Vladen always followed up his quick assessment of Ulla by asking about Lynx, which made Bonnie wonder if he knew more than he let on. Perhaps he had seen something on the scanner.
“How's that Zetithian boy?” he would say—still referring to him as a boy. Bonnie thought he might have been right about that; perhaps Lynx had never truly grown up. She tried to imagine what she would be feeling, what kind of psychological scars she would carry with her always, had she been in a similar situation, and came to the conclusion that no one could overcome them unless they had their memory erased. Vladen had already suggested that the problem was either Bonnie or Lynx's nose, but it went much deeper than that. One thing was certain; the cookie dough ploy would never work again.
Lynx kept the equipment running smoothly and together they brought in Bonnie's best grain harvest ever. The storage side of the shed was full, and there were buyers lined up for all that she didn’t need for her own livestock. Zuannis had put in a large order for grain to make her bread, and Bonnie was looking forward to visiting her. It might have been a Twilianan bakery, but to Bonnie, it smelled every bit as heavenly as her favorite bakery on Earth. In anticipation of that sale, though it was a bit risky of her when she expected Lynx to resign each and every day, she bought some fencing materials and decided to have a go at capturing more enocks.
For this, she needed Lynx's assistance, and when Bonnie told him how she and Sylor had done it, while he might have thought it was suicidal—which was Bonnie's own opinion—no one could have guessed it from his neutral expression.
To catch an enock required a speeder that would fly about two meters off the ground carrying the weight of two people, as well as that of an adult enock—who tended to weigh in at about seventy-five kilos—suspended in a net beneath it. The speeder Sylor had taken could do it, but Bonnie wasn’t so sure about the other one.
Lynx wasn’t either. “It will not fly that high with the added weight,” he said flatly. “The enock will be dragged and possibly injured—but I may be able to modify the speeder.”
“That’d be great!” Bonnie said. “That fruit the enocks like so well is nearly ripe now, and pretty soon they’ll be thick under the rabasha trees.”
“Where are the trees?” he asked.
“You know that little grove in the northwest corner of the wheat field? Those are the rabashas.” Bonnie had never gathered the fruit herself, mainly because the enocks would have attacked her, but also because the fruit smelled like it was rotting even when it wasn’t. Why the enocks liked it so well was beyond her comprehension, but then, they liked dead rats, too.
Lynx nodded, saying that he would see to it, leaving Bonnie to assume that he intended to work on the speeder, and a few days later, he started work on the new enock pen.
Not long after that, he knocked on the door one morning and asked Bonnie to come and pick out which enocks she wanted to keep.
“What do you mean, which ones I want to keep?”
“There are a great many of them,” he replied. “You can be… selective.”
Gazing back at him with a doubtful eye, she said, “Show me.”
A walk out to the new pen was all it took to demonstrate his brilliantly simple plan. There were about thirty enocks of all sizes in there, munching away on a big pile of rabasha fruit. The stench was incredible, but from the look of it, the fruit wouldn’t last long.
“So, how did you manage to gather up the fruit without getting yourself killed?” she asked.
“I built a fence around the grove to keep them out,” he replied.
Bonnie shook her head, saying ruefully, “And then you just gathered it all up and lured the enocks in here with it.”
He nodded. “It seemed simpler than catching them one at a time.”
Bonnie started laughing then and didn’t stop until tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Sylor was such an ass!” she exclaimed when she could speak again. “Always looking for the most exciting way of doing anything! When I think of all the times we nearly got ourselves killed catching those damn things with the speeder…” She paused, staring at the flock of enocks in awe. “What an absolutely brilliant idea!”
Then another problem occurred to her. “You said I could be selective,” she reminded him. “We only need one male in each pen. How do we get the other males out of there?”
Lynx had a plan for that too. “The females are attracted to my purring,” he said. “I will lure them into the feeding area and then open the main pen with this,” he said, holding up a remote control he had rigged to open the gate, “and when all but one of the males is out, I will close it again.”
“But if you’re outside the pen, how will you keep from being attacked?”
“The males will not attack me if I give them more of the fruit.”
“Or dead rats,” she suggested. Gazing up at Lynx with frank admiration, Bonnie felt a strong desire to hug him—stronger than usual, that is—but somehow managed to suppress the urge. “I knew the enocks were more docile when you purr, but I didn’t realize that the females were actually attracted by it. Seems women of all species take to you, Lynx,” she remarked. She started to add, “Too bad you don’t return the favor,” and nearly had to bite her tongue off in an effort to leave those words unsaid.
A moment later, she was glad she’d managed to keep her mouth shut because, to her complete surprise, Lynx responded with the most naturally male gesture she’d yet to see him use. Shrugging his shoulders in a rather self-deprecating fashion, a hint of a smile touched his lips, making him appear to be almost pleased. Bonnie thought she might pass out from the shock, and it made her wish she’d been looking at Lynx instead of the enocks when she’d referred to his idea as being brilliant.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before Bonnie was sure she’d imagined all of it. He’d leaned toward her for the briefest instant before his face quickly became the same unreadable mask as always. If any woman had ever really seen him smile, Bonnie was certain that it must have been Ulla—and it also had to have been when no one else was looking. Her feeling of disappointment was like a swift slice right to the bone, and this time, she couldn’t keep the words to herself.
“Oh, please, don’t spoil it,” she whispered softly as she turned away from him. Taking a deep breath to ease the pain in her heart, Bonnie leaned against the fence and stared blankly at the ground. “You’ve done a great job here, Lynx,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “I’ll have to pay you a big, fat bonus— maybe triple your usual salary.”
Bonnie looked up in time to note that his wooden expression had been replaced with one of utter mystification. She didn’t even want to attempt to explain. It was too damned hard.
Lynx had just gone through such a range of emotions that he didn’t know what he was feeling. Her praise had washed over him like a balm, and his initial impulse was to gather her up in his arms and kiss her. He’d been about to do just that when the knowledge that he couldn’t—or shouldn’t—do anything of the kind had slammed into him like a hammer. However, Bonnie hadn’t taken more than two steps toward the house when Lynx did something he hadn’t done in months. He actually touched her. Grabbing hold of her arm, he spun her around to face him, fully intending to kiss her like she’d never been kissed before.
Glaring up at him, she said, “What's the matter? Won’t money be enough?—or do you only want my firstborn child?”
He gaped at her as though she’d slapped him. “I—yes, the money will be more than enough—you do not need to—”
“Then let go of me!” Bonnie growled, gripping his arm to push him away with her free hand. She felt something there—something familiar, yet also something that shouldn’t have been necessary for someone like him. It took a moment for Bonnie's brain to register the implications and then she froze, staring at him in disbelief. “You lied to me!” she whispered fiercely.
Lynx looked completely bewildered. “I have not.”
“Yes, you have
!” she insisted. “‘I cannot be your lover,’ you said! That's bullshit! Here I’ve been feeling sorry for you and thinking that the way you dote on Ulla, you must want children of your own more than anything in the world, and you’ve got one of those things in your arm!” Bonnie wished she’d paid more attention to some of Jack's more colorful expressions, because they would have come in handy, but just then, she couldn’t think of anything bad enough to call him. “Impotent, my foot! An impotent man wouldn’t need something like that!”
“Do you mean this?” he asked, touching the inside of his upper arm. “It was placed there when I was enslaved. I—I was told never to remove it. I have never known its purpose.”
Bonnie stared at him in disbelief. “What kind of back-world moron do you think I am?” she demanded. “Granted, they’re a bit antiquated, but lots of guys still use them.”
His baffled expression was downright ludicrous, which led Bonnie to conclude that Lynx was either a darn good actor or he was telling her the truth.
“Do you mean to say that you really don’t know?”
He nodded apprehensively.
“It's a form of birth control, Lynx,” she explained. “Sylor had one when I first met him—and let me tell you, it took some doing to talk him into having it removed! It makes men sterile—you can still function normally, but you sure as hell won’t father any children!”
Lynx blinked a couple of times and started to speak, but no words came out. Bonnie had never seen a man look so completely shattered—like he was about to rupture something vital, or already had. Still gripping her arm, he held her away from him for a long moment, and then bent over at the waist, gasping for air before dropping to his knees with a groan.
Bonnie's first thought was that he was dying. It was rare, but humans had been known to die from shock— maybe Zetithians did it more often. How could she have known it would kill him?
“Lynx!” Bonnie cried. “Lynx, I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said it like that! Are you okay?”
“No,” he replied, his lips forming the word without his throat uttering a sound. Releasing the death grip he had on her arm, he fell forward, his arms stretched out in front of him as if in supplication. When he spoke again, his words were audible, but they were unintelligible—horrible, strangled sounds that disturbed even the enocks. Bonnie didn’t have any idea what to do, but Kipper stepped closer to him and tried to lick him in the face. Lynx didn’t even seem to notice.
Knowing that he always wanted to be left alone, Bonnie thought it best to leave him, but her feet seemed to be rooted to the ground. Taking Lynx by the shoulders and shouting his name in a desperate attempt to get his attention, Bonnie rolled him over onto his side.
Lynx was still muttering in an unknown language, his eyes staring straight ahead without focus, and though she had no idea what made her do it—actually, she was thinking of slapping him across the face to bring him to his senses—but perhaps knowing that she might not ever get another chance, Bonnie took his face in her hands and planted a firm kiss right on his warm, succulent lips.
Whoa, bad move, Bon-bon! was Bonnie's last thought as his arm flailed wildly and slammed against her jaw. Everything went black.
Lynx felt like the mass of the entire galaxy was pressing down on him. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even see what was right in front of his face. Anger, horror, and regret were all flooding through his mind at once, filling him with raw emotion. Something took hold of him, and he struck back at it blindly, not even knowing what it was. His mind was splitting apart; all that he had believed to be true before was now being cast aside by this new truth.
When the flood subsided at last, he heard a voice telling him to forget his past and to go on with his life. There was something else he had to do… he didn’t know what, but there was something… He was floating above his body, looking down on himself, lying in the grass next to another inert body.
Bonnie! he thought wildly. What have I done?
His essence fanned out and then condensed and dove back into his mind. Within moments, he could feel again, could see and hear, and could move his limbs. Pulling Bonnie into his arms he felt something settle in his chest; a feeling so completely alien to him that he couldn’t identify or even begin to describe it.
Remorse and regret filled him, soon to be replaced by anger—at himself and at everyone else. He could now see what his suppressed rage had been doing to him—causing him to lash out against everyone around him. Everyone but small children too innocent to understand contempt. He had always been kind to Ulla; there was nothing for her to forgive, but Bonnie was a different story…
Lynx had vowed not to become indebted to her, had captured a whole herd of enocks to make certain of it, but, in truth, there was nothing he could do for her, nothing he could give her that could outweigh the debt he already owed her, which was nothing less than his life.
Chapter 12
LYNX HAD KNOCKED HER OUT COLD, BUT WHEN BONNIE came to her senses, Lynx had obviously come to his, and, better yet, he was holding her in his arms. Not purring, perhaps, but definitely holding her. Bonnie lay with her eyes closed, doing her best not to reach up and rub her jaw. She had no intention of jumping up and yelling at Lynx for hitting her, since it had been accidental, anyway; all she wanted to do was to lie there and enjoy it, pain and all. Bonnie could feel his warmth, feel him breathing, and hear his heart beating. She wondered how long she could feign unconsciousness before he became suspicious. Not long, she decided, since her “desire” must have been almost to the smellable phase by then. She tried to think about something else.
Vladen! Vladen must have seen the implant on his scan and, therefore, it would never have occurred to him that Lynx would have had any performance difficulties when it came to sex. He must also have assumed that Lynx understood its purpose and would ask to have it removed if he and Bonnie ever intended to have a child together. Bonnie knew that anything physical would have shown up; she had never heard of one of those scans missing much of anything; they would even light up for an ingrown toenail.
Bonnie tried to visualize vicious enocks and rotten peaches and anything else she could think of to kill her desire, but it was probably already too late. Her only hope was that he might assume it was some sort of residual scent and not drop her like a hot potato. Even knowing the risks, Bonnie couldn’t seem to stop herself and shifted closer to him, her ear pressed against his chest. She listened to his heart—still beating rapidly, but slowing down as he relaxed. Bonnie fought the urge to sigh and forced her hands to remain where they were, though this wasn’t too much of a hardship, since one of them lay across his outstretched thigh.
Lynx began to whisper, but she couldn’t understand him. It could have been Zetithian or Paemayan, for all she knew. Bonnie didn’t know which one would come more naturally to him, but it didn’t matter. The fact that she couldn’t understand him left her free to imagine what he might be saying. He could have been whispering words of love—his voice certainly sounded soft and tender—or he could have been beseeching whatever god he worshiped to deliver him from the evil that was womankind.
Bonnie was finding it difficult to pretend to be out cold while trying very hard not to cry, but her tears gave her away as they ran down his chest. She knew the moment he realized it, for his heart rate quickened abruptly, and she let out a sob, knowing that her moment of peace and joy had come to an end.
“Are you okay now?” she asked, surprised that she was able to move her jaw enough to speak—and also that her voice sounded reasonably normal.
“I should be the one asking you that,” he said. “You are the one who was hurt—not I.”
“Not really,” Bonnie disagreed. “You’ve already been hurt more in your lifetime than I could possibly imagine.”
“I have rarely been injured,” he said stiffly.
No, Bonnie thought grimly, just practically fucked to death. “Yeah, well, pain isn’t always physical.”
Lynx shifted his weight behind her, and Bonnie knew her little respite was over. Bowing to the inevitable, she sat up. She felt slightly light-headed, and her jaw ached like an enock had kicked her, but she stood up anyway. Turning around, she looked down at him, sitting there in the grass.
“I am sorry you were hurt,” he said, his voice slightly softer. “It was not… intentional.”
“I know that,” Bonnie sighed. Looking over at the pen she noticed that the enocks had eaten nearly all the rabasha fruit. “Thanks again for the enocks,” she said lightly. “I’ll pay you that bonus as soon as I can.”
He nodded but didn’t look up. “Whatever you wish,” he said in a wooden voice. “It does not matter to me.”
Bonnie didn’t think much of anything mattered to him, and she wondered why he’d gone to all that trouble and built all those fences. Was it only because she’d asked? Or because he wanted to prove something? God only knows, she thought wearily. I certainly never will.
When Bonnie returned to the house, Ulla was awake and screaming her hungry little head off. Bonnie picked her up, gave her a big hug and a smooch, got a charming chuckle out of her when she tickled Ulla's tummy, changed her diaper, and then sat down to feed her. That was one nice thing about breast-feeding: it gave her plenty of time to ponder just about anything.
Poor Lynx! She’d already told him she loved him, and now she’d kissed him! She rubbed her jaw, wondering if it was truly worth the pain, and came to the conclusion that it probably was. First her right arm, and now a few loose teeth—not to mention the nearly continuous heartache. The old sages hadn’t been kidding when they said love hurts. They knew exactly what they were talking about.
Sylor had hurt her, too, but at least he’d left her Ulla. Gazing down at her daughter's adorable little face, Bonnie felt all the motherly love a woman was capable of and knew that Lynx looked at Ulla in almost the same way. Lucky little Ulla, she thought. You’ve got two of us to love you. Too bad it can’t all be hearts and flowers.
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