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Goddess, I was still holding tight to his hand! I pulled away, and he smirked even wider, still favoring the right side of his mouth.
“I am Kaav,” he said, and then he cocked his head at my hand which I’d just pulled away from him. The hand still felt warm from his touch, and my body was screaming at me for letting go of him. “You don’t like touching me?”
“I do!” I said much too quickly and enthusiastically. “But, um, why aren’t you teal?”
And why did you pull me out of the weird tunnel thing? And why are we having a conversation in some weird isolated hallway? I wanted to start with why he wasn’t teal though. Somehow that seemed like the most pressing question.
“I’ll never lie to you, Weapons Sojourner, but can you do something for me in return?”
As a rule, I generally never agreed to something without knowing what I was agreeing to. As my eyes ran transfixed against the bulging golden muscles packing his beautiful arms, and the big, impossibly broad shoulders and wide, mesmerizing chest, I decided that—For Kaav at least—I’d break my rule.
“Yes,” I said, “what do I need to do?”
Maybe he’d want to “breed” me right here and now? From talking to Airlock about how into sex the Khetar were, I didn’t think it was entirely unlikely. Would I agree to breed with him though? Really? Just like that?
“You need to hear me out all the way,” he said, “before making up your mind.”
Oh, Good Goddess, he really was going to ask me to breed with him, wasn’t he? Was he going to sweet talk me? Or would he touch me in some of the ways Airlock had mentioned? Would he touch me so that it became harder and harder to resist saying no to him? How long would it take him for me to be begging him for his seed?
“Okay,” I said, voice catching in my throat. I looked up at him, struck by the hard, butextremelypleasing planes of his face. Thuliak was handsome, but Thuliak struck me as some kind of production-line handsomeness. Something that could appeal to any woman, anywhere in the galaxy. Kaav though was custom-made for me. I couldn’t think of how I’d move or change any part of his face to make it more attractive to me. My mouth was hanging open, and I was even turning my head back and forth to either side to take in every last inch of his gorgeous face. “I’m listening.”
“What do you know of Breeding Swarm politics?” he asked.
“Uhhh—”
He reached up and put his fingers right on my cheek. His fingers were hard and calloused, and they werehuge. Kaav was a very large—and tall—person, but it hadn’t hit me just how much larger he was than me until his huge hand was touching my small cheek. He could have wrapped his entire hand around my head if he’d wanted to, but instead, he just let his fingers rest tenderly on my cheek. Goddess, he was warm too.
“You’re very soft,” he said. “Soft outside, hard inside.” He grinned wide. “Weapons.”
He said my name as if it were some kind of spell. It had never sounded so much like my name. It felt as if it were no longer just my role. Weaponswasmy name when Kaav said it like that.
“You’ve very gold,” I said, trying as best I could to break the spell his touch was having on me. I needed answers from that beautiful face, and I needed them before I was the one begging him to breed me. I’d lose all leverage then.
“I’m a spy,” he said. “I asked you about Breeding Swarm politics because they are very complicated and cannot be explained quickly with the proper nuance. I expect that my pack will be allied with Thuliak’s within the next few months, but until my scion can reach such a deal with Thuliak, I am spying onWrath.”
“So you’re not teal because you’re from another pack?”
He nodded.
Should I tell him I was promised to another scion? What if it washisscion Thuliak had promised me to? Goddess, what if Tschenkar was his scion? I’d heard nasty things about that pack, theHarbingers.
“Who is your scion?” I asked.
“Tharkur” he said, “of theInseminator.”
I blinked twice at that name. “Inseminate…is that like…” My eyes darted down involuntarily to his crotch, which was unfortunately still covered in armor.
“Yes,” he said, “we are known for our sexual prowess, and for the potency of our seed.”
My whole face felt like it was on fire. I must have looked redder than Airlock had when we first figured out what she’d done with Thuliak.
“What do you want from me, Kaav?”
He was still touching my cheek. Not only had I made no move whatsoever to get away from his touch, I’d somehow planted a hand on his forearm, and I was gripping tight to it. I focused on the feeling of his hard, tight muscles beneath my fingertips. I bit my lip, wondering how the rest of his hard body would feel against my fingers.
“I think it’s obvious,” he said. “I’ve chosen you, Weapons. And now, we have precious little time, but I’m hoping you’ll choose me too.”
On one hand, it felt very foolish to accept the first Khetar who favored me, on the other hand,that face. Could I really ever hope to do better than this? It felt like Goddess herself had crafted the most beautiful work of art, attached a golden dingdong to it—I had to assume his dingdong was gold too—and sent him down to complete me. All of that feeling I’d had since being tainted of finally being a whole person would come to fruition. All I had to do was say “yes” to Kaav.
