He wanted to lock her away and keep her totally to himself.
Dev’s eyes narrowed, jealousy kindling flame hot in his chest as he recalled Nnora’s instinctive reactions around his men.
She was his, by Deth! He would allow no one to come between them…not if he could help it!
That quickly, he made up his mind. The seesaw of indecisiveness slowed and stopped. He pushed away from the door and stalked over to Nnora, halting only when their bodies were almost touching.
“I’m sorry, Nippa, I should have told you the full truth about the marriage contracts.” He caught and held his mate’s gaze. “Perhaps we could have avoided this present situation.”
“Why didn’t you?” She maneuvered to widen the space between them without actually backing away.
He shrugged, moving a few steps forward to counteract her uneasy withdrawal. “I took one look at you, and any vestige of sense flew out my head. The only remaining thought dictated that I make you mine at any cost. I could not…” he closed his eyes, heaved a sigh “…cannot let you go.”
She backed up again, lips lifting in a snarl. “You called me a liar, yet you lied to me…repeatedly. How am I supposed to trust you?”
He advanced. “I admit to withholding information, but I did not lie.”
She retreated. “I consider it the same thing. You deceived me!”
He feinted. “I am now willing to tell you everything if you are willing to listen with an open mind. I’ll even promise not to touch you while we talk.”
She parried. “Again, I don’t know that I can trust you to do as you say…”
He retreated. Verbally, anyway.
“You are wise not to trust me.” He relaxed his facial muscles, letting her see his contriteness, his knowledge of just how guilty he appeared in her sight.
“Where you are concerned, I am not to be trusted. For when I am this close to you, all I can think of is burying your beautifully long nipples in my chest and milking you dry. This time, I won’t stop with the seating.” He dropped his voice to a deep rumble. “I promised to fuck you deeply enough to feel your heart beating, but I ache for the emotional closeness as well, Nippa. I want to mate you…finish the journey we started in your bedroom and built upon in your quarters—mentally as well as physically.”
Nnora swallowed audibly, her pleasure at his frank words evident in the flushed color of her cheeks. “You’re talking what I would call marriage.”
“Yes. Bonding…marrying…mating…life-sharing…mutually exclusive rights… Whatever you call it, I want it with you.”
“Sweet talk will get you nowhere.”
He deliberately sniffed the air, and then met her eyes. “Your pussy says differently.”
“My pussy responds as it wills.” It was well that she did not deny what they both knew. “But it is my mind that controls my actions.”
He half-raised his hand to cradle her cheek, stopped short of making the tender connection. Curling the hand into a fist, he lowered it to his side with a rueful shake of his head. “I promised not to touch you while we talked, and I will abide by my word, hard as it is. But…oh, Nippa, how can you doubt the depths of my desire for you? Do you recall how hard I became in your eager hands, how heavy I grew with arousal? Remember how my body surrendered when you stroked me to completion?”
Nnora’s cheeks took on a darker hue as she searched his face. “I—I want to believe you.”
“Then listen to what I have to say. It is all I ask.”
Should she listen to him? Could anything possibly justify his actions? Nnora worried her top lip in indecision, debating. She closed her eyes against his potent appeal. In the dark space behind her closed lids, alone in her mind’s quiet place, she realized she wanted him to have logical, honest reasons for the way he had behaved. Drat!
“All right, Dev,” she heard herself say, inwardly praying her trust was not misplaced, “I’ll listen.” She had been silly enough to fall in love with him. She might as well be a total imbecile and let him have his say.
Chapter Fifteen
“I still cannot believe they would use chemical warfare against your females!” Even though Dohsan had explained, it seemed more horrifying hearing it from Dev’s lips. “How could anyone deliberately plan to destroy a people—their own people?”
“The Rb’nTraqshi felt they had no choice.” Dev heaved a despondent sounding sigh. “They no longer felt connected to us Rb’qarmshi. The war between us had dragged on for over two hundred years and they were losing badly, running out of replacement warriors to fuel their war-machine. Still, not all of the Rb’nTraqshi agreed to the plan. Unfortunately, the protesting Elders were either shouted down, voted out, or shut up…permanently. A few honorable Council members tried getting word out to us, but to no avail.” Though Dev’s voice was quiet, the air throbbed with his pain as he recalled those first, horrible days.
Nnora thought quietly, weighing the situation from all angles. “Is it true your doctors and scientists hold forth no hope? They have determined that all of your women were affected by the poisoning? None escaped?”
“None. As far as the scientists and doctors can tell, not one of our mature fem escaped the poison. They all suffer from the same symptom, namely, the inability to flower.”
From her conversation with Dohsan, she knew that meant the Rb’qarm and Rb’nTraq fem could not produce the wetness necessary to lubricate their pavas, as well as trigger the male’s olfactory system.
“Haven’t your doctors been able to discover a cure, find some substitute to alleviate that problem?” It seemed a simple enough problem, just synthesize the fragrance and lubricate the pavas. “I find it hard to believe a race so technologically advanced as yours is stumped over a problem of this nature.”
Dev nodded. “Our technological advances do not help with a biological problem such as this. All attempts at synthesis have failed.” Well, perhaps it wasn’t so simple. “Our fem—our mothers, sisters, aunts and cousins—are sterile, incapable of flowering. As they cannot stimulate us males, we cannot soften our terat to seat them. Without the seating, we are doomed.”
He got up and began to pace, his agitation evident in his stiff posture, clenched fists and stern visage. “You wondered about the liquid you secreted into my terat each time you came whilst being seated…”
Nnora nodded, wordlessly urging him to continue, wishing there were some way she could alleviate his pain.
“There is good reason it is called ‘the gift’. Without that fluid, our sperm is lifeless. It is essential to our sexuality. It will bond me to you and, once my body has transmuted the fluid, will in turn bond you to me through the injection of my sperm. As you found out, our sperm acts as an enhancer, an aphrodisiac to our women. In fact, over time, you will become addicted to my sperm, your body needing it to survive, as I will need your gifting.”
She tensed, sitting up straight on the bunk. Dohsan had left this part out of her lesson. “Does this mean I will die without your sperm? If you decide not to fuck me, I’m doomed?” A slightly queasy feeling settled in her belly as she contemplated what her life might be like, so completely dependent upon another person. Then she thought of Mom and Pop Brewster, how both seemed to be extensions of other. She knew for certain that neither one would long outlast the death of their partner; they were that connected.
He stopped his agitated pacing to stare at her, his expression of mixed horror and bemusement almost comical. “No, you will not die. First, I will never refuse to fuck you. Secondly…well, let me just say…you would not be the only one affected in a situation such as that. But if I were to stop for some reason—though I am told it can be extremely painful, it doesn’t end in death.” Then he grinned wickedly. “So, little Dohsan doesn’t know everything.”
“Thank goodness.” She drooped in relief. Being ready to commit is one thing. Facing the possibility of death from lack of fucking is another!
“As for Dohsan… She knows plenty about sex but
nothing about mating. My foster parents taught me that true marriage involves the bonding of two people into one. Isn’t it ironic that I had to leave Earth before I could experience that?”
Dev halted in his steps, his eyes lighting up. “Does that mean you—”
“Wait a moment!” She flung up a hand, cutting short his jubilation. “It means nothing until I hear the rest of the story.” On that, she would brook no argument.
His eyes dimmed and his shoulders slumped. He nodded, resuming his explanations…and his pacing.
“Our healers offer a very dim view of our race’s future. Thousands of our mated pairs have already died and our population has decreased to the point of negative birth rate. You see, they released the chemical through the nutrient chain. The poison targeted our fem by destroying one of their hormonal enzymes. It accomplished this by mutating the Rb’kylla plant, the food responsible for stimulating the growth of that enzyme. So far, our scientists have been as unable to duplicate the needed substance as they have the flowering. They fear there is no way to reverse the damage and we are facing a permanent, fatal situation.”
Nnora’s brow furrowed with the beginnings of a thought. An insistent, niggling, something familiar digging at her brain, trying to break through. It scattered at Dev’s next words.
“With one fell stroke, the enemy assured our demise as a people. Rb’qarmshi males cannot become sexually aroused without the exchange of pheromones. If our terat do not soften, we cannot gather the liquid that bonds us to our cherzda’va.”
She reached over and took Dev’s hand, her heart aching with the echo of his pain, sickened by the horrendous results of an age-long war. “What of the young girls, the babies? Do you think any of them might have escaped the chemical?”
“What young girls?” His tone was so bitter she nearly wept. “There have been no babes born for almost twenty years. Every fem has proven to be affected.
“There were no tests that measure whether a fem will enter pava and flower upon reaching her maturity. We waited with bated breath to see whether the children would prove to be fertile. Not one escaped the effects of the poison. As it stands now, our mature fem might as well be neuter, and we males with them. We may have won the war, but unless we can find a way to reverse the effects of the biological poisoning, we face extinction.” His voice was flat and dull, as though he had recited these same statistics too many times for the pain to bleed through.
“My people were desperate. The discovery of your colony has given us new hope, a way of realizing our dreams. To find fem—lots of mature, fertile fem willing to return to Rb’qarm as mates—has given us back our future. “
“We faced the same situation as you, only in the reverse.” How strange that seemingly random elements that brought the home-world and its lost colony to the same straights. “War is to blame for both our situations… Do you think there is a fatal flaw in our makeup…a gene on our DNA strand that prompts us to destroy ourselves?”
“I pray not.” Dev’s eyes grew bleak. He lifted his hands and then let them fall as he shrugged his shoulders. “I hope with all my heart that we have learned our lessons. I am fighting to forge a lasting peace between our two planets…and now, with your colony.”
“What happened to the perpetrators?” She hoped the retribution had been swift and painful.
Dev shook his head. A grimace, masquerading as a smile, marred his face as he came and sank down next to her. “Now that the results are known and it is too late for their sorrow to matter, our enemies—the few that are left—are appalled at the barbarism of their leaders’ action. Their punishment is to share our fate. You see, the Rb’kylla plant grows only upon Rb’qarm. In times past, before the war broke out, we imported the food to Rb’nTraq. During the war, their store of Rb’kylla diminished until they were forced to pay an exorbitant price for the smuggled goods.”
The ugly irony wasn’t lost on her. “In other words, your people were denying the Rb’nTraqi people the same enzyme, using it as a lever in your war. Faced with the same outcome that you now endure, they decided to make sure you shared in their fate. ‘Leveling the playing field’ is how we say it on Earth.”
Dev blinked. His face bore an arrested look. “I fear you are very much correct, Nippa.” His words came slow and measured as if he tested each one before speaking. “Why is it I am only seeing this, now? Why did it take your words to open my eyes to our own guilt? Our actions towards the Rb’nTraqi make us just as responsible for this current disaster as they are. This puts a whole new light on the negotiations and reparations talks. We have been grossly unfair to Rb’nTraqi. I am a fool, and unworthy to lead my people. What will become of our worlds?”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up.” She turned and ran her hands along Dev’s shoulders, working the tightness out of the heavy muscles and tendons as she spoke. “Look, I happen to think you are the best man for the job. The fact that you are willing to admit you can make mistakes tells me you will do whatever you can to rectify the situation. Your people are lucky in having such a leader.”
Dev turned to her, easing her hands off his shoulders and keeping hold of them. His grip was warm and encompassing, firm, as if he feared to let go.
She glanced down at their joined hands and then back up at Dev.
He quickly released her, scooting away until he had placed a foot between them, mumbling half under his breath, “Hands to yourself, Dev. Remember your word.”
She smiled. He was a good man. “I’ll forgive this instance, since I started it. Now, finish your report.”
He took a deep breath, slapped his hands on his thighs and pushed up from the bed. Standing at attention, he clasped his hands behind his back, looking for all the world like a boy in the principal’s office, awaiting punishment. “You will not like what I have to say next.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Then you’d best just get it said.” What could possibly be so bad he feared telling her? Leaning back on her hands, she waited for Dev to continue.
“When first we met, I told you of a planned attack…told you we discovered and captured the rebels before that attack took place—”
“Yes, go on.” She came erect. A dark feeling of dread swamped her limbs, making her body heavy, her head light. She prepared herself for the worst.
“In obedience to your father’s orders, I lied to you about that. Your father fell captive in that attack and the leader of the rebellion demanded we deliver you to him in order to save your father’s life.”
“Oh, my god,” Nnora gasped, feeling the blood leave her head in a rush. She sagged against the pillows, glad she hadn’t been standing when she received the unsettling news. “Is he…he’s not…?” She couldn’t force the word out her mouth.
Dev rushed back over to her, sweeping her into a tight embrace. “Nnora…Nippa,” he crooned as he rocked her back and forth, soothing her. “Be calm and fear not. Your father lives.
“Before the attack, he and I met and made plans, determined to break the back of this rebellion, once and for all. The Chyya would allow none but himself into danger. Despite your stepmother’s and my arguments, your father’s stubbornness won the day. My part was to get to you before the rebels could find you, whisk you away out of danger and coordinate my men’s counter-strike on the rebel base when I received the signal from your father. That signal met us when we arrived aboard ship.”
He paused and she waited, breathless, to hear the rest of it. Her mind reeled. Her father had been in deadly danger, and she had been kept ignorant of his peril. Anger roiled through her, joining her fear in the pit of her stomach.
“I sent the men as agreed upon. They rescued your father and captured all the rebels not killed during the retrieval exercise. At that point, I had promised to return you to Mars. Then the message from home came with these new troubles. It was imperative that I head back immediately. Your father objected.”
He stopped talking and met her gaze dead on. His eyes glowed iridescently gold
en orange, the mixture of colors a sure sign of inner agitation.
“Taking you from your apartment was no kidnapping, since I had your Chyya’s permission and request to remove you from danger. The kidnapping occurred once we were underway. Your father had begun talking about mating you to the rebel leader to ensure a lasting peace. We came seeking fem for mates, yet I had found more than a mate. I had found my heart’s home. How could I give you up?”
She blinked, speechless. She had no idea how to respond to the bombshells he was dropping.
Dev’s crooked smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “So your father had nothing to do with you being here, really, other than seeing to your safety. I am the sole culprit in this situation, Nippa.” He sighed heavily. “Know that I would do it all over again, even though this trip to Earth could not have come at a worst time.”
Her insecurities rushed to the surface. “Damn you!”
Dev pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. “Do not be so quick to hear insults where none are intended, Nnora. I do not regret our coming together at this time. The Creator which crafted us for each other planned this in His infinite wisdom. My regrets are that you are short-changed by these current troubles. I resent the calls on my duty for your sake. I have not been fair to you, and for this I say this trip is inconvenient.”
His words calmed her ruffled feathers. “Thank you for that. I feel much better.”
“The situation facing my people is volatile. If I am to avert disaster between the two worlds, I must be in close contact with both Rb’qarm and Rb’nTraq, able to move quickly should the balance of peace suddenly change. Yet, here I am, trying to placate you—kidnapping you and starting another war—when I should be on the spacial-relator, coordinating the thousand and one details needed to maintain the fragile peace. A peace, I might add, that I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life drafting. I don’t have the time for this.”
Swept Off Her Feet Page 17