But of course she wouldn’t leave her family behind. Talia was loving, and loyal, and the perfect woman. Too perfect to abandon her family. Too perfect for him to have a hope of keeping her by his side for the rest of their lives. His heart twisted in his chest as he looked into her beautiful eyes, suddenly glossy with tears. Now…now that he had tasted what it would be like to have Talia as his pair-bond, he didn’t think he could bear to lose her. His heart would break. And worse than that, she was hurting too. His stupidity hadhurther. He wanted to howl.
Why hadn’t this occurred to him before? It was his stupidvar-hool, his overwhelming need and desire for her, clouding his mind.
“Lukan.” Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “No. I can’t abandon my family any more than you could abandon your pack. And I would never ask you to, or let you do that, even though this breaks my heart.” She hugged herself, rocking back in her chair, her face a mask of misery.
Lukan thought he would die.
Anything but this. He would rather lose a limb. Face a pack of ravenous multa-tooths naked, with his hands tied behind his back, dipped in gravy. Swim through lava.
“But the Federation law says that if you do not agree to this, you will have to return to Earth, and your memory will be erased. You will not remember me at all.” He shook his head in denial. This could not be. Talia was part of him now. Life without her would be ugly, and hollow.
She raised her tear-stained face and met his gaze. “Isn’t there any way around the Federation requirements?”
Unhappily, he shook his head. “They are notoriously stubborn. It took us years to convince them to let us work with Alexandra. That is why we are still tolerating her terrible behavior. I will appeal, but it is very unlikely that they will listen.”
It was impossible.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Then send me back. Right after Cora Lee’s pair-bond ceremony. And I can’t spend any more time with you before then. I’m in love with you, and the more time I spend with you, the more miserable I’ll be when I leave you.” She stood, and tears ran down her cheeks and splashed on her shirt. “But I guess I won’t remember you once my memory is erased.”
Lukan reached for her, and she moved away. He felt as if a red hot iron were stabbing him in the heart.
“Talia!” he cried out.
“Permission to bitch-slap?” Mar-ee demanded. “I got it right that time. Bitch-slap, not female-dog-slap.”
Lukan swung to face her, his fists clenched. “I will melt you into a slag heap!” he roared at her.
“No you won’t,” Mar-ee said, dodging behind Talia. “Go ahead, melt me, I dare you!”
“Mar-ee, find me an empty room somewhere in this place,” Talia said. “I’ll sleep there until it’s time for me to leave.”
Lukan waited until they’d left the room to throw back his head and let out a howl of pure anguish.
In a blind rage, he began destroying the room, piece by piece. The chairs. The table. The paintings. Reduced to splinters as he smashed and smashed until his fists bled, then smashed some more.
Chapter Fourteen
Twenty-three women sat in the waiting room outside the memory chamber, pouting. They had been led to believe that they’d be marrying into a life of extraordinary wealth and leisure, and they weren’t happy about being sent back home, even though they’d all be very well paid just for having come to Ilyria at all.
Talia stood inside the memory chamber, across the room from Lukan. She had insisted on being there. She’d agreed to write up a questionnaire for Million Dollar Matches, to help do a better job of selecting prospective female clients, but she would only do it if she was sure the process did not harm the women in any way.
The memory chamber bed stood next to a column that was pleasingly shaped like an abstract sculpture, in keeping with the Vulfan’s aesthetic sense, of making functional objects beautiful. It looked like a tall column of crystal, with jagged edges on top. A beautiful woman lay asleep on the bed. A white-robed attendant spoke to the column.
He described, in detail, what the model would think had happened. Like all the girls, she’d been given a cover story to tell her friends. She would claim that she had left the country on an around-the-world trip.
If she’d decided to stay on this alien world, she would have written emails to her friends, describing how she had met the man of her dreams while traveling, and would not be returning home, and fake pictures would have been sent along with those emails.
Since she was going home, the memory chamber implanted memories of her wonderful travels, and also came up with a cover story for why there was now a hundred thousand dollars deposited in her bank account.
The woman would forget all about the dating agency, and would go on with her life, considerably richer.
Talia watched the woman on the bed closely. She lay there with her eyes closed and a smile on her face. She clearly wasn’t suffering at all.
Lukan walked up to Talia. “You see?” he said in a low voice. “We do not harm them. We would never harm a woman.”
“I do see.”
He seized her hand in his, and she looked up at him, fighting the desire to grab him and pull him towards her. She had barely slept the night before, barely eaten today. She was miserable.
