“Certainly, yet is it in error? Your star system is farther than most from mine, yet is it still reachable. You will see your family again if that is your wish.”
She looked up at him again. “You mean that?”
“I am not breaking your ties with all that you know, merely loosening them for now,” he replied. “You have a new family. You have me.”
He was doing it again, amazing her at how easily he could adjust her emotions. He was reputed to have none, but he sure knew how to mold hers. A few words and half the burden had been lifted from her shoulders.
It wasn’t the first time. Actually, it seemed to be a constant with him. The way he looked at her, touched her as if he cherished her above all things, said just what she needed to hear…it was no wonder she fell for him so hard and so fast. He might not love her, might not even be capable of it, but he sure knew how to make her feel loved. And every time he did, he bound her heart more firmly to his.
Was it by design? Deliberate? Part of the plan? Brittany shoved those doubts away, savoring the relief he just gave her. She hugged him tighter, thanking him without words. He might be too good to be true, but he was one fantasy she could live with for the rest of her days.
“You’re amazing.”
“It pleases me that you think so.”
“Don’t get conceited,” she said as she leaned back to grin at him. “I didn’t say you were perfect. Close, but no cigar.”
His hands continued to caress her in a gentle, soothing manner, rather than sexual. Was he still worried that she was falling apart at the seams? Or was he keeping Martha’s “practice hands-off” warning in mind? She really hoped it wasn’t the latter.
“What else—pleases you?” she tested, trying not to sound sexy, merely curious.
But that easily, his golden eyes filled with heat, and that quickly, he was kissing her. Martha wasn’t always right. As a stress reliever, Dalden’s lovemaking beat a massager, even their unique one, hands down. Just his kisses alone could do that, and for the simple reason that as usual, all thoughts, worries, fears, flew right out of her mind the moment his lips touched hers.
He lifted her, carried her to the bed, positioned her carefully on top of him as he laid back on it, so she wouldn’t be distracted by any adjusting it did. As if anything could distract her just then. He took her into that realm of ecstasy again, so new to her, yet already addicting. His heat surrounded her, the strength of his passion thrilled her.
His lovemaking was all the answer she’d needed, yet he still said awhile later, “It pleases me when you want me. It pleases me to hold you close to my heart. Everything about you, woman, pleases me. And it pleases me most to know that you are mine.”
Tears came to her eyes. “Did I say you weren’t perfect? You can have that cigar now.”
He laughed, gathered her close. If she was dreaming, she really didn’t want to wake up.
Chapter 36
IF BRITTANY DIDN’T HAVE SPECIFIC MEMORIES OF EACHand every day, she could almost think she’d slept through most of that trip, time flew by so quickly. She’d marked the days to begin with, but after two weeks and then a month passed, she had to give up the notion that they had a short time limit for convincing her. She was forced to conclude that the time involved was part of the project, to determine just how long it would take for her to crack. She was obviously just a test subject, after all. When they got around to doing this to their real objectives, they’d want to have a good idea of a time frame for it.
So much time spent on just her? Maybe not. The “ship” was certainly big enough that there could be dozens of others just like her there at the same time, and they just managed to keep her from running into them.
Shehadgotten that tour of the “ship” she’d asked for. And she had ended the day being even more impressed by the immense scope of this project, and the immense expense involved. Even if that lift wasn’t really taking her to different levels of the ship, was just taking her back to the same floor where walls had been changed to make her think she was seeing different rooms, it was still a mind-boggling expense, the creation of all this. And she wondered if she was the only test subject who had yet to be convinced even partially, let alone fully.
They never lost patience with her disbelief, never tried to double their efforts to change her thinking. She was grateful for that, because it let her enjoy her time with them. It was almost like reading a book. Once she looked at it in that light, she found it an amusing pastime, to make them flesh out their story, to ask all kinds of questions about their part of the universe.
She learned that Dalden’s mother was a heroine on her own planet, that she was also the one to first discover Sha-Ka’an and bring it to the attention of the rest of the universe. She knew that his planet was closed down to off-world visitors, that anyone arriving there had to stay in the Visitors’ Center and conduct their business from there, that few exceptions were made to this rule. That wasn’t always the case, but “tourists” had caused too much trouble in the early days of discovery, apparently, enough to make themselves unwelcome.
She spent a lot of time with Shanelle and learned that it was Falon’s family that was ultimately responsible for ousting the visitors from their world. After his sister had been raped by one of them, they’d been ready to go to war if the planet wasn’t made off-limits to offworlders. Brittany figured this was a very good excuse to not show her very much of Sha-Ka’an, but Shanelle had assured her that exceptions got made for lifemates, that she was a Ly-San-Ter now and so one of them.
From Shanelle she also learned that like her own world, each country in Sha-Ka’an was somewhat different from the next, some with different rules and regulations, some with different philosophies, and in some the people looked different as well, though the amazing height and brawn were apparently a planetwide thing.
Shanelle’s lifemate and his brother were examples of that. From a far distant town, they were black-haired and blue-eyed, while everyone from Dalden’s town fell into the golden to light-brown hair and eyes category. The women from Falon’s town apparently weren’t quite as restricted, either, as they were in Sha-Ka-Ra, but that was one aspect of Sha-Ka’ani life that Brittany didnotwant to learn about yet.
She became friends with Shanelle. At least, the feeling was there that they were friends, even if it was all pretense on the younger girl’s part. She even became friends with Martha, amazing as that was, when she had yet to meet the real Martha, and had to wonder if she ever would. But Martha had a dry sense of humor that Brittany took to—after she stopped allowing it to annoy her. And Martha was still her main source of information. Because she was faceless, Brittany could ask her things that she wouldn’t ask the others.
One of those things was their differences in speech, which had confused her from the beginning. Several weeks into the journey she finally got around to asking Martha, “Why do you and Shanelle talk—I guess normally is the word I’m looking for? While Dalden, and Jorran’s people as well, for that matter, sound foreign? If Shanelle is his sister, why doesn’t she talk like him?”
“Dalden speaks pure Sha-Ka’ani. What you hear is his translation of your language. The same with Jorran, who speaks pure Centurian. Shanelle and I, however, speak Kystrani, and not pure Kystrani, but their Ancient dialect, which includes slang. We speak it because Tedra has a fascination with her Ancients, to include using their slang, and my main dialect is set to be identical to her preference.”
“But why would that be different, if you’re using a translation as well?”
“Because of the similarities that we’ve found between the Kystrani Ancients and your people. Your history has closely followed theirs, so closely that even your slang is mostly the same. So in effect my language, the one Tedra prefers, is already the same as yours in basic content, as in same meanings, same slang, even same phrases. If I tell you that you got your socks knocked off when you met Dalden, you know exactly what I mean, don’t you? A normal Sha-Ka’ani wouldn’t have a clue, however, since they don’t have a similar phrase in their language.”
