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Kai couldn’t explain properly about the lies to the matchmaker and he couldn’t tell his mother’s secrets and risk the Alliance taking action against her. Yet since he’d come to this planet, and seen the male children walking around openly, no one acting as if there were anything wrong or shameful about them, he’d begun to feel terribly confused and uneasy.
What if everything he’d been taught all his life had been one big monstrous lie? What if male children weren’t truly defective and the priestesses had lied to the Scythian women? The women of Scythia turned the boy babies over to the priestesses to be mercifully re-assimilated back into the goddess, but what if they could have kept their children? What if the goddess was wrong about males? But that couldn’t be. That would make everything he’d ever known a falsehood, and the priestesses nothing more than monsters. It would make the goddess herself—what?
Kai shook his head, scared by the thought and refusing to contemplate such blasphemy. All his life, he’d been afraid of the goddess’s wrath. As a child, he’d expected any time to be snatched up by the goddess and re-assimilated. These blasphemous thoughts could get him cast into the hells where he would burn forever. He could only hope that the goddess had lost track of him so far away from Scythia. He stood still in the backyard of the alpha’s home, his new home, and looked around him uneasily.
This planet was very different from Scythia. Instead of the verdant forests of his home world, the landscape seemed to be mostly desert, though Lucas had told him it wasn’t all so barren. They had first landed in the middle of the night, and Lucas whisked him away to the city as soon as they arrived. The moon had been huge, easily twice as big as the moon on his planet and clearly lit up everything around them. Kai had found the landscape to be strange and beautiful. In the hills beyond the city, Lucas said there were lush forests and streams.
They needed to be close to the bauxite though, so they made their homes in the desert. Lucas’s home was nowhere near as luxurious as the palace Kai had grown up in, but it was large and comfortable, and Kai loved the freedom from servants always hovering over him. Here he was allowed to bathe himself—well, most of the time, that is, when Lucas let him shower alone. He could dress himself too, though Lucas usually undressed him every night. Still, Kai had no complaints. He found that he enjoyed Lucas’s attentions very much. He loved the fact that his husband made love to him every night, and in ways he could never have imagined. His husband had taught him a lot about the ways men made love since he’d come. Kai had grown to crave Lucas’s presence, and the hours during the day when Lucas was at the mines were increasingly difficult for him.
After that first violent fight on the balcony the night they met, Lucas had never lifted a hand to him in anger. He always treated him with consideration and even affection. All in all, Kai’s life had been busy since he arrived on Lycanus 3, and he was content, but he knew Lucas was holding back some of his affection and it bothered Kai. What if he decided to put him aside? Kai had heard of things like that.
His aunt Robesia, his mother’s sister and a second daughter, had married a prince from Alger, their closest neighboring planet, and after only six months of marriage, he’d put her aside and sent her back home in disgrace. Kai had never been told what happened between them, but she lived in the palace after that, a stooped, lonely figure that kept mostly to her rooms. Kai shuddered. What would he do if Lucas sent him back home?
Sighing, Kai strode over to the target to retrieve his arrows, his movements still a little awkward in the stiff leather trousers Lucas insisted he wear outside. Inside, he allowed him to wear his soft leggings, but he said they were way too tight to be decent for anyone but him to see. He sighed and rubbed absently at his stomach. Ever since he’d awakened after they had made love on the ship, he’d felt this nearly constant cramping in his stomach. Most of the time it was only a dull ache, but lately, the pains had grown worse. Just the other night, as they got ready for bed, Lucas saw him wince and clutch at his stomach.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Kai said, slipping under the covers and curling up around the cramps. “Maybe something I ate. ”
Lucas came to stand beside him, and then sank down to gather him up in his arms and pat him on the back. Surprised, Kai looked up at him. “What?”
“It’s not something you ate. Remember how I told you there’d be physical changes from the mating? This is one of them, I’m afraid. ”
“These cramps in my stomach? What causes them?”
Lucas sighed. “It’s me. I’m sorry, Kai. Whenever I’m upset with you or have any negative feelings toward you, this will happen. ” He snuggled him closer and kissed the side of his neck and Kai was amazed to find the dull achiness in his stomach that had been plaguing him all day begin to fade away.
“You’re upset with me? What did I do? You mean you’re doing this to me? But why?”
“I’m not doing it consciously, baby. I’m sorry. ”He bent to kiss his lips tenderly again. “Is that better? Still as much pain?”
“No, it’s easing now, but I don’t understand. ”
“The venom in our mating bite causes a psychic connection and causes you to feel physical discomfort if I’m upset with you. ”
“But what have I done?”
Lucas sighed. “Nothing. It’s just the lies you and your mother told me to bring me to Scythia. I was just thinking about them. I still feel torn about it and I sense you’re hiding something from me. I don’t like it, yet you still refuse to tell me everything. I’ll try harder to get my mind off it. ” He gazed down at Kai. “Unless you feel like unburdening yourself now? You know you can tell me anything, don’t you? I promise I’ll try to understand. ”
Kai pulled away, miserable at being put in this position again. It always came back to this. “But you wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t. If I told you, you’d take action and I can’t let you do that. ” He buried his head in his hands. “Oh goddess, what if I’m wrong about this? Then you’ll hate me like you’ll hate my mother and my whole people. ” He turned toward Lucas desperately. “I don’t think I could stand it if you hated me, Lucas. You’re the only one I have now. ”
Lucas pulled him closer and kissed his lips. “I could never hate you. I promise you that won’t happen. Let me help you with whatever secret you’re keeping. Please, Kai. ”
Completely miserable, Kai could only shake his head, and then bent over clutching himself as a sharp pain sliced through him. Lucas saw it and wrapped his arms around him, making soothing noises and rubbing his back until the pain subsided. “I’m not consciously doing it, Kai. I don’t mean to hurt you, sweetheart. ” He blew out a heavy breath. “Maybe I should just try to stay away from you more. If we had separate bedrooms…”
Kai flinched again at his words. He loved sleeping with his husband, but perhaps Lucas didn’t enjoy it as much and was using this as an excuse to get away from him.
“Whatever you think,” he replied, unable to meet Lucas’s eyes.
A tense silence fell between them. Lucas stood up abruptly. “All right then. I’ll sleep in the other room tonight. Maybe that will help us both. ”
He’d walked quickly toward the door without looking back and it had taken Kai a long time to get to sleep with the dull ache throbbing inside him. Trouble was, he couldn’t tell if the ache was coming from his stomach or his heart.
Since that night, he and Lucas still made love, but now Lucas left afterward and slept in the spare bedroom. He still visited him almost nightly, seeming to be unable to stay away, but Kai could feel things slipping away from him, and he had no idea how to stop it.
In an effort to fill his time, he sometimes visited with the other mates of Lucas’s family members. Lucas’s brother and two of his cousins had been recently mated, and Kai was getting to know the family better, especially the mates. They were often either coming or going from their trips around the galaxies with their mates, though, so he didn’t get to spend as much time with them as he would have liked. He particularly enjoyed talking to Ryan, the handsome blond mate of Lucas’s brother, Blayde.
Ryan had been at the docks to meet them the night they returned and Kai witnessed the passionate reunion between him and Blayde. Ryan had thrown himself on Blayde the minute he’d jumped down off the ship and wrapped both his arms and legs around him. Kai had been amazed at such a public display of affection—such things just weren’t done on Scythia.
