Heart's Lair (16 page)

The next five sols passed in a whirlwind of activity as Liane was slowly introduced to her new home. True to his word, Karic no longer slept with her, making his pallet on the floor beside the bed. So close, yet so far away, she would think as she gazed down on his slumbering form nocte after nocte. How could he sleep so soundly, Liane wondered, while she spent each nocte in restless turmoil?

And Karic, listening to her tossing and turning, lay awake as well. Only his supreme self-control held in check the fires smoldering in his body. She had asked for time. If the effort consumed him alive, he'd give it to her. Yet, though the sols spent with Liane eased some of his torment as she began to relax a little, the noctes only stirred anew his frustration and rising fear.

One nocte Karic awaited Liane outside their lair, having offered to take her for a walk through the valley after supper. He stood there, anxiously anticipating her reaction to the bouquet of wild-

flowers he'd left on the bed. He didn't have long to wonder.

Even in the sun's fading light he could see her small, confused frown as she strode from the cave. Liane wasted no time in confronting him.

"Did you leave me the flowers?"

"Yes." His glance swept her tense face. "Did I displease you in doing so?"

"Yes . . . I mean, no," she stammered. "Why? Why did you do it?"

He smiled and shrugged. "Because you're a lovely femina and deserve beautiful things. I thought you'd like them."

"Thank you." Liane forced the words out. "They're . . . wonderful. But please, Karic, no more. Don't give me anymore flowers."

He scowled. "Why not? You act as if I offended you. I don't understand."

Liane hesitated. Too many people were about, and her next words might anger Karic. It was better if as few as possible were privy to their personal differences.

She grasped his arm. "Let's walk a ways, where there's more privacy."

Karic nodded. They were barely out of the most populated part of the valley, however, before he halted.

"What's wrong, Liane?"

She hesitated, dreading that her next words would stir the old pain anew. But Liane forced herself on. It was better he harbor no further illusions.

"I may be wrong," she began, "but I see the flowers as an attempt to renew our friendship. Yet we can never be friends again, Karic. I told you before I'm afraid of you, can never fully trust you.''

"I'm not an animal, Liane!" he growled. "And
I've
told
you
before that one nocte doesn't constitute"

"Why do you persist in tormenting both of us?" she heatedly interjected. "Why can't you accept the fact that what was between us is over?"

"And why won't you listen to me? Let me explain?"

She blinked hard against the tears. "Because it won't change what happened, what you did to me. And because in some small part of me I
need
to hate you, if only a little, to keep the fire that is me alive.

"You almost broke my spirit that nocte." Liane forced herself to continue. "My hatred for you is the only thing that prevents me from shattering into a million pieces, never to be whole again.

"I'm sorry if that seems cruel or unfair," she whispered achingly, seeing the tormented look that burned in his eyes, "but it's all you left me, Karic. And I have to survive."

Powerful hands gripped her arms. "And do you know how that makes me feel?" Karic rasped. "Impotent, Liane. Helpless to do anything to make amends."

He gave her a small shake. "Don't you see what your hatred is doing? It not only punishes me but you as well. You've got to give it up. Let it die!"

A small, grim smile touched her lips. "And you forget I am Bellatorian. It's the only way we know how to fight."

Karic flung her away, as if she had suddenly burned him. "Curse your hard little Bellatorian heart!" he cried, his body rigid, his fists clenched at his side. Liane quailed at the fury emanating from him, wondering at the control it took to keep Karic from striking out at her. She had deeply hurt him, but the realization gave her no pleasure. A strange kind of hatred, Liane mused, to cause pain and yet not wish to.

But she needed that emotion to protect her, to harden her heart. Her hatred and her fear of him were emotions so deep she dared not examine them. Liane shook aside the unsettling thought.

"Let it go, Karic," she said, forcing a semblance of reason into her voice. "Let it go. Please. You'll tear us both apart if you continue like this."

He threw back his head, his eyes clenched shut, his features a mask of tortured anguish. "I can't, Liane. I just can't!"

She sighed and gently took his hand, uncurling the strong, tightly fisted fingers to thread them through hers. "Then at least no more flowers, Karic. I can't bear them, not from you."

His eyes opened, brimming with tears. "If that's what you want."

"It is."

Karic's hand tightened in hers as he pulled her forward, back onto the tree-lined path they'd been walking. A heavy sense of desolation settled over him. She was determined to fight him every step of the way, he grimly realized, thwarting every attempt at reconciliation.

Fear entwined itself about his heart. Their chances for a life mating were slowly disintegrating. His father had told him to give Liane time, but time was inexorably slipping away.

Flame-haired Kalina was becoming a problem. Though a full-blooded Cat Woman, she did not possess the hirsuteness of the men, and her feline features were exotic and sensual. She was a beauty, incomparably lovely with her golden, almond-shaped eyes and lithe, graceful limbs, a beauty desired by all the young males, yet she wanted only Karic.

Before the mission to Primasedes, before he'd met Liane, Karic had accepted that he must eventually life mate with Kalina. Until he'd met Liane he'd thought Kalina a beautiful if shallow specimen of the fairer sex. Like Devra he'd enjoyed her delights, giving as much pleasure as he received, but never finding any need to give his heart.

Kalina certainly hadn't appeared to notice the lack of it. Possessing his body and eventual title was enough for her. At the time, that had seemed a fair trade to Karica lusty bed partner and beauteous mate, eventual mother of his heirs, for all the respect and advantages as Lady of the Cat People. A fair trade indeeduntil Liane.

But Liane was different, a beguiling, an intriguing series of contrasts. The ever-developing facets of her personality captivated him. She was gentle goodness and wild spitfire, a courageously loyal friend and vulnerable beauty, trembling on the brink of passion's fulfillment. She alone had touched a tenderness and protectiveness he'd never known he possessed. And now, she was the only femina he'd ever take as mate.

Kalina, however, was just as determined that this would never be. She found ways to be with him at every opportunity, constantly interfering with Karic's efforts to introduce Liane to her new home. She was also the first to suspect that he and Liane weren't sleeping together.

Karic had just left the Council after horas spent in fruitless discussion over what to do about the Guide. Most of the Elders were set against trying to destroy the machine and its inventors, fearing the risks too great. Since there seemed no possibility of it ever being utilized on anything but an individual scale, and as it had little power over Cat Men, they felt they were in no danger. The Elders saw no point in risking their own people for any of the other Agrican nations, who had only half-heartedly supported the war against Bellator before surrendering.

Though Karic and his father argued that the Guide's potential dangers were too great to be ignored, they were eventually voted down. Once again, the Cat Men's highly emotional nature had prevailed against logic. Too angry to bear another moment in the Council chambers, Karic had stalked out, not really caring where he was headed as long as it was as far away as possible from those narrow-minded, short-sighted old men. He walked until he reached the orchard of cerasa trees, then flung himself down against one of the gnarled trunks. For long secundae he sat there, furious and frustrated.

"And what has angered our young lord," a husky feminine voice gently inquired, "to make him frown so?"

Kalina slipped down beside him, a delicate, long-fingered hand sliding soothingly across his chest. Her musky scent wafted over Karic as she edged closer to press her body upon his. New sensations assailed him, scattering his anger on the freshened breeze that suddenly blew through the orchard. In spite of himself, his body responded to the sensuous female, cuddling so invitingly against him.

His anger ebbed, replaced by a delicious new tension. For a moment Karic let himself savor it, closing his eyes and resting his head back against the tree. It felt so good to have a femina's hands on him again, hands that enjoyed the feel of him and wanted him. Kalina's fingers trailed lower, along the rippling muscles of his abdomen, slipping beneath his loincloth.

Karic's eyes snapped open. He quickly captured Kalina's hand and withdrew it. "No, femina," he softly said, "it cannot be."

"And why not?" she just as softly demanded. "You've enjoyed it before, were enjoying it even now. What harm is there in two healthy young animals mating?"

He returned her hand to her lap, his gaze steadily meeting hers. "Harm in letting you think there can ever be anything between us again. Harm in using you, when my heart desires another. And harm in betraying my commitment to her."

"What commitment?" Kalina snarled, enraged at his rejection. "You don't mate with her. Her scent is not on you and has never been since after that first sol you both arrived. And you never touch her when you're out together. So don't tell me there's anything of substance between you."

"We have things to work out, Kalina, but it changes nothing. I still mean to take her as life mate."

"And you're a fool if you think the Elders will allow it!" Her golden eyes glittered with a triumphant light. "Everyone has begun to talk about you two. That puny little Bellatorian doesn't even act as if she likes you, and the few times you've accidentally touched her, people have seen her pull away. There's talk it's your Cat's blood that disgusts her."

She paused to eye him consideringly. "Hardly behavior befitting a mate of the heir to the throne, wouldn't you say."

Karic fought against the surge of anger Kalina's words stirred in him, an anger tinged with the frustrating realization that her observations, at least in part, were true. Many were the times when Liane had recoiled from him, but he'd begun to suspect her reaction was more from fear of her own emotions than of him. But then perhaps that was his foolish heart misinterpreting everything.

Even more disturbing was the realization of how closely they were being watched, their interactions studied, and all of it to be collected as data for consideration when he came before the Council this very sol.

Kalina saw the uncertainty flicker in Karic's eyes. "You do her an unkindness to foster any hope of a life mating," she carefully pressed. "Better that you allow her to become acquainted with some of the other males, ones that the Council would favorably consider. Or else, if she desires no commitment for the time being, she might prefer to pick a temporary mate at the Festival."

The thought of Liane living with another male for the next three cycles, until the next Mating Festival, filled Karic with a wild rage. To give her up, to never know the pleasures of her body or her love, to watch another possess her, all that was more than he could bear. And what of his promise to her? He constantly had to endure the looks of recrimination, the bitter unhappiness everytime she looked at him.

"Both my brothers want her," Kalina silkily persisted. "Both good males, strong, brave and kind. Better to introduce her to them, allow her time to get to know them. It would ease her choice at the Festival." Karic turned ravaged eyes to her. "II don't know."

Detecting the small chink in his determination, she quickly pursued her advantage. "You do her a disservice by selfishly keeping her at your side all the time. At least permit her the opportunity to make up her own mind. In the end, isn't her happiness of primary importance?"

Yes, her happiness means everything to me, Karic silently replied. But the thought of it not being with him was beyond comprehension, beyond bearing.

He had promised her so muchprotection, as easy an introduction to life here as possible, the gratitude of his people. Yet the thing she most dreaded, a forced mating with a Cat Man, was becoming more and more of a reality. He wished he could just take her away from here to some safe place where she could begin her life anew, but that wasn't possible.

The laws of his people encompassed all who entered the valley, and once he'd brought Liane here that choice was no longer his to make. He was bound as firmly as she to the lawshard laws, but laws necessary to their continued survival. Perhaps it
was
better to let her meet some of the other males. Perhaps there was one who'd appeal to her.

Karic sighed. "Your words have merit, Kalina. I'll give them consideration."

"Yes, give them consideration, Karic," she said as she rose to her feet, "but don't tarry too long. The Mating Festival will soon be here. She'll need time to make up her mind."

He watched Kalina disappear into the trees. Then Karic turned back to his increasingly morose thoughts, back to what to do about Liane.