“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.
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