B00CH3ARG0 EBOK (2 page)

“I am only yours, beloved.” He reached for her hand.

“Yes, you’re mine all right,” she retorted, snatching her
hand out of reach. She stabbed the air with an index finger. “And hers, and
hers, and hers.”

“Only you have a claim on my heart.”

She stopped pacing and faced him, eyes brimming. “I don’t want
to share you,” she whispered. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

This time he caught her hand and pulled her back onto the
bench with him. He wrapped his arms around her. “You do not share me,” he
repeated. “I am only yours.”

“You don’t understand,” she said between sobs.

“No,” he agreed, rocking her as she cried into his robes. “We
do not understand each other on this.” He stroked her hair. “But it is very
important to you.”

She nodded.

He leaned his chin in her hair and heaved a sigh. “I will
... investigate my choices.”

* * *

Duty took the Sural to another meeting. Marianne remained in
the gazebo, pulling herself together in its relative solitude. She dropped her
head into her hands and silently cursed. The Sural didn’t flaunt his ...
reproductive behavior. He knew it hurt and upset her to think of him with
another woman, so he never spoke of it. So what perversity in her nature led
her to bring it up?

Investigate his choices.
She rubbed her temples,
wondering what that meant. It wouldn’t mean he could say no to all requests,
damn
their hidebound Tolari tradition. They didn’t need to keep requiring men to be
available for reproduction. It may have been necessary 6,000 years earlier,
when there were fewer than fifty Tolari, but it couldn’t be needed now, not
with the planet’s population approaching 40 million.
And he considers it an
honor to be asked.
A bitter laugh sputtered out of her.

She sucked in a deep breath and focused on the garden, with
its chattering flutters and humming insects. Eventually, the peace quieted her irritation,
leaving only a lingering itch. She left the gazebo and headed for the door to
the family wing, intent on spending some time in the library.

 When she arrived, Storaas was teaching Tolari history to
Kyza. Never unhappy to have an audience, the ancient tutor smiled and nodded as
Marianne drifted over to view the map of the southern continents he’d spread
out, its surface marked with political, social, and caste boundaries. She
settled into a chair and listened to him describing the cultures of the
equatorial provinces five hundred years before.

Eyes on the map, she tried to imagine the Tolar of earlier
times. Storaas’ gentle voice lulled her, and her thoughts scattered. She yawned,
and yawned again.
This is ridiculous,
she thought. She had no reason to
be so tired after her cry in the garden. She quit her seat, bowed an apology to
Storaas, and wandered back into the corridor in an effort to stay awake. Yawning
as she walked, she nearly bumped into the Sural’s head apothecary.

The yellow-robed woman bowed low. “Forgive me, high one, I—”
She stopped, eyes wide and startled, and stood still, waiting for permission to
speak.

“Is something wrong?” Marianne asked.

“High one, will you see the apothecaries without delay?”

Marianne straightened, surprise shaking the cobwebs out of
her head. “Whatever for? Is something wrong with me?”

“No, but you need to see the apothecaries. Forgive me, but I
must insist.”

“All right,” Marianne said slowly, as an edge of anxiety
settled in her stomach. That was the last place she wanted to go, but if there
was something wrong… “I’ll go there now.”

The apothecary’s face relaxed a little. Marianne signaled a
dismissal with one hand and turned in the direction of the apothecaries’
quarters.

The two apothecaries on duty gave her the same startled
reaction the Sural’s apothecary had. Marianne kept silent while they ran their
small, palm-sized scanners over her body, but their reserve and the glances
they exchanged only increased her anxiety. Finally, the more senior of the pair
bowed in front of her and waited for permission to speak.

“Yes?” she said.

“High one, you are increasing,” he replied.

Blinking, she furled her brows and peered at him. “I’m
what?”

“You are with child.”

No
. Blood draining from her face, the world twisted
around her. “I’m
what
?” she repeated in a hoarse whisper, edging off the
examination bed. Suddenly cold, she threw her arms around herself, gulping air
and shaking. The camouflaged guard in the room flickered into view, a concerned
expression on her face.

“The child is female,” the other apothecary added.

Words flew out of her. “That’s impossible!”

“High one, you must calm yourself,” the first apothecary
said. “Your mood can affect your daughter.”

Marianne backed away until a wall stopped her. The room
faded into a face – a dirty face, leering and laughing, framed by greasy blond
hair. Filthy hands reached for her. Escape. She had to escape. A wave of panic slammed
through her, wiping all rational thought from her mind.

“
NOOOOOO!
” she screamed, and bolted through the door
to the gardens.

She was twelve years old, running through a cornfield in
Iowa, and if she didn’t keep running, she was going to die.

* * *

Marianne’s terror blasted into the Sural through their bond.
In the middle of a meeting with his city’s representatives, in mid-word, he
whirled and ran, racing for the gardens at a dead run. The sentries in the
garden, their senses focused to detect intruders, were slow to react to her
tightly-shuttered terror, and there was no time to alert them through the
stronghold’s communications plexus. He barked orders as he ran, but Marianne
was too far ahead of him, running from a demon only she could see.

She broke free of the garden, heading straight for the
Overwatch at the edge of the plateau.

He raced across the grounds, gaining on her, but she was approaching
the windswept precipice. Ice gripped the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t going to
catch her before she ran blindly over the sheer drop, even running as fast as
his enhanced speed allowed, and the guards weren’t going to stop her in time. Desperate,
he threw a punishing emotional blow at her through their bond. Staggering, Marianne
cried out, holding her head, while he stumbled, reeling from the pain that
surged back at him.

It was enough. A guard on the Overwatch hurled himself at
her, and both went down a few strides short of the cliff’s edge.

Marianne kicked, screaming and even biting in panic. She
pried herself loose from the guard’s grasp as the Sural caught up and wrapped
himself around her, pinning her arms to her sides. She screeched and rammed her
head into him, working her arms free to flail at him. Then she sank her teeth
viciously into his hand, drawing blood, tearing muscle, bruising bone. He
grunted but held on as she worked her teeth into his flesh.

Guards hovered, the drugged needles in their fingertips
ready. He snapped an order to stand down just as an apothecary rushed in to
press a medical instrument against the skin of Marianne’s neck. She slumped
unconscious against him. Breathing hard, he looked over at the rocky precipice,
then back at the woman in his arms. He swallowed, drained and trembling, holding
her tight.

Blood dripped from his bitten hand onto the vegetation
beneath his feet. Shifting Marianne to one arm, he pulled his sleeve over the
ugly wound and lifted her, heading toward the apothecaries’ quarters.

Reaction set in as he laid her gently on an examination bed.
As he sat on the bed next to her, he shook at the thought of how close she had
come to running over the edge of the cliff. An apothecary approached, hovering
over Marianne with a medical scanner. The Sural pushed down his surging
emotions and nodded at the man.

“How did this happen?” he asked.

“She is increasing, high one,” the apothecary said,
pocketing his scanner to examine the readings on the bed’s console. “The news
provoked her ... reaction.”

“Increasing?” His eyebrows flew up of their own accord. “Explain.
She has been deliberately made barren.”

The apothecary spread his hands in apology. “I cannot
explain,” he said. “She is whole. And she has conceived.”

Shock drove the breath out of the Sural in a gust. Then
tendrils of surprised joy wove their way into his concern for his beloved. “And
the child? Human or Tolari?”

“Tolari, and female.”

“Give me the antidote to your sedative and leave us.”

The other apothecary offered an instrument to the Sural. He
took it from her, and both apothecaries camouflaged and left the room.

His own healer appeared and unwrapped his bitten hand to
examine it. He held it out for her without taking his eyes off Marianne. A
sudden image of her, running toward the edge of the plateau, hair streaming
behind her, made him shudder. He couldn’t survive losing his bond-partner.

The pain in his hand became a stinging, fading to an itch as
his apothecary worked.

“You will drink this, high one,” she said. Her tone made it
clear she expected him to obey.

He looked over at her. She had finished repairing his hand
and was holding out an unstoppered vial. He flexed the hand, nodding. Then he took
the vial and consumed its contents with a grimace. It stopped the shaking, but
he was almost depleted – and ravenous. He shoved the hunger out of his mind and
turned back to Marianne, pressing the instrument with the antidote against her
neck. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers as she regained
consciousness.

“Beloved,” he whispered as she stirred.

Her eyes – such a beautiful, startling shade of blue –
fluttered open and filled with tears. She cringed away from him. “Please don’t
hurt me,” she whispered in English.

He blinked and brought his brows together. “Why would I hurt
you?”

“I got pregnant!” she wailed.

He bent down toward her, letting the joy of that curve his
lips. “Unless I am much mistaken,” he murmured, “I fathered your child.”

She made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “Yes,” she said,
“you did.”

He relaxed a fraction, thinking she was coming back to
reality. Then a tremor seized her, and her eyes went blank with terror. Reason vanished.
“Please – please – I didn’t mean to get pregnant – I didn’t know I could – I
thought I made sure I couldn’t!”

“I am honored to father your child, beloved,” he said, continuing
to stroke her cheek with the back of his fingers. “You have no cause for fear.”

Another shudder tore through her, and she flung herself away
from him, sliding off the bed onto the floor and scuttling like a sand crawler
into a corner, where she curled into a ball. “Don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt
me!” she sobbed. Her eyes turned desperate. “It’s not yours – it can’t be yours
– don’t kill it! Please don’t kill it!”

He knelt next to her and swallowed hard, pushing down anger.
She was seeing her private tormenter now. He forced himself to calm. “I will
never hurt you,” he said, relying on the protective statements that usually
comforted her. “I will never allow anyone to hurt you.” She continued sobbing,
radiating terror and desperation. “Beloved, look at me.” He grasped her wrists
and held them in front of her face, trying to catch her eye. “Look at me.”

She took a deep breath and raised wide eyes to his.

“Hear me,” he said. “I am the Sural. I am not the man who
hurt you. See me. You are safe in—”

“I didn’t mean to get pregnant!” she wailed again. “Don’t
hurt me!”

He let go of her wrists and sat back on his heels, perplexed.
His apothecary crouched on the floor nearby and produced a sedative from her
pockets. He stopped her.

“Can you explain this?” he asked, as Marianne continued to
sob. He tried to stroke her hair, but she cringed away and curled into herself
again.

“She appears to be vividly reliving her attack,” she
answered.

He nodded, his heart aching. “Repeatedly, throughout the
attack, he threatened her with death should she conceive a child. Her fear of
increasing is very deep.” He locked eyes with his apothecary. “We did not think
it would ever be necessary to face this fear.”

“I need to examine her if you want an explanation,” she said.
“I am not her apothecary.”

“I want her in your care. She is still partly human, increasing
with a Tolari child—” He stopped and shook his head. “She must have an
apothecary.”

“I agree, high one, but you cannot force her on this.”

“She is in crisis,” he pointed out.

She hesitated for a few heartbeats while thinking it
through. Finally, she nodded. “Yes, high one.”

“What can you do for her now?”

Shaking her head, she said, “I can do very little for her
prior to a thorough examination, not while she is still transforming, not while
she is increasing. There are few potions certain to be safe, either for her or the
child.”

He pressed his lips together. Turning back to Marianne, he
put a hand under her chin and tried to lift her face. “Beloved,” he said, making
his voice tender. “Look at me. Can you do that? Look at me.”

Her face tilted up, drained of all color, her eyes huge and
glassy. She began to struggle against him, trying to push his hands away.

“Marianne!” He pitched his voice louder and grabbed her
wrists to keep her from making another wild flight. She tried to twist away
from him. “MARIANNE!”

She froze, blinking. Her scattered emotions seemed to focus.

He leapt at the glimmer of sanity, wrapping his senses around
hers as he would a child. “Beloved,” he said softly, “hear me. I am
happy
that you are increasing. I am
happy
that I have given you a child. Do
you understand? I am the Sural. I will not allow anyone to hurt you or your
child. I will protect you with my life.”