“You still treat me that way.” Her tone is resigned now, and that’s somehow worse than when she’s yelling at me. “You left me alone. Again. No explanation, no warning. I’m not just some slave to be used for pleasure and then set aside and ignored when you want a break. I have feelings.”
I tighten my hold on her, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. For the first time, I can feel our bond. There is sorrow throbbing through it. It damn near breaks my heart. “Please forgive me,” I tell her. “Let’s discuss everything when we return. And I’ll explain where I went when I left you.”
She lets out a little sigh, and there’s silence for a while. I’m in a hurry to get home but I don’t want to risk crashing the skimmer, so I force myself to maintain a safe speed.
At last, the golden road stretches before us, gleaming in the glow cast by the setting suns. My palace is looming ever bigger up ahead.
“There’s something I need to tell you, too,” Kim says. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
“Not now, while you’re driving. Later, when we talk.”
Something in her tone makes the hackles rise on the back of my neck. A prickle of panic. An impending sense of doom. I can feel her fear through the bond. Suddenly desperate to know, I shift the platform to a halt just a few inches above the golden road and turn her to face me, my hands on her shoulders. “Tell me now,” I say, the command inherent in my voice.
She looks away. “I… I won’t give you heirs,” she says slowly. “I can’t.”
Did I hear that right? “What?” I croak.
“I can’t get pregnant!” she says, meeting my gaze at last. Her expression is defiant, defensive. “I have an IUD.”
“What?” She’s not making sense. I only just resist the urge to shake her.
“On Earth,” now she’s talking slowly and deliberately, as if I were some kind of simpleton, “I had a device put in me that stops me from getting pregnant. It’s called an IUD.”
The mere idea of this is ridiculous. Why would anyone do such a thing? What would be the point? Ignoring the roaring of blood in my ears, I swallow once, and try to remain calm. “Why?”
She shrugs. “Lots of women use birth control when they don’t want to get pregnant.”
“Why wouldn’t they want to get pregnant?”
Another shrug. “Loads of different reasons. Not meeting the right guy yet. Being too young. Wanting to focus on a career—”
“This device, this… FID?”
“IUD,” she corrects me.
“Can it be removed? Reversed?”
“Yes. By a doctor. On Earth. It’s in my womb. I can’t take it out myself.”
Suddenly, I see what she’s doing. She’s lying to me. This is an elaborate ploy to get me to allow her to return to Earth, ostensibly to have this thing removed. Luckily, I can see right through it. “Nice try,” I say.
“Huh?” There’s genuine puzzlement on her face.
“If you have such a thing, the magicians will find a way to remove it safely. You do not need to return to Earth. You belong here. With me.”
“What if I don’t want it removed?” Wrenching herself out of my hold and taking a step back, she folds her arms across her chest.
I snort. “You do not have a choice.”
“Don’t I?”
I can feel her anger thrumming in our bond. “No,” I snarl, my own temper rising. “You belong to me.” Must she fight me at every turn? I move to take her shoulders, then see her eyes widen as she gazes at something behind me. In the bond, her anger has turned into icy cold terror, dripping down my spine, and I know what’s happening even before the shadow slides over her face, blanketing us both.
I must get Kim to safety.
We are under attack.
