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Oh… he had absolutely overly interfered, but saying so would not help my cause.
Offering his friends more information, Cyderial added, “Also, I pleasure her often in myriad ways without coercing her reaction… unless she asks me to. Heat has not been required to drive her into my arms.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Miranda’s persuasion did motivate me to offer myself the first time after our bond had been sealed.
Mortified he shared such personal information with his friends, I glared up at the smirking man, only to catch him winking at me.
Maybe I would try to kill him after all.
Aegir was watching me closely, too closely. “She has been provoked, and still, she does not try to strike you.”
Boreal’s focus was on the topic, not my flaming face or stiff posture. “Is it true? Do you enjoy his touch without coercion?”
The pride in Cyderial’s voice deepened his tenor, the vibrations moving through my spine to counter my humiliation, as he said, “She will not answer you. My Lorieyn is modest. But she actively participates in sex. I credit this to her education and our familiarity, as much as to her personality.”
The silent observer with the foxlike smirk stepped closer. The bronze-haired male looked at me very differently than the others. He looked at me as if all my secrets were known to him. General Murdoch demanded, “What does he mean by education?”
Uncomfortable, my voice came out a bit shrill. “Cyderial explained sex to me when I was fifteen.”
It wasn’t exactly an outright lie, but it was a half-truth at best. One the male at my back could easily contradict, should he so choose. Otherwise, I had no answer that might urge the collected men to give me what I wanted.
At my back, Cyderial supported me as he promised. “That is correct. There was an incident at the academy requiring an explanation for Lorieyn to understand the questioning. Furthermore, this has made her inquisitive, and I have answered every query she has asked me over the years since.”
The males did not need to know his answers had been vague at best and utterly useless at worst. Or that my questions had been quite innocent, Cyderial only too happy to keep me that way.
To maintain momentum, I asked all three of them, “I have wondered, why do you think young females do not deserve such knowledge? You are here speaking of it freely, yet we have to be cornered, subjected to unexpected suffering, and then exposed to unknown male anatomy. Do you understand how damaging that could be? It’s shocking to me that you cannot grasp why newly mated females want to run. Most first encounters are rape.”
Still puzzling me out, General Aegir seemed completely confounded. “Mating is natural.”
“Natural to a man who knows what’s happening and why. It’s terrifying to females kept ignorant about their bodies. It makes you assailants, aggressors… not kind men who want to love them.” Hearts picking up in rhythm, I ground my teeth. “Females suffer. Males force females to be ignorant yet are willfully ignorant themselves. If you have to drug a response, it’s not genuine.”
Before one of them might say something I’d never forgive, I added, “I’m not trying to insult you, but I will not subject any daughter I may bear to a male who believes such behavior is acceptable.”
Silence fell between us, the painful sort that fostered secrets and nurtured unspoken disagreement.
Cyderial began to pet my arm, a low rumble offered gently.
Uneasy, I asked Aegir, who seemed most reasonable, “Is it true many mated female hybrids refuse to bear young?”
Nodding, he said, “Yes.”
“Tonight, strangers begged me to give one of you my daughter, in the hope you might make the world a safer place. So that they too might know their daughters would not be abused or neglected. They will not give hybrids natural-born children until changes are made.”
Arms over his chest, General Aegir remained unsmiling. “State in specifics what it is you desire.”
Forcing a smile, I said, “Support me in allowing older unmated females of age to learn about their anatomy, the expectations of mating, the male’s ability to influence them, and the physical act itself.”
With unblinking, fixated stares, all three males kept their silence.
The fact that female education was so threatening… it was madness.
A far deeper fear began to take hold of me. “If the humans did not demand females be trained to serve, would we even be allowed education? Do you think so little of us?”
Aegir held up his hands as if to gentle me. “You misunderstand.”
Blood running cold, I would have backed away if not for Cyderial’s mass at my back. “Can you explain it to me? Right now, I’m starting to fear that hybrid males are a terrible threat to our kind.”
“I would give my mate anything she asked for.”
