“Such things as ruling a starship?”
“Among others.” She sat on the edge of her bed, and Archie jumped up to join her. “I was not the person originally intended for this post.”
Humans did not have Selection, he reminded himself. Their Paths were fixed in other ways, sometimes by choice, often by their elders or through the influence of kinship connections.
“Your family did not approve,” he said.
“My family had arranged a marriage for me shortly before… before the events that led up to my assignment.” She stroked Archie’s back. “On our world, women of high rank are expected to marry for family advantage and political alliance.”
“You were given no choice in your mating?”
“None. But I escaped it nevertheless.”
Her emotions grew increasingly chaotic, and Ronan knew she did not wish to speak of her background or how she had come to be captain of the Pegasus. Yet a part of her longed to confide some inner pain with one who might understand, one not burdened by a past relationship with her or her world.
Ronan crouched beside the bed and scratched Archie at the base of his long tail. “There is a likeness between us, Cynara.”
“As outcasts?”
“As those still searching for the correct Path.”
“I’ve found mine, and I intend to hold to it.”
He realized that she spoke not to him, but to some part of herself she needed to convince. An enemy within, like his.
“And if I say I have found mine as well?” he said.
Her hand stopped on Archie’s shoulder. “You’ve hardly left shaauri space. You have entire worlds to discover.”
“If all human worlds are like Dharma and treat their females as slaves, I doubt I will wish to.”
‘They aren’t.” She shook her head. “You can’t learn about humanity in bits and pieces. Once we make planetfall, I’ll get you more detailed histories of human colonization.”
“It is about you I wish to learn.” He touched her clenched fist and worked her fingers open one by one. “Everything, Cynara.”
All at once her thoughts swam with images like those she had pried out of his past: naked bodies entwined in this very bed, male and female, ne’lin and captain.
Her desire reawakened his own need, never far below the surface. Thought fed on thought, rebounding and redoubling until Ronan could not separate her emotions from those mastering him, her inner battle from the war raging within his skull.
The danger was real. He ignored it and took her shoulders in his hands. She seized the front of his shipsuit. Archimedes jumped off the bed.
Ronan showed her just how much he had already learned.
* * *
Chapter 9
« ^ »
For a man who’d had so few opportunities for kissing, Ronan did it very, very well. The pecks she’d given him on Bifrost were nothing, mere throwaway gestures in the midst of crisis. This was entirely different.
Something remarkable was happening, something not defined by his mouth on hers or his strong, scarred body radiating desire. Ronan seemed to blaze from within. She felt his physical lust and an almost frightening sense of triumph—felt even though she made no attempt to touch his mind, even though she had done everything possible to avoid it.
She’d already guessed why he found her attractive. She saw no reason to change her mind. But in the sheer sensuality of this moment, surrendering to her own desire, she didn’t care.
Ronan pulled her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead, her brows, her temple, punctuating each caress with tiny flicks of his tongue. She pushed her hand down the collar of his shipsuit. His skin was ridged with scar tissue and warm, so incredibly warm. His heart beat as fast as hers.
Those Kinswomen had viewed Ronan’s lovemaking as a duty. She pitied them far more than she pitied him.
The muscles of his back shivered against her palm. He jerked his hands away and stared at her with cold, stranger’s eyes.
“I do not want your pity.”
She felt his hurt, the pride he held banked behind his humility, and began to apologize. Then she realized exactly what he had done.