B00CH3ARG0 EBOK (17 page)

Marianne whistled through her teeth. “You don’t act like a
society princess.”

“Forty-one years in Earth Fleet beat that out of me,” Laura
said with a laugh. “So now I’m curious – this bonding you keep mentioning, is
that—”

“Only part of it. It’s mostly emotional. When you’re
bonding, you don’t even know where you are. It’s ecstatic. The physical part
just happens, wherever you happen to be at the time, so you’re supposed to
remain in seclusion. You eat a lot, you … bond … night and day. There are
hormones flooding you that keep you awake, to make you bond every few hours, until
the compulsion is gone and you finally fall asleep. For us it took four days.”

“Oh, my.”

“It was incredible, just incredible.” Marianne closed her
eyes. “I can feel him wherever he is now. He can’t hide from me. He can
camouflage and conceal himself from anyone, close himself up and shut anyone
out – except me.”

“I’m surprised you could still walk after four days of
that.”

“Laura!”

They both blushed and laughed.

“Is that when you got pregnant?”

“No, that took a little longer, but when I found out I was
pregnant, I started having nightmares about the attack.”

Laura sobered. “Ouch. Are you okay now?”

“More or less. I guess there’s a part of me that believes
the— the man who attacked me would come back if I got pregnant, like he
threatened to. But that’s fading. I haven’t had a nightmare in a few weeks.”

They fell silent, watching the clouds drift overhead.

“I think I would like to live in your world,” Laura said. “But
I’m not sure I want to be a widow for 300 years.”

“Maybe you’ll find someone.”

She peered at Marianne with narrowed eyes. “You’re kidding,
right?”

“Why would I be kidding? And maybe you wouldn’t be as lonely
if you could
feel
the affection other people have for you.”

“Marianne, look at me. I may be well-preserved, but I’m
sixty years old. We’re surrounded by people who look half my age. I can
understand how the Sural could fall in love with you, you’re young, but why in
the world would any Tolari man be attracted to a middle-aged baggage like me?”

Marianne heaved a sigh and said, in a quiet voice that was
almost a whisper, “You don’t give yourself any credit.”

* * *

“In a way it’s not fair,” Marianne said later, as she and
the Sural settled on her sleeping mat for the night. “She’s sensitive enough to
have a glimpse of our world, but not sensitive enough to really be a part of
it. She longs for it, too. And I think it would help her to cope with her
loss.”

She nestled into his shoulder. He reached over and brushed the
hair away from her face. “You are so beautiful,” he said, drawing her more tightly
against him. “Always thinking of others.” Radiance grew around her as he touched
their bond.

“And you are insatiable. Always thinking of bonding.”

His smile went crooked. “A trait of my bloodline.”

“Will you allow Laura to take the Jorann’s blessing?”

“Yes, beloved, if she requests it.”

“My gratitude,” she said, beginning to nibble along his
chin.

“Now who is insatiable?”

“Not me,” she replied around a mouthful of earlobe.

* * *

Laura woke in a cold sweat, her heart pounding from a
nightmare of captivity and helplessness. Breathing hard, she sat up.
God,
talk about bad dreams and you have one.
She staggered to her feet and
pulled on a robe. Maybe a walk in the garden would help calm her nerves.

She headed out the sleeping room door into the moonlit garden.
The moon, not quite full and very bright, hung high in the sky, shedding plenty
of light to see. Some kind of creature, perhaps an insect, clicked softly in
the trees, but it was otherwise quiet. She drew in a deep breath of warm air
full of unfamiliar smells and tilted her face upward.

The Milky Way lay spread across the stars. She searched the
sky, but she had no idea which star was Sol, or Tau Ceti, or Epsilon Indi – the
places her children and grandchildren lived. Her eyes stung. They probably
thought she was dead.

A muffled sound came from a nearby gazebo. She turned and peered
into the shadows. A small, dark figure sat on the top step, hugging the
railing, head bowed. Her dark brown robe blended into the shadows. Thela.

“What are you doing out here so late at night?” Laura asked.
“You should be asleep in bed.”

Thela looked up and said something liquid and musical.

No English
, Laura thought. She climbed the steps and
sat down on the top step with the little girl. She couldn’t be more than ten or
eleven, and she looked so sad, though she wasn’t crying. On impulse, Laura
reached over to rub her back. Thela responded by scooting over and putting her
arms around Laura’s waist.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” She knew Thela wouldn’t
understand the words, but maybe she would understand the feelings.

Thela uttered some more words and pointed to a spot at the
bottom of the steps. Laura felt a chill. Was that where her father had died?

“Oh Thela,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t be here.” She
looked up at the stars again. “Neither should I. But I don’t have anywhere else
to go.” A sigh escaped her. “Do you have anywhere else to go? Anyone else who
would have taken care of you? Though I guess the Sural is your father now.”

“Sural?” Thela looked up from where she’d buried her face in
Laura’s shoulder.

Laura reached a hand as high over her head as she could.
“Sural.”

The girl ventured a small smile. “
Harst
,” she said.

Laura smiled back, wondering what that meant, and gave her a
squeeze. “Come on,” she said, getting to her feet. “This isn’t a good place for
you to be.” She took Thela’s hand and tugged at it until the girl stood up and
came with her. “That’s right. Let’s go sit by the brook over there.”

Thela followed willingly enough. Laura sat under a tree near
one of the brooks that ran through the garden and patted the grassy vegetation
beside her, inviting the child to sit. “I wish I could show you which star I
come from, but I don’t know which one it is.” She lay back and pointed at the
moon. “Moon,” she said.

Thela lay down beside her. “Moon-n-n,” she repeated.

Laura put her hands up to frame it with her fingers. “It’s
different than the moon I grew up with. A little smaller, I think.”

Thela yawned and curled up against Laura’s side.

The ferny grass was soft. “We should go back in and go to
bed.” Thela uttered a little sigh. Laura smiled. She’d try to find an
English-speaking guard to carry the girl back to her own bed. In a minute.

Laura strolled through the gardens with Marianne and Cena in
the late afternoon. By her reckoning, a couple of months had passed since her
arrival on Tolar, but it was hard to tell, since Tolari had no inclination to
keep track of time, and the twenty-five hour days threw her off.

Marianne looked about six months or so along, to Laura’s
experienced eye. Cena definitely exhibited the happy glow of pregnancy – Tolari
and humans seemed to have that much in common. She didn’t show yet, but she
made no secret of it, nor did she make a secret of her continuing affair with
the old tutor whose child it was. Who fathered it, she corrected herself. Who
fathered
him
, she corrected again, since the baby was a boy. She shook
her head.

“What’s the matter?” Marianne asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Laura replied with a sheepish grin. “Just
lost in thought. You know, the usual things.”

“You are still finding us a puzzle?” Cena asked.

“Oh, yes. You’re so proud of yourself for getting Storaas to
get you pregnant.”

Marianne chuckled.

Cena smiled. “No one has captured him in over a hundred
years,” she said, allowing a little smugness into her voice. Then a shadow
crept into her eyes.

Laura laid a hand on her arm. “He’s just waiting to die,
isn’t he?” she asked.

Cena nodded sadly. “He has not many years left.”

“I understand,” Laura said in a soft voice. “He lost
someone, didn’t he?”

Cena started and gave her a long look, but said nothing.

“Well, anyway,” Laura continued, “I understand.”

Marianne made an uncomfortable noise. “Let’s go into this
gazebo. I need to sit.”

The other two women followed and arranged themselves on the
benches in the graceful wood pavilion. Laura shrugged to herself, chagrined at
turning the mood sad. She hadn’t meant to, but she did it all too often. Living
in the home of the man who killed her husband – even if the keep and the grounds
together were the size of a small town – wasn’t helping, but there was nothing
to be done about that. She had to stay on Tolar. She wasn’t safe in human
space, and as far as she knew, she wasn’t welcome anywhere else.

Confined to one planet. It was ironic for a woman who had
spent the last forty-one years living on Earth Fleet ships.

Marianne let out a long sigh of apparent relief and
stretched her legs in front of her. “I’ve been thinking about names for my
daughter,” she said.

Laura grinned. “I named my daughters Sarah and Elizabeth.”

“My mother named me for her mother. I’ve been thinking about
following suit and naming my daughter after my mother: Rose.”

“Mm, that’s a nice name.”

“The Sural suggested Kazry.”

“That would be a feminine form of his father’s name,” Cena said.

Marianne turned toward her in surprise. “He said it was a
traditional name in his family, but he didn’t mention that.”

“Kazryn was, by all accounts, a sensitive and passionate
man, and an accomplished poet.”

“I knew he was a poet,” Marianne said, blushing for some
reason Laura could only wonder about. Then her eyes narrowed. “You’re using his
name?”

“Kazryn never ruled.”

“I see.”

“I don’t,” said Laura.

“The Sural’s father and the Suralia his grandmother were
assassinated on the same day,” Cena explained. “Kazryn never ruled, so the
Jorann never took his name from him.”

“Oh-h-h.”

“From what I understand,” Marianne added, “that was the last
direct attack on Suralia. Everyone in the stronghold died.”

Laura cringed. “Oh my.”

“Must have been an ugly day.”

Cena nodded, her face solemn. “I was conceived within a few
days of that sad event.”

Laura’s face grew hot.

“It was the morning after the people of Suralia pledged
their lives to the Sural,” Cena continued. “My mother went to him for an heir and
stayed on as his head apothecary and concubine.”

“Concubine?” Marianne blurted.

Cena cocked her head. “Did I not use the correct word? An individual
kept to relieve sexual tension?”

Laura choked and started to cough.

Cena looked from Laura to Marianne and back. “I am clearly
trespassing on human taboos.”

Marianne began to cackle, then to laugh, then to guffaw. She
couldn’t seem to stop.

“Uh oh,” Laura said. “She’s got a good case of the giggles
now.”

As Marianne kept alternating between chortles and belly
laughs, the Sural burst into view nearby, a small smile playing around his
lips, his eyebrows slightly raised. Marianne pointed at him and laughed harder.

“The Marann seems to find it highly entertaining that you
took my mother for a concubine as well as engaging her as your head
apothecary,” Cena explained as the Sural took a seat next to Marianne.

Marianne continued giggling. He put an arm around her, a
broad smile on his face.

“Ah yes,” he said. “Your mother was very helpful. She had
made a study of the needs of the Jorann’s grandchildren.”

Laura blinked a few times and met his eyes, confused. “People
keep calling you that. There’s a Suralia who was your grandmother – and the
Jorann is the other?”

Marianne sniggered.

“Not in the sense you mean,” he answered. “Every few
hundreds of our years, on average, one like me is born in the ruling caste. The
Jorann claims us as her grandchildren. We have heightened speed and strength,
but using these abilities comes at a cost. First comes a ravenous hunger for
food. Then comes a burning hunger for sex.”

Laura flushed, wondering if she was red from head to toe. Of
course, the Sural then burst into a delighted smile.

“I am what I am,” he finished, shrugging a shoulder. “Forgive
us if our ways offend you. I was very young when I took power, and I was
struggling with my appetites. Being triggered into my full potential heightened
them past what I was able to control without assistance.”

Her face grew even hotter than it already was.

The Sural chuckled. “Laura still struggles with our
frankness about intimate matters, I see.”

Marianne finally seemed to get herself under control. “Not
all humans have so much trouble with it,” she said, wiping tears of mirth from
her eyes. “But Laura comes from Boston’s aristocracy, where it’s not mentioned
at all.”