Purity (Pure and Tainted) (31 page)

“But you’re a geneticist, Boone,” she protested. “Can’t you think
of
some
way to help me?”

He looked frustrated.
“Maybe if I had my lab and
all my equipment and more time to work on the problem.”

“Time is what we
don’t
have,” K snapped. “By tomorrow morning I’m going to become this vicious,
mindless creature intent on nothing but getting myself penetrated and injected
with male seed over and over again.” She put her arms around herself and shivered
in disgust. “I’ll be no better than Sweetie was.”

“Come on now, darlin’,” Boone said. “You can’t think of it that
way.”

“There’s no other way to think about it.” K took a deep breath.
“I’m going to have to put my suit back on.” She was surprised all over again at
how reluctant she was to do it.
But if there was no other
way…

Boone shook his head. “I’ve thought about that, but I just don’t
think it’s safe. Interrupting your cycle—especially your first cycle when your
hormones have been suppressed so long—could kill you.”

K gave him a level look. “I’d rather be dead, Boone. Rather be
dead than let myself be touched—penetrated—by a stranger.
By
anyone but you.”

“K—” he began.

“But I
can’t
be with you,”
she continued relentlessly. “Not just because of our different DNA but because
I’d hurt you.” She looked up at Boone and bit her lip. “I know I swore to kill
you but now that the opportunity presents itself I find myself…strangely
reluctant to follow through on my threat.”

One corner of Boone’s mouth quirked
up.
“You say
the sweetest things, darlin’,” he said dryly.

“So I’ve
got
to put on
the suit,” K went on. “There’s no other way.”

“There is a way—you could go through the cycle,” Boone said
quietly.

“Are you serious?” K looked at him, disbelieving. “Do you hear
what you’re saying, Boone? You want me to let myself turn into some mindless,
lust crazed…” She shook her head and tried again. “You want me to be
contaminated—penetrated—by other males? I thought the Impure were territorial
about their mates.”

“We are,” Boone said grimly. “And believe me, darlin’, the
idea of letting some other guy touch
you…” His big hands
balled into fists and his voice dropped to a growl. “I don’t like it one damn
bit. But if it’s a choice between that and letting you die—I want you to live, K.
I
love
you.”

K felt numb. “You told me you’d teach me what love is, Boone,” she
said in a low voice. “I have to tell you, I didn’t think it would be like
this.”

“I just want you to be
safe
,”
he began, reaching for her.

K dodged away from his touch and jumped off the sleeping platform.

“I’d rather die than buy my safety—my life—at that price,” she
said coldly. “I thought you could help me, Boone. I was stupid enough—emotional
enough—to think I could bring you my problems and expect you to solve them.”

He spread his hands. “I’m only human, K. I honestly think the best
thing would be to go through the cycle and
then
try to find a way out of here. If…if you still want to leave afterwards, that
is.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to leave?” K demanded.

“Because, well…” Boone shifted and cleared his throat. “You’re a
princess here, K. You can have a whole new life if you want it.”

“I
had
a whole new life.
With
you.”
K
felt like her throat might close but she forced the words out anyway. “You
stole me out of my old life, stripped away my suit, taught me to feel—you
changed
me, Boone. I don’t want to go
back to what I was—I don’t know why but I don’t.”

“Then don’t do it,” he said softly. “We’ll get through this
together, K. I swear we will.”

“No.” K picked up the dress she’d shed from the floor and dug
around in the inside pocket until her fingertips encountered the familiar,
slithery fabric of her skinsuit. “No, there’s no more ‘we’ Boone. I never
should have let there be in the first place.” She began pulling on the suit,
heedless of the way her body was shivering in revulsion as the familiar black
webbing flowed over her skin.

“K, stop!”
He jumped off the sleeping
platform and came for her, one hand outstretched to keep her from her task.
“You can’t do this—that damn thing really could kill you. Take it off!”

“No.” K pulled the suit higher and slipped her arms inside the
sleeves. As soon as she did, the familiar needles bit into her forearms,
injecting coldness, replacing emotion with reason.
Mercifully
numbing her to the tortured feelings of hurt and disappointment that had
swamped her just a moment before.

“K, stop, before it’s too late!”
Boone began pulling at her suit,
trying to get it off her again.

“It’s already too late. It was too late the first time you took
off my suit and contaminated me.”

K reached into an inner compartment of her suit, pulled out a stun
capsule, and broke it under his nose.

Boone took in a breath and clamped his hand over his mouth and
nose. But it was too late, already his eyes were rolling up in his head and he
was sinking to the ground.

K watched him slump to a heap at the foot of the sleeping platform
and felt nothing…well, almost nothing. For a moment, she knelt beside him and
put a hand on his neck to check his pulse. It was strong and steady—the capsule
was meant for smaller humans than Boone. He would be all right. Not that she
cared.

Then Boone startled her by lifting his head. His eyes fluttered,
as though he was fighting the stun gas—fighting to stay with her.

“K,” he muttered.
“Don’t…do this.
Not…safe.”

“Neither is staying here,” K said coldly. “Don’t worry, Boone—I
don’t ever expect to see you again but I keep my promises. Goodbye.”

“Don’t go.” He struggled to move but couldn’t—clearly the gas had
incapacitated his arms and legs. “Love…you.”

K didn’t know what to say to that. Even with the needles of her
suit biting into her arms, injecting her with the calming essence of Purity,
she still felt her heart thump strangely in her chest.

“Goodbye, Boone,” she said again. Then she left him, lying in a
heap, and went back to the secret passage behind the fireplace.

She had much to do and she couldn’t let emotion get in her way.

Chapter Twenty-two

“Boone? Oh my Goddess, Boone—
are
you
okay?”

Boone blinked his eyes with some difficulty. His eyelids felt
incredibly heavy for some reason. When he could finally focus, he saw Loki
leaning over him, a worried look in his gold ringed eyes.

“What happened to you?” Loki demanded.

“Dunno…” Boone blinked again, trying to remember. Why was he lying
on the floor in nothing but his underbriefs? And why was his head pounding like
a saurian had decided to sit on it?

Suddenly it all came back to him—K coming through the secret
passage, the way she had begged for his help and afterwards, the way he had
failed her.
I failed her and she put the
suit back on. The suit…oh God, the suit!

“K!” he gasped, lurching upright. A bolt of pain shot through his
head and he groaned and clutched at it.

“Take it easy, big boy.” Loki patted his back.

“Can’t take it easy.”
Boone tried to get to his feet and
couldn’t manage. Loki grabbed his arm on one side and someone else grabbed on
the other. Between the two of them they managed to haul him upright.

“There you go.” Loki dusted him off. “Now do you mind telling me
why you passed out in your underbriefs like a party boy who took too many
psi-poppers?”

“It was K. She drugged me.” Boone looked around woozily. “Where is
she?”

“That’s what the entire palace would like to know,” Loki said
waspishly. “She’s been missing for hours.”

“Apparently she’s disappeared just like she did so many years
ago,” the other man who’d helped Boone up said. “The lost and found princess
has been lost again.”

Boone rubbed his face and looked at him. “And you are?”

“This is Rolf—my new touch partner.” Loki stroked the other man’s
muscular bicep. “Isn’t he just a
dream?
He’s new to the whole gay thing too, so be
nice to him.”

“Didn’t know I could jump the fence
until I met Loki.”
Rolf batted startlingly long eyelashes at the effete pilot. “It was an
eye-opener, and no mistake.”

“Well I’m happy for you,” Boone said shortly before turning back
to Loki. “We have to find K,” he said. “She put back on that damn suit before
she left. It could kill her!”

Loki raised an eyebrow at him. “And
how
may I ask did she get the suit back in the first place?”

“I gave it to her,” Boone growled. “When we found out exactly what
was involved in the Erian sex cycle. You know how K feels about contamination.
She couldn’t bear the thought of…needing what she was going to need.”

“Ooo, I
told
you the
cycle was a beast.” Loki made a
tsk
ing
sound.
“Especially in royals.
I have to tell you,
Boone, if I’d known she had the sacred triple rings, I would have been scared
to death about her staying in your room every night. You’re really,
really
lucky that her cycle didn’t start
sooner. You wouldn’t have survived it—hell,
none
of us would.”

Boone glared at him. “What the hell are you talking about? I know
she’s supposed to get a little, uh, feral when her time comes but—”

“A
little
feral?”
Rolf made a choking noise. “Forgive me, giant, but that’s a huge
understatement—especially for a royal.”

“What is he talking about?” Boone demanded, looking at Loki. “And
no more lies or half truths or evasions. Just
tell
me, damn it.”

“When a royal enters their cycle, they turn into a kind of
mindless beast,” Loki said seriously. “They’re savage and very strong. Of
course, it doesn’t help that part of the mating ceremony involves tying down
their sexual partners so they can’t defend themselves…”

“Typically they kill the first two or three males they mate with,”
Rolf put in helpfully.

“What?” Boone stared at Loki in disbelief. “So that’s what K meant
when she said she would hurt me?”

“Hurt you? More like rip you limb from limb.” Loki nodded
knowingly. “Believe me,
Boone,
mating with K during her
first cycle would be like trying to get it on with Sweetie. You really dodged a
bullet.”

“I didn’t dodge a bullet—I failed her.” Boone sat heavily on the
sleeping platform. “No wonder she put on the suit and left. It wasn’t just
about being contaminated, she was afraid for me. Afraid she’d hurt me or kill
me.”

“I thought she
promised
to kill you—multiple times,” Loki said.

“Yeah, she mentioned that. But she said she felt…” Boone tried to
think how K had put it.
“She felt ‘strangely reluctant’ to
carry out her threat.”
Boone rubbed his aching forehead. “God, how could
I be so stupid?”

“You didn’t know.” Loki looked suddenly contrite. “I should have
told you more. Although in my defense, the first cycle of a royal is a lot
different than it is for us commoners.”

“We don’t tear each other apart for one thing,” Rolf said. “And we
don’t require multiple partners to get the job done.”

“Thank goodness.” Loki smiled at the other man. “Just
one
man is enough for me.
As long as he knows how to do the job.”

“You taught me well,” Rolf murmured, smiling back.

“All right, enough with the love fest,” Boone growled. He had a
feeling if he didn’t stop Loki and his new touch partner they would start going
at it like two dogs in heat right in the middle of his room. “We need to find K.
That damn skinsuit could make her sick or even kill her.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Loki said. “Nobody seems to know
where she went. In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t had a bunch of palace guards
in here questioning you already.”

“They probably thought he was safely contained,” Rolf said. “After
all, there’s a whole squadron right outside his door. They must have known the
princess escaped
on her own
.” He frowned. “But where
would she go?”

“Back to Athena to be with the
Purists again, probably.”
Loki shrugged.

“No, she was contaminated,” Boone said. “There’s no way she would
go back there unless…” His breath caught in his throat.

“Unless what?” Loki demanded.

“Unless she decided to go back and
purge herself.
God.”
Boone put a hand to his eyes.
Please don’t let that be it. Don’t let her kill herself. Please.

“Well, we might not know where K went but I do know where
we
ought to go,” Loki said.

“Where?”
Boone asked tiredly.

“Anywhere
away
from the
palace,” Loki said definitively. “You are officially
persona non grata
around here, Boone. The Empress says she never
wants to lay eyes on you again.”

“What? Why? If she doesn’t think I had anything to do with K’s
leaving, then—”

“It’s best not to question her majesty,” Rolf said quietly. “If
she says she wants you out of her sight,
it’s
best
just to go and thank the Goddess you’re leaving in one piece.”

“Rolf’s right. So come on.” Loki tugged on his arm. “I’ve already
got the ship out of dry dock. We need to get going if we’re going to do
anything for Shayla.” He frowned. “Although now that we’re minus a Paladin, I’m
not sure exactly what we
can
do.”

“What?” Boone was surprised all over again. “But the Empress said
she’d take care of that.”

Loki shook his head. “I’m sorry, Boone. Once you lose the royal favor,
I’m afraid it’s lost for good. Nobody is going to help us get Shayla back—we’re
on our own.”

“On our own,” Boone muttered, rubbing his head. But how would they
get to his little sister without K?

“Kneel!” shouted a new, angry voice, breaking into his muddled
thoughts.

Looking up, Boone saw a battalion of heavily armed soldiers
barging into the room. Their leader was waving a weapon in his face and before
he knew it, he and Loki and Rolf were all on their knees in the thick blue
carpet with their hands on their heads.

The soldiers parted and the small, plump figure of the Grand
Viceroy appeared.

“What the hell is this all about?” Boone growled, frowning at the
little man.

The Grand Viceroy unrolled a thick vellum scroll and read from it.

“By order of her majesty the
most high
Empress of Eros, you will be detained for a time to determine if you know the
whereabouts of the missing princess.”

“Uh-oh,” Loki muttered from the side of his mouth. “I think we
just lost our get out of jail free card, Boone.”

Boone was afraid he was right but he wasn’t about to go down
without a fight.

“This is ridiculous,” he said, glaring at the Grand Viceroy. “We
don’t know where K went. We don’t have any idea where she…”

He trailed off. Where
had K
gone?
If it wasn’t to purge herself then…

Suddenly the last words she’d said to him seemed to echo in his
head.

“Don’t worry, Boone—I don’t ever
expect to see you again but I keep my promises.”

But what promise had she been talking about? She’d sworn over and
over to kill him but here he was, still alive. So what…

Shayla! She promised to help me
rescue Shayla!

The realization burst over him along with a wave of relief. He
knew where K was headed—at least, he thought he did. If they could only get to
their ship to follow her—

The Grand Viceroy snapped the scroll closed and smiled at Boone
most unpleasantly.

“What you know and do not know is for the Empress to decide,
giant.” He nodded at the captain of the guards. “Take them to the throne room.
I believe her majesty has a few questions to ask.”