him, Kusac was dragged by J’koshuk toward a large window that gave onto the room next door. The hand holding his scruff pulled his head painfully back, claws gouging his flesh as he was hauled to a stop.
“Look, even now they betray you in this act of reproduction!”
He looked, seeing enough to know that one of the two figures in the bed was Carrie. She was alive, then. He supposed he was glad but he felt nothing. The other—was Sholan, that was all he could tell. He turned his head aside, feeling divorced from everything around him. He had felt this way since they’d awakened him. He didn’t even try to reach for her mentally, he knew the pain it caused him because of the collar.
A hiss of anger from his captor and he was flung against the transparent screen. Painfully, his face was pressed against the cool surface. He tried to look away. J’koshuk’s hand slid under the metal collar round his neck and gripped it, holding him there.
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