Theron’s devastating blue eyes deepened a shade. Stars, why did the fucker have to be so gorgeous? And why did he have to make her heart beat so fast? At first it had been just a sex-making thing, but now she was finding herself enjoying every little aspect of his presence. Sure, he could be a tyrant and he drove her mad, but she felt safe with him. Understood. No one had ever focused himself so completely on her being before. And she was finding she could understand things about him, too. He wasn’t nearly as harsh as he liked to pretend. There was tenderness underneath.
For the first time she found herself wishing that his security assignment protecting her would not end too quickly. She wanted more time to answer the growing questions. What was it that made them so good together in bed? Why did she keep catching herself at odd moments hearing those words he had pronounced to her before?
Intimate relationship.
He’d been ruling it out, trying to keep their relationship appropriate and safe. And that was a good thing. Wasn’t it?
“I was thinking, too, Nyssa.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” His lips thinned.
He was doing this crinkling thing with his forehead that she was coming to associate with perplexity. She hated to admit this, but it was sort of endearing, because for such a strong, smart fellow, he seemed to be perplexed by some of the most elementary things. Like manners. And women. And conversations.
It shouldn’t be a big deal, knowing and liking things like this about a man. Although some people said such things were the foundation on which love was built.
“I was thinking that something I said to you wasn’t true,” he said.
“And what thing was that?” She stabbed a triple-headed grape.
His features were tense. Lands and oceans—he was nervous!
“About my erection last night. I said it wasn’t for you. But it was. The flow of blood was in fact connected to the physiological effects of being in your presence.”
“Why…thank you,” she replied, having no earthly idea what to do with this unusual compliment. “That was so very honest of you…and so very clinical, too.”
He seemed relieved. “Truth is important among primales,” he explained. “We cannot function without it. The lies literally build up and corrode our functioning.”
Nyssa sighed. It was time to go for broke. “Last night…when we were together, I mean, don’t get me wrong. You were the best lover I have ever had. You were like in this whole other league I never knew existed. But there was something… I can’t quite put my finger on it. Anyone would figure that you have done it all a thousand times, but it seemed somehow fresh. And I doubt it’s me… I’m not all that special.”
“I can’t compare you, Nyssa, because you were my first. Perhaps that’s why it seemed so fresh.”
The enormity of that hit her like a wave—guilt, shock and tenderness. “Oh, Theron…you gave me what your lifemate should have had.”
“That isn’t something to concern yourself with,” he assured her. “Primales are capable of sex-making with any number of females, prior to life-mating. I was the exception. Most of my fellow Guardians make sex with prostitutes all the time. Some are even offered under contract for use by entire units.”
The bastard didn’t even seem to realize how he’d insulted her. Nyssa tried to hold her heart together. It was hurting, deep inside. “Oh, good.” She smiled frostily, covering over the wound. “I wouldn’t want to complicate your life by being anything more than a common tramp to you.”
Theron’s brow wrinkled double time. “Nyssa, what are you saying?”
She stood up, tossing her napkin on the table. “I’m saying that I’m done with breakfast and I’m ready to get on the fucking shuttle and go do my fucking concert. Can we fucking do that?”
“Well…yes…”
“Fucking awesome.”
She was going to fix his wagon all right. Naïve as he was, he still had to be accountable.
She was going to escape tonight and make him look like the biggest fool in the galaxy. Then he could run crying to all the little prostitutes and contract women he liked.
And he could forget the holo kisses for the Solstice Holiday.
He was off her fucking list. Forever.
And no, she was not acting like a woman scorned. Just a woman who’d remembered her true place. As a fem. Not some silly little obedient chasing after a dumb brute of a man.
* * * * *
Theron’s attempt to mend fences with Nyssa over breakfast had not gone as well as planned. For some reason, his explanation had only alienated her further, to the point of open hostility. This puzzled him, because he assumed she would have been relieved to know that their sex-making together was not important and that there were not going to be any harmful aftereffects of their sex-making together. For whatever reason, she’d taken it as some sort of insult instead.
This was not the logical response of a disinterested fem. It was more like…well, the reaction of a jealous obedient. Once mated, an obedient could not bear the idea of any other female pleasing her primale—even in the past. She would insist on learning any of the techniques practiced on him before by any prostitute, so she could surpass them and she would scratch the eyes out of any female who made a move on him in the future—be it another obedient or a fem.
Contrary to what some might think, obedients were not doormats. And while they tended to have gentle, cooperative, follower spirits, they fiercely defended what was theirs.
Fems were not supposed to be like this. Fems took multiple lovers. Fems were free spirits, they lived in the now and took their pleasure as it came.
Could it be that Nyssa was being influenced by his primale energy? This had been his worst fear—that she would find herself yielding to her deepest feminine self, unable to resist a permanent sexual attachment, maybe even a love bond.
On the other hand, she kept reacting to him with such fury, and this was not behavior he was familiar with in obedients. All in all, he had to assume that she hated him, though the personal vehemence she felt was a little hard to understand.
Had he made all the right decisions where she was concerned? Was he being a little tough on her with the belt and all? Probably. Truthfully, she was being penalized for his being a man—a man unable to keep his hands off her. She had been sexually used and now she was being forced to accept sexual bondage to keep him from doing it again.
Okay, so he had to protect her from herself, too. He couldn’t afford to have her making sex right now with anyone she pleased. Someone was out there threatening to kill her. Maybe more than one person. There was no telling how serious those threats were. So far, he had detected nothing, but the biggest challenge lay ahead, at the live show.
An audience of half a million would be in that amphitheatre, any one of whom could have motive and opportunity to kill the holostar. Should such an attempt occur, he must be prepared to risk, and ultimately surrender, his life to preserve hers.
No matter how much she despised him.
Theron felt a clenching in his chest. If only she understood the things he was feeling. If only he could understand them himself. In the beginning, her protection had been an order and nothing else. Now he knew her—hell, it felt like he had always known her. He could no longer imagine the universe without her. What a dull and colorless place it would be. He was fascinated with her spirit, the way she met new challenges so courageously, the way she seemed so unafraid of the unknown.
He was a better man for knowing her. He wanted to know more, too. In some ways, he would be sad to see this assignment end. She was driving him crazy, but he had never felt more alive.
More a man.
This made no sense, of course. It was not only illogical thinking, it was dangerous. Emotions decreased efficiency. If he did not contain himself and fast, he might make a mistake. And that he could not afford. Protecting the little spitfire Nyssa was going to be hard enough as it was.
Nyssa gave him t
he courtesy of her ass as they left the hotel. He stopped her short, gripping her arm.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
“You need to let me walk in front, so I can make sure there are no dangers ahead of you.”
“I walk where I like,” she snorted. “You want somebody to heel you like a dog, it won’t be me.”
He frowned. She was referring to the habit of obedients, whereby they remained just behind their mate’s left heel in a position of respectful subordination. “An obedient starts behind so that her mate may bring her forward to a place beside him,” he quoted the primale saying. “But that isn’t the point here. This is for security.”
“The hell it is,” she spat. “Tell me, for the privilege of walking beside her man, what does an obedient have to do in return, kiss his feet?”
Theron was finding it difficult to keep his temper. That was not like him at all. “That would be up to the primale in question. But you know what I would make her do?”
“No.” She turned up her nose. “And I don’t care.”
“I would have her get on her knees and pleasure me,” he said, shocking himself with his own emotions, “right there in public.”
Nyssa showed her disgust, but too late. For a split second before that, she had revealed a dark fascination. A secret thrill at the scandal of it.
Interesting. Very interesting.
“That turns you on, doesn’t it? The idea of being under a man’s control, of having to accept a place of inferiority—even to the point of sucking his cock in front of a million people.”
By the Code, that wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. He would never do that to Nyssa. Why was it getting so hard to keep his thoughts straight around her? What kind of spell was she casting?
“You’re a pig,” she told him.
Lacking any sort of intellectual retort, Theron whirled her about and swatted her posterior hard. Several people noticed, but seeing Theron’s Guardian uniform, they took it to be a typical primale domestic situation and moved on.
“Apologize,” he ordered.
Tears dotted her eyes. Blast, he was making a mess of things. The sweet little beauty rubbed her chastised behind. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you satisfied?”
He wasn’t, not by a long shot. Unfortunately, this was neither the time nor the place to resolve matters with a heart-to-heart conversation. “You may walk alongside me,” he declared, extending the olive branch, “but you will remain at my arm and you will follow my orders to the letter if any danger is encountered. Is that clear?”
“Yes. It’s clear.” Nyssa fell in beside him. It felt natural, comfortable. He could almost imagine reaching out and taking her hand. Would she be repulsed, or would she accept the gesture?
He pushed the idea away, knowing any form of contact between them would lead to other things in short order.
They crossed the ped bridge to the Outer Atmosphere Shuttle Service. Theron wanted to fuck her so badly he could taste it. At one point a man brushed past and he instinctively wrapped his hand around her backside. He felt the end of her butt plug against his palm. She collapsed against him with a tiny gasp. She was so primed to be bent over the railing, her hem lifted, her glorious hindquarters exposed. He would dispose of the belt and push himself in. For once he would win a fucking argument.
Hah. Like that was ever going to happen with this woman.
Theron hired them an auto shuttle. A private model. While he could certainly pilot it himself, he intended to use the time to study the transmissions and intelligence surrounding the threats against Nyssa. If he was able to understand the psychology and motive of any would-be killer, he would be that much further ahead in trying to stop him.
Nyssa sat as far away as possible, against the window. He observed with rapt attention from the seat across from her as she slid her bottom across the artificial red leather, nearly the same color as her dress. He imagined tying her in leather, binding that sweet flesh of hers. If he had her in his possession, he would lock her away for a week, doing nothing to her but making sex and love-torturing her. She would know the freedom of passion. He would lock her in steel, and throw away the key. Or ropes of silk, or other even rarer fibers designed to come alive and tickle a woman’s anatomy.
She would lose count of the orgasms, she would melt into one long climax and he would teach her to call his name, to say it in such a way as never had been said before, and he would be reborn in her…in them.
“Stop looking at me,” she demanded. “It gives me the creeps.”
“I was merely memorizing your features. Primales do that for people they are guarding.” This was technically true, though hardly keeping in the spirit of what he’d been doing. By the universe, he grumbled to himself, he had just been reduced to another lie. What was it about this woman that made the truth so difficult to speak?
“I think you memorized me plenty fine last night.”
She had a point. Theron sighed and called for a pocket screen. A panel opened and a wafer-thin disc about the size of a human hand descended. It remained in midair, facing him like a mirror. He gave the verbal initialization, accessing the System. The lights on the screen pulsed and swirled. Plugging in a mindlink, he made the interaction private.
“Greetings Guardian Captain Theron. Welcome to the Infogrid. Security Clearance, Level Three,” the feminine voice of the System beamed cheerily into his brain.
Greetings, he thought in reply. Request to review all records, concerning threats against holostar Nyssa.
The first of them appeared on the screen. A piece of neon filth, hand-scribbled, which had appeared on the entry page of her personal data cruncher not too long ago.
You’ll pay for your lying mouth.
He glanced toward Nyssa out of the corner of his eye. She was restless, moving about on the seat, squirming. Resisting the urge to go to her and cradle her curvaceous, infinitely desirable body in his arms, he ordered the Infogrid to display the second threat she had received, this one in the form of an automatic letter.
Go away, you whore, and don’t come back.
Theron’s heart rate quickened. His muscles tensed nearly to fight mode. He hadn’t expected this sort of reaction to the threats. He was angry. He went on to the third. He was supposed to be objective, but it was all way too personal. This was Nyssa being talked about…
Everyone knows you’re a liar and you don’t deserve to breathe.
His fists clenched. If these were the work of someone serious in intent, or even if they were not, they had crossed a line, and they would be sorry. In fact, they would do well to hope the police caught them first.
He read several more. Nyssa, meanwhile, appeared to grow frustrated looking out the view port. As the shuttle left outer orbit and entered deep space, she released her copper-gold hair, allowing the artificially lengthened but very real-looking tresses to cascade down over her shoulders. Theron could smell her exquisite scent, like flowers in sunlight. Presently, she shook out the remains of her hairstyle and lay down on the seat, curling her legs up underneath her.
His heart swelled. She was such an amazing creature. So much smaller than him, so very delicate in comparison, and yet so wonderful and strong. Clever, and quick. No one had ever given him a run for his money like she did. And damn it, she made it fun, somehow. A challenge.
The thought that anyone would want to hurt her…
He could feel the protective instincts welling up. They were deeper than the anger, more potent. They were primale feelings. Indescribable in any other words. Only another primale could understand them. Or the woman he was guarding.
This was no longer just a job. That alone would have made him die. Or kill. Now it was personal. Someone, somewhere, had just opened for himself or herself a personal path to hell, and he was going to kick them down it.
And then, when the threat was gone, Theron would leave Nyssa, and never bother her again. He closed his eyes, thinking how much that was going
to hurt. A million times worse than any battlefield experience. He would spend the rest of his days praying to die, but he wouldn’t, not until he had lived way too many years and known far too much loneliness.
Ironically it was a loneliness he would never have known without meeting Nyssa. Whereas once his longing for companionship was vague and faceless, it now revolved around a single image, a single possibility—one which would never come to fruition.
Still, he could no longer imagine not having known Nyssa. Life meant inevitable pain, and the bravest of men risk the most and suffer the most. For a primale, there was no real option but to follow that path.
Literally was it written in their blood, handed down and refined from the great adventurers, the audacious explorers, the arrogant conquerors, the wild lovers, the cowboys and pirates and astronauts. All those who had refused to be tamed. Their blood distilled and refined and then given a home in bodies truly worthy of their overarching desires and dreams.
And what did these men dream of most, if the truth be told? Of the perfect woman. One woman above all others, a Helen of Troy, to launch a thousand ships, and ultimately break the hearts of a million men. Nyssa was his Helen. Nyssa of the hologrid, more than lovely enough to launch his primale heart…
Straight into oblivion.
Theron closed the connection, ordering the disc away. It was time for sleep. Primales didn’t need much, a few hours a week would do. In his case, it was the last he would get until his job was done.
Until the author or authors of the threats had been disposed of.
Once and for all.
Slowing his breathing, he put himself deliberately into unconsciousness. It was not sleep in the normal human sense. A part of him remained awake, internally, and ready to respond to the slightest disturbance in the environment. In the event of any trouble, he would seize control from the autopilot and proceed to evasive maneuvers. He would also employ the cloak. Electronically activated from his belt pack. Few people outside the Guardians knew of the device, which was the way the Guardians wanted it kept.
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