by Marie Dry
“Are you sure they won’t accept boys?” Susannah had had such hope. He’d been so loving toward her. He’d even called Killer by his name twice now. She’d planned to tell Azagor the truth. “Azagor is searching for my s--cousin.”
“How old is he?”
“A year and three months.”
Silence descended, and the women exchanged glances before looking at her.
“They can be taught, with a lot of effort and patience, but they’re adamant about not bringing a human male, even a baby into their homes,” Julia said.
“You have to insist you want him staying with you, that not having him with you will make you very unhappy,” Margaret said, and Susannah had a feeling she knew more than she let on.
“I do believe they have the capacity to accept a boy baby, but getting past the initial moments, when their instincts would be to kill him will be difficult,” Natalie said. She twisted her hair and pulled. “We are dealing with centuries of customs.” She lowered her voice. “When I first met Zacar, he saw a sick baby on the TC, and he asked me why the baby wasn’t killed.”
“Do you have children?” Julia asked.
“No.” It was true. She had no children to shower with love. She’d thought her heart broken in so many pieces when they took Noah from her that nothing could ever hurt that much again. Knowing Azagor would never accept her son, even thinking he was her cousin, fractured her heart into even smaller pieces.
“Auntie Susannah, can we bathe Killer, please?”
“Yes, but the water has to be warm, but not scalding, and he doesn’t like to be in too deep. And remember, you have to speak softly and handle him with care.”
While she told them what to do, all she could think was that her son would never have this. He wouldn’t get the same acceptance as her dog. Natalie produced a bowl so beautiful, it was hard to believe that she’d allow Killer to take a bath in it. She also produced a shampoo she said would be soft enough for Killer.
Susannah spent the rest of the afternoon talking to the other women, in a daze, and trying to hide how much she hurt. The little girls insisted Viglar had to clone dogs for them too. Susannah didn’t know what cloning was and didn’t ask because she didn’t want to feel ignorant.
***
Azagor stopped in the doorway of Natalie’s living room. It was unheard of for a warrior to approach with other breeders in a room, but many things had changed since Natalie hit Zacar with her twig. The two small human females carefully washed Killer with two human tooth brushes.
They giggled and cooed over him while Killer regally sat in what looked like Natalie’s soup dish. The only reason Azagor knew what it was, was because she’d tried to make him eat the vile stuff once during one of her strange lunches.
Killer saw him and jumped up, putting his paws on the rim of the dish. The world around Azagor disappeared, and all he saw was those stick-like legs. One fall and Killer would break a leg. Now he knew why Susannah handled him with such care.
Turning on his heels, he left before any of the breeders saw him. He had to speak to Viglar. He found Viglar and Madison fighting, Madison shouting at the top of her lungs, “You do not kill a man for something he did as a child.”
“He harmed my breeder.”
“It was more than twenty years ago. Get over it,” she screamed and stormed away.
“You have to strengthen Susannah’s rat now.”
“Come back tomorrow,” Viglar barked at him.
Azagor returned to Natalie’s home. If Viglar wasn’t prepared to do the gene therapy tomorrow, he would be one sore warrior.
He didn’t glance at the other women or speak to them. Natalie greeted him, and he nodded, his eyes on Susannah. She tried to look normal, but he knew something was wrong.
Without a word to him, she collected Killer and said goodbye to the others.
In their home, she came to a stop and stared around. Everything she’d looked at on the TC was right there. The couch covered in a beautiful blue, the carpet with its beautiful patterns, barstools against the counter. And it didn’t mean a thing to her if Noah wouldn’t be welcome here.
She went over to the barstools and sat with her elbows on the counter, her face in her hands. She tried to find the words to tell him who Noah was.
Maybe they should do the first knowing before she told him. Joseph had always been more mellow when Cousin Ruth took him to their room. That was how Killer got to stay. Susannah was ashamed of even considering that, but she was desperate.
He came to stand next to her, wrapped her braid around his claw. “What is wrong, Susannah?”
How could he be this caring and then turn around and refuse to have Noah in his home? He’d said he’d find him, and she’d trusted him to bring her son here. To accept him. She knew nothing good ever came of trusting those closest to you, and, still, she’d trusted him.
“I’m worried about Noah,” she said after the uncomfortable silence stretched too long.
“I will find him.” He stroked her hair where it fell over her shoulder. “Tell me what is wrong? Did the breeders say something that upset you?” He kissed her.
“It’s daylight,” she murmured against his lips.
“The best time to give my breeder pleasure.” He kissed her once more, a gentle lingering kiss.
“I want this to be the first knowing,” she blurted
He pulled back slightly and stared down at her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“After the first knowing, I will not bargain hours.”
“All right.” She didn’t know what he meant by that and didn’t care. “I want to touch you, too.” She wanted to have this one night of pleasure. If he refused to let Noah live with them, she’d leave. But she wanted something from him to remember.
“The first knowing is for you. After that, I will allow you to touch me.”
Her eyes dipped, and she bit her lip hard. She’d peeked when he had the fever.
“I am a normal size. We will fit perfectly,” he said, as if he’d read her mind.
“I don’t think so.” Still, she wanted to do this. Her body ached for him to fill the strange emptiness inside. Please let my trust in him be justified.
“Natalie and Julia fit with their warriors.”
She felt her eyes become big and round. “You talk to each other about it.”
“Of course. We want to know how to please our breeders.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. The way he made her feel when he touched her like that still disturbed her, but she’d accept it.
“If we do the first knowing I will do it my way. I will not enter your body until you are ready for me.”
“I don’t understand what that means.” Though she was beginning to have an idea. She pressed her hands against her burning cheeks. “Can we please not talk about it? It’s just not right to talk about relations.”
Every night, when he kissed and petted her, her body became wet between her legs, and she felt a need, an emptiness only he could fill. It still bothered her that her body had never responded like that to Caine.
He cocked his head and stared down at her with crimson, passion, fire, and blood in his gaze. “A female has to be prepared before a warrior can enter her body. If she is not carefully prepared, she will feel much pain.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Why won’t you listen?”
When he said such things to her, her body changed. Wanted.
“You are afraid of the things your body feels. We have to talk about that so that I know how not to hurt you. Do you understand why your body should be ready for mine?”
“No, it’s not. I’m a decent woman. I shouldn’t feel these things,” she wailed. She didn’t know why she argued with him when she’d decided to accept everything they did together.
He picked her up and put her down on the bed and arranged her with her hands above her head.
He stepped out of his clothes, came to her naked and beautiful.
He undid her braid and arranged her hair around her head on the pillow.
“Your hair is like the most expensive Aurelian silk.”
“Thank you.”
“You must not talk or move. I am learning your body.”
She blurted out the truth. “Noah is my son.”
Chapter 15
Azagor stilled, his body heavy on hers. The room that was always comfortably warm suddenly chilled, and she shivered. Susannah half expected ice to form on the walls around them. The crimson passion in his eyes drained away until he stared down at her with eyes reflecting nothing and, at the same time, death. They flashed from crimson passion to death black in the lengthening silence.
“Azagor, please say something.”
Slowly, deliberately, he rolled away from her, and the rejection in that action was like a slap. “Repeat that.”
Anger, insidious and dangerous, used his voice to filter into the room. He stood.
Susannah wanted to plead with him, but all she could do was stare up at him. “Noah is my son.”
“Why did you tell me he was your cousin?”
She rolled over and sat up to face him. “I thought--I thought if you knew he was my son, you wouldn’t help me find him.”
“You did not trust me with the truth.”
She stood as well. “Would you have agreed to find him for me, if you’d known he was my son?”
The silence lengthened, the white walls around them reflecting the coldness in his black gaze back at her. “I do not know,” he said at last.
“I should’ve told you the truth, and you should’ve been willing to find Noah, no matter who he was to me. You have no idea what they are capable of. Please, you have to understand, I was desperate.”
He stood in front of her, a naked, male, savagely beautiful, alien, with no mercy in his flickering red and cold black eyes. His pronounced cheekbones, with the hollow shadows now reminded her of sharpened blades. “I understand that you lied to me, wanted to do the first knowing to use me as your bloodhound.”
She held out her arms that had felt empty from the day she gave birth to Noah. “I held him in my arms only once, just once, before they took him.”
“Why did they take him?”
“I wasn’t married to Caine and, to my people, that is the worst sin. They believe Noah is tainted.”
“You had a first knowing with this Caine.” He stepped into his uniform, loomed over her.
“It was before I knew you. I won’t apologize for loving him. You and Joseph will not make me ashamed of loving a good man.”
“Do not make me the same as Joseph.”
“You don’t want me to have my baby, and he punished me for trying to leave the farm and find Noah. So what’s the difference between you?”
“I agreed to find your Noah.”
Find him, he didn’t say bring him here, into his house. She rubbed her heart. It ached, as if someone had punched it repeatedly. “Please try to understand, Azagor, I don’t know what happened to him. Is he warm, and safe, do they feed him? They punished me for giving birth to him.”
“He put you in the pit, whipped you.”
“Yes, but that’s not important now. I lied to you, yes, and I tried to manipulate you with this first knowing, but what you don’t realize is that I would do anything for him. Anything. I’ll lie and steal and sleep with anyone who will help me find Noah.”
His claws lengthened, and he took a step away from her. That should’ve reassured her, but that step away from her was more frightening than if he’d charged her. “You only wanted to do the first knowing with me because of Noah.” He spat out the words, his incisors lengthening as well.
“Yes, Noah was part of it, but I want you as well.” She hated that Joseph’s teachings had been imprinted on her so firmly, she struggled to speak of such things when it was so important now.
“I will keep you as my breeder, but I will not accept another male into my dwelling.” Now he stalked her, came toward her with a purpose that scared her silly.
“But you agreed to search for him before.”
“I was going to find him and take him to the orphanage that Margaret built. It is a good place, and I would have allowed you to visit him every day.”
How did she not realize that was his intention all along? Now Margaret’s insistence that she talk to Azagor about it made sense. “You said you’d find him. I thought--I thought he’d be welcome here. That you’d teach him clever things. Teach him to be different from Brother Joseph.”
He pressed his forehead against hers, and it made a mockery of all the times he did it before. “Will you still do the first knowing with me, now that I will not be your bloodhound?”
Susannah stared up at him, and her heart broke. Please don’t make me have to choose between Noah and my warrior. Surely after everything, she wouldn’t be forced to choose between her baby and the man who was winning more of her heart each day. Maybe this was her punishment for lusting after an alien, for having relations with Caine. She pushed those thoughts aside. She would not be ruled by Joseph’s narrow views.
He cupped her shoulders, drew her toward him. “Kiss me, breeder, show me what you are willing to do to convince me to bring another male into my dwelling.” Gone was the tenderness he’d shown her from the beginning. Now suddenly it was his dwelling. And yet, she thought, there was pain beneath his savage words. The same pain that shredded her heart.
“Will you kiss me with tongue?” He pulled her up, held the back of her head in his large hand, his fingers lost in her hair and kissed her, an open-mouthed forceful, terrible kiss.
“Mmph, stop.” Susannah kicked his shins and cried out.
He lifted his head, stared down at her, and then shut down. He never had much expression on his face. Mostly, she read him by the tone of his voice or how much of his teeth he flashed. Now there was no way to read him. “You will only kiss me with tongue if I find Noah for you? Another man’s blood? A human’s blood?”
“I have to find him Azagor. I don’t think anyone will care for him. They condemned me for having different eyes, said I had evil in me. Can you imagine what they will do to a helpless baby born out of wedlock who has different eyes?” She silently willed him to understand.
She cupped his cheeks, and he shook off her touch. Susannah bit her trembling lips. Something dangerous came off him in red hot waves, but when she tried to step away from him he held her against him with one taut arm around her middle. “Why didn’t you leave to find this blood of another male when they left?”
“I tried to leave, to find him. Five times and each time they caught me.”
“What did they do when they caught you?”
She desperately searched for any kind of warmth or understanding in his eyes, but he was closed to her--as if everything in the last month meant nothing to him. Was there any way to make him understand how helpless and angry and scared she’d felt until he gave her hope when he agreed to find Noah? “I’ve never been off the farm. I barely had food to eat, let alone credits. Where do I start looking? What if he’s not even within walking distance from the farm?” She swallowed back tears of hopelessness. This wouldn’t stop her. If she had to, she’d crawl on her hands and knees to find the farm where they kept him prisoner. “I tried, I kept trying to get off the farm, and when they left me, I knew I would never find him by myself. They knew it too, that’s why they left me.” She sagged. “My only chance to get him was to pay someone to find him.”
“You captured me to get credits?”
“Yes, I have come to--to like you, Azagor, but Noah is helpless, and he’s my responsibility. I have to put him first.” She walked to the door, paused there. “Do you realize how terrible it is to know that you are willing to accept my dog in your home, but not my son?” She ran to the living room and sank down on the couch, pulling a sleepy Killer onto her lap.
“Why are you making tears?” He sat down on the couch next to her. That cold dange
rous vibe didn’t vibrate off him anymore.
He spoke perfect English most of the time and, at times like this, she was reminded of the fact that he wasn’t human. Was it wrong of her to expect him to react like a human male? Except the only human males she’d known were her father, Joseph, and Caine. Her father had agreed with Joseph’s teachings, and she barely gotten to know Caine before he died. Thinking back, it was strange to realize she’d had relations with him.
She didn’t even realize that tears were streaming down her cheeks. She swiped it off with angry motion. “Why wouldn’t I ‘make tears’? The man I lo--the man I thought had come to care for me refuses to have my baby in his home.”
“No warrior would allow another man’s blood in his dwelling.”
“Alissa and Mirabelle are welcome.” Surely if Zurian, who was truly scary looking could accept Mirabelle, Azagor could accept Noah.
“Females, who are not a threat to the safety of every blood in the dwelling.”
“How can a tiny baby be a threat to you?” What kind of society did they live in on his planet?
He sat in silence, but the way he took her hair and wound a string of it around his forefinger made her heartbeat speed up.
“Please talk to me. You can’t consider Noah a threat. Human babies are not strong.” Fear grabbed her by the throat. Ruth’s baby had died when he was two. All the cousins said it was hard to get a baby safely through the first four years. “Do you also believe he was born in sin? That he and I are beyond redemption?” She had to know. If he thought that, she’d have to leave, no matter how much that thought frightened her. She’d seen the town in the distance when she’d stood on the cliff. Surely she’d be able to find work there.
He wound more of her hair around his finger. “No.”
She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “I will endure the first knowing right now if you’d keep your promise to find him.” She closed her eyes. That had slipped out from sheer desperation.
His hand tightened around her hair. “My breeder will never endure the first knowing.”