The Morcai Battalion: Invictus. Diana Palmer

do,” he told Madeline. “I’ll compound some of this for you in Caneese’s lab, in a laserdot. She and I will confer on a regimen, as well, for your trip.” He looked from one stoic, impassive face to the other. “This is very risky.”

      “We know,” Madeline told him. “But the future is at stake.”

      He sighed. “Then I’ll hope for good results.” He got up and forced a smile. “Good fortune.”

      Dtimun locked forearms with him. “In my lifetime, I have had very few friends. I have always considered you one of them.”

      “Same here. Take care of each other.”

      He nodded.

      Hahnson left, and Madeline began to feel better. She got her second wind and looked up at Dtimun.

      “Sir, do you think you might consider telling me what the devil happened with the physicians?”

      His lips made a thin line. “The elder one made a remark I did not like.”

      “Yes?” she prompted.

      “She pointed out that your wounds were in the wrong place. Then she referred to the length of time we spent in the mating chamber.”

      She cocked her head. She didn’t understand.

      “Madeline, our mates are subjugated, as female galots are subjugated. The process is brief, and brutal, and it leaves wounds on the chest and abdomen, not on the back. Also it is a breach of protocol to enjoy it.”

      “It is?” she asked, and mischief suddenly sparkled in her green eyes.

      He glared at her expression. “You will never speak of this,” he said abruptly.

      “Would I do that, sir?” she murmured innocently. “As you know, I always obey your every order.”

      “You never listen to an order unless it suits you,” he correctly curtly. “But if you ignore this one, you will pay for it.”

      She gave him a wry look. “I’m not in the habit of discussing intimate things,” she replied. “Besides, people may speculate, but no one will ever know what happened in here, anyway.”

      He lifted an eyebrow haughtily. All at once his own eyes went green with amusement. “For which we are obliged to the architect who soundproofed the chamber,” he said with the straightest face she’d ever seen.

      He had rarely seen her speechless. It was amusing. Her face was almost as red as her hair. She averted her eyes with obvious embarrassment.

      “You fought me,” he mused.

      She cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she said, thinking it was probably another breach of protocol.

      “You need not apologize,” he chuckled. “I quite enjoyed it, once the shock wore off.” He knelt beside her and touched her long, damp hair. His eyes met hers. They gleamed like pure gold. It was a color she’d only seen in them once before. “I do not like submission,” he said in a husky, deep voice. His hand gripped her hair, hard, and pulled her face under his so that he could see directly into her eyes. He looked down his long, aristocratic nose at her with blatant possession. Her breath caught. The sensations the action aroused were new and shocking.

      “That’s a good thing,” she said unsteadily, “because you’ll never get it from me.”

      He smiled. He rubbed his head against hers in an oddly feline way, making a caress of it. His hand relaxed and speared through her long hair, savoring its softness. “We mated only to produce a child, to enhance a covert mission…or so it began.” His hand contracted again and he growled softly as the contact with the soft skin at her nape produced delicious sensations. She felt them, too. “It is strange, to find such compatibility between two such different species.”

      She touched his chiseled mouth with her fingertips. She lowered her eyes to his bare chest. She fought a laugh. “The physicians seemed quite shocked.”

      He laughed, deep in his throat, and rubbed his cheek against hers affectionately. “So was I. I have never taken so much pleasure from a female,” he said bluntly. His hands pulled her gently to him and enfolded her. “I deeply regret the violence at the beginning. But I did tell you once, did I not, that passion is always violent.”

      She slid her arms around his neck and held on tight, closing her eyes. “You did, but I didn’t understand what you meant until now. Despite those—” she pulled back and stared at him suspiciously “—those dreams I had, that you said you weren’t responsible for.”

      “I lied. The discomfort began to affect my ability to think rationally.” His hands smoothed her shoulders gently. “The ‘dreams’ are one of several coping strategies we employ in order to survive the long abstinences,” he told her. “Each time we mate, a child is created. One is dangerous. Two at once is a death sentence, even for a Cehn-Tahr woman.”

      He was explaining something, very discreetly. “You mate only to have children?”

      “The customs and culture of our society dictate that,” he agreed.

      She cocked her head and her eyes twinkled. “Dictate it. But do people really abstain between children?” she asked.

      “Since we do not discuss such intimate behaviors openly, the question is not easily answered.”

      That brought to mind something that had piqued her curiosity before. She sketched his face with soft eyes. “Those holovid generators at Kolmankash,” she murmured. “Are they really used for vid games?”

      He smoothed back her damp hair affectionately. “When we are separated from our mates,” he said, “they permit an intimacy which is almost indistinguishable from reality,” he said after a minute. He looked at her sternly. “This is another thing you will never share with an outworlder.”

      She saluted him.

      He glared at her.

      She laughed. “We agreed a long time ago that I’m discreet” she reminded him. “I never tell anything I know.”

      He sighed. “No. You never do.” He looked down at her body in its thin covering. “How does it feel?” he asked suddenly.

      “Feel?” she repeated curiously.

      “My child lies in your womb,” he said slowly, as if the idea, the concept, was a source of awe. His eyes, softly gold, met hers. “How does it feel?”

      Her lips parted. She searched his eyes. “I don’t have the words,” she faltered. She touched his face and all the intensity of her feelings for him made her radiant, as if she were glowing inside with some secret heat. “You’ll have to find them, in my mind.”

      Her awe and delight were there, along with her feelings for him, so intense that he almost felt the impact physically.

      He seemed fascinated with her. And not just with her. His gaze dropped to her stomach. He reached down and touched it with just his fingertips, and caught his breath.

      She frowned. He looked shocked.

      As he was. The Dacerian woman had told him, decades past, that she carried his child. And now he knew that it was a lie. He knew it, because he felt his child, communicated with his child at some molecular level, sensed the child in every cell of his body. His teeth clenched as he relived the anguish just after her death. He had blamed his father. Now, horribly, he was forced to face his own error. If she had lied about one thing, it was certain that she had lied about others.

      He recalled the Dacerian’s easy acceptance of him when they mated, her bland submission. It was different with Madeline. Madeline had fought him. But then, she had become as fiercely responsive as she had been fiercely resistant. Madeline loved him. The Dacerian woman…never had. And he only now realized it.

      She felt the indecision and sorrow. She smoothed her hand gently over his black hair. “You can feel the child,”