“Until I bear your child,” she said, suddenly souring on everything. A deep well of hurt sprung from somewhere inside her and spilled over, pouring sadness into her bloodstream. This had all been a terrible mistake—the worst of all being her admission of love.
She pushed herself away from his chest to tip her head and look at him, but the pain of seeing his eyes made her want to look away. In them, she saw love, but she knew it was only ever destined to behis kindof love.
“I’m so stupid,” she said, when Rychor said nothing in response to this. Tears welled up in her eyes again, and she squirmed in his grasp, wanting to get away from him. His touch, sensual and protective, was too much for her to bear now that she realized he would never feel for her the same things she felt for him. He was stillinside her,and she wanted to be free.
And shewasstupid. Falling foran alien?Like that would ever work.
Rychor did not release her, however. He seemed to be pondering her words.
“Oh, just… let… me… go…!” she yelled, twisting to free herself.
“I will not let you go,” Rychor countered, still appearing confused. “You are my mate.”
“You’re like a broken record!” she yelled, balling her fists up and beating uselessly against his chest with them.
He released his tight grip on her, and she was able to pull her body away from him. His member slid out of her, and a pang of emptiness followed, clanging violently in her chest, so hard it felt like her teeth would rattle.
She swam backwards, glaring at him. Thoughts of escape filled her mind, but they were all so hopeless. After all, where would she go? To the surface? To do what? Sit in the dirt and wait for a human vessel to locate her? What if they had already come and gone? This whole place had gone undetected by their instruments, so there was no reason to think the rescue mission would have stayed long once they found nothing on the surface.
“You’ll return me to my ship once this is over with?” she asked, following her own line of thought out loud.
Rychor looked stunned. But he answered “yes,” and nothing more.
“Then I consent. I consent to your… whatever. Put me in the gestation tube and wipe my memory. I want out of here.”
Itwasn’twhat she wanted. Tears spilled out of her eyes and she turned to look at the water, disappearing into the darkness of the cave. It lit the interior of the cavern as it disappeared into the rocks.
When she turned around again, giving up on the fantasy of swimming away from her problems, Rychor was right behind her.
“Do not say this,” he hissed. “Do not say this out loud, do not say it in the heart of the compound—”
“It’s what you wanted, though,” she spat at him. She was very angry, angry with herself for falling so stupidly for an impossible… man. Her anger protected her, and she was going to wrap herself in it. “Isn’t it? So, there you have it. You win. I consent.”
All of her sobbing and talking appeared to be frying Rychor’s translating services. He was silent, his head tipped, an expression of blatant confusion on his face.
She swam past him and toward the shore of the underground pool, sniffling and hoping he couldn’t hear it. She would just have to get this over with. She got out and stood up, folding her arms over her breasts.
As she stood, her body groaned with the soreness from their coupling. She would feel the aftermath of that stupid choice for a long time. The tenderness, each time it flared with the movement of her legs, struck her through the heart. Tears would not stop pouring from her eyes.
“I’m ready to go now,” she said.
Rychor was still in the pool, moving toward her slowly. He walked easily through the water, as if it exerted zero drag on him, and as the many, many inches of his sculpted body emerged, glistening with the blue-tinted water, she felt a pull toward him that fell like a hole through her entire body.
Rychor had fished his clothing from the water and shook it hard with one hand before putting it on. She was relieved that his manhood was out of her sight, not daring her to admire it as she wanted to.
“I must do what you wish,” Rychor said, approaching her to touch her arm. His fingers sent a thrilling throb of ecstasy from her elbow straight to her sore interior. “But I beg of you to listen to me, Sonya.”
“Why?” she sniffed miserably. She looked at her feet.Do not buy his bullshit,she told herself. She was infamous for letting guys walk all over her. And she had never felt anything for them like what she felt for Rychor.
Who… was not a man, she reminded herself.
Rychor was close to her now. She could smell his skin, and it was an intoxicating scent, something that came directly from him. She had nothing to compare it to: it was masculine, citrusy, earthen, like wet soil after a rain butanimal.It rose through her nostrils and seemed to pervade her thoughts, twisting them, making her feel encircled by his protection and… love.
She wanted to move as he took her hand in his and trapped it in his enormous grip. But she couldn’t move. “I have used the wrong word,” he said, slowly. “And it upsets you. Maybe ‘I love you’ is what I should have said—”
“Well, that’s just semantics,” she shot at him, bitterly.
“It is not semantics. It is a translation problem for which there is no easy solution.”
