Frowning, he got up and adjusted his clothing then reached down and scooped up his sword and fastened it at his waist. “You did not give me an answer.”
“To what?” Amaryllis asked, playing dumb with an effort.
His lips tightened. “The contract?”
“Oh! I did. You just weren’t listening. I don’t know what I want to do. I told you I wasn’t cut out for rearing a family. I really don’t think I can do it.”
“You have overcome much in your life, become an excellent soldier. You can do whatever you set your mind to do.”
If that was supposed to be a pep talk, he should’ve left out the ‘overcome much’ because it only made her keenly aware of her shortcomings, only emphasized the fear that was gnawing at her like cancer and the growing desperation she felt to rid her body of the tragically malformed being that was no doubt growing there, unaware of the horrendous struggle life would be because of its deformities.
Anger surged through her abruptly. “Then maybe it’s just a matter of wanting to and I’m not sure that I do.”
Her anger provoked his. “Then what was this,” he growled, gesturing toward the rumpled bed.
“Great sex?”
He looked so furious that for several moments she felt a touch of fear. He ground his teeth. “I am not a pleasure droid,” he gritted out and stalked toward the door. He hesitated when he reached it, as if he had something more to say, or as if he was hoping that she would stop him. She didn’t. Without another word, he stalked from the room and slammed the door behind him so hard she was a little surprised it didn’t crack and fall into pieces.
Her shoulders slumped when the sound of his tread along the corridor outside faded. “It’s just as well,” she muttered to herself.
Chapter Eighteen
Amaryllis was torn between the need to seek comfort, somewhere, and the need to hide like a wounded animal. Her head ached incessantly from struggling to find a solution when there didn’t appear to be one, and her chest ached from a tightness that gave her no relief even when she slept.
For two days, she wandered almost aimlessly around Gallen, until she noticed that, wherever she went, the male cyborgs she passed stopped to study her speculatively. She didn’t know whether it was because she kept walking around and around the medical center, trying to get up her nerve to enter, trying to come up with some sort of plan of action if the search for help backfired on her, or if it was because every male cyborg on the frigging planet was in the grips of mate hunting, but their interest made her too nervous to consider continuing her routine.
She couldn’t bear to stay penned up in her quarters, though, certain she would go completely mad. Finally, she decided that she would roam the countryside around Gallen and search for some sign of the native inhabitants. It seemed unlikely she would see any sign so close, even if there were an intelligent species on the planet, but it beat the hell out of doing nothing at all.
Notices had been posted calling for a town meeting, she saw when she left the barracks. She didn’t know what it was about, and she didn’t especially care until it occurred to her that it was probably about the hunters and what the cyborgs intended to do about their ‘new recruits’.
Making a mental note of the time and place, she turned her steps toward the landing field instead of the city. She was half way to the field before she emerged from her self-absorption enough to realize she was being followed. There was no way, of course, to see who it was without giving away the fact that she knew they were there and after a few moments she decided just to pretend she hadn’t noticed. It might merely be someone who was walking in the same direction. It didn’t necessarily follow that she was being shadowed just because they both happened to be going in the same direction on the same road.
She was so dismayed when she reached the field and discovered that the ship had vanished that she had to jog her instincts into action and duck out of sight.
Either he had seen her duck behind the pillar, he was expecting an attack, or she made some slight sound that gave her away. When she slung a fist at his jaw, he caught her wrist mid-air, jerking her from her hiding place and twisting so that she slammed back against his chest. She was too stunned for several moments to do much more than gasp, but in that split second flash before he’d thoroughly subdued her, she’d realized that it was Dante and her fear subsided. Briefly, she struggled to free herself, but his arms around her were like solid titanium bands.
“Why did you attack me?” he asked harshly, his head lowered so that his breath brushed her ear, sending shivers of sensation along the sensitive flesh there.
“Why did you follow me?” she gritted out.
He was silent for several moments. “To make certain you came to no harm.”
“I can take care of myself,” she snapped. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than it occurred to her that the statement didn’t hold a lot of weight at the moment. “I realized it was you only a moment too late,” she added, stretching the truth only a hair.
When he said nothing, she twisted her head to look back at him. Amusement was gleaming in his eyes. She glared at him.
“Anyway, I saw no danger … except the person following me.”
“I made no attempt at stealth. If my intention had been to do you harm….”
She’d been too distracted to be on guard. If she’d still been on active duty, and he had been an enemy, she would be dead now and they both knew it. “I hadn’t expected a threat so near the city. Is security so lax then?”
“There is always danger—anywhere –for the unwary.”
Amaryllis let out a gusty sigh of exasperation. “Point taken. You can let go of me now—unless this is your idea of romance?”
His hold on her loosened and she pulled away and turned to look up at him. “Why did you really follow me?”
