Highlander's Need: Winter Solestice (Against All Odds Series 4)

by Veronica Wilson

  Danielle could have sworn she heard something in Dagin's voice and saw something in his eyes that was not usually present in men like him when addressing women like her, but she dismissed it. This could not be anything but curiosity on his part—a kind, sincere, but altogether non-physical curiosity. Tentatively, she asked, "You're...asking me back to your table?"

  "No, not there," he replied. “There are observation decks on board here that look out upon your planet of Saturn, whose colors so beautifully match your gown. Join me on one of them. We shall speak alone, you and I, and learn more of one another. Would this not be pleasant?"

  The moment hung suspended in time for Danielle once again. This was not at all what she had expected when she left Mars. This whole evening had suddenly become a different thing than she had ever imagined. Perhaps it was the difference that made her say, "Yes... yes, it would be... very nice."

  A broad smile like the glow of a star cluster lit Dagin's face. "Excellent!" he said. He motioned to a serving man with a tray of drinks. He took a flute of champagne for himself and handed one to Danielle, offering her his arm.

  She was unable to do anything now but let this absolute dream of a night carry her onward, though reminding herself that this meant nothing but curiosity and company on his part. Danielle put her arm through his and let him lead her out of the ballroom. Behind them, Sylvia watched her daughter go off with the prince. A smile as big as Jupiter spread across her face while she squeezed the bicep of her astonished, slack-jawed husband as she had squeezed Danielle's bicep a thousand times before. All around the Drydens was a sea of faces as astonished as that of Thomas, all of them fixed on the round figure in the Saturn-colored gown exiting the ballroom on the arm of the tall, dark, fantastic prince.

  _______________

  On an observation deck right above the ballroom, where they could hear the muted strains of the music rising from below, a semicircle of plush seats and a table were arrayed before a long, tall row of viewports looking out onto a broad arc of the rings of Saturn, with Titan itself visible off the port side. Titan and Titan II thus orbited the jewel of the solar system together. Dagin led Danielle to one of the seats and they settled down there together, clinking glasses.

  They emptied their wine flutes in a silence punctuated by exchanges of smiles and moments when they looked away together out the viewports at the shimmering arc of Saturn's rings. When the empty glasses rested on the table, Dagin broke the silence. "Never have I known a night such as this," he said.

  Danielle replied, "You must have been off your planet before."

  "I have. But only on diplomatic missions to seal treaties with other planets, before we made contact with Earth. The life forms of other planets and their ways are not like yours or ours. The human race is, in truth, a revelation to us."

  She understood. "Sarma has been a revelation to us too. You're so much like us—but not like us. Meeting you, it's been like meeting ourselves, but seeing ourselves for the first time."

  He grinned and sparkled his eyes at her. "You see? We are different—yet not so different."

  "For someone who's not used to being around Earth people," she said, "you don't seem to have any trouble dancing like us. You waltz better than a lot of Earth men."

  His grin widened. "May I tell you a secret which only we will know?"

  "What?"

  "Before I left Sarma, I consulted with some of the diplomatic corps that was sent to our planet to establish Earth's embassy there. I had them teach me things of the graces and niceties of your people. One thing that I learned was how to dance with an Earth woman."

  Danielle arched her eyebrows at hearing this. "You had an Earth dance instructor?"

  "Yes."

  "A woman?"

  "Of course."

  She looked off, and Dagin saw an expression come over her face as if she were looking at something far beyond the far side of Saturn. "You are quiet again," he said. "Why?"

  "It's nothing," Danielle answered softly.

  "Nothing does not make a woman lose her voice and take her eyes from the man in her company. It is something."

  Still averting her eyes from his, she asked, "What was she like—the woman who taught you to dance?"

  "She was pleasant, charming. She was very patient. She had to be patient, as I had much to learn about moving with a partner instead of an opponent."

  At this, Danielle was quiet again. Dagin began to grow mildly vexed, still not grasping the reason. It seemed as if she were retreating far away from him and withdrawing into herself at once. He ventured, "Is there something else you wish to ask?"

  Danielle shook her head. "No, it's really nothing." But in her mind was an image of a beautiful woman diplomat, not very different from the dark woman Dagin had so unexpectedly passed in the ballroom to get to Danielle. In her imagination the woman who taught Dagin to dance was tall and willowy, like a long-stemmed flower. And Dagin danced her around the royal throne room of the planet Sarma—and off to his princely bedchamber, where their clothes floated to the floor and Dagin spread her across his bed, lay his perfect princely body atop her, and passionately penetrated her long into the night. Danielle's heart sighed at what her mind saw.

  She could not go on sitting with him, with that image whirling around in her head. Making herself face him again, Danielle asked, "Why did you decide to leave Sarma? Just to travel?"

  Dagin sensed that there was still something that Danielle was not asking, but he addressed the question at hand. "Partly. Earth and its people have presented me with an opportunity. You see, I am a Prince of Sarma, but I am not the Crown Prince. The line of succession from my father passes not to me, but to my elder brother Dantar. 'Tis Dantar who now ascends to the throne. As his brother, I am still prince, but I shall never be king save that something should befall him. Remaining on Sarma, I would be a member of the Royal Court, and I would have duties and obligations—but as this is now a time of peace on our planet, there would be little for me to do but drill our warriors and act royally. The tedium of it all would be more than I could bear. Therefore did I choose instead to take my leave of the home planet and explore the greater galaxy and the things that it has to offer, to experience other worlds and other beings that I would never know if I were simply to remain in the Royal Court. Do you not agree that life is not meant to be allowed to pass without living it?"

  Danielle answered wistfully, "Yes... I guess I do."

  Now he just had to know: "Why do you seem so sad when you say that?"

  "I guess it's because before I let my parents talk me into coming here, that's pretty much what I was doing—letting life go by."

  "It is because of him, is it not? The one who accosted you on the receiving line, the one who upset you—he was your lover. He did not treat you well."

  At this, Danielle gave a rueful little laugh. "Oh, he treated me just fine. He was kind and sweet and passionate and... and he treated me like you would treat a princess. And I guess that's what I was to him, a princess who could give him what he wanted. Braden treated me like he wanted me, but... he really wanted something from me."

  "He did not truly love you."

  "He loved what he thought I could give him. What he really wanted in a lover... he couldn't get from me."

  "There was another," Dagin said knowingly.

  Danielle almost snapped at him, "Yes, there was another! And she... she wasn't like me."

  Now they were getting somewhere. "What was she like?" Dagin asked.

  A sour expression came over Danielle. "You really want to know? Really?"

  "I would not ask if I did not wish to know," he said.

  She fixed him with a look as if her eyes were two red-hot branding irons. An edge came into her voice, an edge of hurt and sorrow and despair—and anger, long denied but long and keenly felt. "She was like the women that you must be used to! She was thin. She wasn't built like some kind of... of... moon! She was what men like you always want! The women on Sarma—they're wa
rriors, aren't they? They must all be these gladiator women, built for battle, all muscle! Not like me! I let myself believe I was what Braden really wanted because for someone like me, a man like Braden comes around one time or never! I talked myself into thinking he really wanted me because I didn't want it to be never. I wanted someone like him—and I got what was coming to me."

  Stung by her words and the way she spoke them, Dagin sighed and frowned and sat back in his seat. This was something for which he was not prepared. He asked, "If men such as me never desire women such as you, why then did I ask you to dance? And why then did I ask you for your company after the dance?"

  "Maybe it's like you said, because I'm something you'd never know if you stayed on Sarma. Maybe I'm part of this great exploration of yours."

  Dagin frowned more deeply. "This does not reflect well on you or on me. You make great assumptions, Danielle. You assume that there are no women such as you in a race of warriors. You assume that a man such as I can see nothing to desire in a woman with a body that is not hard and tight. You assume that there is nothing truly to desire about yourself. These things, were I to be less diplomatic, I would call prejudices. Are you truly so prejudiced?"

  With frowning eyes, Danielle replied, "Just answer me this: the woman who taught you to dance—was she like me? And did you only dance with her?"

  After a careful, considered pause, Dagin answered, "She was not like you. She was as elegant as you, but slender. And no, I did not only dance with her."

  Danielle stood up with all the dignity she could find amid what she was feeling at the moment and said, "Well, thank you for the 'elegant' part anyway. And thank you for asking me to join you. I think I'll excuse myself now."

  Dagin rose with her, asking, "Why? After a dance and a few moments of talk, do you know all there is to know of me? To see me as nothing but my noble station and the shape of my body is no better than what your Braden did, seeing you as nothing but your wealth and your status and what you could do to advance his place. I thought you were a lady, Danielle Dryden. But I see that you are a most prejudiced young woman."

  And now she snapped completely. Her face contorted into a reddened mask that reflected the brokenness of her heart. One hand clenched into a fist, the other pointed an angry finger right at the face of the startled prince. She half-shouted, "Don't you dare talk to me about prejudice! Not until you've had to spend your whole life unwanted, or being looked through like you weren't there, or being looked around for someone thinner who was standing behind you! Or listening to the things men call you and the way they laugh and sneer about your body when they think you can't hear them—or just as bad, when other women do it! Or knowing that the only way someone that you want will want you back is if you have enough money and can give him things, or you have a doctor take his laser and slice away all the pounds that the men you want don't like! My whole life has been one big prejudice, Your Highness. And one big worthless fantasy. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to reality."

  Indignant, Dagin shook his head at her. "Very well then," he said. "Return as you like to that which you think is real. But your reality is a very small, sad thing. And take this with you: I think you are too good to be so sad and your sadness is not a life. And take one thing more as well..."

  What followed was the single most shocking moment of Danielle Dryden's life. Dagin of Sarma crossed the distance between them with a single stride of his mighty legs, grabbed her, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her with an ardor that made her feel as if she were orbiting Saturn on her own. Eventually he released her from the kiss, took his arms from her, and took one step away. She stood facing him, wide-eyed, feeling as if she would fall like an avalanche before him.

  Like a conquering warrior, Dagin said, "There you are, Danielle Dryden. I, a prince with wealth and station of my own, who have no need of your fortune and want nothing from you but to know who you are and how it would be to share with you the sweetest thing that two beings can give one another, salute you and leave you to the reality that you know, which you think is all there is in your very small universe. I wish you a good life, whatever there may be of it."

  He spun on his heel and turned to leave. And from behind him he heard the unmistakable and poignant sound of barely suppressed sobbing. In spite of his indignation at being held responsible for the callousness of every desirable man on Earth and Mars, that sound was a weight about his ankles that brought him to a stop. With his back still turned to her, Dagin heard her voice come through tears: "Y-your Highness?"

  The prince turned around to meet Danielle's weeping gaze and asked, "Do you not wish to address me as something other than 'Your Highness' at this moment?"

  She sobbed again, "Da... Dagin?"

  The sound of her using his name and not his title was enough to make him rush back to her and gather up her fullness in his arms again. Putting her arms around him in kind, she buried her head on his broad shoulder and cried. Through her weeping, more voice tumbled out: "I thought I was done with crying."

  Softly, Dagin said, "You also thought that you were done with him. You did not need him to come to you again, bringing his false love. It is not the size of the body that matters. It is the size of the heart."

  He let her cry it out. At length, he took her head from his shoulder and looked tenderly into her eyes. "I wish you to come with me now," he said.

  "Where?"

  "I have a yacht docked here at the resort. We shall be alone there. My attendants will know where we are, but they will not disturb us unless I send for them. Come with me. We shall sail round the beautiful rings of Saturn—and I shall take you to my bed. We will lie together and we will share zazansa and gliarra."

  "What's that?" she asked.

  "My zazansa and your gliarra are exactly what you think they are," he replied. He kissed her, sweetly. "Now, to my yacht and my bed."

  Danielle left the observation deck with Prince Dagin, hand in hand.

  _______________

  Danielle had seen Sarmian ships in the interstellar newsfeed, but they were all war ships and envoy vessels. Dagin's private yacht was different. The other vessels were all formidable-looking things, built either to be intimidating or to project an air of majesty. They had spines and ridges and stalks, protuberances that reminded Danielle of creatures of the sea that had somehow taken to space. The pleasure craft that belonged to the prince was a shiny thing of graceful, swooping lines and fins. It looked like a work of art. It frankly looked like sex. It reminded her of Dagin himself.

  Once they were through the airlock of the ship, they slipped into magnetic boots that enabled them to walk the floor in zero gravity. The boots were bulky and cumbersome compared to their elegant party attire, but neither Danielle nor the Prince cared. The interior of the craft was as luxurious as the exterior was sensuous. The cockpit was a sunken area in front, facing out to the forward viewport, and reminded Danielle of theatre seating. He helped her into the plush and comfortable seat next to the pilot's seat and took his own position. The navigation array was a thing of lights that looked like an abstract sculpture. Dagin operated it with casual and practiced ease. The craft slipped out of its mooring along one arc of Titan II and glided out into space, following the flow of glittering ice particles in their orbit around the gaseous planet below.

  The ship moved smoothly, just meters above the ring, and at one point Dagin looked over at her and grinned, saying, "Watch this!"

  Danielle kept her eyes fixed on the viewport and felt a fluttering in her stomach as the craft went into a long, shallow dive. In the next moment, the ship was skimming the surface of the ring; not descending fully into it, just slipping along the uppermost part of the orbiting icy rime. The viewports to the front and both sides were at once filled with a sparkling cascade of particles, a shower and spray of ice crystals that the ship kicked up as it passed. Startled and delighted at the gorgeous display, Danielle let out a "Whoop!" Then, embarrassed, she raised a hand to her mouth a
nd tittered and giggled quietly as the ship went skimming along the ring and Dagin glanced over at her, enjoying her enjoyment—and anticipating the still greater enjoyment that he would soon give her.

  They made one full circuit of the rings of Saturn before Dagin returned his craft to its docking at the resort, where the spin of Titan II lent it a semblance of Earth's gravity once more and they no longer needed the boots. Taking Danielle by the hand, he led her from the cockpit through a passage whose walls shimmered iridescently like mother-of-pearl to a chamber containing a large viewport through which they could see the rotating arc of the resort. Presiding over the master cabin of the yacht, which was all done in gold and burgundy tones, was Dagin's large and sumptuously inviting-looking bed, whose sheets at the moment were shrink-wrapped to the mattress and frame. Dagin called to the ship's systems, "Release bed." At once, with a hissing and rustling sound, the sheets came loose from the rest of the bed and the headboard opened up and two large, thick, soft pillows rolled out. The bed was thus ready for normal-gravity use.

  Danielle looked up at Dagin warmly, sincerely, and said, "I think I owe you an apology first."

  "For what?" Dagin asked.

  "For the way I spoke to you on the observation deck. For throwing all the disappointment I've had from Braden and other men at you, as if you were responsible. I shouldn't have done that to you. I apologize."

  "That is done now, Danielle. It is no more. There is only now, and what I wish us to have together in this bed." Danielle stood immobile, barely able to breathe, watching Dagin strip off his longcoat, boots, and everything else. One piece at a time, his clothing came to rest on the floor or on the chair and divan-like cushions fastened to the walls, until the Prince of Sarma stood revealed in all his naked glory. He was even more perfect than Danielle imagined. Every muscle up and down his frame looked as if it had been selected from some celestial shop of bodies. And at the juncture of his thighs, under a silky bush of dark pubic hair, hung something, that was a mighty vessel in its own right, long and thick and veined with a fleshy bottleneck of foreskin. "This is the end of all your disappointments, Danielle," Dagin said. "Take off your clothes and join me in the bed. I wish to be inside you many times."