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There were so many things I needed to know if I wanted to be free, but I was unsure where to start. Unsure what the price would be should I be blunt.
Concerned I might rouse his suspicion.
I sucked my lower lip into my mouth, studied my hands, and sighed. “Why should hybrids mate at all? I was born from a human, as most of us were. It seems unnecessary.”
Cocking his head ever so slightly, he considered his answer at length before responding. “Back in the training room, you said you could not help your nature, did you not? Protecting children is innate to your being. Males are driven to fornicate, to give females children when they hear the song. That is their nature.Ournature is to be together.”
But I had no such interest. And confidence in men, I didn’t have at all. “What if males are lying about the song? Something only they sense. Something only they know. How can a female trust that it exists at all?”
Green eyes marginally narrowed, and I felt as if he was recording every last breath I took to memory. “I assure you, the song is very real.”
I did not sense a lie in his answer, but it didn’t give me anything worth using either. “So, men who hear the song are driven to mate a female that may not want to be owned. What if a woman refuses?”
“Submission cannot be avoided forever.” The green of his eyes dulled, the man tensing in his chair. “Make no mistake, we are much stronger than you, Lorieyn, and the song has a power you cannot imagine. That is why procedures are in place to keep young girls safe. Females are delicate.”
Delicate? I was a trained vorec murder machine. I could break a human in half with my forefinger and thumb. But compared to his strength, I was… inconsequential. “So the list is basically consent that a female will allow a stranger to bond them the moment any random male hears her song?”
“Some may see it that way.”
Finding his answer useless, I stared as if I might uncover his secrets and asked, “How doyousee it?”
One might have thought he was disappointed by my obvious disgust with the concept, yet he was gracious in his answer. “As hope for the future.”
Growing more uncomfortable with the lack of any relevant information, I asked, “What about your mate?”
“What about her?”
Fidgeting, I felt as if I had gone sharply in the wrong direction. “I mean… what if it had been someone else who heard her song first?”
His voice was frightening. “They would be dead, and she would still be mine.”
Okay. Noted, he was very possessive of his female.
Which gave me an opening to challenge my hypothesis. To find out what it took to ruin a woman. “Are there men that will fornicate with a woman, even if she is not their mate?”
The look in his eyes made it clear I was risking much by pushing the conversation this way.
Yet he answered me. Somber, he stated, “Young men can be impulsive and rash in their search for pleasure.The listassures that unmated females are not exposed to such males. Only those of high rank and demonstrated loyalty can access the females ready to engage in sex and enjoy a bond, not the unproven boys.”
“There are boys here,” I reminded him.
“And they know what I would do to them if they touched you.” Without hesitation, Cyderial leaned forward, proud to state, “Before I took over the academy, one in four females in these walls wereimproperly handled. Now, it’s less than one in twenty.”
That statement was too vague, and I had no basis to know what “improperly handled” might mean to such a man. “Who says it’s improper, the men or the women?”
His answer came succinct and steady. “Nature. The women become infertile, or the children, if she can even reproduce, are born wrong and do not survive. Ruined females live out their lifespan lacking a bond with a partner. Lifespans that are greatly reduced.”
We were getting closer to what I wanted to know. “What ruins the female?”
I didn’t think he was going to offer a reply, the extended pause in conversation awkward.
Staring at me, staring far too hard, General Cyderial said, “The song inspires certain actions. Males know, and we crave. Females accept, and they receive. A male who isn’t her mate lacks the ability to bond with that female or see to her physical needs properly. She’s left damaged. Her true mate is left without a partner. The man who went against nature and took what was not his has no drive to care for the woman he used, and will mate another, should he hear the song. To upset that natural balance means ruin for all.”
Very poetic but lacking any useful information. “Are you saying that if a woman doesn’t want a mate at all, either way, a male will come and ruin her or bond her? She can’t just live her life?”
Voice smooth, he said, “Mating is a pleasurable part of life. You will enjoy it.”
Bullshit. “It sounds awful. Is your mate happy?”
