Runner's Moon Trilogy Megabook Series (28 page)

She gave him another small smile. He snorted and leaned over, propping his elbows on his knees. "Okay. Make yourself normal."

This time she made the transformation slower, so he wouldn't be as alarmed. Still, he gave a low whistle when she was finished. "That's gonna take some getting used to."

His simple remark was like a single star shining in the night, promising a sky full of stars. Swallowing around the tightness in her throat, Roni opened up to him.

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Roni went to sit on the chair across from the sofa. Crossing her arms over her stomach, she kept her eyes focused on his chest, on his hands and arms, and on his body posture. She couldn't look at his face, much less into his eyes. Her one star of hope continued to shine, and she was prepared to give everything she had to in order to fill the night with a galaxy of stars.

"Wh-what do you want to know?"

"For one thing, are you exerting some kind of power or something over me?"

She shook her head. "I have no 'power' other than what you've seen."

"Then what's this bond mate thing? Why do I have these

... feelings?" DeGrassi demanded.

She took a little sniff, searching for any sign that would tell her how he was reacting.

"And why are you always smelling me?" he added.

Roni licked her lips. Her mouth was so dry, but she didn't dare risk leaving to get a drink.

"Among my kind, when a male and female sense a connection with each other, they join to see if they are destined to be life partners."

"Join? You mean have sex?"

"Yes."

"Go on."

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She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "If their joining is meant to be, they become life partners. Bond mates. Their joining is far deeper and more meaningful than any sort of marriage your people practice here. Without a true joining, we cannot reproduce. Our females cannot bear children until we find our true life partners." She tried to raise her eyes to see his, but her courage failed her. "Do you understand now?"

She was vaguely aware of him shaking his head. "Not really, no. You have sex, and then you determine whether or not you're meant for each other. After that, you have a baby.

It doesn't sound too much different from what we do here on Earth," he argued, but gently. She could tell that, despite his doubts, he was trying to remain open-minded about everything.

"Oh, but it's very different. It's nothing like what your people do, Thomas," Roni insisted, lifting her head slightly.

"Without a true bonding, we cannot reproduce. Plain and simple. If I never bond with you, I will never be able to have children. Never. My body will not produce an egg if I have not joined with the man who is my life partner. And the same goes for you ... I mean, a Ruinos male cannot fertilize my egg unless we are life partners."

"See, that's the part I'm having a hard time understanding. How do you know I'm your life partner?"

The question brought another small smile to her lips.

"There are ... signs. The first is when life partners start to smell each other. And I don't mean any kind of cologne.

There's a very special, unique scent that both of us give off.

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It's not overpowering, but it's one that we like, that we enjoy.

It makes us want to be closer to that person so we can smell more of it." She snorted softly. "I was stunned when I first smelled you. It was like ... it was..." A shudder ran through her, forcing her to pause.

"It was like what? What do I smell like to you?"

"You smell like ... like baby powder ... only different. It's a very rich, very dark smell. Musky and masculine. It suits you." She could smell it now, coming off of him like heat from a fire. "I tried very hard to tell myself I was imagining it. I wanted so badly to believe it was impossible, especially after all these years. After all those..."

Her skin was tightening around her again. The pain was beginning to grow inside her chest, squeezing and suffocating her. Roni dropped her face and clutched her arms about herself even tighter.

"What are some other signs?" DeGrassi asked, as if he didn't notice her distress.

She sniffed and tried to clear her throat. "Mmm ... our males become very defensive and protective of their females.

It's instinctive. We are a strong family-oriented species. Our bond mates are our lives. Our children are the extension of that life. Protecting and caring for each other is paramount. I have seen this in you, Thomas. In the way you feel the urge to care for me. To help me. The fact that you came over here in the middle of the night to make sure I was all right."

"My species does that as well. It sure as hell doesn't mean I'm your bond mate," he told her, with an edge to his voice.

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"No, it doesn't," she agreed. "But if we should ever join, you'll understand then what I'm talking about."

Where she got the courage to finally look into his eyes, she didn't know or want to know. But there was no sense of brightness in those light blue depths. Nothing that would tell her he believed her. The sight of his strong face began to waver behind the veil of tears. "What do I smell like to you, Thomas?" she barely managed to whisper.

There was a long moment of silence that stretched between them. Finally, she heard his loud sigh. "You smell like maple syrup. Like sweet, hot syrup. But, Jesus Christ, Roni, why me? Why not one of your own?"

"I don't know," she admitted hoarsely. "I had given up on ever finding a bond mate. I never expected to find you. I never planned on falling in love with you. I never thought a man from this world would be able to have the kind of hold on me that you do." Moving smoothly until she stood before him, Roni faced him with her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides.

"I spent sixteen years aboard that Arran ship. The females of my species were dying out. A bonded couple can't be separated, Thomas. If they are separated, they both die. The bonded couples on the ship refused to reproduce and allow the Arra to sell their children as slaves or food. So the Arra tried to force the unbonded females into bonding, to replenish the population.

"I became a reproductive female when I was fourteen.

From that day until the time we revolted and escaped, the Arra forced a male of my race or one of a similar race into my 399

cell. I fought them, Thomas. Sometimes I killed them. But when I refused to join with them, I was tortured. After several months, I realized I might as well let the males have me. So I learned to give in. There was always pain, but it was never like the torture devices the Arra made me endure if I fought them."

The tears were pouring out of her, but she no longer cared. The hurt and anger and degradation she had been forced to endure for years were gushing like water over a broken dam. Roni stared at her hands with their long, thin, deadly talons. How many days had she been forced to lie inside her cell still covered with the remains of the male who had tried to harm her when he was dominating her?

"I don't understand," DeGrassi spoke up. "Your own males would try to hurt you?"

"No, no! A Ruinos male would never hurt me. No males of my kind could ever harm any female. They would turn on themselves before that happened. It is in their blood to defend their females."

"Then who or what kind of creatures were you forced to kill?"

Tiron shuddered with the memories she thought she had managed to suppress. "On some worlds, the Arra found humanoid creatures similar in body structure and size to us Ruinos. They tried to see if our species could interbreed." She pointedly glanced over him. "Males like you."

"But I thought you said you could only be a true life partner with one of your own?"

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"That's what I believed ... until I met you." She rubbed her arms, wishing she could walk over and soak in his warmth.

"Because our numbers were diminishing faster than they could be replaced, the Arra tried to see if other species were compatible. If it was possible to increase the population in other ways."

When he didn't comment, the silence threatened to drag on. Was he wondering how many she had copulated with? Or how many she had killed? Regardless, his quiet study of her was growing more difficult to tolerate, and she lowered her face.

"You want to condemn me for being a whore? Or for prostituting myself? Well, go ahead, Thomas. But I assure you, listening to their feeble grunts when they're on top of me is nothing like the horrors I had to subject myself to on that ship. The blow jobs and hand jobs are nothing. None of that, none of what I've done here to survive is me. It's not the real me. It's payment for this house. It's food to eat and a warm blanket during the winter."

Her head jerked up to confront him. "There were only three other unbonded females on that ship besides me. Like me, they were tortured and nearly destroyed. None of the unbonded males on our ship were meant to be our life mates.

We were close. The last of our race. But that special bond that would make us life partners was not there, and it can't be forced. So when we landed here, I had one thing left. I had my life. It was all I would ever have and all I ever expected. I had my freedom and my life ... but not happiness.

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Not love. We had to hide and hope we weren't discovered by you or by the Arra."

DeGrassi's face suddenly darkened. "Why do you say that?

I thought you said your people revolted against the Arra."

"We did, but we were just one of their transport ships. My species is very important to the Arra. We are their best source of income. Our meat is considered a delicacy to many interplanetary cultures. The Arra know that thirty-one of us escaped. We don't know if any of the others managed to get away, but the Arra are going to come looking for us. They're going to send scout ships to every possible planetary destination until they find us. Our only hope is that we manage to live whatever life we have left in relative peace and safety ... and happiness before they do."

Another full minute passed in silence. Outside, the sound of a screech owl filtered into the room.

"So were any of you, any of those thirty-one ... were any of you already bonded?" he asked.

Bananas. Its seductive, fruity scent began to waft through the room. Roni closed her eyes. "Six couples were newly bonded. They were the lucky ones. The rest of us were unbonded. Most of them were older males and females past bearing age. And there were several children not yet mature enough."

One of those intense headaches was beginning to tighten between her eyes and lash back behind her temples. Placing both hands to the spot on her skull where it hurt the worst and rubbing did nothing to lessen the pain. His caring scent grew thicker.

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"Roni. You've never taken a john in your, uhh, your true form, have you?"

The question made her laugh softly. "What do you think?"

"Okay. Tell me if I'm not getting this correctly. The Arra tried to force you to bond so you could have children, and thus keep up their supply. But you never met the person whom you knew would become your bond mate until you met me. Have I got that right?"

"That's right. I ... I never thought I would find my life partner on this world. I thought I would live out my remaining years alone. But at least I would be free and away from their cruelty. It was more than I expected."

"But if I join with you, it'll have to be in your true form?"

She looked up into his face. The air was filled with indecision and caring. But there were also traces of fear and wariness. Nowhere could she detect the odor of lemonade. Of his love.

"Yeah. Sorry."

A tightening spasmed behind her eyes. Roni clutched at her head, sucking in between her teeth.

"What's wrong?"

"I ... I haven't rested enough. My body is telling me it needs to sleep. To prepare itself for the next day. Thomas..."

Wiping her cheeks, she tried to face him, knowing this might be the last time she would ever have the chance. "I don't expect you—"

"What happens if we don't ... join?"

She knew he would ask that question sooner or later. "If we don't join, then eventually, from what I've been told, the 403

scent will lessen. It won't go away completely, but it will lessen enough to where it won't be as compelling as it is now.

Then we can go our own ways."

His eyebrows lowered. "And that will leave us free to find someone else?"

A shrug helped her to answer. "I don't know about you.

Maybe you'll be able to find another."

"That doesn't completely answer my question. Will it leave us free to find other bond mates? Will you be able to find someone else?"

Where were all these tears coming from? Her eyes were burning. Her face felt excruciatingly tight and hot.

"Th-there is no other for me, Thomas. If you reject me ...

there will be no other. My body will never accept another.

Your scent has marked me for life."

Either the headache or her tears were keeping the room fuzzy and off-kilter. Roni turned to go to the bedroom and stumbled slightly on one of the small area rugs. His hand was instantly at her elbow, helping her to keep from falling. The touch of his rough, calloused fingers was like a river of warmth flowing through her. She bit her lips to keep from crying out.

Once she made it to the doorway, Roni paused and waited for him to release her arm. DeGrassi stood there, watching.

"I'm sorry I haven't been able to explain it well enough for you to understand. I'm not that clear on the details myself.

I've never found another to love the way I love you. I don't know where any bonded females live, or I would go ask. But you must understand one thing, Thomas. I will love you now 404

until the end of my days, whether we are bonded or not. If you choose to leave because of what I am ... because of what I look like ... I will understand."

It was the last time she would ever see him. She knew it as well as she knew he would reject her. There was no longer any scent coming from him. Not caring or fear. Not curiosity or even that erotic baby powder smell.

Lifting her face, she gazed into his light-blue eyes, only to see her own reflection staring back—a bald, green-skinned alien with bright silver eyes glistening with tears.

"Good night, Thomas. Dio m'silat. It means 'go with my self.' When you leave, you'll be taking a part of me I will never get back, but I don't care." Somehow she managed a weak smile. "I found my life partner. I finally found you, and that means the Arra will never be able to have control over me ever again. I have been blessed."