KINSMAN’S OATH By Susan Krinard

He copied the human gesture of denial, shaking his head once. “You have saved my life, Aho’Va D’Accorso, and done me honor.”

She smiled, and her hand came to rest on his knee. “If I am to be your first true human friend, you must call me Cynara.”

Her delicate fingers with their blunt, inoffensive nails seemed to rake through his shipsuit into flesh, branding it as even the worst beatings had never done. The hair bristled along the back of his neck, and arousal tightened his siv’alku to the brink of pain. The deck and bulkheads spun as they had on the bridge.

Ronan caught at the one support available, the source of his confusion and the raging desire he could barely contain. Cynara’s wrist felt surprisingly fragile in his grip.

“Cynara,” he said, forcing the words out between his teeth. He turned his hand about and hers with it, so that her palm lay face-up. He bent to smell her inviting fragrance, the slight dampness and flush of surprise. He grazed her soft skin with the tip of his tongue. She flinched.

“This is not appropriate, Ronan,” she said, breathing quickly. “Please release me.”

He tasted her palm again, savoring the complex palette of flavors. The need to join with Cynara D’Accorso scattered all thought of race and rank like so much chaff. “Is it not your wish to mate?”

* * *

Chapter 4

« ^ »

Cynara’s mouth dropped open, revealing a row of white, even teeth. She shut it firmly and became First again, the leader he had met on the bridge.

“I understand that you have been deprived of most human contact, Ronan, and that your circumstances are difficult,” she said coldly. “Among humans, seizing another in this way is a hostile act. I advise you to release me immediately.”

His hand opened in automatic obedience to her will. She snapped free, jumped up, and strode to the door, setting her back to it but disdaining its support. She seemed to draw upon some human breathing exercise to calm her agitation, just as Ronan chanted out the Eightfold Way to steady his racing pulse.

He should have looked away, acknowledging his error. He did not. He met her gaze in the challenge of equals, holding his body rigid against the need to seize her again.

“Ronan,” she said, as if speaking to a child, “we have had a misunderstanding, which I regret. Humans may touch in friendship, to give comfort and for no reason beyond. That is one thing you should learn immediately if you are to live with us.”

Sihvaaro had told him that among all sentient beings there was a darkness that sometimes claimed the soul, overcoming all sense of rightness and tradition. Rejection was nothing new to Ronan, no more than shame. But that insidious darkness crept upon him now, sinking its needle-sharp teeth into the core of his reason.

“You are still my friend,” he said, “even though I am of no Path, and you are First of this fine ship? Even though this ne’lin dared to offer mating to one so great?” He exposed his throat in mock submission. “One is prepared to die for this offense, Aho’Va. It is your right under shaauri law.”

She let out an explosive breath and laughed. “Your law permits one shaauri to kill another because—” She shook her head, loosening the red hair she kept confined in a knot at the base of her neck. “We truly don’t understand each other. You speak as though you are nothing. You’re wrong, Ronan. You—” She stopped, a new expression of deep concentration on her face, and touched the tiny receiver cradled in the hollow of her ear. Ronan listened. A faint human voice buzzed from the device, pitched in tones of alarm. When Cynara turned back to Ronan, her eyes were hard as skystones.

“I must return to the bridge,” she said. “I said that I wouldn’t make you a prisoner, but I require your word that you will remain in this cabin until I send for you.”

His word. He did not know what humans regarded as keeping one’s word. He only knew that if he gave a promise to this woman, he would hold to it at the cost of his life.

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