by Cindy Dees
“Good morning, my lady.” Rustam’s warm, familiar mouth moved across her skin, effortlessly stirring the ever-glowing embers of desire within her into flames.
She cracked one eye open to see the gray of predawn encroaching upon their shelter. “It’s not morning yet, and it’s not good yet, either. But we can fix the latter.” She stretched languidly against him and trailed a hand down his chest, across his magnificent abs, and lower still. No surprise, he was as ready for her as she was for him.
“I don’t want to make you sore today. We have a hard ride ahead of us,” he murmured.
“Then don’t make me sore. But don’t make me frustrated and grumpy all day, either, if you know what’s good for you.”
He laughed under his breath. “Yes, I’m familiar with that phenomenon in human females. In my kind, the harem females who aren’t getting enough attention have mechanical devices to ease their discomfort.”
Tessa grinned up at him. “We have those in my time, too. But I don’t happen to have one in my saddlebag. It’s either you or frustrated me. Take your pick.”
Today, her body accommodated him more easily and comfortably, although he had to put his hand over her mouth when the screaming part of her orgasms came upon her. Likewise, he bit down hard on her shoulder rather than shout out in turn. Their out-of-body flight this time was short, and Rustam tightly controlled it, but the pleasure was so piercingly intense that she could hardly draw breath when they returned.
“Will that hold you for a few hours?” he murmured when he had recovered enough breath to speak.
She laughed quietly. “A few. You may yet talk me into this notion of jumping each other’s bones whenever and wherever the mood strikes.” As his eyes lit with a fierce, possessive light, she continued, “But I have to confess, I have a really hard time with the idea of sharing you.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, wordlessly. Something warm, gentle almost, passed between them. It flowed peacefully over her like a warm bath, cocooning her in…what felt a whole lot like love. She didn’t know exactly what he’d just done. She got the distinct impression it was something native to his culture, and that it was potentially significant.
“If it makes you feel better, I haven’t thought about another female since I laid eyes on you, and I most certainly haven’t desired one.”
“What about Artemesia? That last feast—”
He cut her off quickly. “Did I look like I was enjoying myself? At all?”
“Well, no.”
“And did you not notice that I was not…otherwise engaged that night when you summoned me to help you?”
“Summoned? Is that what I did?”
“Indeed. And thank the heavens you did. I do not want to think what would have happened had I not come.” He crushed her against him until she had to squirm to get a little room to breathe.
“Honestly, I didn’t notice how quickly you came. I had my hands full dealing with those boys.”
He grunted in displeasure. “Randy swine.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not like you weren’t enjoying the bountiful and readily available sexual pleasures of Xerxes’s court.”
He shrugged. “I never forced any female into my bed. It was better than nothing, but mostly I found it boring and vaguely depraved. At least at home, I know my sexual endeavors result in strong children who will be a credit to my lineage.”
“How many children do you have?” she asked, curious.
He shrugged again. “I do not know. When I left, I had four hundred thirty-eight.”
Four hundred? He really was a breeding machine!
He continued, blithely unaware of her shock. “Shortly before I left on this mission, I mounted a dozen of my females to impregnate them. By now I should be up to four hundred fifty or so.”
She winced at his choice of words and the bald imagery it created. Rather than leaping to judgment about his culture, as she had before, she instead said lightly, “Four hundred? Good grief. You must live in a state of constant exhaustion if you have to have that much sex with that many females.”
He frowned. “It only takes once. Whenever I choose to impregnate a female, I merely prepare her womb properly and fill it with my seed, and it happens.”
Tessa’s jaw dropped. “You have control over that?”
He frowned. “Of course. There is sex for pleasure and then sex for impregnation. The first night you and I made love, and I claimed you as my consort, that was for impregnation. But last night and this mor—”
She lurched upright, tearing free of his grasp to stare down at him, appalled. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up there, big guy. Are you saying you tried to get me pregnant?”
“I did more than try. I succeeded.”
Chapter 17
“W hat?” Tessa squawked, outraged.
He retorted with rising indignation, “I am a potent male. I have never failed to impregnate a female when I wished to.”
She spluttered, alarmed, “But human biology doesn’t work that way. We—I—am only fertile for a very small window of time each month. Even if I were to have sex with a man during that time, I still might not get pregnant. It can take months or even years for human females to achieve pregnancy. I’m not even sure you and I could create a viable offspring.” Her voice continued to rise as her agitation increased. “We’re different races, for goodness sake—”
He pressed a finger over her mouth, stilling her incipient tirade. “Keep your voice down. These hills are far from deserted and sound carries forever out here.”
“I can’t possibly be pregnant,” she hissed. Frantically, she was casting back in her memory for the first day of her last period. It had been nearly four weeks ago. In fact, her period was due to start in another three or four days. Even if her birth control pills didn’t work on aliens, the timing was all wrong. Whew. Some of her panic abated.
“Nonetheless, you are with child,” he said certainly.
“You don’t understand my biology. I have these things called ovaries. They store my female genetic material. They release an egg only once a month and the egg survives for just a day or two. That window of opportunity has passed for me this month.”
He sighed. “Do you recall that first night when I stroked you with my hand…until you felt a series of deep spasms inside you? If you’re built like a female of my kind, it would have been low in your belly, between your hip bones. I’m not talking about pleasure feelings. It would have been deeper within you, where your reproductive organs lie.”
Her cheeks began to heat up. More than a little taken aback at this turn of conversation, she nodded cautiously. She did, indeed, recall the sensations he described. She’d been kneeling before him with her knees spread wide, while he’d played her body like a fine violin.
“Those spasms you felt were me drawing forth an egg from within your…what did you call them? Ovaries?”
Her jaw dropped. “But eggs have to mature. They need exposure to the right hormones. It’s a terribly complicated sequence of events….”
“And you think a race capable of star travel can’t learn to control a simple biological sequence?” he asked easily, his voice laced with humor.
“You didn’t.”
He nodded at her solemnly. “I did. I drew forth one of your eggs and prepared it for my—I’m sorry, I don’t know your word for them—seeds?”
She interjected quickly, “I get the idea.”
He continued patiently. “Of course, I prepared your body to accept a child, as well. Given that your race is directly descended from mine to more than a small degree, that, too, is a process I can and did control.”
Her jaw dropped. “But…implantation depends on certain proteins being present. My body has to be producing them at the right time….” Although she made the argument, she had a sinking feeling that he was trying to tell her that her body’s chemistry didn’t matter a heck of a lot. It sounded a great deal like he was trying to tell her he was capable of completely
overriding her body and hijacking the entire process of impregnation.
“If I so choose, you have no choice chemically or biologically but to accept my seed. Trust me, my dear. You are pregnant even now.”
Somehow she didn’t doubt for a moment that he was telling her the truth. “You…you son of a bitch!” she exclaimed.
He leaped to his feet, clearly offended. “What’s wrong with you? Do you have any idea what an honor it is to carry one of my offspring? To bestow that upon you, an alien woman…I risked everything—my political standing, my rank and status as commander of the Fifth Centauri Star Regiment—”
“Ohmigod. And you’re Centaurian to boot?” The news just kept on getting better. She was pregnant. The father was an alien. And to top it all off, he was a hostile alien!
“You…you…” She stepped forward and punched him as hard as she could in the gut. Of course, her fist barely dented his rock-hard abs, but it made her feel a whole lot better.
“What’s gotten into you?” he demanded furiously. As she flailed her fists at him again, he captured them and forcibly held them at her sides.
“You didn’t ask me if I wanted to have your precious offspring, you arrogant bastard! I have a career, dammit! I don’t have time for a child. And we’re not even married. And as I understand it, you don’t get married. You just collect whatever females happen to catch your fancy and force them into your…your herd of broodmares.”
He reared back, mortal insult etched on his face. “I do not…mount…common broodmares.” He snarled each word individually. “I only breed with women from the very best lineages, from the greatest of the noble families. Their daughters fight for my attention. They throw themselves at me in hopes that I’ll gift them with my child! I even stand a fair chance of becoming the Primus if my career continues on track. Kentar himself has hinted that I might replace him when he steps down.”
Her fury was unappeased. “I don’t care if you’re the king of the universe. You had no right to foist a child on me without my consent.”
He yanked her against his chest, hard enough to rattle her teeth. “You did consent. You agreed to be my consort.”
“I hadn’t the slightest idea what it meant. You can’t possibly hold me to that.”
He glared down at her, blue lightning flying off him in all directions. His eyes were black, and violence snapped in them, barely contained. His entire body vibrated with fury, every muscle clenched—whether in anger or rigid control, she couldn’t tell. She had to admit, Rustam in a towering rage was an impressive sight. Intimidating, even. But then she clamped her teeth and glared back at him.
Their battle of wills howled and blew around them like the mightiest of tempests. It was a silent thing, but no less turbulent for the lack of raised voices. They didn’t even bother to fling words at each other. They threw raw emotion instead until they’d both spent the worst of their fury. Eventually, the energy vortex around them calmed slightly, settling down to, oh, tornado proportions.
Gradually, their separate blue and violet energy streams merged once more into the usual indigo haze whirling around them.
At long last, Rustam glanced away. He looked back at her. Took a deep breath. “I apologize. I did not know your customs. I would have asked, had I known.”
She released a long breath of her own. What was she supposed to say to that? What’s done is done? In this case, it really was. If she was, indeed, pregnant…
Her mind balked at finishing the thought, but reluctantly she made herself do it.
If she was indeed pregnant, what in the world was she going to do? This changed everything.
Athena Carswell opened her kitchen door and stepped inside. A wave of blessedly cool air hit her. It was blistering hot outside today, and the contrast between the 108-degree heat and her house made goose bumps rise on her skin.
She set her satchel down on the kitchen table, her mind on a tall glass of iced tea. She turned toward the refrigerator, and froze.
Something was wrong. The goose bumps on her arms weren’t going away. In fact, they prickled, screaming an alarm at her brain. She listened carefully. Only the hum of the air conditioner and the quieter sound of the refrigerator broke the silence. She opened her cell phone and dialed a nine and a one. With her finger poised on the one button for one more punch that would summon help, she eased over to the kitchen door and peered around the corner. The dining room and living room were empty. She glided through them toward the short hallway leading to both bedrooms and the bathroom. Mental alarm bells clanged wildly inside her head as she did so.
No sound. No movement.
She spun fast through the doorways to all three rooms and even checked the closets. Nothing.
What in the world? Her psychic warning system never went off like this for no reason. Athena closed her eyes and reached out with her mind for the cause of her alarm. Her bedroom. She stood in the doorway, gazing around the room. Something was…not right. It was subtle. But things didn’t seem to be in exactly the same place she’d left them. She didn’t remember her hairbrush being that close to the edge of her dresser. And she usually didn’t make her bed quite that neatly.
She frowned. Her bed.
Oh, no.
She shoved at the bed frame with her shoulder, sliding it back to reveal the safe mounted in the floor beneath it. Quickly, she spun the combination, pressed her thumb to the recognition pad and pulled up the heavy door. She breathed a sigh of relief.
All the papers appeared to be there.
She reached in to inventory them, and prickles skittered across her skin again.
She closed her eyes.
A clear impression of a lean, hard stranger handling the files flooded her mind. His energy signature was still fresh on the papers. And then a second image came to her. Another man photographing them. All of them.
Fury and a dose of terror at having her privacy so violated rushed over her.
And a smirk of satisfaction. Yes, they’d gotten some of her proprietary research data, and it might give someone a decent idea of what she was up to. But the bastards hadn’t gotten their dirty hands on the Ad Astra journal.
She cleared her cell phone and dialed Beverly.
“I’ve had an intruder at my house. Some guys broke into my safe and copied my papers. But they didn’t get what they came for.”
The general’s voice was alarmed. “Are you all right? Did you call the police?”
“No. They didn’t take anything. They just photographed my research papers.”
“And the—”
“I’m not dumb enough to leave it lying around someplace so obvious, Bev.”
“Didn’t think so. I was just checking.”
Athena grinned at the relief in the woman’s voice. Then she grew sober. “But we do have a major problem. Someone’s onto our work, and they want to know what we’re doing. They’re clearly not friendly.”
“Do you think the Centaurian Federation is behind it?”
Athena frowned. “The energy signatures in my house are human.” She added grimly, “But I wouldn’t put it past the Centaurians to be meddling again. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find out they’re pulling some human’s strings on this one.”
Bev replied, “First the fire at the lab, and now this. I’m beefing up security for both the project and you immediately.”
“Fine. Just don’t ask me to suspend the work. We’re too close now to stop.”
“Not if you die,” the former marine retorted sharply. “Come back to the lab so we can go over new security measures and I can get a guard detail assigned to you.”
Athena sighed. She’d known it would come to this. Just not this soon.
Rustam packed up their camp while Tessa perched on a large rock at the cave opening, staring out pensively at nothing. He glanced over at her occasionally but left her to her thoughts. Who’d have guessed that human women would ultimately become so independent? The steady stream of observers sent from Centa
uri Prime was supposed to prevent this exact kind of development in human females.
What a hash he’d made of it. He’d genuinely thought she would be thrilled and honored to realize he’d given her a child. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her Centaurian women fought for the privilege.
And what was this about her having a career? Females had one purpose, and one purpose only. Even on Earth, a woman like Artemesia, who was queen and general and able ruler of a kingdom all by herself, was an extreme rarity. If modern women had abruptly become this strong and self-sufficient, no wonder the Centaurian council was so worried they might go after the Karanovo Stamp.
Recovering a piece of the stamp was why he’d been sent here in the first place. If the humans failed to recover all twelve pieces of the medallion, they would not be able to signal the Intergalactic Council. Just one piece of the stamp. That was all his kind had to find and remove from Earth.
He’d wondered why the sudden urgency when he’d been given this mission to time-travel back to ancient Earth, to find and recover a piece of the medallion. He was too skilled and high-ranking a star navigator to rate such a trivial assignment under normal circumstances. But it made perfect sense, now.
Unfortunately, staring at the back of Tessa’s head while she gazed at a distant hill wasn’t getting either of them closer to their respective goals. He interrupted her reverie quietly. “It’s time to go.”
He didn’t know why she was so hell-bent on recovering a simple map. Sailors in this time already had reasonably complete charts of this part of the world. Even if her map of unknown seas and continents on the far side of the planet were found, the locals would likely put it down to inaccurate drawing or some sort of imaginary document of the gods’ underworld. A context existed for explaining away her map to these ancient people. If discovered, it shouldn’t derail the development of mankind. But if the map was that important to her, so be it. After all, she was his consort, and the mother of his child. He owed her a certain amount of consideration.