He guided her slowly down onto his erect penis. She made a small sound of discomfort at the initial entry, but when he was seated to the hilt she sighed with relief and wrapped her arms and legs around him. He wrapped her tightly in his arms.
"You're my mate, Sheleigh. I chose you and my parents approved of my choice."
"They did? They know what you've done to me today?" Her voice rose in incredulity.
"Yes, they did, and of course they know about the mating flight. It was how they were mated and how I was conceived. They would have preferred an Averan mate, a winged one would have been their first choice, but they saw the strength in you. When I argued for you as my mate, they saw the logic in my arguments. They'll accept you into their family without hesitation."
"I barely know you," she protested again.
"We have years to get to know one another. It was important that we bond first and begin a mating relationship. Everything else will be easier now that we're permanently joined."
"I have to be able to go more than a few hundred meters away from you. I have my work to do. It's important that I finish it."
"We'll learn to tolerate small separations of space and time, but for the first few months of being mates we won't be able to be very far apart. This is how Averan family units are made. The man and the woman become partners in everything until they are a strong pair, able to protect and hold their family together. Our society is only as strong as our family units."
"But my work can't wait months."
"Then your work will have to come to you. You know that as my father's heir I must be in the government hall each day."
Sheleigh looked away from him in frustration. "You're making me a prisoner."
"No, you'll still have your work and soon you'll have my heir to take care of."
Her head snapped around to glare at him. "I'm not ready to have children yet. I want to wait a few more years."
"That's not a choice for you. A mating flight is almost always fertile. Our family physician will examine you to confirm a pregnancy when we return."
She sputtered in her outrage. "How could you do this to me? We'll have to hope we had one of the unfertile mating flights."
"If it wasn't fertile you'll conceive some time in the next few weeks."
"If I'm not already pregnant I'll begin using a birth control implant."
"You will not!" he thundered, then tried to temper his tone. "It's the way things are done here that new mates bear fruit within the first year. You must learn to abide by our ways now that you're one of us."
"I won't stop being who I am or thinking my own thoughts just because you chained me to you." Sheleigh was defiant in defeat.
Kleet cupped her face between his palms. "I chose you knowing who and what you are. No one is asking you to change who you are, just to adhere to the rules of this society. You've been happy here on Avera, haven't you?"
"Yes. But I hadn't planned to stay here, Kleet. I have parents and siblings and other relations at home. I never planned to leave them forever."
"You can still communicate with them often."
"It won't be the same."
"We'll have a family of our own soon. I'm hopeful that you're carrying my heir right now. A baby of your own will make you miss your family less."
"That's not helping." She glared at him for bringing up the sore subject of pregnancy. Although to be fair, she had done nothing to prevent pregnancy. The events of the night and morning had made her forget to visit the human pharmaceutical supply.
"Maybe this will help." He took her lips and she was lost in the whirlwind of pleasure and feeling. His hands moved to her breasts to touch her tender nipples and she drew in her breath, which served to thrust her nipples into his hands. He fingered her nipples expertly, rubbing the straining tips with just the right amount of pressure. Pleasure streaked to her loins, causing her to clench around his cock. They both groaned.
"Move on me, Shel," he murmured, and then he took her mouth fiercely again. His hands unlocked her ankles from his back and helped to get her knees under her so that she had leverage in his lap to move up and down on him. Then his hands returned to her nipples.
She slowly lowered herself on his cock, and then rose up again while she endured the sensual friction inside. Up, down, up, down. She gasped for breath and strained for release. Her nipples were on fire with arousal, swollen from his handling. She wanted the pleasure to go on, but knew the end had to come soon.
As though she had communicated her need to him, one of Kleet's hands slid down between her spread thighs to rub hard against her clitoris. It was too much for her, and she leaped into the chasm of pleasure. Once again she and Kleet were locked in the pleasure of the mating flight, soaring together while their connected loins convulsed. It was a perfect flight.
Slowly she sank back into her body to find herself locked tightly in Kleet's arms. He gasped for breath, his face was flushed and his body was sheened with sweat. He watched her as she studied him.
"How much time do we have left?" she asked him.
"Not long. I don't think I can mate with you again so soon, though," he added, smiling.
Sheleigh remained serious. "You should have asked me if I wanted to be your mate before you did something so drastic. You should have been gentler the first time. You hurt me."
"Mating flights are often aggressive to the point of violence. They have to be in order to achieve penetration against the force of the air current. That's how the mates prove their strength. The breaching of a woman's maiden virtue is a forceful action, and I probably used too more force on you because I wanted to breach you quickly. You're smaller than Averan women, between your legs, but I'm sure you'll grow used to the way I enter you during a mating flight."
"You haven't addressed that fact that you didn't ask me to be your mate. I would have preferred being given a choice in my fate." She tried to separate herself from him, but he held her fast.
"I think you would have refused me if I'd asked, even though you wanted me."
"Yes, I would have refused. I don't know you well enough to be your mate."
"Then I'm glad I didn't ask. To have been denied the wonder we shared today would have been a travesty. To have gone without you as my mate for much longer would have been intolerable."
"Why couldn't you have told me you were interested in me that way? I thought you wanted an affair, not this."
"Once the idea occurred to me that you should be my mate, I needed to fly you. I couldn't have had you any other way. No affair for you. It had to be a mating flight. And it had to be now."
"Why? I don't understand."
"You're mine, Sheleigh. Why should I have had to wait to claim you? You've chained my heart. Why shouldn't you be chained in return?"
"Your heart?" she exclaimed, enthralled and appalled. "Are you saying you love me?"
"Of course. What do you think we're doing her? I'm consumed by thoughts of you. I have been for months. I can hardly breathe when I'm in the same room with you. I devour the sight of you. I feel empty inside when we're apart. Of course I love you."
"Oh, Kleet, I didn't know." She wished she could say the same thing to him, but she was so confused. She lusted after him, she liked and respected him a lot, but love him? She just didn't know.
Sheleigh heard the heavy footsteps of a group of people. Remembering that she was stark naked, she leaped from Kleet's lap and her gaze darted about, searching desperately for cover.
"You don't have to hide, Sheleigh. The guards will expect you to be naked."
"I'm not a peep show to be leered at."
"They won't leer at my mate. Come here and stand proudly by my side. You have nothing to be ashamed of. The mating flight is a revered part of our traditions."
"I can't. I was taught modesty and to be clothed in front of strangers. I can't follow your traditions." She took refuge behind a tall boulder, despite his calling her name. This planet had some strange customs.
She heard the guards approach Kleet. "Where is your mate, my lord?"
"Her ways are different than ours. She didn't want you to see her naked. Let me have her clothes."
"My lord, we mean no disrespect, but her absence by your side throws doubt on the mating flight. A newly breached mate displays her status openly before witnesses."
"Sheleigh," Kleet shouted, but she refused to answer him. Let him wonder where she was. Better that than to bring the guards to view her nudity. Witnesses, ha.
"Sheleigh, come here." Exasperation crept into his voice. How rudely sexist! He thought she should jump when he said jump, even though she had already explained her objections. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction.
She heard his sound of exasperation. "Here, give me those." That must have been directed at the guard. Moments later he appeared around the boulder and threw her clothes at her. She set her face mutinously as she quickly pulled on her things.
"What are you trying to do, impugn my reputation?" he demanded. "Or is it your intention to throw doubt on our status as mates?"
Sheleigh reacted to his tone with one of her own. "I'm going to teach you a new word today. It's 'chauvinist.' "
"And what does it mean?"
"A chauvinist is a man who expects women to jump quickly to obey his every command. A chauvinist belittles what a woman wants or thinks. A chauvinist thinks females are less than he is." Now that she was dressed she felt strong again and able to fight for what she wanted.
"I don't think I would like your planet. I think things go on there that would horrify me."
"There are things that happened to me today that horrified me."
"I'm not that word, whatever it was. I don't think you're lesser than I am because you're female."
She imitated his earlier words in a degrading tone. " 'Sheleigh, come here.' I might as well have been a trained pet. Why won't you put your clothes on?"
"Please come and stand by my side so that the guards can see us together." He offered his hand, palm up.
She placed her palm in his and allowed him to pull her out to where the guards studied her like she was fascinating. Clearly her argument with Kleet had been overheard. Her cheeks burned and she was sure they were fire red.
"Here's my mate. As you probably heard, she is very strong-willed and has strong opinions. We need to return to my home now so that the physician can verify the pregnancy." She noticed that he didn't say "if there is a pregnancy."
Kleet dressed quickly and unselfconsciously. For the first time she saw how the back of his clothes were cut out around his wing bones. The long capes that Averans wore obviously covered their wings, which is why she hadn't seen them before. But why did they hide their wings?
The group was quiet during the trip to Kleet's home. The transport landed on the roof and other guards helped her disembark.
They descended the hydrolift to the third floor where the doors opened on a stone corridor laid periodically with fiber rugs. She'd never been on this floor--this was the family's floor. Kleet's mother and father and an older man met them at the lift.
"Welcome to our family," his mother, Lefair, exclaimed and hugged her.
"Thank you," Sheleigh replied politely. She didn't know what else to say.
Kleet's father hugged her next, and she stood stiffly in his arms. This was the most powerful man on the planet. She'd never expected to be his son's mate. She didn't know what the consequences would be if she angered him.
He drew back from her and his brow furrowed. He addressed Kleet. "What's wrong?"
"She's angry. She didn't want the mating flight."
Two pairs of concerned parental eyes drilled into her. Thank you for putting me on the spot with your parents, Kleet. She glared at Kleet, and then turned back to his parents.
"I've explained to Kleet that I never planned to stay here. He shouldn't have made life-altering decisions for me without discussing them with me first." She wanted away from these people whose concern was for Kleet. She needed to be with someone who cared for her. Reaction had finally set in.
"Was the mating flight completed?" his father demanded.
"All of it," Kleet replied.
"Then she'll need to be examined by the physician. Dr. Rotairn, would you please finish your part of the proceedings?"
The elderly man came forward and took her elbow. He gently prodded her to follow Kleet's mother. Lefair opened the door to a bedroom decorated in understated elegance and ushered them inside.
Here Sheleigh balked. "Why are we going in here?"
"I'm the family physician, Dr. Rotairn. I'll confirm your pregnancy."
"I don't know you and you're not touching me." Sheleigh backed away from him.
"I'm a highly respected physician. An examination is required after a mating flight."
"I said no." She moved backward again and ran into a firm wall she identified by smell and feel as Kleet. His arm slid around her and she pressed against him.
"What's wrong now?" he asked.
"She won't let me examine her."
"I don't know that man."
She and the doctor spoke at the same time.
Kleet sighed and turned her to face him. "This man helped deliver me when I was born. He delivered my brother and sister. He helped my mother through all of her pregnancies. He's taken care of my family since he became a physician. It was him who examined my mother after her mating flight and confirmed that she was pregnant with me. He's a gentle and caring doctor. Let him confirm your pregnancy, Sheleigh."
"I don't know him," she whispered.
"I'll stay with you and hold your hand while he examines you. Mother will be here too. We have to know whether you're pregnant."
She gave in. She wanted to know, too. "All right."
She took off her clothes in the bathing room and wrapped the sheet that Kleet provided around her. Then she lay down on the bed for the exam. Kleet and his mother each held one of her hands. She was embarrassed to have Kleet's mother in the room, but she'd protested enough for the moment.
The physician poked and prodded her womb and used diagnostic equipment, and drew blood and fluids. There had been a little furrow between his brows and now it smoothed out. He nodded his head and smiled at them.
"Pregnant," he announced happily.
Kleet's shout of "Yes!" almost drowned out Lefair's exclamation of, "That's wonderful!" Sheleigh's little sigh of disappointment as her hopes of freedom plummeted was lost in the general celebration and congratulations.
Kleet leaned down to kiss her lips and for a few moments she forgot why the news upset her. When he raised his head to look at her his eyes shone with happiness. "I told you that mating flights were fertile."
Before she could reply, the physician recaptured Kleet's attention. "Kleet, there's something else you need to know." He had her attention now, too. "I'm positive there's more than one baby. I'll have to wait a few days while the cells divide and then do a microscopic scan to count the number of fertilized eggs. My guess right now is there are two."
"Twins!" Lefair squealed. She was clearly in grandmother mode.
Sheleigh felt claustrophobic, like she had been caged. "No."
Chapter Six
"That must have been some mating flight." Rotairn seemed in awe of Kleet's prowess as a progenitor.
"It was. Sheleigh, isn't it wonderful?" Only then did Kleet look at her face, and his smile dimmed immediately. If she looked the way she felt, then she must be a pitiable sight. She couldn't take any more catastrophic changes in her life today and that knowledge must have shown clearly on her face.
"Aren't you happy about the news, Sheleigh?"
"No. You've ruined my life." Kleet winced and she cursed her unguarded tongue. One didn't tell someone who loved them something hurtful like that.
He turned away from her. "Thank you, doctor. Please make arrangements for the scan and let me know the details as soon as you have them finalized. Mother, would you please give us privacy."
Sheleigh didn't watch the others leave. She was too busy trying to shape an apology and decide what to do next. There was a pregnant pause after the room cleared and finally she looked up into his stern face. She was no coward, so she sat up to face him.
Kleet spoke first. "I believe you owe me an apology. What you said was rude and hurtful."
"I'm sorry I said it."
He inhaled audibly. "But you think it's true."
"Yes. You've imprisoned me here against my will."
"You don't want a mate?"
"Not right now."
"You don't want children?"
"Not this year."
"You don't like me?"
Sheleigh drew in a deep breath. "I like you."
"You don't find me attractive?"
"You know better. You're very good-looking, all over, and you know it."
"You don't like it when I'm inside you, thrusting, pushing you down onto my cock, making you come ..."
"Stop it. You know I like all that."
"So you do want all those things--a mate, children, me, my mating. My mating you want now, but the rest you don't want until later. It's unfortunate, then, that you have all those things now. I can't and won't stop being your mate. Our children will be born in nine months. I can't and won't stop loving you, although your behavior today is making it difficult to like you. So what do we do now, when you want to discard the most important things in life because, in your opinion, the timing isn't right?"
Sheleigh winced at his bitter sarcasm. She wanted to accept all the blame, but he'd played a part, too. "I want to go back to my apartment and talk to my own people. They can advise me what to do."
"Your apartment is empty. When the guards came to get you this morning, some of them stayed behind to collect your things. Everything you own is either down the hall in our suite or in storage."
"You had no right."
"You came to me for claiming. Why would you need a place of your own afterwards? You'd live in your mate's home."
"You don't ask. You just make sweeping changes in my life without consulting me."
Mating Flight Page 5