Call and Response

by Sara Rustan

  Janeth had a hard time keeping the surprise off her face. She hadn’t expected him to know anything about the Shenkiloi. “My people? I don’t understand you. I’m a normal Alliance citizen.”

  “You may be an Alliance citizen—though I doubt it—but you’re definitely not of normal Alliance stock.” He steepled his hands. “We keep records of all empaths over level two, and you’re at least level seven.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t bother to deny it. We’ve been hoping to meet up with one of you in person for a while now. So far we’ve become aware of you only after you’d already moved on.” He held up a hand to forestall interruption. “We would like you to convey an offer to your people to discuss working together on certain…problems, such as the empathic entity on Dragnath.” He handed her a portable document reader. “Here is the essence of our offer. Take your time reading it over.”

  Janeth looked in confusion at the reader in her hand, and then at Tom, who shrugged. “I’m still not sure what you’re talking about, but I’ll read your document.”

  “That’s all that I ask,” Joff said. He waved his hand at the door. “Relax and enjoy the trip. Our first stop will be in four days. I’ll talk to you and your husband later.”

  Husband? She turned her head sharply to look at Tom, who tapped his lips to tell her not to say anything. She closed her gaping mouth, and nodded to Joff in farewell. She didn’t trust her voice.

  As soon as they were alone in her—their?—cabin, Janeth turned to Tom with a scowl to demand an explanation. But before she could even open her mouth, she was in his arms, his mouth on hers. Her traitorous body melted. His rich, masculine taste flooded her mouth, and the thrust of his tongue made her knees weak.

  He scooped her into his arms, carried her two steps, and rolled her onto the bed, ending with him on top. The weight of his body and the ridge of his erection made it hard to remember what she wanted to talk about.

  He murmured, “Do you know it’s been almost thirty-six hours since we last made love? That’s way too long.”

  She twisted her head away from the lips that nibbled her neck. “Tom, stop. Why did that man refer to you as my husband?”

  He sighed and rested his chin on his fist. “I should have known you’d insist on talking first.” He rocked his cock against her clit, and she couldn’t help whimpering. “Sure we can’t put this off for an hour or so?”

  “No. We can’t.”

  He rolled off her. “Fine. If you insist, we’ll do this now.”

  “Why husband?”

  “Remember what I said about as close to the truth as possible? We’re married by the rules of your people. I am your husband. So that’s what I told him. It also gives you some protection, since I’m an Alliance citizen and an employee of AIA.”

  Janeth wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the ceiling. “Darian told you.”

  “I figured it out on my own. I just confirmed with your brother.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t read his emotions, and was paralyzed by the lack of information. She wanted to stay with Tom—she wanted it so much that it hurt—but if he didn’t really want her and stayed only out of a sense of…of duty, or obligation, that would be much, much worse.

  She could see him rub his temples from the corner of her eye. “Janeth, you lied to me. You didn’t tell me that you might go crazy or even die if I left you.”

  “Darian told you that, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t lie…exactly. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth. Besides, most people don’t die.”

  “Ten percent is an awfully big risk to take.” He sighed. “You know, Janeth, sometimes not telling the whole truth is worse than a lie.”

  “I did it for you! I didn’t give you a choice when I changed you. If I had told you what might happen to me, it would have taken away your freedom to choose again. How could you walk away freely if you knew what it meant?”

  “That’s right. Don’t you see that by concealing that information you were taking away my ability to make a correct choice?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “What if I had fallen in love with you but needed to take some time to wrap up my affairs before coming back? And I returned to find you dead? Did you think what that would have done to me?”

  Her face blanched. “Oh, goddess. I was just thinking…”

  “You were thinking that you, by yourself, would make everything right.” He shook his head. “I love that impetuous nobility of yours, Janeth, but sometimes you need to work with people, not try to do it all by yourself.”

  He pulled her into his arms, and she buried her face in his chest. Impetuous nobility. That was a nice way to put it. Her parents had always said she never looked before she leaped.

  “If I hadn’t rushed off to rescue my brother by myself…”

  “I assume you were told not to go?”

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

  “That must have been like waving a red flag at a horned bovid, huh?”

  “More or less.”

  “Well, it did work out in the end, so don’t waste too much time beating yourself up about it.”

  “But if I had stayed at home, I wouldn’t have ruined your life and—”

  “Hush. You didn’t ruin my life.” He chuckled. “In fact, you’ve given me much greater empathic abilities than I had before. That’s priceless.”

  “Except that all of our empathic abilities are gone now. Maybe if you’re lucky, the connection to me will be gone, too.”

  “Oh, Janeth. What should I do with you?” He gave her a little shake. “Do you really think I’d find that lucky?”

  “Of course. You were angry at the connection. You should be happy it’s gone.”

  “Let me correct you. I was angry that you didn’t tell me what would happen if we made love. Once I got over having a tantrum about that, I enjoyed the connection with you a great deal.” He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

  He hadn’t said he loved her, but neither had she. She did love him, she believed. But even if she loved him, how could they make a life together? And if her empathy didn’t return… Well, how could two people without empathy be Shenkiloi mates? It was impossible. No empathy, no marriage.

  She whimpered in frustration. “I can’t tell how you’re really feeling. It’s like being blind, deaf, and dumb.”

  “Welcome to the world that most people live in.”

  “But how can you make decisions without knowing how other people feel?”

  “You talk to them. You tell them the truth. You believe what they tell you. You take a running leap and jump blind. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. But if you never trust that someone loves you, you’re not really living.” He tilted up her chin and moved his lips gently over hers. “It’s really not that different even for empaths, is it? You have to trust that irritation or anger is just a passing emotion, that it’s like a summer storm that passes by.”

  He was right. There were challenges to maintaining a happy mating between empaths. But she liked knowing how people were feeling. It was the world she was familiar with. She was crippled without it.

  Tom flicked her nose. “See. It’s perfectly possible to communicate without empathy, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But I still want my empathy back.”

  He pressed his body on top of hers. “Are we done talking now?”

  “How can we be together? You work for AIA, I have a life and career on Lorelly. I don’t see how it’s possible.”

  “Janeth. We can’t solve everything this minute.” He moved his body over hers in a full-body caress. “Save something for tomorrow. We have better things to do now.”

  “Right.”

  She lost herself in her body—and his. It was strange to make love without the extra feedback of knowing how Tom was feeling, but without being able to rely on her extra sense she found that she paid more atten
tion to the sounds he made, the moans and whimpers and heavy breathing, and the reactions of his body. There was something to be learned from this state after all.

  ***

  Darian had only rested for half a day, and he felt like he could sleep for weeks. But there was no point in staying conscious any longer. His newfound sense of self was too fragile, too uncertain. The empathic blankness induced by the troll might end at any moment, and the inherent imbalance of a non-mated Shenkiloi empath in plenerty would pull him into the maelstrom of insanity again.

  Perhaps the Shenkiloi should have made different choices about how to anchor their empaths. The exchange of greater empathic power for biologically induced binding had its limitations, as he knew only too well. He had no idea whether he’d be able to mate or not. The only thing in his favor was that, to his knowledge, he’d never had sex with any of the Dragnathian women he’d tried to feed from. None of them had been empaths, and so binding had never initiated. If he was very, very lucky…

  At least his twin sister’s mate appeared to be an honorable and worthy man. That could have turned out so much worse. Tom wasn’t the mate he would have chosen for Janeth—but only because mating to someone who wasn’t from Lorelly would make her life much more complicated. He didn’t know how their parents—or their government—would deal with this.

  He was so, so tired. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. He was looking forward to cryosleep. They said you didn’t dream, but he wasn’t convinced. Even a brain that was slowed to one-tenth normal could have slow, languid dreams. But in any case he’d be safe and quiet, and that was very appealing.

  He took a deep breath and gathered his energy to sit up. At least he should be able to walk to the cryo room. Poor Janeth would be left with a rather complicated mess, but she would handle it just fine.

  She always did.

  Chapter Eight

  Janeth looked up from reading the AIA proposal. “Have you read this?” she asked Tom.

  “No. Should I?”

  “If you want to call yourself my husband, you should.”

  “I don’t want to call myself your husband. I want to be your husband.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sure. Whatever. But read this.” She held the reader out to him.

  After fifteen minutes of concentration he handed it back. “They want to develop relations with the Shenkiloi, starting with some assistance on a few of the tougher empath-related situations. And they’re willing to pay rather handsomely.”

  “Shh,” Janeth said, glancing around. “They don’t know our name. I haven’t even admitted we exist.”

  “So, do you want to go forward on it or not?”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Can you tell?”

  She frowned. “I’m not sure. There’s something… If I had to guess I’d say that you’re in favor of anything that might help us stay together, but I don’t know if I’m reading that or just guessing.”

  “That would be a pretty safe guess. You know I want to find some way for us to be together. This might be the start of something that could work for us.”

  “Yes, that’s what I was thinking.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Maybe a shontil concert on some of the more receptive planets. If I can get the Lorelly government to agree, it could be a first step to more contact between the Shenkiloi and the Alliance.”

  “If you hooked up with some of the groups trying to preserve human performances of music… The effects of shontil can’t be recorded, can they?”

  “No.” She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “People don’t perform music in the Alliance?”

  “Most music is produced by computer except for the preservationists and a few enthusiastic amateurs.”

  “That’s just weird,” she said. “Well, I guess they need me more than I thought.” She chewed her bottom lip. “I’ll have to talk to the Lorelly government and get permission, of course. But if they agree, it might be fun to see a little more of the galaxy.”

  “Not to mention we could work together.”

  “You’re sure that’s a positive? We’ve only known each other for—” Her eyes opened wide. “Can you believe it’s only been a week?”

  “Well, I know what your emotions are. I know who you are, even if I don’t know much about your childhood or your world.” He leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head, and examined her body through lust-narrowed eyes. “And we’ve spent a lot of time fucking, which creates a certain amount of intimacy, wouldn’t you say?” he drawled.

  Janeth’s gaze flew to his loins, where his cock was swelling to tent his pants. She licked her lips, thinking of filling her mouth with his musky hardness, and her pussy throbbed and moistened.

  With an effort, she looked back up at his face. “What if my empathy is burned out for good?”

  “Marry me.”

  “What?”

  “I’m asking you to marry me. You’re worried about your empathy and whether or not we’re married by Lorelly standards if your empathy is gone,” he explained patiently. “We can solve the problem by having the captain marry us.”

  He stood and moved close to her. “You also don’t trust how I feel about you. I figure getting married should help that problem too.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, and realized she didn’t know what to say. For some reason this solution hadn’t occurred to her, though now that it was on the table it seemed inevitable. Even if they were married by Lorelly law, they would need to marry by Alliance law too. And Tom was right about one thing. Knowing he was willing to take this step did relieve that deep-seated worry that she had pushed him into this, that he wouldn’t be here if he could have chosen his path.

  His face tightened. “Not willing to go that far?”

  She leaped to her feet and grasped his hands. “No, of course not. Never think it. I was just surprised.” She lifted his hands to her lips and kissed them. “You’re right. Let’s get married.”

  He pulled her against his body and held her tight against him, then let go except for her hand. He tugged her toward the door. “The captain should be on the bridge.”

  “Darian. He’s going into cryosleep soon. Let’s stop by and tell him what’s happening. It would mean a lot to me if he could attend.”

  “Of course. After all, if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be together.”

  The ceremony was performed in the cryosleep chamber, with Darian prepared and ready in the coffin-like cryo container. The captain read some words, recorded their thumbprints and retinal scans in his handheld, and pronounced them married. He congratulated them and left them to say their goodbyes.

  Janeth picked up Darian’s hand, squeezed it, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you at the other end, brother.”

  “Congratulations on your marriage. Good man. Know you’ll be happy…” he murmured, his voice trailing off. He closed his eyes, and the med-tech pushed a button to start the process.

  Janeth held Tom’s hand and watched as Darian’s breathing and heartbeat slowed and he grew cold to the touch. Finally, the tech politely asked her to step back and he closed the cover over her brother’s body.

  Like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, emotions flooded Janeth. She knew what the tech was feeling, she could feel Tom as though he were part of her. She could even feel bottomless relief and peace from Darian. “Tom!” She grabbed his hands. “It’s back.”

  He whirled her around. “That’s wonderful!”

  The tech cleared his throat. “Excuse me, ser and sera, but this is a medical unit. You’ll have to take the celebration elsewhere.”

  Janeth stopped, still grinning. “Sorry. We’re leaving now.”

  In the hallway, Janeth ran her hands through her hair, and narrowed her eyes in thought. “Do you think that I just shut down to protect Darian? Or…maybe he shut down and pulled me along. Maybe it wasn’t the troll at all.”

  Tom got behind her and pushed her down th
e hallway. “This way. We’re going this way.”

  She reached out empathically, and felt glowing knots of emotions scattered through the spaceship. If anything, her ability was stronger and sharper than ever. She pulled her focus back in, and noticed that Tom was—aroused and amused. His arousal kicked off hers, and sensual awareness surged through her body.

  Tom scooped her up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her down the hallway while she wiggled to get down. “Tom, I can walk.”

  “I know. I was in a hurry and you were dawdling.”

  When he reached their cabin he had to set her down to open the door, then he pulled her inside and closed it by pinning her against it, her legs around his waist.

  Janeth wrapped herself around him. He kissed her with hunger, as though he had stored up a month’s worth of passion—though they had had sex earlier today. His iron-hard erection nestled between her legs, and he rolled against her softness, groaning in impatience.

  “I love you,” he said, breathing against her ear. “Touch me. Touch me everywhere.”

  Her hands slid underneath his shirt and stroked his hot, damp skin, circling his nipples and dipping into his pants, barely touching his silky-hard flesh with her fingers. He pulled down the stretchy top of his pants, and his shaft sprang free.

  He grabbed her hand and pressed it around his throbbing length. Energy pulsed between them, and their arousal flowed back and forth. His erection grew even larger and harder, and she could feel his blood pounding.

  “Goddess.” His voice was a low growl. “I don’t know if I can wait long enough to get you naked.”

  She worked her mouth over his skin until she reached his mouth and thrust into him with her tongue, glorying in his heady taste. Then she withdrew just enough to murmur, “So don’t wait.”

  He adjusted her around his hips, and impaled himself in her with one deep stroke. Her hot, wet flesh gave way around his broad rod, and he moaned, pausing when he was all the way in. Her body tightened around him, and she could feel his response, feel it not only with her body, but also with her empathy. The intimacy of being locked together, part of his body inside her, was nothing compared to the intimacy of the mating of their emotions.