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  He had no control of what she wanted, but he couldn’t bring himself to point that out. It would be up to individuals to accept or reject the little desert flower’s ideas. Not even a high king could mandate participation in such a program.

  Sahara leaned toward him, her hand resting next to his thigh as her eager face turned up to explain. Tor maintained eye contact as he leaned back into the cushions and stretched his arm along the back of the sofa. Appearing to be listening to every word, most of his senses were taken up with enjoying her.

  Having to inject reasonably intelligent comments into her plan was no problem for a warrior adept at the planning and organization of intergalactic campaigns. He could do that and soak up the energy vibrating out of her. He indulged the invasion of her scent as it entered his body with every breath, fanning embers of a white-hot flame that had never gone out. His tail circled her calf, wrapping around twice now.

  She did have an interesting premise, but it was the end of her argument that got his attention in a big way.

  “And what will happen when I have a baby? We have no idea how combining two physiologies will affect a female. So you see, we need medical people who are aware of the medical advances in the rest of the galaxy. I realize this suggestion will not meet with much support to begin with. But when people see lives saved, I think they will come around.”

  “A baby? Whose baby are you having?” Tor demand as his body straightened. His hand left the back of the couch to slide under her heavy fall of golden curls and grip her neck.

  “I’m not pregnant. But I’m not ignorant of my position. If I’m compatible, then other out-worlders might be as well. And it’s very possible that I will conceive in the future. I’m a bit concerned,” Sierra responded with an irritated edge to her voice.

  Tor was frowning at the little woman meeting his gaze. Even seated he towered over her. For once she hadn’t flinched away from his touch. Didn’t attempt to evade the very personal touch of his tail imprisoning her leg.

  “I can’t believe you haven’t considered this,” she said as she regarded him. “Think about the difference in most humanoid species compared to Leonor’s inhabitants. Your children are born with the ability to extend claws. They are also physically large. Surviving a single pregnancy will probably be an issue for me. I’d like to think it’s one for you as well since a child of mine would be closely related to you or yours.”

  “Yes,” he allowed as he relaxed once more. His hand remained loosely holding the back of her neck, the pads of his fingers stroking lightly. So she wondered if he thought of her carrying his baby? The only time he had stopped thinking of that event was the moment she chose his younger brother to husband. Battling the temptation of harboring the thought had taken up the entire two years of her short marriage.

  “Did you not find a solution to this with your husband?” Tor asked in a low rumble. Striving to appear casually interested, he asked a personal question about her relationship with his brother. Guilt hovered around the edges of his mind. He had no business asking.

  “Those considerations have no bearing on what might happen in the future,” she answered smoothly.

  Tor raised a brow but didn’t press her to explain. It was a pointless question, she was right about that. What he should be focused on was the fact she had just agreed to have his child. Not in so many words, but certainly in implication and intention. That conclusion was reinforced by her acceptance of his proximity and touch.

  Carefully he schooled his features to remain nonthreatening. Shock had little time to shake him as roaring instincts demanded attention. Sahara would be beneath him before the sun came up tomorrow. She’d be on top of him and in front of him as well. Her taste would mark his fur and he was very sure she’d have trouble walking in the new day. That was okay. He’d carry her anywhere she wanted to go.

  Fiercely aroused, Tor was determined to stalk carefully as he mentally circled her. Regardless of his response to her, there were other issues that had to be addressed. Why was he suddenly uncomfortable with her abrupt about-face? Because he was a suspicious bastard by nature and none of this made sense. Tor remained half reclining as he worked through her conclusions. It didn’t add up.

  “Why now, Beloved?” he inquired with just the right hint of casualness to keep her unsuspecting of his intention until he voiced it. “What has changed? Why are you allowing me to touch you while you spend a long time tiptoeing around informing me you want my baby?”

  Stripping away the immaterial information, Tor attacked. He knew when he was being manipulated and was willing to take it from her, but only to a point. He was also certain there was something she wasn’t telling him. Something he needed to know.

  Her body jerked at his blunt questions. He felt the pulse on her neck flutter, but her pretty face held its smile. Her determination gave him a chill. It was bone-deep control. If she didn’t choose to tell him the truth, he’d never know it. Of that he was certain.

  “Time is running out.” Sahara’s voice was calm but she glanced away.

  “Burke and Nearrid are young. They have many years to search before giving up,” he countered.

  “And you? Do you seek anymore?” Sahara pressed, returning her gaze to his face.

  “I have had little time to devote to it,” he evaded her question.

  Sahara focused on the ornate desk across the room, giving him her profile. “Do you intend to continue? Are the last five years simply a break for you?”

  Finally they were down to it, asking each other questions that mattered. The problem was, he did not understand how they mattered to her. Experience told him that he had fundamentally misread her in some way. A way that mattered more than anything else to this woman. She had rejected him and everything about him for reasons he’d spent four years and eleven months trying to figure out.

  He’d decided it had something to do with her culture. A culture he had no way of investigating. His transport’s accidental crash on that moon was the first contact with her civilization. What they found was a harsh environment and even harsher inhabitants. Mysterious and violent, the people of that moon were a complete unknown to him. The only reason he and his men escaped was because she assisted them.

  Why she did was as unclear now as everything else about her. Even her name was one Tor had given her. She learned his language and accepted the name without question. At first it appeared she was completely comfortable entering a warrior society.

  She learned enough of his language to speak in full sentences in under a week. Knowing she was physiologically compatible with him made him lazy. He’d assumed she would assimilate everything else just as effortlessly as the language. By the time he realized something had gone terribly wrong it was too late and his beautiful little desert flower publicly declared she would accept his youngest brother as husband.

  “No,” Tor stated in a low growl. No longer indolent, he leaned toward her. Muscles rippled under the fur down his chest, straining the gold medallions holding the leather vest together.

  She was asking for the truth and he’d give it to her. “I found my female. For twenty-three days she didn’t leave my side. Then she chose my brother. I haven’t continued searching because while my brother lived I had no heart for it. Since his death I have lusted after his widow,” Tor finished. His tail was now looped around her leg three times. Briefly claws extended from his fingers to graze her neck, retracting quickly.

  “I’ve spent the last four years and eleven months trying to figure out why that is. Tell me, Sahara, why didn’t you choose me? Why, after lying in my arms every night until we reached home, did you leave me? Explain it to me.”

  She remained facing forward. Her body wasn’t exactly stiff, but the flutter of her pulse he’d felt had been firmly repressed. It occurred to him that she possessed involuntary function control far greater than his own. Right now his heart pounded in his chest as his instincts flashed to the surface. Calling her his woman was the truth. Doing it out
loud confirmed what he’d known from the moment his arms closed around her.

  Lifting her out of the rubble of an obliterated town, he’d known what she was in the same moment. She’d been cradled in his arms the first time he’d seen her eyes.

  A smooth-skin, he’d expected her to have difficulty with his form. His people proudly shared many physical characteristics with the feline world of their distant ancestors. His large head fit the heavily muscled over-seven-feet-tall body beneath it. His face was framed by a thick mane his people choose to leave wild as opposed to taming it with some sort of style as most humanoids did. His nose and muzzle were more feline than not, as were the pronounced canines in his mouth. A coat of short, smooth fur covered his body. Hands and feet, fully humanoid, came with built-in weapons, retractable claws that were naturally sharp and kept that way as a matter of pride. Leonor often referred to themselves in feline terms, affectionately calling their children kittens or cubs.

  However, the most distinctive difference was the one humanoids usually saw last. The Leonor tail. Like their cat relatives, a Leonor’s tail was individual and functional. Much information was both gathered and broadcast via that expressive appendage.

  She’d opened her eyes and there had been no fear in them. No scent of fear from her body. Somehow that had meant a lot to him. He had not allowed another in his party to touch her.

  Not yet the high king, he’d still been next in line for the throne. His men were understandably concerned at being stranded on an unknown moon that was apparently in the middle of a bloody war. The events that landed them there had first been viewed as a series of disasters. He’d stopped feeling that way the moment he’d sensed her.

  Being a Leonor warrior meant many things, but mostly it was about strength in all things. Strength was mental, physical and very importantly, emotional. Training started when they could walk. The fierce warriors they became were necessary to keep the territories under control, especially for princes. However, there was no male so tender as a Leonor warrior with his female. Trained to kill while appearing immobile, a male had to be especially careful with a female. Were he to accidentally injure her, he might lose his family’s future. That was the reason warriors told each other.

  “You gave me away,” Sahara stated casually, meeting his eyes as if this recounting of old news was of no importance. “I accepted it and moved on.”

  “What?” Tor just barely kept the roar out of his voice. “Gave you away? What the drednell are you talking about?”

  “Do not yell at me. You could hardly wait for your brothers to take me off your hands.”

  “No. I could hardly wait for the Corbeth to be over. I was in a hurry to get past it. I distinctly remember explaining that to you.”

  Sahara raised a brow as her hand reached down to stroke his tail coiled tightly around her leg. “You told me your brothers would welcome me to the family. No one said a word about being stripped by my lover, thinking we were finally going to make love properly and then having him invite his brothers in to finish the job.”

  Tor shuddered even as his mind threatened to explode at her view of the ancient tradition of respect and treasuring. Her hand stroking his tail triggered way too many physical responses. Her words gave rise to ugly suspicion.

  “Did one of my brothers rape you?” Tor asked softly, his eyes narrow as he waited for her answer. It was inconceivable, but why else would her view of a tradition that was supposed to be about her pleasure be so negative? Hard rage flashed fire across every other emotion.

  “I was raped that night, but it wasn’t by someone’s cock,” Sahara stated in the same calm tone. “So I assume you don’t mind my setting up the funding program?”

  “Again, I must ask you to explain this to me,” Tor asked, carefully choosing his words with slow deliberation. The killing rage would do him no good. Beating it back with forced calm was his only option. “And if you pretend I’m asking about the funding program I’ll tan your backside. Tell me what happened, Sahara.”

  At last emotion reached her face. Her lips turned down in bitter mockery. “So beating me is your first thought?”

  She held up her hand in an arrogant silencing motion when he would have responded. The action displayed her complete grasp of who really held the power in the room.

  “I was tied to the bed, exposed and helpless. The male I thought was my mate had just accepted my gift of complete surrender and driven me to orgasm. Stripped emotionally and physically, I had willingly put my soul in his care when he gets up and invites his brother to the party. By the time the third brother came in to take his turn I pretty much wished I was dead.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she continued. “It was the third brother who bothered to really look at my face, to care about what he saw. He untied me, wrapped me in a sheet and held me as I cried for hours. Since I didn’t have a choice about becoming someone’s wife, I think the choice of who that would be was obvious.

  “To answer your question directly. No, none of your brothers broke the law and inserted cock. However, at the time I had no idea there was a law and that they wouldn’t. All I knew was that I had been tied down by the one I trusted who then turned me over to males I didn’t know.”

  Tor’s tail slowly uncoiled from her leg. No other part of his body moved as his gaze remained riveted on her face. Sahara met his look with unwavering directness. Her features were once more void of emotion. No anger, no bitterness, no joy.

  Hot and hard, pain ripped through him. He’d thought he’d experienced every pain possible over this woman. Her truth introduced him to a new flavor. Even if her view of what happened bore no relation to what his intentions had been, it didn’t matter. This was what she’d lived through and he’d been the one to force it on her.

  For her, the Corbeth had been a betrayal of trust followed by a gang rape that he’d organized.

  Tor moved slowly as he stood and paced away from her. It was weak, but he couldn’t face her as the depth of the betrayal she’d experienced broke over him. Facing a window, he had to cross his arms to hide the tremble.

  Her revulsion at the sight of him was a fucking mild response to what he’d put her through. He fully understood how she’d been able to forgive his brothers to some degree as she learned their culture, but not him. No.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked carefully.

  “The Leonor pheromone, it works differently on me. You had never used it until that night. I had no idea what it was,” Sahara responded. “It swells my tongue then my windpipe. By the time Burke left the room I could barely breathe. If Signet had not noticed my distress I would have suffocated.”

  It was not in his nature to bow his head. Looking at the floor beneath his feet, Tor swallowed back his body’s response to this latest revelation. Bile burned his esophagus all the way down.

  The magnitude of what he hadn’t known about her overwhelmed him. He’d very nearly killed her. His ignorance was born of lazy confidence and nearly euphoric pleasure. Instead of caring for her in every way, he had been this woman’s worst nightmare.

  “Why didn’t Signet kill me?” he asked. “I would’ve killed him for this.”

  “My husband understood his brother very well. That was his gift, seeing beyond the external and understanding those around him.”

  Her words slid into his back, each one armed with a sharp point that sliced fur and bone effortlessly. She had spoken them with absolutely no inflection, making them powerful. As was her naked acceptance of horrifying events. Had she yelled at him, thrown things, anything else but sit there in perfect control, he could have worked through his guilt. There would have been some cleansing, some opening for forgiveness. There was none in her manner and he agreed with her.

  Tor had to brace himself against the window frame. Thickly muscled arms shook as claws sliced into the hard wood he gripped on either side of the opening. He could not change the past. There was nothing that would repair the damage he’d done. He certainly di
dn’t expect her to trust him. He’d failed her on every level possible and then spent years being indulgently angry with her for her choices.

  When Signet had insisted on moving out of the palace with his wife, Tor had reacted harshly. It was the first time he’d exchanged aggressive words with his youngest brother. Now he understood it.

  The only time he’d held Sahara since her wedding was when he’d picked her up to keep her from rushing into Signet’s funeral pyre.

  Signet died a warrior’s death in battle, doing his duty as a Leonor warrior and Guardian of the United Planets Alliance. He’d routed the slavers, freed their captives, but was brought down in the last skirmish with the escaping leader. His death had been the worst possible outcome for a desperate last shot. Sahara’s determination to die on her husband’s body had terrified Tor and been a source of crushing guilt.

  He’d loved his brother. Seeing him die so young was difficult. That pain was nothing compared to the wrenching panic he experienced when Sahara strode toward the flames. He’d rightly guessed her intention and scooped her off her feet. She’d screamed and fought him like a little wildcat, determined to follow her husband. When she realized nothing would make him put her down, she’d lain in his arms crying inconsolably for another male.