by Calinda B
“Thank you.” She dragged her gaze from his and took a sip of the fruity wine. It numbed her throat a bit and dulled the jagged edges of her pain momentarily.
“Our first course is roast water fowl from Solaris Delta. I believe all the ingredients used by the chef tonight are compatible with your digestive system, but please alert me if you perceive any difficulties. I’ve been surprised by how much alike human and jit’suku physiology is since I began my study of your species.”
“Am I the first human you’ve met?”
“Yes,” he answered with some surprise in his voice. “This ship was only completed a few standard months ago. We have only engaged with your folk from afar until today.” He frowned as he cut into the succulent bird with his knife. She began eating as he did, lured by the delicious aroma of the perfectly cooked meat. It tasted delicious. “It worries me that we might have inadvertently engaged with female pilots before now.”
“Is it really that big of a deal? I knew what I signed on for when I came out here. Every man and woman in the military knows they could die at any given time. We agreed to the danger when we volunteered to defend our galaxy against your empire’s expansion plans.”
She spoke matter-of-factly. She didn’t see any reason to pussyfoot around the issue, but she also didn’t see any reason in getting all worked up. She was a prisoner here, for all that he was treating her like some kind of honored guest.
“Making war on women is not the jit’suku way. Already the men under my command are speaking of what happened today, worrying that their honor has been stained by what we did to you. It is a very grave matter.”
“Really?” Lisbet’s eyes widened as she regarded him. The man was serious. Wow.
“I would not dissemble. The warrior’s code is very specific and sacrosanct. We do not make war upon females, children, or each other. With so many in the warrior caste, we need these rules to keep peace among ourselves and our various colony worlds.”
“Your people live in a caste system?” She was learning all kinds of things she’d never imagined about her enemy.
“Many males—usually more than seventy percent in each generation—are born warriors. Of the rest, some are skilled craftsmen or artisans. Some have other talents that bring them to their proper caste. As is the case with our women. Is that not the way of human society?”
“The ratio is flipped. Only about thirty percent of our men go into the military. Usually they’re the biggest and strongest from each world or colony, but not always. Women who want a military career usually end up in supporting roles—piloting shuttles, doing supply or other organizational roles simply because we’re smaller and usually can’t fight hand to hand the way the men can. Mechanization equals things out, so women are equal with men when it comes to piloting, gunnery, et cetera. But a lot of women don’t seem to go for those kinds of roles. They put us where we are best suited and needed. In my case, that was patrolling the rim until you blew up my ship.” A bit of her bitterness about losing her ship bled through into her words, but she couldn’t regret it. He had to know she was upset about almost dying out there at his hands.
“If I had known you were female, I would never have fired upon you. Even if I had given the order, had my gunner known he was firing on a female pilot, he would have refused the order and been within his rights to do so. He was very upset when we discovered your gender.”
“I had no idea you guys were so touchy about women soldiers. If my commanders knew this, they’d probably recruit all the women they could to throw at you. I bet that would end the war real fast.”
He frowned, his dark brows lowering as he considered her words. “Which is why I cannot let you go, Lieutenant.” He sat back, ignoring his food while he studied her. “You present a very large problem for me, Lisbet Duncan, and I have no idea what to do about you.”
“Who says you have to do anything? You could just let me go and jump back to your own system, where you belong.”
“Retreat? That is not the jit’suku way.” His frown deepened.
“It’s either retreat or fire on more women. Can your honor take that chance? I’m not the only female out here. I wasn’t the first and I certainly won’t be the last.” She challenged him, wanting to zing him a bit, even if her position on his ship was precarious at best.
He stared at her for a long time before shaking his head and returning to a more composed posture. He lifted his fork and speared another bite of the meat, bringing it to his mouth. She watched him chew, realizing he had the sexiest mouth she’d ever seen on a man. Disconcerting and incongruous as that thought was, she felt her body warm as she watched him. He really was incredibly attractive, even if he was the enemy.
She took her cue from him and returned to her food as well. It was really good and she didn’t want to waste a gourmet meal. Not when she’d been living on rations for far too long.
“You said something before about your granny having sight. What did you mean by that?” he asked out of the blue after the silence had stretched.
“My maternal grandmother sometimes had visions of the future. That side of the family descended from a place called Scotland on Earth. My mother was a redhead, which is where I get such fair skin from, even though my hair is darker. Granny told me when I was very young that my destiny lay in the stars. Mom didn’t like it, but gran insisted and when I decided to apply for pilot training, it was Granny that convinced everyone it was as it should be. Little did I know when I left that I’d never see any of them again.”
“We hold such gifts of clairvoyance in great esteem,” he said in a very serious tone that made her look up at him. His dark gaze pinned her. “They say sometimes it runs in families.”
She squirmed in her seat a bit, knowing what her grandmother had predicted for her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to admit it, but perhaps the prophecy would help her with this compelling man somehow.
“Gran said…” She had to clear her throat before she revealed a secret she’d never told another soul. “Gran knew her gift would pass to my daughter. It skipped two generations, but would be extra strong in my child. She said my girl would be an oracle the likes of which hadn’t been seen in our family in many generations.”
“You have a child?” He seemed shocked.
“Not yet.” Lisbet had to smile. “I’ve never known Gran to be wrong, but I wasn’t sure I’d make it there for a while today. Somehow, though, according to my granny’s prediction, I’m going to have a daughter who will be strongly gifted. She saw me having other children too, but she couldn’t tell me more about them, only the girl who will carry her name.”
“I find this fascinating. If we’d had a seer in my family, perhaps I could have avoided—” He stopped abruptly as if realizing he was speaking aloud. The pain in his eyes made her reach out to him.
“What happened to your family, Captain?”
Chapter Four
“It is not fit dinner conversation.” He tried to dissemble, but she was having none of it.
“I just told you something I’ve never told another soul. And I saw the understanding in your eyes when I told you how I’d lost my entire family. Something similar happened to you, didn’t it?”
He regarded her for a long moment. “Are you sure you’re not as gifted as your grandmother?” She noted the moment he let down his guard. His shoulders lost their tension and his expression changed.
“I am the end of the Fedroval line because no jit’suku woman will have me. And rightly so. I was not meant to be Liege of the House. I was a younger son, meant to serve in the Zenai priesthood. I was away from home when the unthinkable happened. My brothers were murdered by a rival who has since paid for breaking the warrior’s code, but the damage was done. I had to take over as Liege and give up my intended path as a warrior priest. I had not been groomed for the position of Liege the way my older brothers were. I made many mistakes. One was allowing the younger females to go on a trip alone, without enough protection. I failed
to keep them safe and they died. My brothers’ wives and children. The next generation of House Fedroval. All gone in an instant.”
“Were they murdered as well?” Lisbet kept her voice to a whisper, shocked at the awfulness of what had happened to this man’s family.
“It is still unclear. There was an investigation, of course, but the mechanical failure of their ship could have been accidental. There wasn’t enough recovered to reach a conclusion of sabotage, though I strongly believe some of the rival family’s members who escaped punishment for the deaths of my brothers came back to finish the job.”
“Did you go after them?”
“I tried, but without evidence, I cannot make war on another of my kind. Being dishonorable myself will not negate their dishonorable behavior. No, this despicable act—whether accidental or on purpose—has well and truly ended a noble House.”
“But surely you can marry and have children of your own to carry on the line?”
“Because I failed to protect my House adequately, no women of quality or honor would be willing to submit to the nij’ta. If my true mate is out there, she will not allow me to find her.”
“Wait a minute.” Lisbet was confused. “What is a nij’ta?”
He looked surprised by her question as he moved the plates around, making room for a second set of dishes by taking away the first, which were mostly empty at this point. He paused as he was lifting the dome off some sort of gel dish.
“The nij’ta is the ritual kiss. It is how we identify our perfect mate. Don’t you have something similar?”
“You can find your life mate through a kiss?” Lisbet couldn’t quite believe what he was saying, yet he seemed sincere.
“Of course. How do your males go about finding their perfect mate?”
“A lot of trial and error,” she admitted with a sigh. “We date.” At his puzzled look, she went on. “We see each other socially and the relationship progresses to more intimate levels if both parties are agreeable. After a time, the male can ask the female to marry him, legalizing the relationship—joining them in the eyes of the law, and any religion either or both might follow.”
“And then they stay together forever.” He stated it as fact rather than as a question, surprising her again.
“Not always. That would be the ideal, but a lot of times, people grow apart, which is why they invented divorce.”
“Divorce?” He looked even more puzzled and pronounced the word carefully, as if it were totally unfamiliar to him.
“When two people who are married, are legally divided and no longer married,” she explained.
“No longer mated?” He sounded scandalized. “There is no divorce among my kind. We mate for life.”
“Really? No divorce? Ever?” It didn’t seem possible to her.
“The nij’ta does not lie. A man must kiss a lot of women before he finds the one that makes his blood sing. I will never have that opportunity now and it is one of my deepest regrets. Since giving up my vocation to the Zenai priesthood, I would have liked to have a wife and children.”
“I really don’t understand why you can’t just ask a woman to marry you. Maybe she won’t be of noble birth, but judging by this ship, you’re loaded. There are a lot of women who would marry you for your money, at the very least. And you’re not bad looking.” She added the last bit out of sheer deviltry. The man was handsome as sin. If he weren’t her enemy, she’d seriously think about jumping his bones just to see if his lovemaking lived up to the advertising of his sexy body and almost beautiful face.
“That is not how things are done among my people. By my prior negligence I have proven to be careless with those I am responsible for. No woman of reasonable station will have me now. I could father children on a mistress who might come to me out of pity—or for the things I could buy her—but such children could not legally carry on my line. And mating cannot happen without the positive results of the nij’ta. I am in an unwinnable situation, which is why I commissioned this ship and set out on the warrior’s path.”
“So who’s running things at home while you’re here? I assume your family still has interests that pay for all of this.” She gestured to the luxurious suite, being nosey in the extreme, but she was learning a lot about the aliens in general, and this devastatingly handsome man in particular.
“The dowager. My mother. She heads the family. I am merely the Liege now that my brothers are gone. It’s funny. I thought I’d be a warrior priest. I’d given up the idea of a wife and children of my own, but now I want them more than anything in the world, and they are denied me as well. All I have left is my mission and your presence has brought that into question too. The Lady of Chaos has touched my life repeatedly and altered my path in ways I could never anticipate.”
“I won’t pretend to understand how your society works, but I do feel for you, Captain. Losing your family is not an easy thing.” She made a move to cover his hand with hers on the table, but checked it. Maybe he didn’t want her reaching out to him. They were enemies, after all.
But he saw her slight motion and tilted his head, reaching out to take her hand in his.
“We have both suffered a loss that nobody should ever have to suffer. It changed the course of our lives and turned us toward paths we would otherwise not have chosen. I am amazed to find I have so much in common with someone I thought of as the enemy until now.”
She liked the rich tone of his voice as it dipped to compassionate, almost intimate levels.
“Me too, Captain,” she agreed softly.
“You might as well call me Val,” he replied in that same intimate tone.
“I’m Lisbet, but my friends call me Liz.”
He reached out with his spoon, not letting go of her with his other hand, and scooped up a small bite of the gel substance in the dish before her. He held the spoon up to her lips and smiled encouragingly. His dark gaze smoldered as she opened her mouth and allowed him to feed her the small dollop of sweet gel.
Flavor burst around her tongue in a display of bright notes that made her lips tingle. She swallowed, enjoying the cool sensation of the sweet confection as it slid down her throat.
“That’s delicious,” she admitted with a grin.
“I thought you’d like it.” His answering smile lit a fire in her belly that had nothing to do with dessert—or at least not the edible kind. She’d like to make dessert of him. She’d lick him like an ice cream cone if he was agreeable.
The look in his eyes seemed very agreeable. Before she knew what she was doing, Lisbet leaned toward him. Was he leaning too?
His eyes grew closer until the dark gold of his gaze was all she could see. Then his lips touched hers and time stood still.
Breathing became optional as his mouth covered hers, his arms wrapped around her shoulders and dragged her out of her chair and into his lap. Then, by slow degrees, he deepened the kiss.
His tongue bathed her mouth in his taste, his mastery. Her body squirmed against his, not trying to get away, but wanting to be closer. Her clothes were in the way. As were his.
She wanted nothing more than to feel his skin on hers, his hard muscled body against her softer skin, his hardness mastering her responses.
But it was not meant to be.
An urgent noise from the com panel broke them apart. Her senses were fuzzy with desire and for a moment, she didn’t know exactly where she was. In those stolen moments, Val had ceased to be the captain or the enemy. He was simply a man.
An entirely too attractive—some might say devastating—man.
Val stood, straightening his jacket as if he were uncomfortable and went to the door. He left swiftly, as if all the hounds of hell were on his heels.
Chapter Five
The captain disappeared and did not return that night. Nor did she see him all the next day. Her meals were served in silence and taken away just as quietly by a warrior who looked at her with curiosity but made no overtures toward her whatsoever. Neither friend
ly nor hostile, he merely brought the trays and took them away at regular intervals.
The food continued to be of gourmet quality, which surprised her. She’d understood being served the good stuff when she ate with the captain, but on her own, she expected rations. Instead, she continued to be treated as some kind of weird mix between prisoner and honored guest. She was locked into her quarters, but she had some limited access to the comp for entertainment and learning. No communications to speak of, but she was able to occupy her time learning more about jit’suku culture.
Of particular interest was the concept of the nij’ta. It seemed so foreign to her, but the jit’suku actually mated based on a single kiss. Some of the romantic fiction she’d been able to access from the comp was built up around the idea of a mating based on a single kiss that was totally inappropriate socially, but had to be accepted by the respective families because true mates could not legally be kept apart. Sort of a jit version of Romeo and Juliette with a much happier ending because nobody could deny true mates in jit’suku society.
It was kind of amazing. Humans really had no clue about these strange, noble people.
Nor, did it seem, the jit’suku had any real understanding at all about humanity.
So many misconceptions on both sides. It saddened her to think that so many had died based on incomplete or misunderstood information. One thing was clear though—the jit’suku were a race of conquerors who had expanded to the farthest reaches of their own galaxy and beyond. Even had they fully understood humanity, chances were the war would still be waged because they needed more room for their growing population and the Milky Way was the next logical place for them to go. Humans didn’t like being invaded and jits didn’t respect those who operated on diplomacy alone.
It was an inevitable conflict. She didn’t have to like it, but there it was.