When she’d entered Ronan’s thoughts on the Thalassa, they had come close to an overwhelming intimacy she’d believed impossible to duplicate. But the crisis on Bifrost had engendered a connection that virtually reproduced what she had shared with Tyr just before his death—so profound a blending that to maintain it would have burned her out like the lightning-struck hull of a fishing boat.
She’d held the key to unlocking all of Ronan’s secrets, and she had cast it away to preserve herself.
After she’d taken Ronan to the shuttle, he’d collapsed.
Zheng worked quickly to save him and Kord with the limited medical supplies aboard the Thalassa. Cynara had spent most of the return trip trying to make sense of what had happened.
“You will take him to your bed,” Kord said matter-of-factly. “Be cautious yet, Little Mother.”
Cynara bolted from her chair. “You presume too much. This is my ship, and I will not endanger it.”
“It is yourself you endanger.” His mouth twisted up in a half smile. “But I am only male and lacking in the deeper wisdoms. Disregard me as you choose.”
She didn’t intend to disregard him, but someone else demanded her attention, someone whose claim on her couldn’t be ignored.
Common sense told her that she shouldn’t be so acutely aware of Ronan when he lay in a bed meters away. They were not touching. She did not feel his mind, or even the residue of his thoughts or emotion. Yet she sensed his stare raking her body, and that second, desperate kiss seared her mouth anew.
She’d kissed him on Bifrost because it was the surest way of reaching the part of him best able to fight for life. Did he even remember, or was he anticipating a third kiss in the privacy of her quarters?
Deliberately she turned to face him. The intensity of his gaze pulled her across the room, and she fought it every step of the way.
“Captain,” Ronan said. “You are well?”
“Shouldn’t I be?” She examined him critically. “Zheng says you’re lucky to be alive.”
“I will heal.” He said it with a verbal shrug, dismissing his pain. “Ve Kord?”
“He is also healing,” Zheng said, stepping up beside Cynara. “You both came very close to death, and it didn’t help that you exposed your body to subfreezing temperatures.”
Zheng had the full report and knew very well why Ronan had acted as he did. “You continued to function and even fight in conditions that would immobilize or kill an average human,” she said. “I’d like to find out how you managed it.”
“There are disciplines among shaauri,” Ronan said, “that grant the mind mastery over the body’s limitations.”
“Is that how you learned to fight as you do?” Cynara asked. “One of these shaauri disciplines?”
“There was an old shaaurin who taught me his way.”
Cynara hid her surprise. He hadn’t spoken so frankly of his past before Bifrost, but she remembered the image of the elderly shaaurin, so vivid in Ronan’s mind.
A shaauri mentor had taught Ronan to fight with deadly skill. What had his captors thought of that? Why had they allowed it?
“Was it this old shaaurin who taught you to lure an armed guard into your cabin, disable him, and leave him with no memory of what happened—not to mention getting past everyone else to board the shuttle?”
Ronan’s brow furrowed in bewilderment. “I do not remember doing this,” he admitted. “I thought only of reaching you, Aho’Va. The rest is a dream.”
“Axe you certain telepathy wasn’t involved?”
No one could feign such genuine confusion. “Even if such abilities remained available to me, would they not require great mental strength? Would you not have discovered this within my mind?”
He was right, of course. Concealing skills of that magnitude would be extremely difficult—especially after Bifrost.
“I’ll need to do more research on these blackouts,” Zheng said. “They could indicate some trauma or condition the regular scans haven’t identified.” She examined his diagnostic screen. “Don’t keep him too long, Captain. He needs his beauty sleep.”
“No amount of rest will change my appearance,” Ronan said. “Will the young male, the one I disabled—”