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CHAPTER ONE
Grace
I’m not exactly surprised to find myself in the dreamspace. I felt the weight of a gaze constantly on me as we ate dinner, even without Molly’s elbow in my side, her eyes darting in Calran’s direction to draw my attention to him. Unlike the other raskarrans who looked everywhere at everyone, Calran never wavered, his eyes always on me.
Mercenia may not have put much effort into their medic training, not even bothering to teach us to read, leaving us to rely instead on memorised procedures, treatment checklists that rarely fit any patient perfectly. But the medics I trained under were as passionate about their profession as Shemza is. They taught me what Mercenia’s rote learning couldn’t. The power of dispassion, how to care deeply and not at all at the same time, how to coax the information you need out of a patient. How to observe them, read their tells and cues so you don’t need to ask them anything at all. The raskarrans aren’t likehumans, but after several weeks living with them, I think I’ve got a pretty good read on their behaviour. I know the difference between someone like Callif, who’s enamoured with the idea of having a mate and not any one of us girls in particular, and someone like Shemza, whose infatuation with Lorna wouldn’t have diminished even if the dreamspace had never come for them.
The heartspace knows. That’s what Rachel says Vantos says about their own mating. I think I’ve got a pretty good read on when a raskarran’s heartspace knows. And Calran, in the few glimpses I dared to take over dinner, was exhibiting all the signs.
He’d taken one look at me, and he’d known.
It’s a thought that exhilarates me as much as it terrifies me.
I sit up, rising out of the mounds of soft furs I’m lying in, knowing it’s going to be his face I see. Several emotions war inside me for dominance, but I take a breath, exerting my medic’s control over them. Acknowledge them all one at a time, then set them aside. Happiness, fear, excitement, anxiety, delight, dread.
He’s sitting in a chair opposite the bed, watching me with big brown eyes, a half smile curling up the corners of his full lips. His long hair hangs over his shoulders, streaked with grey, fine lines around his eyes. Older than most of the eligible raskarrans. It surprises me. In the quiet hours of the night, when sleep evaded me, I’d given some thought to what I would like my mate to be like. Older was the one thing I was sure I didn’t want.
“Grace,” he says, his voice a low rumble, full of heat.
“You know my name.”
“I asked your tribe brothers for it. I saw you and knew that no other female would be entering my dreams.”
The heartspace knows.
“And you’re Calran,” I say, my voice catching in my throat a little.
“I am.”
He looks pleased, as if he takes my knowledge of his name to mean I was as instantly smitten with him as he was with me.
I point to his tattoos.
“Rachel told us about a raskarran in Darran’s tribe with tattoos like the Cliff Top tribe.”
His hand shifts, wrapping around his forearm as if to hide the markings from view.
“Vantos told us of how those Cliff Top males attacked you. Know that I would never mean harm to another without good cause.”
“That’s what Rachel told us. Not to be afraid.”
“And are you unafraid?”
I hesitate, his brows dipping into the smallest frown as he notices. I swallow past the fear that grips my throat. I’ve known that there would be a good chance of the dreamspace forming for me ever since Liv first mentioned this plan to join the tribes together. Had time to think about how to approach it. Decided that honesty would be the best thing. So I take a breath, tell the truth.
“I’m not any more afraid of you than I would be of anyone sitting there.”
“You fear having a mate?” Calran’s voice is soft, gentle.
“Yes,” I say, my voice tremulous. I swallow again, re-exert my control over my emotions. “But it’s not something I don’t want. I like the idea of having a mate very much.”
“But ideas are safe, while reality is not.”
His words surprise me, and it must show on my face, for Calran inclines his head in acknowledgement.
“Vantos did not only speak to us of the Cliff Top tribe,” he says. “I understand that the world you are from was not a kindly place, that you have learned to be fearful of things that to us it makes little sense to fear.”
“Yes.” My voice shakes again.
