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  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 wel
l?

  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 chi
ld 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.