AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Groaning, Lucas fell down beside him, the flesh between his legs an angry red and sticking up from his body. “Can you really be as innocent as you’re pretending? Tell me you’re really not a virgin. ”
“I-I’m not sure. ”
“How can you not be sure?” Lucas was almost yelling at him.
“Because I don’t know what that is,” Kai snapped back, raising his own voice.
Lucas propped himself up on one elbow and narrowed his eyes at him. “What do you mean you don’t know what it is?”
“I mean I don’t know. I never heard that word before. ”
“Well, what do you call someone who hasn’t ever had sex before?”
“I don’t know,” Kai said irritably. “I don’t call them anything because I’m not supposed to discuss things like that. I’m sure there’s probably a word for it, but it never came up in conversations with my mother and my servants. ”
Lucas blew out an exasperated breath. “Surely you have friends. You read, don’t you?”
“Not about sex. I wasn’t allowed to, and royal children never play with other children. You don’t seem to realize how isolated I’ve been all my life. Everything I was allowed to read was carefully screened before it was given to me. As I told you, a royal is not supposed to know anything about such things before marriage, and that’s how I was brought up. ”
“Your mother said you hunted. You must have seen animals mating or had friends who talked about it as you got older. ”
“Not really. I did hunt with the royal guard, but I never saw animals doing—that. Scythians don’t keep animals as pets. My tutors told me that’s done sometimes on other planets. I overheard some conversations occasionally, of course. But they were all females. They never discussed anything about males. Not ever. Scythian women don’t like males. ”
“Yes, but surely…” Lucas broke off in irritation. “What about when you masturbated?”At his blank look, Lucas blew out another long-suffering breath. “When you touched yourself—down there? You know, to make yourself come. ”
“Come?”
“Oh for the gods’ sake! Do what you just did in the shower. ”
“I never did that before,” Kai said shyly. “Not like that. I had dreams sometimes. Sometimes I’d rub myself against the sheets, and it would feel good. But my servants always bathed me. I didn’t tak
e showers by myself. ”
“B-But…you…that can’t be…oh, fucking gods!”
“Why are you so angry? I can’t help it—I live on a planet with all women. Don’t you get it? I don’t know anything about men. No one ever taught me anything like this. ” Kai could feel his cheeks heat up and he squirmed uncomfortably. “I know you think I’m stupid and a liar. But I’m not lying about this. I don’t know anything about sex. ”
“If there aren’t any men on your planet, why did your mother keep you?”
“She loved me, I guess,” Kai said sharply. “She had fallen in love with my father, even though that was highly irregular. Almost unheard of, really. When he died she was already pregnant with me. When I was born, she decided to keep me. But she had to pretend I was female. ”
“What?”Lucas stared down at him incredulously. “So no one knew your true sex except your mother?”
“And the servants loyal to her, of course. No one else, no. ”
“She raised you as a girl?”
Kai flushed. “She raised me as a person. Don’t you see? Males are non-persons and defective. ” He had dropped his gaze telling this part, but he chanced a peek back up at his mate. He could tell from Lucas’s outraged expression that he thought pretending to be a person was wrong and something Kai should be ashamed of. Unable to meet his gaze, Kai kept his head firmly down.
“But why did you go along with it? I mean, once you got older. Didn’t you…?” Lucas shook his head. “I just don’t understand. ”
Kai felt his face flaming. He was ashamed, but not of pretending to be a female. “Males are…I’m sorry, but males are deformed, in a way. That’s why we have this extra flesh between our legs, Merrial said. She’s my servant and told me all about it. Naturally, I tried to hide it. I wanted to be a member of the superior sex. ”
“What?” Lucas’s eyebrows rose and he glared down at Kai. “Why in the hells did they fill your head with that drivel? You listened to a servant? Males are not defective. ” Lucas’s tone was outraged and Kai shrank away from him a little.
Kai shrugged. “Naturally, you would say so…”
Lucas passed a big hand over his face. “So you mean to tell me…” his voice was deliberately calm. He took a deep breath. “You mean to tell me you pretended to be a female because you didn’t want to be thought of as defective?”
