And then, of course, he would have to find a way to escape Dharma.
“You’re holding back,” Cynara accused, rubbing his shoulders until he found it very difficult to concentrate. “You spent all your effort on me and didn’t take any pleasure for yourself.”
I took very great pleasure, Cynara. My mate.
“But you—” She sat up suddenly. “What did you just say?”
He realized at once that he had made a mistake, and there was no repairing it save by following Cynara’s lead. “Did I speak?”
“You called me your—” She stared at him. “I heard you, Ronan. I heard your thoughts. Do” you realize what you’ve done?” She shook her head in bewilderment. “I’ve been able to project to you, and I’ve read some of your memories and feelings. This is different. You’ve transmitted verbal communication in the most explicit way possible. That takes great control. If you’ve already learned so much… there’s no telling what you might do. How deeply can you read me, Ronan?
Obvious deception would only arouse her suspicions. “I have heard you, Cynara,” he said. “I have shared your feelings.”
“Is that all? Did you encounter… any resistance?”
He put on a mask of bewilderment. “I do not understand.”
“I wasn’t prepared for this. I should have been.”
“I have disturbed you,” he said gently. “It was not my intention.”
She swung her legs over the bed. “It’s my fault, not yours.”
“There is no fault in you, Cynara.”
“If you believe that, you can’t have looked too deeply.” She smiled at him, sad and earnest. “I tried to steal a little time for us. I didn’t think beyond the fact that we wanted each other. It’s my job to consider the consequences of what I do, and in that I’ve failed.”
“Because of what I might discover in your mind?” He frowned. “Is this why you have tried to stay away?”
“There’s so much I can’t explain. I don’t want to shut you out, Ronan. What we’ve shared, today and before… I won’t dismiss it as if it never happened. But there are considerations beyond personal desires.” She gathered her robe from the foot of the bed. “We have to remain apart from now on.”
He should have made promises then, assuring her that he could never hurt her, that he would sooner die than betray the smallest part of her trust. If he did not do so, her mind, and all it contained, would be closed to him.
“Remain apart,” he repeated. “Because I know what you fear most?”
She cinched the robe about her waist, keeping her back to him. “I think we both fear the same things, Ronan. I can no longer be objective where you’re concerned. My duty comes first. You have your own future to determine, and I’ll soon be gone again.”
He moved silently up behind her. “And if I offer my service to you, Aho’Va?”
“I can’t accept.” Her hair fell over her face. “Someday you’ll understand.”
“Then you, like Janek, believe that I am more shaauri than human.”
She turned to him, stark and grim. “If you were shaauri, you wouldn’t be here.”
“If I were shaauri,” he said, grasping her arms, “I would not care once the mating was over.”
“Let me go, Ronan.”
“You send me away, Aho’Va,” he said, “because you are ashamed. Ashamed of this… thing you imagine when you see yourself.”
Her face lost its color. “And what do you see, Ronan, when you look in the mirror? A man who can never be one of the beings who despised and abused you all your life?”
They stared at each other, shocked into silence. Ronan let her go. She had tried to close her mind to him, but he knew he had the power to force himself in, hold her paralyzed like a myl’vekk’s prey and drive past her weak defenses. He could bind her will, just as he had done with the guard on the Pegasus, so that she could not act to stop him until he was gone from this world with the knowledge he had come to steal.
It was his one chance. His duty.
And when it was finished, he would have earned her hatred—she, who saw him as only one other had done. She who had welcomed him, ne’lin though he was, into her body.