Tone harsh, he went on, “I did not look for this. But it came to me — a gift from the universe, it seems — and now I must work with it as best I can.”
“Does she know?” Rozhara inquired.
“I don’t believe so.” The past few days, he’d kept himself even more tightly controlled than usual. It was the only way to maintain his sanity. Otherwise, he would have felt compelled to reach out to Zhanna every time she came into his office with a question or a request, to pull her to him so he could push back her hood and claim her mouth with his. And that would be utter disaster. He could make no overtures until he knew she felt the same way he did.
“And this Zhanna? Do you have any sense that she might reciprocate this bond?”
“I don’t know. She is very controlled. She lost her family in the Alizhaar incident, and I am certain she is still working her way through that.”
“Oh, that is dreadful,” Rozhara murmured, and Zhandar nodded.
“Yes. So she has her own healing to manage, and perhaps she is concerned that she will jeopardize her position here if she says anything to me. Assuming, of course, that she even feels as I do.”
Rozhara was silent for a moment, apparently turning over in her mind everything he had just told her. At last she said, her tone quiet but firm, “You should speak to her, Zhandar. It is never good to hold these things inside. If it turns out that she feels the same bond with you, then there is no point in wasting time that you could share with her. And if she does not, then at least you will know that it was not meant to be, and you can proceed with selecting a partner from one of the candidates Jalzhin has proposed to you.”
His counselor’s words made sense, and yet Zhandar still found himself hesitating. For while it was true that he should not be wasting even a precious second that might be spent with Zhanna as a partner, at the same time, if it turned out that she did not feel as he did, then he would be left with not even the fragile hope he nurtured now.
He left aside Rozhara’s comment about moving on to be with one of Jalzhin’s candidates. After feeling the sayara pull from Zhanna, Zhandar couldn’t allow himself to consider such a counterfeit.
“Very well,” he said, after a hesitation he didn’t bother to hide. “I will speak with her. On my own time, however,” he added. This was not something he could do on the spur of a moment. He would need time to gather his thoughts, to think of the best way to approach Zhanna so that she would not feel any sort of pressure or intimidation from him. She was younger than he, starting her life over in a strange town, and had suffered a terrible loss. He did not want to frighten her, or make her think that she could not stay on as his assistant if she did not reciprocate his feelings.
“That is fair,” Rozhara said. “Important conversations such as these should not be rushed into.”
Zhandar felt as if he were rushing. He had only been working with Zhanna for three days. And while it was considered perfectly normal among his people to form a lifelong attachment after such a short acquaintance, if both of those involved felt the same resonance, something about this entire situation seemed odd, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on why.
He’d put that aside for now. Far more important that he resolve this uncertainty, and decide how to proceed from there.
* * *
Working long hours was nothing new for Trinity. Lord knows all her previous bosses had abused the system for all it was worth — as an unclassified employee, she had a specific salary deposited in her account each month, and the government had never much cared how many actual hours she’d worked to earn that salary. But putting in extended hours here was a particular kind of torture, just because it meant more time spent around Zhandar. She’d been here for two weeks now, and she couldn’t help wondering how long she’d have to maintain her disguise. Although she didn’t have direct contact with Gabriel — that would have been too risky — she could almost sense his mounting frustration as the days went by. No doubt he’d expected her to make some sort of move before now, which just showed how little he truly understood about Zhore psychology.
Oddly, she actually enjoyed what she was doing, once she’d relaxed enough to realize that her true identity wouldn’t be immediately exposed. Sometimes she liked to pretend that this was truly her life, and not merely a subterfuge she was engaging in because it suited her masters’ purposes. She’d never had a supervisor like Zhandar, someone who asked for her opinion because he truly wanted it, and not just because he was condescending to some counterfeit notion of equality. And she liked the work itself. They were doing something to make the world a more beautiful place, not just pushing numbers around.
So when Zhandar had asked her to stay late and work on editing the report he intended to submit to the planning commission the next day, Trinity didn’t think anything much of it. In the two weeks that she’d been here on Zhoraan, he’d made similar requests once or twice, always softening the requirement by saying she could come in a little late the next morning, or take a long, leisurely midday meal. Anyway, what difference did it make if she stayed late? It wasn’t as if she had anything to go home to. Yes, the apartment she’d been given to live in was more luxurious than she could have imagined, but it was still empty. No boyfriend, no pets, no friends. Maybe she should have attempted to get out and explore more of Zhore culture, but she was keenly aware of the implant that kept recording everything she saw, everything she said and did. She didn’t see why she should give Gabriel Brant the satisfaction of learning anything more about Zhoraan than he absolutely had to.
Besides, she figured that the less exposure she had to the Zhore in general, the less chance there was of her making a misstep that would unmask her. At work she could be quiet and take her cues from the people she worked with. She picked up snatches of emotion and thought from them, and none of those coworkers seemed to pay her much attention, except to think of her as quiet and unassuming. At work, she seemed safe enough.
To fill the empty hours when she was at home, Trinity usually turned on the vid. Watching the Zhore version of entertainment was rather educational, since it seemed to consist entirely of documentaries about Zhoraan and its solar system, and none of the more lurid romance or action-adventure shows she was used to. On the other hand, discussions of Zhoraani flora and fauna could go a long way in her book, and she often went to sleep earlier than she’d intended, since there was nothing to keep her awake.
She had to wonder what Gabriel Brant and the rest of his team made of it all. No doubt they were busily cataloguing everything she saw and heard, dull and dry as it might be. But that was all they could track — that damned implant couldn’t read her thoughts, thank God. Those were still her own.
While she was woolgathering, the comm on her desk beeped. Here on Zhoraan, comms were audio-only, probably because there was no point in wasting bandwidth on video when everyone you talked to looked more or less the same. Trinity pushed the button, knowing it had to be her supervisor, since everyone else had gone home for the day.
“Did you need something, Zhandar?” In a way, she wished she could call him “sir.” It would have put some much-needed distance between them.
“Yes, Zhanna. Could you come into my office, please?”
Since he hadn’t been specific about what he wanted, Trinity picked up her tablet and stylus in case he needed her to take some notes. By then, Zhoraan’s bluish-white sun had dropped below the horizon, and the lights of the city had come alive. Not too many; the Zhore wanted to interfere as little as possible with the glory of their night sky, so much more vibrant than the one she’d grown up with on Gaia. But it was enough to tell her that the hour was even later than she’d thought.
She stopped in the open doorway of Zhandar’s office. He was working, not on his computer, but on the 3-D holo-modeler that showed the work in progress on the new building being constructed. She always enjoyed seeing him play with that particular piece of tech, just because it made a project real in a way that only s
eeing it displayed on a computer screen did not.
He looked up, then said, “Please come in. And please close the door.”
That request made a warning flare through her. He never shut his door. Asking her to do so now meant that he must have something to say that he didn’t want overheard.
But everyone had already gone home for the evening.
Tamping down her unease, she did as he requested, brushing her gloved hand over the door controls. It slid shut behind her, something final about the soft hiss it made as it snicked shut.
Zhandar stepped away from the table where he’d been making adjustments to his 3-D model of the rooftop garden. Maybe it was just being alone with him like this, when before there had always been someone around, but he seemed somehow taller, more forbidding. Although Trinity knew better than to actually probe his mind, she couldn’t help sending out just the smallest tendril of thought to see if she could pick up any hint of why he’d asked her to come in here.
Nothing. She wasn’t the only one good at putting up solid barriers, it seemed. Then she wondered why she should be surprised. Not once in the two weeks she’d been here had she detected anything in him, and she’d had to work damn hard to make sure she was equally opaque.
“This may be awkward,” he began. “But it is something that we need to discuss.”
Oh, hell. Was this the Zhore way of getting fired? Trinity racked her brains to see if she could come up with anything she’d done wrong over the past few days, something that would have resulted in her being dismissed. But there hadn’t been anything. She and Zhandar worked well together, even though the entire time she’d had to pretend that her body wasn’t aching for his touch.
Might as well plunge right into it. “Is there something wrong with my work? I know I have made a mistake here and there, but I thought — ”
“Oh, no,” Zhandar said at once. He took a step toward her and stopped just as quickly, as if he’d intended to draw closer but then thought better of it. “No, that’s not it at all.”
Relief went through her, but it was only a small trickle, not a flood. There was something else going on here, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what that something might be.
“It is only….” He stopped again. Trinity could see how his gloved hands were clenched at his sides, as if he was forcing himself to continue. “You have done very well as my assistant, Zhanna. But the entire time, it has been difficult for me. You see…you see, I feel the sayara bond with you. I know it is there…at least on my part. But I have no idea what it is you are feeling.”
Torzhaan was not in a seismically active region, and yet it still seemed as if an earthquake had just rocked Trinity to her very core. She had not heard the word “sayara” before, because there was no equivalent in Galactic Standard and it had not been part of her language conditioning, and yet in that moment she knew exactly what it was. The insane attraction toward the man who stood before her, the unique pull of one Zhore for another.
Zhandar was experiencing the draw of sayara with her, even though she was human. This whole time she’d been trying to resist the surging tides of her own emotions, and he’d been feeling the very same thing. Or maybe it wasn’t exactly the same. She was human, and he was Zhore, and she had no true frame of reference for what those empathic aliens might feel in these situations.
Her mouth was dry. He was just standing there, watching her, although of course he couldn’t see her expression. This was her opportunity, the perfect opening her handlers had hoped for. If she didn’t seize it, there would be repercussions. Exactly what, she didn’t know for sure, but she doubted they would be pleasant. At any rate, that wasn’t the most important thing. Heat was flaring and rippling through her, an aching need that actually made her want to clench her knees together.
God, she wanted him, and she’d never even seen his face.
“I — I’ve felt it, too,” she said at last. “I didn’t know if I should say anything, because I was here in a professional capacity. But it has been hard…so hard.”
That seemed to be all Zhandar needed to hear. Two swift paces, and he closed the distance between them, even as he reached out to take her gloved hands in his. God, the strength of those fingers. She wanted to yank off the gloves they both wore so she could feel him, skin to skin. All right, it wasn’t her skin, not exactly, but it still had nerve endings. It would be enough.
“Zhanna,” he said. Her name sounded like a caress on his lips. And again, it wasn’t her name, only one she had stolen. But that was all she could have from him. Certainly he’d never be able to call her Trinity. “I had hoped…I had dreamed.”
“As had I.” She clung to his hands, grateful for even that touch, but wanting more. This was insane. She’d been placed here as a spy, the Consortium’s secret weapon. She should be going about this coldly. But none of Gabriel Brant’s doctors and psychiatrists and xenobiologists had considered the possibility that the overwhelming attractions this alien race experienced might work on her, a psychic, just as strongly as they did on any Zhore.
“So….” Zhandar paused for a long moment, her hands still held in his. Then, with excruciating slowness, he gently pulled the glove from her right hand, exposing her bare palm.
Even after two weeks, it was strange to look down and see that gleaming, iridescent skin covering her flesh. That didn’t stop her from shivering as Zhandar took her hand and brought it up to his unseen lips, still hidden within his hood.
A shudder went through her. Had there ever been anything more erotic than the touch of his mouth on her upturned palm? His skin was so very warm, awakening the heat that she kept barely coiled within her.
“You are so very beautiful,” he whispered.
How could he say that, when he had never even seen her face? But Trinity knew she was judging his words as a human might. He thought her beautiful because of the time they’d spent working together, because of what he thought was her personality. What would his reaction be, she wondered, if he ever discovered that every moment they’d spent together was a lie?
Not all of it, she thought fiercely. This…him holding my hand, kissing it…that’s not a lie. The way I feel about him isn’t a lie.
“What now?” she asked, also in a whisper. “What do we do now? I don’t know — ” And then she broke off, because she realized she’d almost betrayed herself. Surely a young Zhore woman would know what their next step was.
Luckily, he seemed to misunderstand, saying, “It is difficult, when two people work together, but not unprecedented. We can work through that later. For now, though….”
“For now?” Her voice shook a little, but she didn’t think that was necessarily a bad thing. Zhandar didn’t have to know it was from relief, rather than a reaction to his kiss on her hand.
Well, maybe it was a little of that.
Although she couldn’t see him, she thought he might be smiling within that hood. “For now, I would like to have dinner with you.”
* * *
One thing Trinity had learned in her time on Zhoraan was that the Zhore did not share the human love of dining in public. She supposed they thought eating too personal an activity to be shared with others. And while the vegetarian aliens did love to cook, they sometimes found themselves too busy to properly attend to the task. Hence, their world’s surprisingly bustling food-delivery business.
They went to Zhandar’s apartment. Trinity didn’t know if this was all a prelude to more physical activities, but she told herself she would follow along and do what was required. Besides, if just the merest brush of his lips against the palm of her hand could arouse that kind of reaction in her, she wouldn’t mind finding out what even more intimate contact might feel like.
His place was larger than hers, and located on the top floor of the building it occupied. Penthouse suite, she thought in some amusement. The Zhore might act all egalitarian, but it seemed there were still some strata in their society if you squinted hard enough. Or possib
ly the apartment was part of his compensation for working so hard at the same job for so long.
Soft lights flicked on as they entered. Here, too, were more of the wall water features, and lush plants in shades of deep green and soft blue in strategically placed planters. The air smelled good, of something faintly sweet and spicy. Trinity didn’t know if that was from the carefully cultivated vegetation or something else — the Zhore equivalent of incense — but she liked it.
Zhandar seemed almost hesitant as he led her into the main living area, which was furnished with low, soft couches and a couple of artfully placed ottomans. “Anything in particular you would like?” he asked, pulling his handheld out of a pocket in his robes.
“Surprise me,” she replied.
He laughed. The dark, rich sound of it made a delicious shiver go down her spine. “I plan to.”
Oh, dear God.
She didn’t recognize half of what he ordered as he placed the call, but she had told him to surprise her, after all. So far, most of what she’d eaten here on Zhoraan was surprisingly tasty. She’d been expecting bland, unappetizing dishes for some reason, but the Zhore had a deft hand with their spices, and did such wonderful things with the local mushrooms — all right, fungus — that half the time you couldn’t even tell you weren’t eating real meat.
He put the handheld away, then stood there, watching her. Then he said, “The next step is up to you.”
“The next step?” she echoed, confused. What, did he want her to jump his bones now before the food even came?
Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing, but….
His fingers touched the edge of his hood. “We can wait, if you wish.”
Oh. So once a couple had declared that they shared the sayara bond, apparently it was time to dispense with the hoods and the cloaks, at least when they were in private together. She would see him.
And he would see her.
What if he didn’t like what he saw? What if he no longer thought she was beautiful? Trinity told herself not to worry, that the Zhore were interested in the spirit, not the physical, but that element of their natures had its own dangers. At some point she would have to open up to him. Not all the way, but enough that he could read her emotions. Bonded couples probably didn’t hide what they felt from one another. She wouldn’t have to worry about Zhandar reading her mind, since he was an empath, not a true psychic, but even her emotional landscape was something of a mine field, let alone what her actual thoughts concealed.
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