For almost three years, Dtimun, the enigmatic and mysterious Cehn-Tahr commander of the Morcai Battalion, has been at war not only with the Rojok Dynasty…but also with his feisty medical chief of staff, Dr. Madeline Ruszel.

Now a surprising visitor from the future has charged them with the rescue of the enemy, field marshal Chacon. To ensure success, both Madeline and Dtimun must make personal sacrifices and attempt a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Sparks fly as each twist and turn throws them closer together than they’ve ever been before, but can they resist acting on desires they have long denied?

If their plans are discovered, they face exile by their own governments and possibly even execution. If they do not act, the future will see the end of civilization itself...

Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author

DIANA PALMER

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Readers will be moved by this tale of revenge and justice, grief and healing.”

—Booklist on Dangerous

“Diana Palmer is one of those authors whose books are always enjoyable. She throws in romance, suspense and a good story line.”

—The Romance Reader on Before Sunrise

“Lots of passion, thrills, and plenty of suspense… Protector is a top-notch read!”

—Romance Reviews Today

“A delightful romance with interesting new characters and many familiar faces. It’s nice to have a hero who is not picture-perfect in looks or instincts, and a heroine who accepts her privileged life yet is willing to work for the future she wants.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wyoming Tough

The Morcai Battalion: Invictus

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the fine professors at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, who taught me to look at the world in a new and different way. Especially to those I haven’t mentioned in previous dedications who were my mentors in history and other subjects back when I was a college student in the 1990s: Dr. Ralph Singer and Dr. Al Pleysier in the history department; in anthropology, Dr. Max White; in Japanese, Dr. Jeanne White; in Spanish, Dr. Joe Palmer; and in English, Dr. William Smith, among many others.

This science fiction series also owes much to Dr. Rob Wainberg, my mentor for the biological aspects of the Cehn-Tahr (and, I rush to add, any mistakes in interpretation are my own, not his). The idea for the combination of human/Cehn-Tahr genes to restructure Ruszel was his. Hope I got it right, Rob.

This novel is also dedicated to my family: my husband, James; my son, Blayne Kyle; my daughter-in-law, Christina; my granddaughter, Selena Marie; my grandson, Donovan; my sister, Dannis, and her daughters, Amanda Belle Hofstetter and Maggie Cole; my other nieces, Helen Hunnicutt, Valerie Kyle, Kathy Thomas; my nephews, Bobby Hansen and Tony Woodall and their families; Rodney, Paul and James and all their families; my best friend, Ann Vandiver (who forced me to take all my manuscripts out of the closet and market them in the first place); my brothers-in-law, Doug Kyle and Sonny Merck; my sisters-in-law, Kathleen Woodall and Victoria Kyle; my great-nieces and great-nephews, great-great-nieces and nephews and the rest of my wonderful in-laws. And to my extended family, my readers, who keep me going with their affection and loyalty. Love you all.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

SILENCE, MADELINE RUSZEL THOUGHT, was overrated. In the darkness, all alone, she heard nothing outside the room. It was obviously soundproof. She wondered if the Cehn-Tahr needed perfect silence in order to sleep.

The thought made her curious. Memcache, the home planet of the Cehn-Tahr, had become her home since her rescue from a crash on the planet Akaashe with her military unit. Her former Holconcom commander, Dtimun, had defied his government and her own to save her life. She was recuperating from her injuries, but also facing a new and dangerous challenge once she healed. It was hard to sleep with the most momentous decision of her life hanging over her. She was going to agree to a procedure that would change the very structure of her body, and to a mission that might mean her death.

She heard the wind stir outside. She wondered if her former commander had as much trouble sleeping as she was having. This place, this stone fortress, was his home. She was still amazed to find herself here, instead of back on the Tri-Galaxy Fleet’s planet, Trimerius, where wounded military with life-threatening injuries such as hers had been were customarily hospitalized.

She hoped Dtimun wasn’t in too much trouble with his government for pulling the Holconcom out of the Tri-Galaxy Fleet in order to rescue her. She, and all the humans aboard the Cehn-Tahr ship Morcai, were now under threat of court-martial and spacing. The Terravegan ambassador, Aubrey Taylor, had mandated the return of all human military back into Terravegan units, thus forcing the Holconcom’s human component to return to its own base. The humans, all fond of Madeline, had refused to comply with the order, which also forbade any attempt to rescue her from Akaashe. So now they, and she, were fugitives from justice. She wished, not for the first time, that ambassadors had less power. They were the equivalent of world leaders in the totalitarian society to which Terravegans belonged.

She drew in a slow breath, delighted to notice that it was not as painful as before. Her injuries would have been fatal, but she’d made a friend during an earlier mission. She saved the life of an elderly Cehn-Tahr soldier. It was he who had come with the Holconcom to Akaashe to get her. It was his powerful mind that had healed her. She owed him a lot.

She shifted in the bed, restless. She wasn’t used to inactivity. She’d been in the military since she was very young. At the age of eight, she’d been divisional champion marksman in the sniper company where she’d first served. Her career as a soldier had been satisfying. So had her career as a doctor, a field that paired diagnostic and surgical functions and specialties in one individual. She was an internist, dealing with Cularian racial types such as Cehn-Tahr and Rojok. She was also medical chief of staff for the Holconcom ship Morcai. Or she had been, until Ambassador Taylor had transferred her to a commando unit in the all-female Amazon Division and put her in harm’s way.

It had been a move she hadn’t fought. Her helpless attraction to her commanding officer had resulted in a behavior he couldn’t control, one which had almost cost him his career. The Cehn-Tahr had mating behaviors which were violent and quite noticeable. When a human was involved, the consequences would have been deadly. The Interspecies Act forbade any mingling of genetic material between Cehn-Tahr and non-Cularian races, such as humans. Dtimun had often hinted that the Cehn-Tahr—genetically modified to be vastly physically superior to any other race—had many feline behaviors.

Which raised a question in her mind. Did the Cehn-Tahr sleep at night, like humans, or did they subsist on catnaps? She knew they could eat small mammals whole, owing to the striated muscle in their esophagus. But they also had a detached hyoid bone. That meant that they should be able to purr, like the small cats that occupied space on Terravega. That was an interesting idea. She’d heard the commander growl. She’d heard what passed for laughter among the Cehn-Tahr. She’d never heard one of them make a purring sound. Well, just because they had the anatomical structure to make it possible didn’t mean they did it, anyway. The commander had intimated that there were still secrets about the Cehn-Tahr that they’d never shared, even with their human crewmates. She wondered what they were.

She got up, a little stiffly, and walked to the window. With a soft sigh, she opened the shutter-like wings and let in the night breeze. It carried warm breezes with the scent of the same flowers that occupied pots in her bedroom. No cut flowers here, she’d noticed, and smiled as she decided that Caneese had been responsible for that. Dear Caneese, who took such good care of her. It was comforting to have a woman’s touch. Especially for Madeline, who had been raised in a government nursery on Terravega.

She was so unlike Cehn-Tahr females. Madeline was independent and spirited, a capable soldier, a competent doctor. Cehn-Tahr women were forbidden to join the military at all, much less operate as combat soldiers. It had been a point of contention between Madeline and Dtimun. Their battles had become the stuff of legends. And now she was living in his home, about to be bonded with him in preparation for the creation of a hybrid child. The pregnancy would act as a disguise to gain them entrance to the most notorious den of thieves in the three civilized galaxies. And they would do this, risking execution from their respective governments, to save the life of an enemy military commander. All because a traveler from the future, Komak, had told them that civilization would perish if the Rojok Field Marshal Chacon was removed from his position by the murderous Rojok head of state. It was a frightening concept, that the future could depend on a human female and an alien male and a child that Madeline was still not certain was even a possibility.

She wondered how Komak planned to do the genetic manipulation that would make her strong enough that Dtimun could mate with her without killing her. Probably by injection, she decided, using a biological catalyst to facilitate the combination of human and alien DNA. It was an intriguing scientific theory put to practical use, if he could pull it off. But why not? The Rojoks had developed similar tech, and her Terravegan former captain, Holt Stern, was proof of it. She’d seen him take on Komak and fight him to a draw.

Not that she planned on trying to deck the CO. She had considered it the day before, listening to him scoff at emotion. But, then, he had good reasons for his opinion. How terrible, to lose the one woman he’d ever cared about so violently.

She recalled their discussion about the way Cehn-Tahr marked their mates, about the aggression of mating. She would have to mate with the alien commander, if they were to assure the future timeline. A disturbing prospect, but Komak, who was from the future, had insisted that the mission was vital. Pregnancy would be part of their disguise. In all of history, no Cehn-Tahr had ever mated with a human female. It had been considered impossible, due to the uncanny physical strength of the aliens.

It was unsettling to a woman who had spent her entire life as a neuter. She had no idea what to expect, except for what she knew from a medical standpoint. Probably, she decided, it was better not to think too much about it until she had to.

“Why are you out here alone at this hour?”

She jumped at Dtimun’s voice. She hadn’t heard him approach.

“I couldn’t sleep, sir,” she stammered.

He was wearing robes, not his familiar uniform. He appeared somber and out of sorts. He moved to her side, looking out over the dark silhouettes of the trees and distant mountains. “Nor could I.”

She leaned on the balcony that ran around the porch. “I’m sorry I was rude, earlier.”

“I was rude first.”

She laughed to herself, picturing an altercation earlier between her female physician colleague and a Cehn-Tahr officer during which Dr. Edris Mallory had ended up with a pot of soup poured over her head.

“What?”

“I was remembering poor Edris Mallory, covered in soup.”

He laughed, too. “I must confess that I can understand what motivated Rhemun to retaliate after she threw a soup ladle at him. The only thing that saved you in the past from the same fate was the lack of soup at an appropriate time.”

“I know I get on your nerves,” she said without looking at him. “I don’t mean to.”

The soft, high trill of some night bird filled the silence between them.

“I used to come here late at night when I was a child,” he remarked. “There was a myth about a small winged creature with human features that fed on entots fruit. It grows here, in the garden. I escaped my parents and prowled, hunting. I never found the creatures.”

“Every child should have access to myths,” she said in a soft, dreamy tone. “My childhood was an endless series of close quarter drills and weapons instruction from the time I was old enough to stand.”

He turned and scowled down at her.

In the darkness, his cat eyes gleamed neon-green. She caught her breath and jumped before she could squelch the giveaway reaction.

He wasn’t offended. He only laughed. “Almost three years, Ruszel,” he remarked, “and you still have not lost your fear of me in the darkness.”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” she said miserably. “It’s just reaction. I can’t help it. I’m not afraid of you. Not really.”

His eyes narrowed as he saw her, quite clearly, in the dark. “A polite lie,” he concluded from her expression. “And if you bond with me, there will be new nightmares. You may gain a fear of me which you will never lose as long as you live.”

“I’m a combat veteran, sir,” she reminded him.

“War is familiar to you. I am not.”

“We’ve served together for...”

“You have seen the soldier, not the hunting male,” he said very quietly. “There is a vast difference in the two. Some females have renounced bonding altogether because of their fear of it.”

“Sir, it can’t be all that different from the way humans...join.”

He looked away. “Do you think so?”

“I have studied Cularian anatomy,” she pointed out. “Including Cehn-Tahr.”

“From information we provided.”

She had a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Sir?”

He was staring out over the darkened landscape. Silvery creatures with luminous bodies in neon blues and greens alighted on flowers, poignantly beautiful in the light of the two moons of Memcache.

“There are still secrets we keep from you, Ruszel,” he said.

She was recalling things. The true strength of the Cehn-Tahr, which he revealed to her so long ago in his office. The weight of him, when he rescued her from a fall off the cliff, odd considering the streamlined outline of his tall body. The comments he made about the terror the Cehn-Tahr kindled in enemies. The fear of the Cehn-Tahr, seemingly out of proportion to what Madeline and the other humans knew of their alien crewmates.

“Your mind is busy,” he commented.

“It’s like trying to see through smoke, sir,” she mused. “Or mirrors.”

“Smoke and mirrors. An apt analogy. We are not what we seem; especially those of my Clan.”

“Why do you keep so many secrets?”

He turned, letting her see his eyes, gleaming green in the darkness. “Out of selfishness, perhaps. If you do not know everything about us, you are less likely to be uncomfortable with us. We are fond of our human companions,” he said simply.

“Fond?”

“You have traits that we find admirable,” he continued. “Courage and tenacity and devotion to duty. For such a fragile species, you are indomitable.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

He narrowed his eyes as he studied her. “We will risk much, if we go to Benaski Port.”

“We will risk more if we don’t go,” she replied. “I for one would love to see the war end in my lifetime. Without the Rojok Field Marshal, Chacon, to fight the madness of his tyrannical government, that might not happen.”

“I agree.”

“Do Cehn-Tahr sleep at night, sir?” she asked abruptly.

He laughed. “Why ask such a question?”

“Because I’ve never really seen any of you sleep,” she pointed out. “Even at Ahkmau, the Rojok prison camp, the only reason you slept was because I knocked you out with drugs.” She pursed her lips, frowning. “And those microcyborgs, the ones you said gave you such superior strength...”

“What about them?”

“Why would you need artificial boosters for the strength you already have?”

“You see too much, Ruszel.”

“Or not enough. Depending on your point of view. For instance, the readings I get for your anatomical makeup are quite frequently at conflict with what I learned in medical school.”

“Imagine that,” he mused.

“You have a detached hyoid bone,” she persisted.

He moved a step closer. His eyes that, in the light, could change color to mirror mood, began to take on an odd glitter. “And you wonder if the Cehn-Tahr can purr?”

Her heart jumped. “I...wouldn’t have put it in exactly those words.”

“We have many feline characteristics, none of which we ever share with outworlders.”

She backed up a step. It wasn’t his manner so much as his posture that suddenly started to set off alarms in her brain. He moved like a stalking cat, silently, with exquisite grace, with a singularity of purpose that was chilling.

“To answer your first question, we do not sleep at night, as humans do. We nap at odd times during the day. At night,” he added in a soft, deep tone, “we hunt.”

“Hunt, sir?” She backed up another step.

He was amusing himself. His eyes were twinkling. “To answer the second question, we can control the output of your computers and the information disseminated through your military medical corps. We are not what we seem. Nor, as you guessed, do I require the microcyborgs to augment my natural strength.”

She backed up one more step.

“As to the last question,” he said, bending down. “Yes, we do purr. When we mate.”

It had just occurred to her that they were alone and she remembered, almost too late, the effect he had on her. He was attractive to her even when she was afraid of him. Her body was reacting now, pouring out pheromones, saturating his senses. And she had no genetic modifications. Not yet. If she provoked him, here, where they were alone, she would die.

“In an instant,” he gritted, and a low, soft growl issued from his throat.

“Oops,” she murmured. She was measuring the distance from the balcony to a locked door and wondering if she could outsprint him when a voice broke the silence.

“This is very unwise. Very, very unwise,” Caneese said, clicking her tongue in a most human manner as she joined them on the balcony. The commander stopped, dead, and turned to face her, straightening slowly.

“You know, I was just thinking the very same thing,” Madeline replied quickly. She eyed Dtimun, who looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I don’t really think I could outrun him.”

Dtimun took longer to react as he fought down his need. He let out a long breath and glanced at Madeline. “I must agree,” he told her. He smiled at Caneese. “You arrived at an opportune moment.”

“As I see.” She moved between them. “It is not kind of you to frighten Madeline,” she chided.

He recovered his equilibrium and laughed softly. “She has the heart of a galot,” he said unexpectedly, referring to a species of giant cat. “I would never expect her to be afraid of anything. Not even me.”

Madeline grinned. “At least I haven’t thrown things at you,” she added, alluding to their earlier conversation about Rhemun and Edris Mallory.

“A lie,” he said with a flash of green eyes. “Once, when I refused to let you treat a wound on my leg, you threw a piece of medical equipment at me.”

“It wasn’t anything heavy or dangerous,” she pointed out.

“Should I ask why the two of you were out here?” Caneese asked.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Madeline confessed.

“I heard her outside,” Dtimun added. “There are dangers at night, even here in the fortress.”

“Yes,” Caneese said, but more gently. She smiled at Madeline. “You should never come out here alone at night. Or with him,” she added mischievously, indicating Dtimun with a faint nod of her head. “He is more dangerous than anything you might discover in the dark.”

“I was just noticing that,” Madeline murmured drily.

He gave her a long, searching look.

“The ceremony must be soon,” he said to Caneese in Cehn-Tahr, in the familiar tense. “And Ruszel’s transformation must be even sooner.”

“Komak has everything ready to proceed early tomorrow,” Caneese replied. “I will conduct the bonding ceremony myself, but it must be witnessed.”

“It is only a temporary measure,” he began uncomfortably.

“It must be witnessed,” she replied firmly. “I cannot explain. You must trust me.”

He let out a rough sigh. “You risk much.”

“You risk more, by keeping secrets from her.” She moved closer to him, aware of Madeline’s curiosity. She dared not satisfy it. “Dtimun, you must tell her the truth.”

“No.”

“She will see it for herself, when you mate,” she persisted.

“We will conduct the pairing in total darkness,” he said, evading her eyes. “I will make sure that she does not see me. She will not know.”

Caneese frowned worriedly. “Our laws require that we use no artificial means of camouflage during a bonding ceremony. How will I explain that to the witnesses?”

He cocked his head. “You will find a way around that,” he said with affection.

She shook her own head. “You presume too much.”

“I do not.” He bent and laid his forehead against hers. “It will change everything, once she knows,” he said bitterly. “I do not wish it to happen. Not yet.” He lifted his head. His eyes were sad and reflective. “She plans to have a memory wipe. The child will be regressed. She will go back to the Holconcom and remember nothing. But I will have the memory of it. Of her. I do not wish to remember her distaste.”

“You underestimate the intensity of her feelings for you,” Caneese said simply.

He laughed shortly. “Do you not remember the one time we revealed ourselves to a party of humans, during the Great Galaxy War?”

She grimaced. “They were primitive humans...”

He turned away. “I will not risk it.”

She didn’t press him. It would have done no good. He was too much like her. Neither of them would retreat from a decision, once made.

“The bonding will take place tomorrow, after Komak’s genetic manipulation, Madeline,” Caneese told her gently. “Are you certain that you are rested and healed enough for the procedure?”

“I’m just sore and a little weak,” Madeline assured her with a smile. “We don’t have a lot of time, if we’re to save Chacon and the princess.” Both the enemy commander and the Cehn-Tahr princess had recently gone missing.

“I still do not like it,” the older woman said solemnly. “It is a very great risk.”

Madeline moved closer to her. “I’ll be the commander’s eyes and ears,” she said softly. “He’ll be all right.”

Dtimun’s eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline. “You presume to protect me from harm?” he asked in a hopelessly arrogant fashion.

Madeline grinned at him. “I always try my best to protect you, sir. I’ll remind you that when we were in Ahkmau...”

“Not again,” he groaned.

Caneese laughed out loud. “What is this, about Akhmau?”

“I operated on him under battlefield conditions when he went prematurely into the dylete,” she recalled smugly, reminding Caneese of an earlier conversation. She frowned. “Well, in one stage of it, anyway. Can you still call it the time of half-life when it’s only one of many?” she added thoughtfully.

“Call it what you like,” Dtimun said gruffly. “I am going to bed.”

“You sleep well, sir,” Madeline said. “If I hear anything threatening outside, I’ll attack it for you.”

He muttered something under his breath, turned on his heel, and stalked back across the balcony.

Caneese was grinning, overcome with mirth. “I have never seen him in such a state,” she chuckled.

“I get on his nerves,” Madeline said, grinning back. “It keeps him on his toes. He does tend to brood.”

“Yes. Even as a child, he was like that.”

“You’ve known him that long?” Madeline asked.

Caneese’s eyes softened. “I have.” She studied the younger woman quietly. “You are uneasy about the bonding. You have never known the touch of a hunting male.”

Madeline’s heart jumped. She averted her eyes. Uneasy was an understatement.

“You must not dwell on it,” Caneese said. “But you must use your strongest sedative. You are frightened of him in the darkness already. This will augment it.”

Madeline flushed. “His eyes glow...”

“We have feline eyes,” Caneese reminded her.

She frowned. “He said something curious. He said that you keep more secrets than we know, and that you aren’t what you seem.”

“There have been incidents, in the past,” Caneese said carefully. “When humans...”

“Stop there,” came a commanding voice into her mind. “Say no more to her.”

Caneese grimaced. “Well, it is nothing that concerns you,” she amended. She smiled. “You should try to rest. Tomorrow will be stressful.”

Madeline hesitated. “What is it like?” she asked, the words almost torn out of her.

Caneese only smiled. “You will understand soon.”

Madeline sighed and turned away. “I suppose so. Good night.”

“Sleep well.” Caneese bit her lower lip as she watched the fragile human female walk away. Madeline was concerned, but Caneese did not dare satisfy the other woman’s curiosity. She hoped that Madeline could summon enough nerve not to run, as she had tried to, just before her own first mating. It was not a memory she liked to revisit, despite the pleasure of the ones that followed.

* * *

KOMAK HAD USED a curious mixture, which contained bone marrow cells and Cehn-Tahr DNA, as well as an accelerant whose properties he would not disclose, to facilitate Madeline’s transformation into a human with the strength of the aliens with whom she had served for almost three years. After he finished with the initial procedure, he injected another mixture into the artery at Madeline’s neck with a laserdot. “You must not be nervous,” he said gently. “I assure you, I know what I am doing.”

She managed a smile for him. “For a time-traveling magician, you’re not bad, Komak.”

He chuckled. “So I am told.”

She studied his face. “You know, you do use human facial expressions more than any Cehn-Tahr I’ve ever known.”

“You are remembering the traces of human DNA in my blood, when you typed and cross-matched it to transfuse the commander at Ahkmau.”

“Yes.”

He removed the laserdot placer. “We all keep secrets. That one must remain my own.”

“The commander and I think you’re related to someone who lived in this time period.”

“You are both astute. I am.”

“Can you tell us who?”

He smiled and shook his head. “That is one subject we must not visit.”

“Do you have human DNA, or was it just a glitch in my equipment, as I thought at the time?”

He put down the laserdot and looked her in the eye. “Answer your own question. Do I resemble a human?”

She sighed. “No, Komak,” she had to admit, smiling. “You look like the rest of your species.”

He was amused. She did not know the true tech he employed, although he had let her think she did, and he had no intention of telling her. To do so might reveal too soon the secret Dtimun kept from her. He smiled back. “We are all one color, one race. Unlike you humans, who come in all colors and races.”

“There’s a legend that my people were once all tea-colored,” she recalled.

He pursed his lips. He didn’t speak.

She frowned. “You know something. Tell me.”

“Your race was once tea-colored, as you say, from millennia of racial mixing. Humans rose to become a great space-faring civilization. Then a comet collided with your planet of origin and reduced your species to a gene pool of less than ten thousand,” he said simply. “The reduction mutated you, so that the old genetic material was reborn and you split, once more, into separate races and coloring. Your leaders discovered relics of this civilization, but they hid it quite carefully.”

“Hid it? Why?” she asked, exasperated.

“Would you reveal to an optimistic, ambitious population with growing tech ability that another civilization had risen to such heights, only to be destroyed in a natural catastrophe?”

She thought about that. “I don’t know.”

“It would diminish your accomplishments, dull your ambition,” he suggested. “It would limit the achievements.”

“I suppose it might. How did you come to be a time traveler?” she asked. “And who discovered its potential?”

He grinned. “It was me. Building on tech developed by one of my...antecedents,” he said carefully, “I perfected the ability to jump through dimensions, into different time lines.”

“But how?”

“I cannot say. But the Nagaashe are the key,” he added. He sobered. “You made the discovery possible, by convincing them to trade with us. You do not yet realize the scope of that accomplishment. It will lead to untold discoveries.”

“I just crashed on their planet,” she said softly.

He shook his head with awe. “I read about this period of history. But the records were quite scant, and frankly the first-person accounts of it were grossly understated. All of you were too modest about your actions. And nowhere was it recorded that Chacon himself assisted in your rescue. Or your...old fellow,” he added. “There were whispers, of course, but they were dismissed as myths.”

She smiled. “I make odd friendships.”

He chuckled. “Indeed you do. I am most proud to be included in them,” he said gently. “You and the commander are more than I ever realized from my research. The two of you have been a constant delight.” He drew in a long breath as he looked at her. “Serving with you is my greatest honor and privilege.” His eyes saddened. “I will miss you both.”

“Miss us?”

He nodded. “I must leave. Today.”

“Today? Surely not before the bonding ceremony!”

“Yes.” His face tautened. “I must not interfere in any way with this timeline.” His eyes were soft with affection. “It is precious. More precious than I can tell you.” His face tautened. “There is another matter,” he said quickly. “You must not return to the Amazon Division, for any reason. Do you understand? It is important.”

Her heart jumped. “Komak, this is only for a mission,” she said. “I can’t tell you what it is, except to say that many lives may depend on its success. But afterward, whatever happens, I will go back to duty.” She averted her eyes. “I’ve already spoken to Strick Hahnson about doing a short-term memory wipe on me. I won’t remember anything...”

“Memories are precious, Madelineruszel,” he said quietly. “Your feelings for the commander are quite intense. Do you really want to forget them?”

Her sad eyes met his. “He’s an aristocrat. I’m just a grunt of a soldier, and I’m human. He must...bond with a woman of his own species, to produce an heir who can inherit his estates.” She lowered her gaze to the table. “He feels nothing for me. I just get on his nerves. And right now, he’s locked into a behavioral cycle that could cost him his life or his career, all because of my intense feelings. I have to do whatever I can to save him. Whatever the cost. I can’t go back to the Holconcom,” she added quickly, conspiratorially. “Don’t you see? Even with a memory wipe, I might feel the same for him, all over again, and trigger the same behavior. I won’t put him at risk a second time.”

Komak’s face was grim. “You care so much?”

“I care so much,” she said huskily.

“But, if there is a child, as I feel certain there will be...” he began hesitantly.

“The child can be regressed. It’s a gentle process. He’ll be absorbed back into the tissues of my body.” She didn’t look at him. “Nobody must know. It would hurt his career, if it became known that he’d fathered a child onto a human female. It would...disgrace him.”

“Surely he did not say that to you!”

She didn’t speak. He hadn’t. Not in so many words. But she knew he must have thought about their differences in status. Her jaw tautened. “I’ll do whatever I need to do, for this mission to succeed. Then he’ll go back to his command, I’ll go back to mine. We’ll be quits.”

Komak looked devastated. This was not the history he had read. Surely the timeline was not so corrupted already?

“We don’t always get what we want in life,” she said thoughtfully. “I would have liked to keep the memory.” She drew herself up to her full height. “But I’ll do what’s best.”

He stood up, too. He moved close to her, his eyes wide and quiet and tender. “I will never forget these years with you,” he said softly. “It has been an honor, to know you as a comrade.”

She smiled sadly. “It has been for me, too, Komak.” She shifted. “I feel...odd.”

“Odd, how?” he asked, but he was smiling.

She reached impulsively for a metal sphere on the desk and closed her fingers around it. No human could have made a mark on it. She crushed it in her hand. She gasped.

He chuckled. “So. We need not ask if the experiment was a success.”

She looked at the misshapen lump on her palm and laughed with delight. “No. We need not ask!”

CHAPTER TWO

MADELINE WAS A combat surgeon. She certainly knew about the reproductive process, in animals and humans, even in Rojoks. But trying to get any information about Cehn-Tahr matings was like pulling stones out of a vacuum.

She thought Caneese was the obvious person to ask. Although Caneese was very polite, she was almost mute on the subject.

“You will cope,” she told Madeline gently. “The thing to remember is that you must...yield, and let nature take its course,” she said finally, after searching for just the correct word.

“Yield.”

“Exactly! I am so glad that we had this talk. You will feel better about the encounter, now, yes?” And she walked away, smiling.

Madeline ground her teeth into her lower lip. “Smoke and mirrors,” she said to herself, nodding.

* * *

IN THE END, there was only one person she felt comfortable talking about it with and that was her partner for the event.

She found him standing on a stone patio, his hands behind him, watching the sun set over the distant mountains.

He heard her footsteps and turned. In the robes he wore at Mahkmannah, he was like a stranger. She wore robes, too, of course, but was less comfortable in them.

“You have concerns,” he mused as she approached.

“Yes. Nobody will talk to me about it,” she said irritably. “They talk around it.”

He gave her a long look. “You must remember that women in my culture are not as self-possessed and independent as you are. We have traditions that have existed for millennia.”

“I’m not denigrating your culture,” she said. “I just want to know what’s going to happen.”

He raised an eyebrow and gave her a look of mock astonishment.

She actually blushed. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she gritted.

He laughed softly. “It is irresistible. The brawling, insubordinate medical chief of staff who sends her underlings running for cover, reduced to blushes and confusion about a process so basic that it is familiar even to children.”

She glared at him. “I might remind you that I’ve spent the past twenty-nine years of my life as a neuter, basically without gender,” she said curtly. “I’ve never felt...well...the sort of things women feel with men. With males. I mean...” She couldn’t find the words.

He turned and moved closer, so that he could look down at her face. His hand came up and touched her red-gold hair lightly. “Madeline, you are making much work of a natural process.”

She sighed. “Sir, can’t you just tell me, soldier to soldier, what I’m expected to do? Caneese is the only Cehn-Tahr woman I could have asked, and she said that it was only necessary to yield and endure it.” She shook her head. “Is that what the women of your culture do? Simply...yield?”

He cocked his head. “You have seen few young Cehn-Tahr women, but you spent some time with Princess Lyceria. You have also been exposed to Dacerian women. Do you notice a similarity in comportment?”

“Yes,” she replied. “They’re very docile, gentle females. Intelligent, but not assertive.”

“Exactly.”

“Then they...simply submit.”

“Yes.”

She frowned. It troubled her. “Wouldn’t such a docile sort of female tend to exaggerate the violence of an encounter if she didn’t, well, participate in it so much as endure it?”

One eyebrow went up.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m finding it difficult to explain what I mean. It’s complicated to discuss something so intimate with you.”

“Indeed. You and I have engaged in many verbal battles over the years, but our encounters have been nonphysical. This one will be.”

She searched his eyes, looking for any sign of what he was thinking. “What do you expect of me, sir?” she asked in a soft, uncertain tone. “What is it like?”

The question, added to the sudden burst of pheromones exuding from her body when he stared at her, kindled a helpless reaction. His face tautened. Like a snake striking, his hand shot out and suddenly grasped her long hair at her nape and jerked, pulling her face up to his. The eyes stabbing into hers were jet-black. “It is like this,” he said in a voice which sounded so alien that at first it was barely recognizable. It was similar to the sound a cat might make when it was angry, except with words instead of hisses. His head bent, so that his eyes filled the world, and the pressure of his hand forced her body close to his in an arc, thrilling and frightening at the same time.

Her heart jumped up into her throat. He seemed, for the first time in their long relationship as commanding officer and subordinate, so alien that she almost didn’t recognize him.

“You begin to understand,” he whispered, in that same odd tone, and for a split second, in a flash of presence like the blinking of a light, he seemed to be taller, far more massive than he looked. She must be hallucinating, she thought.

Her hands flattened against his robes, feeling the strength and warmth of his chest under them.

“I am not what I seem,” he said.

She was a little intimidated, but she didn’t let it show. She nodded. “I know. My instruments and my senses don’t coincide.” His eyes changed color yet again, to a burnished gold, almost glowing. She didn’t know what it meant.

His hand lessened its pressure on her hair and became oddly caressing. “Weakness is prey. It invites brutality. Do you understand that?”

Her lips parted. “The more a female yields control, the more a male exercises it.”

He nodded. His gaze dropped to her throat, softly vulnerable at the angle. “We are a passionate species,” he whispered, bending his head. His mouth opened and slid over her throat. She felt the faint edge of his teeth. Even they felt different than they looked, different than her instrument readings described them. The slow rasp of them against the vulnerable skin of her throat should have been frightening. It was only exciting. Her heart began to race.

His nostrils splayed as stronger pheromones rushed up into them. “Delicious,” he rasped. And suddenly his tongue slid over the soft flesh, abrasive and stimulating.

Her nails stabbed into his chest and she gasped audibly.

He laughed.

She was alive as she’d never been alive, on edge, shivering with sensation and curiosity. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. His own narrowed. His chin lifted arrogantly. He looked at her as if she already belonged to him. She recalled that expression from earlier, non-physical encounters and realized that he had been possessive of her for a long time.

“We are a warrior culture,” he said in a deep, velvety tone. “We conquer. For generations, our women have been taught that submission to the violence is the only way to survive it.”

Her breath was coming in little spurts. “Is that why they’re so afraid of it?”

“Yes. They dread the onset of the mating ritual, because they fear the aggression of the male. They have been taught that it is not feminine to meet passion with passion.”

She was seeing things she’d been blind to. His calm demeanor was a front. He could control his actions, except when he was exposed to Madeline’s involuntary pheromones. What she was seeing now was the true male, the true creature, without the veneer of civilized conduct.

“That is essentially correct,” he said curtly. His hand contracted again on her hair and brought her face very close to his, so that she could almost taste his clean breath in her mouth. “I have forced a change in the protocols. The mating will take place in total darkness.”

Her senses were heightened, but the odd statement kindled her curiosity. “Doesn’t it usually?”

“No,” he said flatly. “It is an innovation.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her why.

He stared down at her with mingled concern and hunger. Her taut features betrayed her fear, even as she tried to hide it from him in her mind. “You are already afraid of my eyes in the absence of light. Added to that, you will experience the violence that goes with the feline response to desire.” His voice rasped. “I cannot control it.”

“I know that. Your eyes startle me at night. But I’m not afraid of you. Not really.”

“You know that I will not hurt you deliberately.”

“Of course,” she said simply.

His hand contracted harshly. “But remember this,” he said in a harsh, alien voice. “If you bend your neck to my teeth, I will make you pay for it!”

Her neck. If she bent her neck to his teeth. She suddenly remembered something from her biology courses. The great male cats of the human planets mated from behind. Did the Cehn-Tahr, as well?

His face lowered and his cheek rubbed hard against hers. At the same time, he lifted her and pushed her against the stone wall, pressing her there with the weight of his powerful body. She became aware of gigantic size and strength, despite her reengineered body. The familiar commander was suddenly someone else, something else.

“You are mine,” he whispered roughly at her ear, and pressed harder against her.

His mouth opened on her throat, warm and feverish and exciting. She caught her breath and shivered at the sudden rush of sensation.

He growled. The sound she made, involuntarily, sent him over the edge.

She shivered as a wave of pleasure washed over her, dulling her senses, robbing her of resistance. It was almost familiar. It came again, violent this time, so piercing and sweet that she moaned as she felt him move against her. Her nails dug into his long back hungrily as she waited for whatever came next...

“What are you doing?” Caneese demanded belligerently as she approached them. “You are not allowed to touch her before the bonding ceremony!”

He was so far gone that he growled at Caneese.

She cuffed him hard enough that the sound echoed. She growled, too. Madeline, almost mindless with her own responses, barely registered that Dtimun obeyed the older woman at once. He let go of Madeline and moved back, grasping at control and dignity.

“It is all right,” Caneese told him gently. She touched his cheek lightly. “It is all right.”

Madeline was getting her breath back. She was flushed. “I’m sorry,” she told Caneese. “It was my fault. I only wanted to know what was going to happen.”

Caneese smiled at her. “There is no need to apologize. I understand.”

“The bonding ceremony is tomorrow, anyway,” Madeline began.

“Yes, but the mating must be witnessed, that is the law,” the older woman said gently.

Madeline had heard that odd phrasing before, but never thought about it until now. Witnessed?

Dtimun had recovered. His head bowed slightly, in deference to Caneese’s position. “We were discussing certain...aspects...of the ceremony,” he said with a straight face. “Madeline was curious.”

Caneese’s eyes were wide and shocked. “And you were telling her?”

He moved forward, took Caneese’s face in his hands and, smiling, touched his forehead to hers. “I was not,” he lied. “She wanted reassurance. Our customs are disturbing to her. I was attempting to explain them when things got out of hand.”

“A little out of hand,” Madeline said blithely. The look she gave Dtimun, unseen by Caneese, was wicked enough to make his eyes flash green.

Caneese melted. She touched Dtimun’s cheek with her hand. “I had to interfere. But you must not tell her anything further. I do not want you to make her more frightened.”

“Not to worry,” Madeline quipped. “I’ve had all my shots, and I’m experienced in six martial arts.”

Dtimun burst out laughing. Caneese stared worriedly from one of them to the other.

“We will not embarrass you,” Dtimun assured her. He hesitated. Madeline’s reaction to him was extremely stimulating. “We will not deliberately embarrass you,” he corrected. “It might be...wise—” he considered his choice of words “—to double the mute screen in the mating chamber, however.”

Caneese now looked horrified.

Dtimun held up a hand. “She has been known to throw things at me when she lost her temper,” he said quickly, looking for an explanation that would not disturb Caneese.

“Wouldn’t it be easier just to remove the ceramics from the room, sir?” Madeline asked him cheekily.

“Sir?” Caneese echoed. “Madeline, you must refrain from addressing him so.”

“Sorry,” Madeline replied with a smile. “Habit.”

“You must consider that this is the lesser of two evils,” Dtimun agreed. “She has, at least, refrained from saluting me.”

“Oh, I rarely do that,” she said. “In fact, we have this new guy, the kelekom tech, Jefferson Colby, that the commander stole...excuse me, borrowed,” she added when Dtimun glared at her, “from Admiral Lawson. Colby saluted the CO so often that he was getting a crick in his neck. So we told him that we never salute the CO because it affects his ego. Right, sir?” she asked Dtimun with a grin.

He glared at her. “When we are at Benaski Port, if you refer to me as ‘sir’ in front of possible spies, even your pregnancy will not be enough to ward off suspicion that we are enemy agents.”

“Point taken. Sorry, sir. I mean...” She hesitated. “Well, what the hell am I supposed to call you, then?” she asked.

“Madam!” he gritted.

“Madeline!” Caneese echoed.

Madeline threw up her hands. “I give up. I’m never going to be able to pull this off. I mean, look at...?”

She stopped, fascinated, as Rognan came dashing toward her as fast as his injured leg would allow.

“You must deal with this,” Caneese told Dtimun helplessly. “He has been told that he will not be permitted at the ceremony. He is very upset.”

“But why can’t he be?” Madeline asked.

“Because he considers you his mate,” Dtimun said with a flash of green eyes. “We would never make it past him into the mating chamber.”

“And when she becomes pregnant, there will be no place where she can go without him,” Caneese groaned, missing Madeline’s flush. “He will consider the child his, as well.”

“Meg-Ravens are quite fascinating to study,” Dtimun mused as the bird came closer. “It is best to do it at long-range however,” he sighed.

Rognan paused in front of them and flapped his wings angrily. “Rognan must come to ceremony. Rognan is family!” he muttered.

Madeline reached out and stroked his feathered head, scratching it gently. He calmed at once.

“Yes, Rognan is family,” she agreed gently. “But there will be many people, and you don’t like strangers around you. Yes?”

He hesitated. He ruffled his feathers. “Strangers make Rognan nervous,” he agreed.

“So you can watch from a closed vid screen,” she suggested, pointedly looking at Caneese.

The elder Cehn-Tahr nodded. “That will be possible.”

Rognan sighed. “Very well.”

Impulsively Madeline hugged him. “You must stop worrying so much about things. It isn’t good for you.”

He enveloped her with a huge black wing. “Rognan will try. Rognan is happy that you will be family,” he added in a hesitant tone.

She drew back and smiled at him. “Thank you. That’s very nice of you to say.”

“You have amazing skills in diplomacy,” Caneese remarked when Rognan had hobbled away. “They may be quite useful one day.”

“They already are, when dealing with some individuals,” she said, and glanced wickedly at her commanding officer.

He chuckled.

“What sort of witnessing are we talking about?” Madeline asked suddenly. She hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but it was disturbing.

“We require proof of parentage in, shall we say, our aristocratic circles,” Caneese explained solemnly. “The first mating requires witnesses.”

She gaped at the aliens. “You mean people are going to stand around and WATCH us...?”

Dtimun burst out laughing at her expression.

“No, of course not,” Caneese assured her quickly. “There will be a closed chamber with guards at the single entrance, to ensure that everything is correct and that only the two of you enter the room. So that there is no doubt of the child’s parentage.”

“But I thought that was a tradition only in royal families, when an heir was involved,” Madeline said thoughtfully. “And besides,” she added solemnly, “this child is temporary.” She didn’t add that she was quite uncertain if a child was even possible, unless Komak had put something quite unusual into that injection he’d given her. Even her Medicomp was unable to analyze its contents.

“We must follow the law, even in covert circumstances,” Caneese said gently.

Madeline sighed. “I suppose so.”

Dtimun walked along with them back toward the fortress. “Sfilla has arranged transport and facilities on Benaski Port. We will wait only until the pregnancy is sufficiently visible to leave.” He glanced at Madeline, who looked as uncomfortable as he felt. “There is another matter. What if it is impossible for us to breed?”

“Komak assured me that it was not,” Caneese interjected. “And that this first mating will bear fruit. Now let us worry no more about it,” she told them firmly. “I have had a meal prepared. We can discuss the details of your journey while we eat.”

Madeline followed them inside, more confused than ever. She hoped she wouldn’t disgrace herself.

She glanced at the commander with a slight frown, her mind full of his behavior earlier. She was just beginning to realize that she didn’t know him at all.

CHAPTER THREE

MADELINE WAS IMPRESSED by the number of guards and the obvious wealth and prestige of the guests who attended the ceremony. She wore simple robes in a pale blue gossamer fabric, her hair left long and clean and flowing in red-gold waves down her back.

Beside her, Dtimun also wore robes, similar to the ones he’d worn to the Altair embassy when he’d blackmailed her into accompanying him. She had to restrain a smile, remembering some of their earlier battles.

He glanced down at her with twinkling green eyes, amused at her thoughts. She curbed them. It really wasn’t a time to be humorous.

Caneese herself officiated at the brief ceremony. She welcomed the guests, who seemed to be shocked about some aspect of the affair, and joined Dtimun and Madeline at a small altar at one end of the spacious chamber.

She instructed them to join hands. Then she read the ceremony in High Cehn-Tahr, the ancient tongue of her people. Madeline barely understood a word of it. She was far more aware of her surroundings and the experience to come, apprehension having kept her sleepless. She had taken Caneese’s advice and used a sedative. But it wasn’t doing much good.

In a heartbeat, the ceremony was over and Caneese was smiling at them. She nodded.

Dtimun glanced at Madeline and indicated the back of the room. She followed him, aware of the silence as they left the guests behind.

He didn’t look at her as they approached a door guarded by two Cehn-Tahr soldiers in full dress uniform. The guards stared straight ahead, their eyes never deviating to the bonded pair.

One guard touched a switch and the door to the suite opened. Madeline went in, followed by Dtimun, and the door closed behind them. It was pitch-black inside. The only sound was a sudden, deep growl emanating from her companion. It was reminiscent of the cry Cehn-Tahr made when in battle, the death cry called the decaliphe. But this one had a more bass pitch.

She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but the growl was slowly escalating. She felt hands suddenly grasp her from behind. She felt his teeth on her shoulder, his claws digging into her rib cage. His teeth moved to the back of her neck. She recalled, with growing unease, his comment that if she bent her neck to his teeth he would make her pay for it. Her heart jumped into her throat. He was her commander. She’d known him for three years. But this creature was alien in a way she’d never expected and as threatening as a charging galot.

He felt taller and more massive than he appeared. The growls and the brutal grip of his hands would have been enough to frighten any woman not battle-hardened. She wasn’t certain whether or not to fight at this point. He wasn’t really hurting her.

While she was considering her options, he suddenly lifted her and literally tossed her across the room.

Gasping at the shock of movement, and the raw strength that had propelled her such a distance, she landed on her back, thankfully on a soft surface. The impact still knocked the breath out of her. Before she could catch it, Dtimun had pinned her, facedown, so that she could not escape. There was a cry, much more like the decaliphe, that chilled her to the bone. Behind her, the growl grew louder. She felt a crushing weight as sharp teeth bit into the back of her neck. To that pain was added, quite suddenly, another pain. Shocking. Humiliating. Infuriating! She clenched her teeth in fury.

“Like...hell...you...do!” she raged at him. Her head whipped around and she caught the muscular forearm beside her and bit it as hard as she could. She tasted blood.

He growled again, and his teeth bit in harder.

She cried out furiously, struggling as the pain increased. She lashed out with one leg and connected with his shin. While he was reacting to that attack, she launched another on his arm with her teeth. He pinned her with ridiculous ease and brought his teeth to her neck again, pushing her down with his formidable weight in a surge of pure aggression.

“How dare you!” she rasped indignantly. All her imagining hadn’t prepared her for this sort of domination. When she got her hands free, she was going to pay him back royally!

There was a louder growl, unrelated to her resistance, and then a brief lessening of aggression.

She increased her struggles, sensing weakness, but with all her combat training, she couldn’t budge him. She groaned furiously, all her resentments combined in the angry sound. Pain intruded on her anger and she moaned, furious at her own helplessness even as her companion growled again and finally relaxed.

He whipped her onto her back. His fingers locked into hers. In the darkness, she could see only the green glow of his eyes as he looked down at her.

“This is not as I wished it,” he said in a voice that sounded odd, different, as if the Standard words were being formed in a throat unaccustomed to making the sounds. “The violence is our shame, the penalty we pay for daring to experiment with our own genetic structure. I would not hurt you for any reason, if the choice were mine. It is not. This is my nature,” he ground out. “This violent, animal ferocity.”

She was still trying to reconcile her anger with his guilt and find a balance. She had rarely been bested in combat, even by an adversary so superior. She swallowed, hard, and struggled for breath.

His head bent and he brushed his face against hers, tenderly. “Now you can understand why Komak’s genetic mix was necessary,” he whispered. “Without it, I would have killed you.”

There was torment in his deep voice. She realized that he wasn’t exaggerating. His claws would have punctured her lungs, as they had on Lagana even when he was in control of himself. His strength was so superior, even with her modifications, that she would have bruises. She recalled hearing him talk about Hahnson’s broken back from only the preliminaries of his mating with an exiled Cehn-Tahr woman. Dtimun had said that no method ever discovered by science could lessen the aggression. As she had been three years ago, she could not have survived this.

She was realizing something more, as well. Her mental neutering was supposed to cause excruciating pain if she attempted to mate. It had not. Although, there had been another sort of pain...

“That could not be helped,” he said at her ear. His voice was calmer now. “Something a physician should know.”

There was almost a teasing note in his voice. She felt herself begin to relax, despite the discomfort. She would never admit that he had frightened her, of course.

“Of course,” he murmured drily.

“You stop that,” she said firmly. “My thoughts are my own.”

He drank in the scent of her. “My father said that my mother attempted to jump out a window at their first mating,” he whispered.

That surprised a laugh out of her. “A window?”

“Yes, on the top floor of a very tall building.” His tongue brushed her throat as he inhaled the floral scent of her hair. “My father was quick. He caught her as she fell.”

His fingers felt odd. Thicker than they appeared. He was incredibly heavy. She also had the impression of massive physical presence, strength, raw power. He seemed much taller, broader, than he appeared. Despite her reengineered bone mass, he was many times her superior in strength. Was the darkness to hide him from her eyes, she wondered, so that she couldn’t see what he really looked like?

“An astute guess,” he said huskily. His fingers, strong and thick, speared into hers, sliding in between them. “We do not mate as humans do, but as the great galots do. Males dominate by pinning the female at the back of the neck. An undignified, shameful process, which we hide from outworlders. I told you that you might learn things about us which you would not like.”

His deep voice was harsh with regret. She began to understand why the Cehn-Tahr were so secretive about their behaviors. Her body slowly began to relax. It wasn’t fair to blame him for something that was inborn in him, in all his species. She had agreed to this. It was not against her will. Securing the timeline required sacrifice. Certainly, this episode was as difficult for him as it was for her.

“Yes,” he answered the unspoken question somberly. “Intimacy requires a lowering of barriers which is difficult for me. I have always been alone, apart.”

“So have I, really,” she confessed. She moved and winced. There was a lot of discomfort.

“You must heal the damage, Madeline,” he said softly.

“You said the physicians would have to examine me. Couldn’t they...?”

His hands contracted. “You misunderstand.” His tongue caressed her throat again, producing exquisite sensations. “I have not finished.”

Her mind was fuzzy. “But...?”

“Do you think I wish to go through the rest of my life with a memory so brutal and unfeeling as what we just shared?” he asked at her ear. “You will forget. I will not.” He stilled. “Heal the damage.”

She hesitated, but only for an instant. She was curious about what he meant to do. She used the wrist scanner and activated its drug banks. For an instant, when the screen lit to calculate the dosage of nanocells, she got a glimpse of a huge hand with broad fingers which looked nothing like the commander’s.

He put his hand over the screen, shielding the light. “You will not look at me,” he said firmly. “And you will not touch me, regardless of what happens.”

Now she was truly curious. She deactivated the unit. “Why?”

He moved down against her. His tongue rasped against softer flesh, creating sensations that overwhelmed her. She gasped and her fingernails bit into his muscular arms. Involuntarily her hands slid to his back and encountered a long, soft line of fur over his spinal column...

He pulled her hands away and smoothed them over his broad, hair-covered chest. “You will not touch me, except here,” he whispered again.

“O...okay,” she whispered back. She was barely capable of rational thought, awash on a wave of delight so intense that she shivered.

“Our first encounter did not produce a child,” he said huskily. “This one will.”

“How can you know...?”

He laughed softly as he felt her shocked reaction. His tongue slid down her throat, over her collarbone. His teeth bit in, gently, and she shivered again.

“This is how we mark our mates,” he whispered. “It is a ritual older than time. But I promise you, there will be no pain from it.”

She felt thick, soft hair against her skin; more like fur than hair. His mouth opened. She felt his teeth. But at the same moment they bit down, explosive sensations blinded her mind and her body to anything except a wave of pleasure so overwhelming that she gasped and then sobbed helplessly.

“What are you...doing?” she cried out.

He laughed deep in his throat. “Something that you will never learn from falsified black market vids,” he whispered.

Her nails bit into his chest. “You wouldn’t tell me, and there was no other way to find out,” she accused shakily. She groaned and caught her breath. “Dtimun!” she exclaimed.

It was the first time she’d ever used his name. The effect it had on him was explosive. His reaction drew sounds from her that she’d never heard herself make. She hoped the doors were tightly closed.

He heard that thought and chuckled. “The room is soundproof,” he whispered.

She cried out, a sound that was almost primeval, piercing and poignant.

He put his mouth over hers and pressed down, hard, a Cehn-Tahr mating custom that they shared with humans. Her cries most likely would not penetrate the walls. But, just in case...

* * *

SHE CAME BACK to consciousness very slowly. She was aware of movement. The air stirred around her. A wisp of fabric was draped around her, just before the lights activated.

Dtimun was wearing a red pant-skirt like the one that comprised the Kahn-Bo fighting garment that martial art enthusiasts wore in matches aboard ship. His chest was bare, muscular and covered with thick black hair. He pulled her up so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed and as the fabric dipped, momentarily; his eyes found the unique mark of bonding that he had placed just below her collarbone. The marks reflected ancient hieroglyphs for certain words, whose meanings were an indication of the male’s feelings for his mate. There were also other lacerations, deep and painful. Most of them would be on her back. The court physicians should not comment on them; however, the eldest, a female whom Dtimun did not like, might be so bold. He did not want Madeline upset. She was shivering. The vulnerability, even briefly, of such a strong and independent spirit touched him.

His fingers brushed her cheek. “The physicians are waiting. You must be examined. It is the law.”

She nodded. Her eyes met his and searched them with silent awe. The experience was beyond anything she’d ever encountered. And now she knew, most certainly, that he was far different than he appeared. He must use a sensor net to disguise his true face, one which would be weakened under emotional stress. Hence, the darkness in the mating chamber.

She knew he saw that thought in her mind, but he ignored it.

He turned away and activated the door. Five female physicians in gray robes, headed by a taller gray-haired one, walked stoically into the room. The gray-haired one stood in front of Madeline and looked at her with blatant distaste. She said something in Cehn-Tahr, in the holy tongue, in a harsh, cold tone.

Dtimun had started to leave, as custom dictated, when he felt the sudden sense of unease, of embarrassment, that rushed into Madeline’s mind as the haughty physician looked at her. For the first time in almost three years, he saw her vulnerable, sensitive. It was such a rare reaction for her that all his protective instincts rallied and bristled. He turned, frowning when he saw the way the head physician was studying her. He felt a surge of possession stronger than anything he’d ever experienced in his life, mingled with anger. His jaw tautened and he walked back to stand beside her. He was defying convention, and he did not care. It disturbed him that Madeline was being denigrated by this smug physician. He would not tolerate it in his own house.

The eldest female physician gasped. She made a haughty remark. Dtimun snapped at her in his own tongue. Shocked, she moved back, bowed and abruptly turned to Madeline and reached out, removing the fabric that covered her and dropping it to her waist.

Madeline was puzzled at the physician’s behavior. She looked up and saw Dtimun’s eyes on her, lingering where his teeth had marked her. But they were appreciative of her soft skin, the delicate form of her body.

The female physician examined the lacerations on Madeline’s back with growing distaste. She used her instruments abruptly, without kindness, and then spoke to Dtimun in Cehn-Tahr. Madeline didn’t understand the words, but they sounded quite indignant.

He exploded with anger, his tone so cutting, his eyes making such a threat, that the elderly female actually backed away. She lowered her eyes and spoke in a respectful tone, almost toadying.

Dtimun didn’t unbend one inch. He gave a curt command. The physician looked shocked, and started to argue. He cut her off and made an imperious gesture toward the door. The female regained her composure, bowed again, paler than when she entered the chamber, and left, very quickly. A younger physician moved forward, bowing to him, smiling gently, and speaking softly. He nodded, obviously still preoccupied and angry.

The young physician treated the wounds on Madeline’s back and hips and used a disinfectant only on the scar of bonding. Then she, and the remaining three physicians, bowed, smiling, and started to leave the chamber.

“Could you tell me what that was all about...?” Madeline started to ask the question when she was suddenly sick all over the floor. She fell to her knees, shivering.

“Get Hahnson!” Dtimun called in Cehn-Tahr to the young physician. “Now! Bring him here!”

* * *

THE NEXT FEW minutes went by in a blur. Hahnson came running. Dtimun held the fabric around Madeline’s nudity and growled furiously at Hahnson when he approached her.

Hahnson stopped in his tracks. A man confronted by a charging galot couldn’t have felt more threatened. The alien’s posture, barely altered, added to the black of his eyes and the growl would have stopped a decorated combat soldier in his tracks.

“I will not harm you. You must ignore the threat. I cannot help it,” Dtimun said tersely, wincing at his own frustrating lack of control even now.

Hahnson smiled. “I know. It’s all right. Maddie, can you tell me the symptoms?”

“You can see them...on the floor, Strick,” she said with black humor. “I feel so nauseated! My stomach hurts. It’s like a knife...!”

“It is the child,” Dtimun said huskily. “The growth is immediate, and exponential.”

Hahnson grimaced as he looked at the small screen of his wrist unit. “We have to slow the growth. I’m not prepared for this.”

“Caneese has a preparation,” Madeline said weakly. “She told me about it.”

Dtimun called the young physician back into the chamber and rapped out an order. “She will bring it,” he told Madeline.

“Can’t Caneese...?” she asked, confused.

“Caneese is not allowed to see us,” he replied curtly. “It is a breach of protocol.”

“Oh.” She was confused, but much too sick to argue.

Hahnson injected a drug into the artery at Madeline’s neck. “That will help the nausea. But it’s only treating symptoms right now. I have no experience with Cehn-Tahr/human babies,” he added with a wry smile. “I think this is going to be on-the-job training.”

“No doubt,” she managed. She was stunned by the notion that she was pregnant. Despite their earlier discussions, even with Komak’s assurances, she hadn’t really expected it to happen. Her knowledge of pregnancy was limited to a rare assistance at childbirth, but this was far more personal. The physical manifestations were new and startling.

Hahnson looked from one of them to the other. “I don’t suppose either of you would like to explain what the hell you think you’re doing? I mean, we’re talking capital punishment...”

“Chacon is in grave danger. The princess has gone to Benaski Port to warn him,” Dtimun told him. “Komak has traveled in time and knows the future. He said that Chacon’s death will create a disastrous timeline. Madeline and I must go to Benaski Port in an attempt to save them both, but the masquerade can only work if she carries my child.”

“They’ll space you both, if you’re caught,” Hahnson said worriedly.

“That’s why you aren’t telling anyone, old dear,” Madeline told him. “Not even Edris.”

Before he could reply, the young physician was back with a cup of what looked like herbal tea. She offered it to Madeline and left the room. Madeline’s hands shook as she held the beverage.

“You must drink it all,” Dtimun told her, steadying the cup with his own hand. “It will retard the growth of the fetus.”

Fetus. The fetus. The baby. She sipped tea and tried to wrap her spinning mind around the fact that she was pregnant. When she and Dtimun had discussed this possibility, she had asked what they would do with a baby. She was a soldier, she had said, she had no place for a child in her life. But now, with the reality of it, she felt a connection with the baby that overwhelmed her. She was carrying a child in her body. She touched her stomach with a sense of awe and fascination. It wasn’t, she thought, anything like she’d expected.

Hahnson examined her again, and nodded when he saw the readouts. “You’ll do,” he told Madeline. “I’ll compound some of this for you in Caneese’s lab, in a laserdot. She and I will confer on a regimen as well, for your trip.” He looked from one stoic, impassive face to the other. “This is very risky.”

“We know,” Madeline told him. “But the future is at stake.”

He sighed. “Then I’ll hope for good results.” He got up and forced a smile. “Good fortune.”

Dtimun locked forearms with him. “In my lifetime, I have had very few friends. I have always considered you one of them.”

“Same here. Take care of each other.”

He nodded.

Hahnson left, and Madeline began to feel better. She got her second wind and looked up at Dtimun.

“Sir, do you think you might consider telling me what the devil happened with the physicians?”

His lips made a thin line. “The elder one made a remark I did not like.”

“Yes?” she prompted.

“She pointed out that your wounds were in the wrong place. Then she referred to the length of time we spent in the mating chamber.”

She cocked her head. She didn’t understand.

“Madeline, our mates are subjugated, as female galots are subjugated. The process is brief, and brutal, and it leaves wounds on the chest and abdomen, not on the back. Also it is a breach of protocol to enjoy it.”

“It is?” she asked, and mischief suddenly sparkled in her green eyes.

He glared at her expression. “You will never speak of this,” he said abruptly.

“Would I do that, sir?” she murmured innocently. “As you know, I always obey your every order.”

“You never listen to an order unless it suits you,” he correctly curtly. “But if you ignore this one, you will pay for it.”

She gave him a wry look. “I’m not in the habit of discussing intimate things,” she replied. “Besides, people may speculate, but no one will ever know what happened in here, anyway.”

He lifted an eyebrow haughtily. All at once his own eyes went green with amusement. “For which we are obliged to the architect who soundproofed the chamber,” he said with the straightest face she’d ever seen.

He had rarely seen her speechless. It was amusing. Her face was almost as red as her hair. She averted her eyes with obvious embarrassment.

“You fought me,” he mused.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she said, thinking it was probably another breach of protocol.

“You need not apologize,” he chuckled. “I quite enjoyed it, once the shock wore off.” He knelt beside her and touched her long, damp hair. His eyes met hers. They gleamed like pure gold. It was a color she’d only seen in them once before. “I do not like submission,” he said in a husky, deep voice. His hand gripped her hair, hard, and pulled her face under his so that he could see directly into her eyes. He looked down his long, aristocratic nose at her with blatant possession. Her breath caught. The sensations the action aroused were new and shocking.

“That’s a good thing,” she said unsteadily, “because you’ll never get it from me.”

He smiled. He rubbed his head against hers in an oddly feline way, making a caress of it. His hand relaxed and speared through her long hair, savoring its softness. “We mated only to produce a child, to enhance a covert mission...or so it began.” His hand contracted again and he growled softly as the contact with the soft skin at her nape produced delicious sensations. She felt them, too. “It is strange, to find such compatibility between two such different species.”

She touched his chiseled mouth with her fingertips. She lowered her eyes to his bare chest. She fought a laugh. “The physicians seemed quite shocked.”

He laughed, deep in his throat, and rubbed his cheek against hers affectionately. “So was I. I have never taken so much pleasure from a female,” he said bluntly. His hands pulled her gently to him and enfolded her. “I deeply regret the violence at the beginning. But I did tell you once, did I not, that passion is always violent.”

She slid her arms around his neck and held on tight, closing her eyes. “You did, but I didn’t understand what you meant until now. Despite those—” she pulled back and stared at him suspiciously “—those dreams I had, that you said you weren’t responsible for.”

“I lied. The discomfort began to affect my ability to think rationally.” His hands smoothed her shoulders gently. “The ‘dreams’ are one of several coping strategies we employ in order to survive the long abstinences,” he told her. “Each time we mate, a child is created. One is dangerous. Two at once is a death sentence, even for a Cehn-Tahr woman.”

He was explaining something, very discreetly. “You mate only to have children?”

“The customs and culture of our society dictate that,” he agreed.

She cocked her head and her eyes twinkled. “Dictate it. But do people really abstain between children?” she asked. “Komak said they didn’t.”

“Since we do not discuss such intimate behaviors openly, the question is not easily answered.”

That brought to mind something that had piqued her curiosity before. She sketched his face with soft eyes. “Those holovid generators at Kolmankash,” she murmured. “Are they really used for vid games?”

He smoothed back her damp hair affectionately. “When we are separated from our mates,” he said, “they permit an intimacy which is almost indistinguishable from reality,” he said after a minute. He looked at her sternly. “This is another thing you will never share with an outworlder.”

She saluted him.

He glared at her.

She laughed. “We agreed a long time ago that I’m discreet,” she reminded him. “I never tell anything I know.”

He sighed. “No. You never do.” He looked down at her body in its thin covering. “How does it feel?” he asked suddenly.

“Feel?” she repeated curiously.

“My child lies in your womb,” he said slowly, as if the idea, the concept, was a source of awe. His eyes, softly gold, met hers. “How does it feel?”

Her lips parted. She searched his eyes. “I don’t have the words,” she faltered. She touched his face and all the intensity of her feelings for him made her radiant, as if she were glowing inside with some secret heat. “You’ll have to find them, in my mind.”

Her awe and delight were there, along with her feelings for him, so intense that he almost felt the impact physically.

He seemed fascinated with her. And not just with her. His gaze dropped to her stomach. He reached down and touched it with just his fingertips, and caught his breath.

She frowned. He looked shocked.

As he was. The Dacerian woman had told him, decades past, that she carried his child. And now he knew that it was a lie. He knew it, because he felt his child, communicated with his child at some molecular level, sensed the child in every cell of his body. His teeth clenched as he relived the anguish just after her death. He had blamed his father. Now, horribly, he was forced to face his own error. If she had lied about one thing, it was certain that she had lied about others.

He recalled the Dacerian’s easy acceptance of him when they mated, her bland submission. It was different with Madeline. Madeline had fought him. But then, she had become as fiercely responsive as she had been fiercely resistant. Madeline loved him. The Dacerian woman...never had. And he only now realized it.

She felt the indecision and sorrow. She smoothed her hand gently over his black hair. “You can feel the child,” she whispered, surprised that she knew that so certainly.

He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Sensation overwhelmed him. He felt comfort, sympathy, joy in her touch. “Yes,” he said after a minute, and he smiled gently. “I can feel our child.”

She leaned forward and touched her forehead to his. It was a moment out of time, when she wished the clock would never move again. She wanted it to last forever.

There was a faint noise at the door, like scratching. He lifted his head and stared into Madeline’s soft eyes for another few seconds. His were still that incredible shade of gold. She didn’t know what it meant. But before she could ask him, he stood up, suddenly remote and stoic, as if they were in his office together discussing strategy. The intimacy fell away at once.

He turned. The door opened and a tall, somber woman with her black hair in a bun approached them. She bowed.

Madeline looked at her with curiosity. She smiled shyly. The smile was returned.

“Sfilla,” the woman told her. She pointed to herself. “Sfilla.”

“Madeline,” came the gentle reply.

Dtimun turned to her. “Sfilla will be your companion on our journey. She will act as cook and personal aide, as well. She has been with my family for many years, and is one of its most trusted members. You will go with her now to your own quarters.”

“Yes, sir,” Madeline acknowledged.

Sfilla looked at her with astonishment. “You call him ‘sir’?” she exclaimed, and worked hard at pronouncing the unfamiliar Standard. Still, there was hardly a trace of an accent.

Madeline blinked. “I’ve been calling him ‘sir’ for almost three years,” she explained and smiled as she looked at him. “Habits are hard to break, even under the circumstances.” She shrugged. “Hey, at least I’m not saluting you,” she said in her defense.

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Do that at Benaski Port and I will lock you in a bath cubicle and lose the key,” he threatened.

In defiance, she stood at attention. “Notice I’m not saluting,” she said with irrepressible humor.

Sfilla giggled. Dtimun sighed. “It is a complicated situation,” he told the woman, with a wry smile.

“As you say,” Sfilla replied.

“Are all those people still out there?” Madeline asked suddenly, bringing Dtimun’s amused eyes back to her.

She was tugging at the flimsy fabric and looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“They have been told that the mating was productive,” he told her. “They have retired to the great room, where they will consume beverages and food for another little space of time, and then they will go home.”

“They won’t... I mean, they can be trusted?” she worried.

“Even if they could not, Caneese can be quite intimidating,” he chuckled. “I assure you, no word of this will reach the Dectat, if that is what concerns you.”

She nodded.

His eyes swept over her and narrowed with pure possession. She was more beautiful now than he had ever seen her. And she was his now. She belonged to him. She would never be able to mate with a human. It gave him a sense of utter delight to know that.

She didn’t understand the look in his eyes, one she’d never seen in them, and he didn’t answer her curiosity. He turned away and abruptly left the room.

Chuckling, Sfilla went to fetch a robe out of what passed for a closet and helped drape her in it.

“You must not be embarrassed,” Sfilla said softly when she noted the discomfort in Madeline’s expression. “It is part of life. And you have a child from it. A noble result. A son!”

Madeline hadn’t thought to use her wrist scanner. She touched the slight, hard mound with wonder. “A son.” The word sounded as if it held magic.

Sfilla laughed. “You have been a soldier for many years. Now you must become a Cehn-Tahr aristocrat’s consort, so that you are not identified at Benaski Port as the soldier that you are. That will be my chore, to tutor you.”

Madeline raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Sfilla pursed her lips. “And perhaps you can teach me the art of hand-to-hand combat,” she said, smiling at some private joke.

Madeline grinned. “Deal!”

* * *

LATER, AFTER SHE had bathed and a small meal had been brought to her, she sat in the sunlight filtering through her window and tried to make sense of what had happened. Everyone said that the mating was brutal and barbaric, that Cehn-Tahr women sometimes would forsake bonding because they were so frightened of it. Madeline had not found it barbaric at all, except just at first. She wondered what other females had found so terrifying.

“Passion,” Dtimun replied to her silent question.

Her head turned, her expression questioning. He was dressed in robes, as he had been when they attended the Altair reception. He looked elegant.

She smiled. “You said once that I would have nightmares.”

He chuckled. “I underestimated you. In many ways.”

“Sir?”

He groaned. “Madeline, you must stop referring to me as ‘sir.’ It will arouse suspicion.”

“Sorry.” She peered up at him. “I really have to stop saluting you, too?”

He glared at her.

“Okay, I’ll try. I promise.” She cocked her head. “I thought I might have sprains or broken limbs from the way everybody talked about it,” she said. “It wasn’t brutal. Not as I define brutality.”

He moved closer. “Cehn-Tahr women dislike physical boldness. A predator attacks weakness.”

She began to understand. His aggression had diminished when she fought him.

“Exactly,” he replied. He perched on the edge of the bay window that overlooked the formal garden. His eyes were a soft golden color as they searched hers. “You were not afraid of me.” He pursed his lips and reconsidered. “Well, perhaps a little, at the beginning.”

“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me deliberately,” she said simply. She glared at him. “Although...”

“It was unavoidable.” He chuckled softly. “And you were not without defenses,” he added wryly, and held up a forearm with tooth marks to show her.

“Sorry,” she said with a grin. “It was unavoidable.”

He smiled. “You bit me as a child when I helped your father rescue you from terrorists,” he reminded her. “I prefer spirit to acquiescence.”

“Fortunately for you, I’m never acquiescent,” she said.

He searched her eyes. It was only beginning to occur to him how large a place she occupied in his thoughts, in his life. “You know me as few people ever have,” he said after a minute. “I find it difficult to relate to most outworlders.”

“I know how you feel. I don’t get along well with most humans,” she agreed. “I’m very fond of Strick and Holt, but even so, I could never talk to them about things I could say to you.”

That made him feel warm inside. He didn’t like her closeness to the other males, but he didn’t remark on it.

“Would you have attacked Flannegan, that day in the gym?” she asked abruptly, alluding to an incident that had almost betrayed his need of her to the military authorities, before her nearly fatal crash on Akaashe. It would have cost him his life, if his government had found out.

“I would have killed him,” he said bluntly. “Possessive behavior is part of the mating ritual. Even now, Stern and Hahnson are not safe if they come near you.” He laughed shortly. “I had to fight my instincts to permit Hahnson to treat you. It was difficult.” His eyes narrowed. “I do not want another male to touch you.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m glad to hear it, because I would go ballistic if any other female touched you,” she confessed firmly.

Her possessiveness of him was a delight. He smiled. “Jealousy. It is an odd concept. I have never felt it until now.”

“It’s just the mating ritual,” she assured him. “When we save Chacon and the princess and the child is gone, and my memory is wiped, you won’t feel it anymore.” She didn’t look at him as she said it. The removal of the child was something that hurt her even to think about. Amazing, since regressing it had been her own solution to the aftermath of their covert mission.

She felt a tremor in her stomach and put her hand on it with mingled delight and scientific curiosity. The cell division progressed at an exponential rate. Cehn-Tahr babies, she’d learned from researching in the fortress’s extensive library, grew at a vastly accelerated rate. Odd, that there were no pictorial depictions of them in any of the literature, she thought idly. She could not know that Dtimun had ordered the images concealed when he learned of her research efforts.

“Anything you require will be provided,” he told her. “And Hahnson will be nearby until our departure. I had Mallory sent to the capitol on a pretext so that she will not know of the pregnancy.”

She nodded. She drew in a long breath. The child was growing quite rapidly, despite the herbs that were meant to retard the growth, and it was painful. She had nausea as well, that became debilitating from time to time. She had to carefully monitor her health. The disparity in sizes between human and Cehn-Tahr was going to be a real problem if the mission lasted longer than expected. “When do we leave for Benaski Port?”

“In a few days,” he said. “The child must be visible when we arrive there.”

She looked up, frowning. “Why couldn’t I have pretended to be pregnant?”

“It would have been discovered. Cehn-Tahr are not the only telepaths in the three galaxies,” he said, surprising her. “The deception, once uncovered, would destroy any chance of saving Chacon and Lyceria.”

“I see.”

He was looking at her intently. She lifted her eyes to his and found turbulence in them. “Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked.

He reached down and touched her hair, smoothing it with his fingers. “What we imagine the future to be is usually quite different from the reality. In another place, another time, many things might have been possible that are not, now,” he said quietly. He stopped, letting the thought trail away, as his voice did.

She was confused by the feelings he aroused when he looked at her. She shifted in the chair. Her eyes met his again, and were puzzled once more by their burnished gold shade. It was one she’d never seen before.

“It is a color which is not shown to anyone outside the family,” he explained patiently. “That is why you have not seen it.”

“Oh.” She laughed, then frowned. “But I have. Your eyes were that color when you rescued me, on Akaashe,” she added, puzzled.

“A result of the mating behavior,” he lied. It had been more than that, but he didn’t want to think about it just yet. He traced her cheek, his gaze still intent on her face. “So many differences,” he mused. “But in many more ways, we are alike. We must concentrate on the similarities during our time in Benaski Port, so that we do not arouse suspicion.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll arm me for the mission?” she murmured mischievously.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Only under threat of immediate attack by squadrons of Rojoks.”

She sighed. “I might have known.”

“You will not require a weapon. I will protect you and the child,” he said.

Odd, the feeling those words provoked, in a very capable and independent spirit. They made her feel warm inside, in a way she never had before.

It made him feel the same. It was disturbing. He turned away. “I have duties to attend to. If you need anything, you have only to call. A servant will answer.”

“Servants, luxurious clothing, every whim attended to,” she said. “It’s difficult to adjust.”

He smiled. “Despite how it may seem, my own life has been quite regimented and sparse in the way of luxuries. It is a change for me, too, this new lifestyle.”

Her gaze slid over his handsome face. “It’s only temporary.”

He nodded. His eyes went to her belly, where his child was growing. His face hardened and he turned away. It wouldn’t do to get too involved with her pregnancy.

She watched him go with sad eyes. She touched her stomach with wonder. She hadn’t really believed it was possible. She was amazed at how much she wanted the child. That possibility hadn’t even occurred to her. She turned back to the balcony. It would be unwise to dwell on impossible things. She looked up as a small, personal transport flew over and sighed. It was going to be a long few days.

CHAPTER FOUR

MADELINE THOUGHT SHE knew the commander of the Holconcom quite well after serving aboard his vessel for almost three years. But, the private person was far removed from the military leader.

Despite the somewhat disturbing physical events of the recent past, she was still comfortable with him when they were alone. He walked with her in the gardens of the fortress, pointing out the various forms of flora and even quoting the names in High Cehn-Tahr, the ancient language, the holy tongue.

“That dialect is familiar,” she said. “I’ve heard it spoken by the kehmatemer. But it isn’t in current use widely, is it?”

“No,” he agreed. “The emperor insisted on keeping the ancient language alive, so that the roots of our people would endure. He considers that language is the basis of culture.”

“I see. So the Dectat uses it in discussions, and the kehmatemer use it among themselves, since they protect the officials of the Dectat.”

He smiled. “Exactly.”

She closed her eyes and drank in the exquisite fragrance of the canolithe, which grew in the nearby woods. “I smelled canolithe for the first time in a library on Altair 6 where we were on maneuvers,” she recalled with a smile. “It had been recorded in the sensor logs and reproduced by an olfactory process known only to the Altairians.”

He turned and looked down at her with quiet appreciation of her beauty, enhanced by the child she was carrying. His child. He felt possession wash over him like a wave. He had never felt it like this, certainly not for the Dacerian woman long ago whom, he was only beginning to realize, had an agenda that he had never perceived.

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