The struggle to control his simple physical desires required nearly all his attention. There was powerful satisfaction in entering Cynara’s body, pleasure beyond any he had known with the other women. But his pleasure was unimportant. She must trust him, give herself to him utterly, or he would never penetrate her mind.
Humans, even telepaths, are mentally most vulnerable in the act of sex, the Kinsmen had told him. Even the strongest shields may falter at the moment of climax.
And Cynara’s shields were not impregnable. But what he had found beyond the surface of thought and word and physical sensation, what he felt now when her defenses were at their weakest, multiplied his treacherous doubts a thousandfold.
She feared, yes. Not him, nor the act that joined their bodies. No living being could arouse her terror but one: this creature she envisioned when she thought of herself, when she was not captain or leader but a female poisoned by her world’s prejudices.
Damaged goods. That was what they said, these Dharman males. She had stowed away aboard the Pegasus, unchaperoned among a crew of men. But that was not the ultimate shame. Her own cousin had seduced her—not with his body, but with his mind. She had employed her dormant, forbidden telepathic skills and accepted his thoughts, his male nature into the virginal sanctity of her soul.
It didn’t matter that she had saved the Pegasus. Nor was she absolved when the Council elevated her to captain, the first Dharman female ever to hold such rank and power.
Freak, they judged. Neither male nor female, with no place except on her ship. In the months before she had learned to protect her mind from the thoughts of others, their contempt and disgust and horror had bombarded her night and day, strengthening her own harsh judgment of herself, multiplying her doubts until all the confidence she had harbored as a child vanished.
If she was captain, she could not be Cynara. If she was a woman—if she ever let them see a moment of female weakness—she would lose everything.
Ne’lin and First, Woman and Captain. A telepath who feared her own abilities because of what they had brought her, and because of what they might set loose.
“Ronan,” she whispered. She had closed her eyes again, surrendering all of her body and none of her mind. They moved as one, together and utterly apart. Ronan arched to kiss her breasts without losing rhythm, making her feel, drawing her toward release.
She tossed her head on the pillows, delaying the final Reckoning. Believing that her secrets were safe.
Ronan severed himself from sensation and allowed his body to continue while his mind prepared for the final thrust. It must be timed perfectly. And she must let him in. She must.
Her breath came in short, sharp pants. Her fingers pushed into the quilt. Finish it, she cried. Wanting, dreading, demanding.
He moved again. She shuddered, arching against him. He slipped into her mind like a phantom, invisible, enveloped in the blazing brilliance of her release. For an instant all her knowledge lay naked to him. The Pegasus. The great discovery. The secret humans held against their enemies.
Her mind closed like an iris to shut him out, reflexive and belated defense, oblivious to what he had done.
“Ronan,” she whispered, her hands moving over his chest. “Ronan.”
In all the years of his youth, he had never loathed himself as much as he did now. Yet he was safe. If she had sensed even a little of his true purpose, she would not be here with him. His shields held.
But he did not have what he needed—only fragments, pieces of a greater whole. It was not enough.
“I don’t know if what we’ve just done was a very good idea,” Cynara murmured.
“Do you regret it, Aho’Va?”
“No.” Not even if it creates exactly the complications I can least afford.
Ronan almost answered before he realized that she had not spoken the second part aloud. He was so deeply attuned to her that reading her outer thoughts had become effortless.
The fact that she was unaware of his violation did not make it less terrible. But he needed to know the source of the technology—neither human nor shaauri—that generated the ship’s drive, and how to gain access to the engine room of the Pegasus if none of the design information or schematics were available on Dharma itself.