Sirus’s heart pounded a bit faster upon hearing her request to take her with him. “That’s the homeworld of your genetic parents, right?”
“Yes. My pack mother is crying right now and telling Alexander she won’t let me go. She says that she’ll die without me here, that her heart would break. She’s so melodramatic. I mean, I love her and all, but don’t you think I should go and at least meet the Rajah? I could always come back to Eridani right afterwards, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” he said supportively. “I plan to come back here in about a half a year from now or so anyway, just to see how my grand… I mean how my niece is doing.”
He placed his hand in the small of her back to guide her back to the hall. As they got closer to the hall and the lighted area around it, he could see her better. He walked behind her deliberately to get a look at her backside. He watched the side to side swinging of her long waterfall of black-streaked white curls and couldn’t help admiring the way her rounded hips seemed to sway one direction while the hair swung the other.
* * * * *
By the time Sirus arrived back in the hall, he was glad for the length of his captain’s dress jacket. He had a raging hard-on and could just imagine the reaction this would get from Danni’s pack brothers. He envisioned Wood clamping his big fist around his neck and squeezing it until his eyes bulged from their sockets. No, it would not do to have Wood see his reaction to Danni.
With some mild regret, Sirus made his excuses to Danni and went to track down Alexander. He found him where they’d sat before, puffing away on his pipe as the band finished up another set of music. He imagined that Alexander looked rather smug, like he’d just pulled off a coup of some sort.
“So I’m going to Cephei IV, am I?” he said to Alexander, intending to surprise him.
The doctor took it in stride. “Of course. It resolves several issues that had been worrying me, and offers an elegant solution to all of them.”
“Really. Why don’t you lay it all out for me then, since I seem to be put in the middle of this whole scenario?”
“Well, first, there’s the problem of needing alliances. It’s time to start bringing the packs, and even the different subspecies, together under one umbrella organization. The more we band together, the stronger we’ll be.”
“Okay. What else?”
“Then there’s the fact I owe the Rajah an enormous debt for the help he gave in establishing this pack. Ethically, I cannot keep his daughter from him, now that there is a way to at least let him know that she’s alive and well. Hell, Danni deserves to get to know her genetic father as well.”
“That’s two. What else?”
“Danni. She’s rather a problem, or about to become one at any rate.”
“How? She’s a sweet girl. Is it that she’s not empathic? I didn’t get a sense of her being able to read my emotions.”
“What do you know about tigran physiology?”
“Almost nothing. I learned more from an old tigran shaman who’d escaped from New India, than from anything I could find in the galactic online library. After his Rajah forced exile on all the people of the shaman’s faith, he’d decided to travel out of his solar system, something rarely done by tigran, and wound up settling on one of the rogue planets where I also have a home.”
“What’d he tell you?”
“Only what I’d asked about,” Sirus said, a dull flush creeping up his cheeks.
Alexander’s whole face broke into a smile. “Bet I can imagine what it was.”
Sirus looked around, making sure they were alone. “I wanted to understand some things about the male tigran physiology.”
“Not every tigran characteristic was suppressed, was it?”
“Hell, no. About the only thing I don’t have is the fur, if you know what I mean.”
“So you got that barbed…”
“Yes,” he hissed. “Shut the hell up, will you?”
Alexander hid his grin by adding more of the tobacco-like weed to his pipe and lighting it. “Well, as far as female tigran physiology is concerned, Danni’s not had her first heat yet.”
“Isn’t that rather late? She’s nineteen. Don’t women get that at thirteen or something?”
“Not tigran women. They go into heat at about nineteen or twenty. Matter of fact, until about a year ago, you’d have thought Danni was twelve instead of eighteen. She hadn’t developed yet and well, you see her now.”
“She’s very curvy,” Sirus said, a glow of appreciation in his eyes.
“Yes, she is, and I estimate that she’ll be going into heat within the next six months.”
“And why is this an issue?”
“On tigran worlds, they usually affiance the women before they go into first heat, having marriages take place before then if at all possible. They develop their empathic abilities, if they have them, shortly before they go into heat, but that’s not what has me so concerned. Once a tigran woman goes into first heat, she becomes insatiable, needing sexual contact at least five or six times a day, and the period of first heat lasts several weeks. Pregnancy rates are about ninety percent and the tigran frown on women having children out of wedlock.”
“You’re saying she’s going to go into some kind of sexual frenzy?”
“Yes. One of my biggest worries is that it’s going to happen here, and the effect she’d have on the wolfan males.”
“I would’ve supposed that you’d married her off to one of them.”
“Maybe, but I have to tell you, there’s something unique about a tigran woman. Their scent at that time drives the males around them into a sexual rage. It’s not been unknown for subspecies males, not just tigran males, to go into bloodlust and kill the other males around them because of their need to be the one who mounts her. In fact, the only males safe at that time are standard human males.”
“Well, I look standard but I’m not.”
“Yeah, but that’s what I’m going to tell her pack mother in order to get her permission to let you take Danni off planet and on to Cephei IV.”
“Damn,” Sirus replied, shaking his head and wondering what the hell he’d gotten into. At least he’d have warning her heat was drawing near when she started showing her empathic abilities.
Knowing that the alliance would greatly help the wolfan cause, Sirus reluctantly agreed with Alexander to take Danni to Cephei IV. He wondered briefly what he’d be getting into, especially if the two-month trip took longer then planned or if her heat came early.
* * * * *
Danni sat down by her pack mother, and winced a bit when her mother’s hand reached over to grip hers. Sometimes her pack mother forgot her strength when she was emotional.
“Where have you been, Danni? I was worried sick. I saw you walk in with that pirate captain and he looks pretty shifty to me.”
“He’s not a pirate captain, Mother. Sirus Parker is a very nice man and a free-trader. I was outside looking for him to apologize for Wood. I almost fell out there in the darkness and he helped me up when I tripped.”
“That’s very interesting considering that you can see almost as well as I can in the dark,” her mother said suspiciously.
Danni had the grace to look a bit embarrassed. She enjoyed being around the handsome free-trader and had wanted to know what it would feel like to have his arms around her. “Oh, Mother. Look how he helped rescue Amanda from Shodan. You know how bad Shodan is.”
“That’s true. It was only a matter of time, though, before that Shodan did something to get himself permanently exiled. When I think of that time you came home all dazed and sick and your friends said that Shodan was trying to take you back into the woods—”
“Now, Mother, watch your blood pressure. You know Alexander said that you need to take it easy.”
“Speaking of Alexander, he was just here. Now you know I’ve always said that if circumstances were different, I’d support your right to go visit your genetic father for a short while. Well, circumstances
have changed some and I’d not be the mother I am if I didn’t try to do the right thing by you,” her mother said, tears starting to choke her voice.
“You mean I can go to Cephei IV?” Danni said, hardly daring to hope.
“Yes, but I haven’t said it’s okay yet to Alexander, and I don’t completely trust that Sirus. When he was staring at you today, his eyes were too bold. Men like that are unafraid to pursue women and they know how to get women to do whatever they want.”
“Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t think that way about me.”
“Danni, you don’t understand men’s urges because you don’t have any yourself yet. You need to trust me on this. If you go with him, I think either Wood or I should go, too. Somebody’s got to keep an eye on that boy.”
“He’s a man, Mother, not a boy.”
“I know. Why do you think I’m so damn worried, honey?”
* * * * *
Many hours later, Amanda gasped as once again Karrick lowered his body over hers and made love to her until they both exploded in the heat of their fiery sensations.
“God, I can never get enough of you, Amanda.”
She reached up and pulled him down by his mane, massaging the back of his neck and head while she brushed his lips with soft kisses. “I want to always be with you, Karrick. You’re the other half of my soul.”
“As you are mine, Amanda Logan.” They kissed for several minutes. Karrick lifted his head and looked down into the languid pools of her eyes. He thought of something he wanted to show her, and suddenly swept her up in his arms, making sure to grab the quilt off the bed as well.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I can’t sleep and I want to show you something.” He carried her to the back porch and sat with her in his lap on the large porch swing. The air was a bit crisp at this time of night so he tucked the quilt around her shoulders as he settled her on his lap.
Amanda smiled indulgently as him and turned her head to look at the view of stars in the night sky, reflecting off the lake behind their home.
Her breath caught at the spectacular sight. For a long time, they sat quietly, contemplating the million points of light glistening in the endless sky.
“This is beautiful, Karrick.”
Karrick reached for her hand and gently kissed the tips of her fingers. “When I was a child, I used to wonder about the people who lived on other planets, around other stars. I wondered if they looked out at night at us, wanting to know who we were and how we got here.”
“I can see you doing that as a little boy, Karrick. When I was small, I used to wonder about the universe, too. I wanted to explore the stars and be like the fearless wolfan of my father’s tales. We were innocent, then. We both thought that the galaxy was big enough for everyone.”
“It still is, Amanda.”
“Perhaps, but unfortunately, the Conglomerate doesn’t see it that way.”
“That can change. It won’t be easy but it can be done. We have to try.” Karrick shifted her closer and Amanda rested her head against his shoulder.
“I talked with Uncle Sirus just before we left the reception. He told me that he got in touch with his underground contacts. He mentioned that a ship will be sent here in the next month to pick up Nathan and the others who have the ability to manipulate dreams.” She could sense his thinking and added, “You want to go with them, don’t you?”
“Yes. I learned a lot just by what my mother taught me when I sent you the healing dream. I’ve been working with Nathan, too. He says I’m getting better every day. He’s confident that I can at least be a back-up.”
“I’m going with you, if you’re leaving the planet for awhile. You may need someone who’s experienced about traveling to other planets to guide you,” she said with a hint of challenge.
Karrick chuckled. “There’s no way I would go without you. I need you to advise me and I’d miss you too damn much, in any case. It’s downright amazing how I survived thirty-two years without you to watch over my every step.”
Amanda relaxed. “Yes, it was quite a miracle,” she replied, her eyes twinkling. She climbed off his lap and held her hand out to him. “Back to bed, Beast, and this time let’s try to get some sleep. We have lots to do before we go.”
“I love you, Amanda.” He stood up and gazed once again at the expanse of stars. “I want this to be a galaxy where someday our children will be welcome to go to all the worlds habitable by humankind.”
Amanda looked up at Karrick, her heart full of pride and love for this noble man. He would do what he felt was right no matter the risk, and she would be there, as his partner and lover. The risks were enormous but so were the rewards.
Karrick grasped her hand and together they stepped toward the future.
The End
About the author:
Cynthia Williams loves to write romance; her favorite worlds to play in are science fiction and paranormal. She is happily married to her hero, although she does share him (but only in writing!) through some of the characteristics of her story heroes. You guess which ones.
Cynthia lives in Minnesota, in a house built at the height of the atom bomb scare in the 50’s. When the writing bug bites, you can find her in her home’s bomb shelter—a room surrounded by three-foot thick steel-reinforced concrete. It may not be much real protection if the big one ever hits, but it sure is quiet and the perfect place to let her imagination run free.
Cynthia welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at P.O. Box 787, Hudson, Ohio 44236-0787.
Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.
www.ellorascave.com
Beast of Dreams Page 21