Candidate (Selected Book 4) (60 page)

She leaned back. "Well, I think I can accept that offer. Third. You will allow me to touch you
any way I desire
."

"No. That is also not a price of my freedom. But I will allow you to touch me
almost
any way you desire, if you are making the same offer."

"These negotiations are not how mating candidates behave."

"They are how this mating candidate behaves."

"I do not believe you are in a position to negotiate." She tapped a finger against the restraining wall in emphasis. "I believe I could touch you right now, and you could not stop me."

"You probably could, at least until Jasmine stopped you instead, and it would be the last time you set a finger on me."

"That is not your choice, either."

I cocked my head. "We have just met, and your mother is the only other Kitsune I have met. I do not know if you are serious or teasing me."

"I am
partly
teasing," she said. "Oh, you know I'm going to let you go. Does it frustrate you that I make you squirm?"

"No, Charo. But I feel you are playing a game, and I don't know the rules. I like games, but not over my life."

"But I understand you only spend your evenings with those who do just that."

"I don't understand."

"You demand challenges."

"Oh. Those are in fun, and I haven't turned anyone down who has offered an evening without a challenge. Is it my fault no one has offered? For that matter, your mother received time of mine, and there were no challenges. But in the end, she was not interested."

"She was very interested, actually, but she also told me what you said to her, and she offered to let me meet you before you were committed in one direction or the other."

"It is surreal that a mother and daughter are negotiating over me."

"I suppose it is." She tapped the restraining wall again. "I want one more price, but you've turned my last two prices down. And I think the others I might ask would receive the same treatment."

"I would offer a dance."

"We're going to dance anyway," she replied. "If I asked for a kiss, you would tell me something about how I must first charm you."

"So the price you want is my attention this evening, and a kiss before sending me to my cell?"

"No, the price is a kiss now, your attention, and the possibility of far more than a kiss later."

"Do Kitsune kiss?"

"Humans kiss. Like many species, Kitsune lick. We would do both."

"I agree to most of your price, but I do not share bodies on the first date. If we have a nice evening, then I would want more than a simple kiss before I must go, but if you want me for far more than that, then you will woo me, and you will have to work for me."

"Will you not work for me?"

"Yes, but you are in the position of power, Charo."

"One last question then. Does that bother you? Does this teasing bother you?"

"It is not a familiar experience for me. It would bother me depending upon how you were to use your power. Your price here is one I am happy to pay. If you demanded something I wouldn't give you simpy for the asking, then yes, it would bother me a great deal."

She stepped a half step away, cocked her head, and the wall retreated it's hold. I sagged for a minute, leaning backwards, no longer supported.

"Are you ill?"

"I have been in that position too long," I said. "I only need a moment." I stretched my body, twisting this way and that. I heard a pop, which I found disconcerting, but then I stepped forward and collected Charo's arm in mine. "I would like a glass of juice and to sit for a few minutes. Could we talk, and then perhaps dance in a short while?"

"I would like that."

She walked me to the refreshments table. "What would you like?"

"I would like us to share something, but the water is the only safe choice. Did Mother explain?"

"She did," I said. "Do you wish to share water, or do you wish to pick something only for yourself?"

"You wanted juice."

"I would share water before drinking my juice alone."

"Then we shall share water."

"That we can take at the table," I said. I tugged her arm, and we found an unoccupied table, sitting side by side. I grabbed a glass and poured from the pitcher. I offered it to her, but she told me to begin.

And so I sipped, and then I offered it to her. She didn't take the glass. Instead she took my wrists and guided me, her eyes not leaving me, as she took her own sip. It was such a simple thing, but she had begun to fascinate me, and this act only added to the fascination.

I set the glass down, and when I turned back towards her, she collected both of my hands in hers, holding them so our hands rested on my knees.

"You aren't subtle," I told her.

"We are two different species," she explained. "We not only come from different societies with different expectations, but from different planets. The danger of subtle signals being lost is far too high. I do not wish misunderstanding. Does my forward behavior upset you?"

"No. Like everything about my situation here, this is unfamiliar to me. But I wish to equate your behavior to that of some human women."

"All right."

"If a human woman behaved as you are, I would use the phrase, 'a come on'. Do you know this phrase?"

She cocked her head and paused. "Ah. Yes. And?"

"I would assume she was after a conquest and would be gone once achieving it. I've let that happen a few times, and it can be fun."

"You are telling me something, but I wish you to explain further."

"All right. If someone comes on this strong after barely meeting me, then it is almost certainly because she likes my looks without knowing anything about me. We don't know if we could even be friends, much less permanent lovers. But she is putting everything into it. She can't possibly be emotionally invested without knowing me so much more, so she is invested only in what she sees. She wants a conquest of a few minutes or a few hours, and then she is gone."

"I believe I understand that part. And you wonder if that is what I want."

"Yes. And if it is, I'm not saying I won't play, but I'd like to know. If you were human, we wouldn't have this conversation. I would decide if I were going to play and know you would be gone no later than breakfast tomorrow. But you are not human, and you came a very long distance."

"Well, I do not know what I want, Andromeda. Well, that's not entirely true. I want a mate. I do not know if I want you as that mate. But I like what I have learned about you. I believe in many ways we could be compatible. Mother told you of my project."

"Yes."

"I have heard something about your old job, for this Gerri Cambridge woman. I know you worked for a store that sells food, but I know you did not sell food. You did a great deal more than that, and I have an idea what that was. I also understand Gerri Cambridge recommends you very highly."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I called her and pretended to be thinking of offering you a job. She was quite glowing in her recommendation."

I looked away from her, quite surprised. "You did that?"

"Did I upset you?"

"No. Surprised." I turned back. "Why?"

"You said something earlier. I am the one in a position of power. I am a member of a species that is a primary species in the Federation of Allied Planets. Humanity has been offered an associate membership. There is a vast difference between those two."

"I am aware."

"This means, if I take a human wife, she comes into my life. She moves where I live. I am not the one who moves. She comes into my household."

"I understand you do not have one."

"I would make one."

"We would make one."

She paused. "All right. Yes. We would make one. But what I am trying to do here is important and difficult. You would not only be my mate. You would also devote yourself to my project."

"Our project."

Again she paused.

"Am I clear? We are just wondering what we want. We are getting to know each other. But if I become your mate, it is our household. If I work on what is currently your project, it becomes our project. Oh, I do not diminish what you are doing, but you must understand I will call it our project, and if you do not, it will hurt me."

Again she paused. Then she tried on both phrases. "Our household. Our project."

"Our lives together."

"Yes. Our lives together."

"That being said, your mother told me a little about what you're trying to do. She also told me how long it will take. I don't know a thing about any of it. I don't know how to move planets or moons or asteroids or whatever you would have to do."

"Mother says you understand numbers."

"Yes, but it is the sense of selling groceries. I know what it costs to run a warehouse, and to fill the warehouse, and to deliver the groceries to the stores. I know what you pay employees, and I know about what you pay them that they don't know you pay."

"I don't understand."

"You pay employees a salary. That is what they see. They do not see there are taxes paid against that salary."

"I have heard humans complain about paying taxes."

"They have their taxes, but there are more taxes the company pays based on the payroll costs. And there are benefits that must be paid, as well. And there are people hired simply to support the employees. And uniforms to purchase, break rooms to furnish, a car starter service to keep on hand."

"What is that?"

"Well, we don't have to do that one anymore, I suppose. Sometimes an employee would return to her car, and it wouldn't start. Do you understand how internal combustion engines work?"

"Disgusting things."

"Yes. Well, if the employee forgot her lights on, she could drain her battery. Countless things can go wrong. You see?"

"I see. And I understand."

"I understand numbers like that. But high school physics was a long time ago, and I took the least amount of math and science in college I could get away with."

"You do not care for the sciences."

"I knew I was headed into business, not science, and so I was very focused."

"Well, you do not need to know how to move asteroids. You need to know how to feed the people who move the asteroids."

I smiled. "I don't even know how to feed you."

She laughed. "But you could learn."

"Yes, I could learn."

"I do not need my mate to move asteroids. But I do need her support on this project. We would work on it together. If I were to mate with another Kitsune, she would have his or her own work. But if I am to take a human mate, she will join my project."

"And there will be meaningful things for me to do? It sounds like this is a very long project, and you don't even have permission to really start."

"You will have ample things to do, and while you don't need to know how to move asteroids, you need to know more than you do. I would teach you."

"I'd like that. We were talking about what you want."

"My choices are limited. There are no Kitsune in nearby space with whom I share common attraction. I wish a mate, but I do not need a mate. You see the difference."

"Yes."

"I do not wish to wait until one of the younger Kitsune is old enough to be a choice, and I do not know how I would feel about such a relationship. But that is at least two decades. So my choice is a human."

"Not one of the other species?"

"No."

"All right. So a human, and by that you mean a human female?"

She smiled. "Yes. And there is more. I want my human female mate to carry my children."

"Our children."

She paused.

"It was nice meeting you, Charo," I said.

"No! Wait." She set a hand on my arm.

"Our. Children."

"Just wait. Give me enough time to explain."

"Fine," I said, but I put as much ice into it as I could. I settled into the chair.

"Let me ask this. If you were to mate with another human female, whose DNA would be used to produce your children?"

"We would discuss it."

"Who would carry the child?"

"We would discuss that as well."

"Well, you and I are discussing it now. You would carry the children. Is that a problem?"

"Not
the
children. Our children."

"You would carry, not me. Are we agreed? If not, then walk away."

"I can't believe we're having this conversation." I said. "Yes, fine. If it can be made possible and safe, I would carry
our
children."

"They would be Kitsune children, Andromeda. If not, then walk away."