His hesitancy caught her attention. She had the feeling that he’d intended to say something else. “Truthfully? I don’t know how I feel right now beyond angry. As far as I can see, you are no better than they are.”
He flushed, but only partly from anger. “You will at least admit that there was no other way for us? If I had approached you openly, you would not have listened to anything I had to say. You would not have allowed me to try to persuade you. You would have done as you had been trained to do. You would have tried to kill me and I would have been forced to kill you to protect myself, or take you prisoner.”
“As you did.”
“The situation was different. You came to me for help.”
“Which allowed you to use me.”
His lips tightened. “If you can see only black and white, and nothing in between....” He broke off; his expression spoke eloquently of frustration. “I took the only course open to me. If you cannot accept that ... if you cannot also learn to forgive, then you are not as human as I believed and there is no hope for us.”
As much as she would’ve liked it to be otherwise, she not only saw his point, she discovered she wanted to forgive him and accept him. She still didn’t trust him, however, and until and unless she came to, she wasn’t about to simply accept everything he had told her. “There is certainly no doubt in my mind that you areveryhuman if you can believe, only because I enjoyed sex with you, that I’m going to believe everything you tell me and fall into your arms like a--complete fool!” she said tartly. “Learning to accept and forgive implies that I will be given time to.”
Something gleamed in his eyes. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, proving to her beyond a shadow of doubt that he was far more man than cyborg, and she didn’t have to search hard to figure out why he looked so pleased.
She gave him a look. “Not that I have any interest in repeating it,” she lied nastily. “But it was an interesting ... experiment.” She had the satisfaction of seeing the smug look vanish, but somehow it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she’d hoped it would be.
She didn’t want to examine why, but the pang she felt wouldn’t allow her to lie to herself. The truth was, she was ready to forgive him now, because she did feel a connection to him and empathy. Finding herself in pretty much the same situation was probably a part of it. Discovering that the life growing inside of her was a part of him, she thought, had something to do with it as well, but it was still more complicated even than that.
Some ... transformation had begun inside of her from the moment she’d met him, maybe even before she’d met him. Maybe what he’d said before was truer than even he realized. Maybe she really was his Eve. Maybe she’d been predisposed from conception to feel as if she belonged with him.
She didn’t know. What she did know was that she cared far more about him than she logically should have. She looked down at her hands and finally lowered them. “I give you my word I won’t do anything that could cause harm to come to my child.”
Chapter Ten
Despite their tentative truce, Dalia was surprised when they arrived at the rebel camp only a little over a week later. She would not have thought that Reuel trusted her enough to take her to the camp. She certainly would never have guessed that it was as close, relatively speaking, as it was.
Contrary to frequent speculation on the part of the company, the planet the rebels had chosen was well within the inner quadrant of settled worlds and, since they were more human, physiologically than droid, they had of necessity chosen one inhabitable by, and inhabited by, humans. It was a young planet, however, and far too primal to appeal to the more civilized tastes of the confederation. Only a few small colonies had been established there by members of the confederation and those were near the poles, where the temperature was somewhat cooler. The species of humans indigenous to the planet had not even reached the point in development where they had begun to form a recognizable societal structure.
Reuel had been carefully distant and polite since their confrontation, but he’d begun to pace the cabin he shared with her like a caged beast most nights instead of sharing the bed with her.
She supposed her nasty remark had convinced him any further attempts toward intimacy would be rebuffed. His guess wouldn’t have been far off, not at first anyway.
She didn’t trust him, and she knew she couldn’t trust her own judgment if she allowed him to get too close. She needed time to decide whether she could accept what he’d done and why he’d done it. She needed time to accept the fact that her entire world as she’d known it had vanished. In the blink of an eye, she’d lost her past and her future. She’d lost herself--everything she’d ever believed was true, everything she’d ever believed in.
She thought she should have felt different, knowing now that she was not human. She couldn’t decided whether the fact that she didn’t meant that she hadn’t fully grasped and accepted it, or if it meant that shehadfully grasped and accepted it, and it didn’t make as much difference to her as she would’ve thought it would have.
One thing that did not change was her desire for Reuel. She’d found him attractive the moment she saw him. Being with him had only increased her attraction to him because it had ceased to be a matter of thinking he appealed to her and become an absolute certainty the moment he touched her intimately.
Unfortunately, by the time she’d come around to the realization that there was no sense in depriving herself of enjoying his caresses, they had arrived on the rebel world and Reuel, showing every sign of relief, had escaped her clutches.
Dalia was in the cabin when they landed. Reuel had given her permission to roam the ship at will once more, but she wasn’t comfortable with the brooding, speculative looks the men cast at her. She supposed she had no right to quibble. She might not have instigated the little erotic scene in the rec room, but she had made no attempt to stop it either. The truth was, despite the fact that she’d never engaged in sexual activities before, she was neither self-conscious nor in any way inhibited about sexuality. It would never have occurred to her to engage in any sort of sexual act publicly, but she’d found it wildly stimulating. Most of it had simply been Reuel, but she couldn’t deny, to herself at least, that being watched and desired had added a touch of spice to it.
If it had disturbed anyone, it was Reuel. She had the distinct feeling that he not only regretted yielding to whatever demon had prompted him to do it because he thought it had angered and distressed her, but also that it irked him that he’d ‘shared’ her sexually. He’d developed the habit since of staring darkly at any of the men who looked at her as if he needed only a nudge of provocation to tear their heads off.
There was a hesitancy about his attitude as he stood in the doorway of the cabin studying her, that sent a wave of uneasiness through her. When she turned to look at him, she saw he was holding a pair of manacles. “You are a prisoner of the Cyborg Liberation. I cannot allow you to roam freely when we leave the ship.”
Dalia stared at him in disbelief. “You’re not serious!”
“I am.”
“Exactly what is it that you suspect that I will do?”
“Leave--at the very first opportunity.”
Dalia didn’t deny it. Truthfully, she was a little surprised he hadn’t accused her of having thoughts about sabotage. As far as escaping went, she hadn’t considered it, mostly because she hadn’t expected him to bring her to the rebel stronghold. She knew there was a better than even chance that shewouldhave thought of it at some point, however. She knew she wouldn’t be accepted by the other rogues--rebels--certainly not at first, anyway. From what she could tell, Reuel was their leader, and she knew he would protect the child she carried, whatever he thought of her. Unless he chained her to his wrist, though, she was bound to have some unpleasant, potentially dangerous, confrontations and it was possible she’d find this no healthier an atmosphere for her continued existence than being in the bosom of the company.
Even though she hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about what she would do beyond escaping the company’s assassins, she certainly hadn’t had any desire or intention of joining those she’d spent the past several years tracking.
