“You two met under really bad circumstances,” Olivia said softly. “But I believe the Goddess put you together. Why else would you have been Dream-sharing? Why else would your body make your bonding scent for Ari?”
“I don’t know.” Lathe shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Nothing in my life has made sense since my brother died. I just wanted to avenge him and instead I met Ari and we got…entangled.”
“Just go talk to her tomorrow,” Olivia urged. “Get her to let you heal her—or at least try.” She smiled. “If what my sister, Sophia, tells me about a Blood Kindred’s bite is true, that should go a long way towards bringing you back together.”
Lathe felt the blood rush to his face, thinking of the way Ari had reacted to his bite in the past. He cleared his throat.
“As I said, I don’t believe she feels for me as…as I feel for her. But I will try to get her to let me heal her. If I can.”
“That’s all I ask,” Olivia said calmly. She bit her lip. “I’m sorry I slapped you. I just thought you were pushing her away because of your wounded pride.”
“That was part of it,” Lathe admitted. “But I would bond her to me in a heartbeat, pride or no pride, if I thought she really wanted me to. If I thought she felt as I do.”
Olivia smiled at him and headed for the office door.
“I think you might be surprised. Just keep an open mind and come visit her tomorrow morning around eleven. I’ll be sure she’s ready for you.”
“Thank you, I’ll be there,” Lathe said gravely as he saw her out the door. He didn’t for a moment think that Olivia was right in her assessment of the situation. But he was grateful to her for informing him of Ari’s condition.
He just hoped she would let him try to heal her.
Forty-Nine
“Oh Liv, is that you again?” Ari called from the bathroom as she heard the door to her exam room open. The privacy curtain was up so she couldn’t see her friend. “Thank you so much for the new clothes you brought over. I feel so much better dressed than wearing that awful gown. You were right—nobody can feel normal in a hospital johnny.”
She looked at herself in the viewer, twirling slightly from side to side to see the pretty red dress swirl around her thighs. It was a bit big on Ari but that was fine. The lacy white underwear Liv had sent with the dress fit fine but the stranger upper garment—Liv had called it a bra—didn’t work at all. Which was just as well since the slightly too-large top of the dress had a tendency to slide off her shoulder on one side, which would have shown the lacy straps.
Ari was content to go without it, though the thin red fabric was a bit clingy around her breasts and nipples. It felt good just to be wearing something pretty again. The new outfit was the most feminine thing she’d put on in ages—a vast improvement over the awful blue and orange striped prison jumpsuit. In fact, the dress was so pretty she could almost ignore the layer of white bandages that covered the side of her neck.
Almost.
She still had her prison ID implanted in the hollow of her throat, but Yipper could take that out when he did the other surgery. Ari had been wearing it so long she barely even noticed it anymore.
“I know you’ve come to try and make me change my mind,” she continued, as she turned to leave the bathroom. “But I’ve decided to let Yipper do what has to be done. I just don’t think that Lathe wants anything to do with me and I won’t—” She trailed off abruptly when she opened the privacy curtain and saw who was standing there.
Not Liv at all, but Lathe.
“Hello, Ari,” he said in a low voice. He was wearing what Ari had come to think of as the “Kindred Uniform”—a long-sleeved shirt made of some heavy satiny material and black leather trousers tucked into high black boots. Over this he was also wearing a white doctor’s coat. The pale blue of the shirt brought out the turquoise of his eyes and the look on his face was quiet and serious.
“Lathe!” Ari put a hand instinctively to the side of her neck, trying to hide the ugly white bandages. “What…what are you doing here?”
“I came to ask your forgiveness,” he said quietly. “And to ask if you’ll let me try to heal you.”
“Heal me? Who told you I needed healing?” she demanded.
“Do you?” Lathe took a step towards her, his eyes scanning over her body and then back up to her neck.
Ari wondered if he thought she was pretty in the new red dress and then got angry at herself for wondering it.
“I’m fine,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “So you can just…just go.”
“Not until I at least examine you.” He took another step forward, his hand outstretched. “May I?”
Ari bit her lip. She knew what he would see if he lifted the bulky white bandages because she had dared to peak under them herself.
What she had seen had almost made her cry.
A web of ugly black lines radiated out from the spot under her ear where Tapper’s knife had nicked her. They ran like rivers of midnight water up the side of her face and over her scalp as well as down her neck, all the way to her collar bone in the front and her shoulder blade in the back. Slowly but surely the corruption was spreading. She would probably have to go under the knife today before the affected area got any bigger.
“Please, Ari,” Lathe murmured when she didn’t answer him. “Please let me see.”
“It…it’s really ugly,” she said at last in a low, choked voice.
“Nothing about you could ever be ugly to me.” Lathe’s voice was slightly hoarse. “Please, little one…trust me.”
The use of his old nickname for her took Ari by surprise and put her off her guard.
“Well…” She shrugged. “I guess it couldn’t hurt for you to just look.”
“Thank you for trusting me. Will you sit on the bed, please, so I can examine you?” He indicated the high hospital bed and Ari went and perched on it. Doctor Sylvan had ordered some kind of 24/7 numbing treatment for the pain so she didn’t even flinch when Lathe reached up and pulled the bandages aside.
Ari waited unhappily to see a look of disgust on is face but his expression was carefully neutral. At last he nodded and replaced the bandage.
“Well?” Ari couldn’t stand it anymore. She needed to know his opinion of her situation.
“It is…a bad case of corruption,” Lathe admitted. “Possibly the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“So you can’t heal it, right? Doctor Sylvan didn’t think you could.”
“I don’t know if I can or not,” Lathe said honestly. “But I would like the opportunity to try.”
“You don’t have to,” Ari said quickly. “I mean I know…know how you feel about me.”
“Do you?” Lathe gave her a penetrating look. “You know, somehow I doubt that. Will you let me try to heal you? It is, after all, my fault you were wounded in the first place.”
“Your fault?” Ari looked at him incredulously. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Of course not.” His eyes glowed briefly. “I should have protected you from getting cut in the first place. My honor demands that I heal you.”
Ari bit back a sigh. She’d been hoping that he might talk as he had that night in the cell—say that he had feelings for her. That he wanted to heal her because he loved her.
Stop wishing for the impossible, she told herself angrily.
“Lathe, it wasn’t your responsibility to protect me,” she said at last.
“I disagree.” He frowned. “But no matter whose fault it was, since you’re aboard the Mother Ship where I am a doctor, it is my responsibility to heal you.
Ari bit her lip.
“I don’t…don’t understand why you even want to try. You were going to leave and never see me again. You hate me for lying to you.”
“I could never hate you, little one.” There was rough tenderness in his voice as he reached to cup her cheek. “Please, Ari—let me at least try.”
“Well…” Ari looked up at him uncertainly
. “Do you…do you really think you can?”
“I don’t know,” Lathe said honestly. “Normally my essence can heal almost anything but whatever poison Tapper used was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I studied the chemical composition from your biopsy—it’s uniquely effective and very aggressive. But if I have even the slightest chance of being able to heal you, well…that’s a chance I need to take, little one. ”
His use of the sweet nickname at last melted Ari’s uncertainty.
“All right,” she said in a low voice. “But not here. There are all kinds people going back and forth outside the door and you know how it is for me when you…when you bite me.” She felt the hot blood rushing to her cheeks. “I can’t…I might not be able to keep my voice down.”
“Yes, I understand.” Lathe nodded gravely. “Would you like to go somewhere more private? My suite perhaps?”
“Yes, I…I guess that would be okay. At least I’m dressed to go out.” Ari nodded down at the red dress she was wearing.
“Yes, so I see.” Was there a hungry note in Lathe’s deep voice? “You look lovely,” he murmured. “And extremely feminine.”
“Well it helps that I’m not dressed in a baggy blue and orange striped jumpsuit,” Ari pointed out, trying to lighten the tension that had somehow grown up between them. “Which is all you’ve ever seen me in.”
“You looked beautiful even in the BleakHall jumpsuit,” Lathe said quietly. “Always beautiful to me, Ari.”
“Thank you.” Ari looked down at her hands. “Um, should we tell anyone we’re going?”
“I’ll inform Nurse Olivia on our way out of the med center,” Lathe murmured. “She can note in your chart that we’re trying an ‘alternative treatment method’ away from the exam room.”
Alternative treatment method—right… Ari shivered again when she thought of the incredible, overwhelming pleasure his bite brought her. Was she crazy to be agreeing to this? Surely he was only offering to try and heal her because he felt guilty. Probably letting him give her such intense pleasure—letting him make her come—was only going to make her feel worse when he inevitably turned his back on her and walked away again.
But Ari couldn’t help it—even though she knew it was a bittersweet pleasure that would end all too soon, she couldn’t help wanting to be with the big Kindred one more time. To feel his hands and mouth on her body—even if it was just to sink his fangs into her flesh.
I want to be with him just one more time, she told herself as Lathe ushered her out of the exam room, one large hand at the small of her back. It doesn’t matter if I’ll never see him again after that. I just want to be with him.
Resolutely, she pushed every doubt and worry she had over the situation out of her head and let Lathe lead her out of the med center to his suite.
Fifty
Lathe’s living quarters were bachelor-neat with no paintings or art work on the walls and no decorative touches around the room. Ari wasn’t much for knick-knacks or frou-frou like fancy throw pillows but she thought it could use a woman’s touch. For instance if she lived here the walls wouldn’t be bare. She liked to have pictures and artwork to look at when she was thinking in the lab—it inspired her creativity.
Then she caught herself and realized what she was doing—imagining how it would be if she and Lathe lived together as a couple.
Don’t be stupid, Ari, she told herself. You’re only here so he can try to heal you in private—that’s all. So you might as well stop mentally redecorating his home in your head—it’s never going to happen.
“Please, have a seat.” Lathe gestured to a large, comfortably looking couch built to Kindred proportions sitting in front of a fireplace. But instead of wood or logs, the bottom of the grate appeared to be filled with large blue crystals.
“Thank you—do you build fires a lot? Aren’t the fumes produced difficult to vent in a space ship?” Instead of sitting, Ari went to examine the silver mesh screen in front of the fireplace with interest.
“I wondered the same thing when I first came to the Mother Ship,” Lathe admitted. “But actually, it’s a clean-burning flame that produces only heat and light—no fumes of any kind. See those crystals? They’re Denarian fire rocks—all you have to do is apply a spark and…” He pressed a button on one side of the mantelpiece over the fireplace and the crystals caught at once and began emitting blue and green and gold flames.
“Oh!” Ari exclaimed in delight. “That’s fascinating. I wondered how it was practical to have a fireplace in a space ship but that makes perfect sense.”
“All the suites have them,” Lathe told her. “Apparently the Earth females find them…” He cleared his throat. “Romantic.”
“I can see how they might think that.” Ari shrugged, trying to look unconcerned and went back to sit on the couch. “For myself, I was just interested in the mechanics of it. I love to know how things work.”
“Is that how you became an inventor?” Lathe raised an eyebrow and went to sit beside her. “How you came up with your, uh—what did you call it? Your solid-holo projector?”
“Oh yes, the look/touch.” Ari felt the warm blood rising in her cheeks. “Lathe, I just want to say again how sorry I am about…about what I made you think about me and about yourself. I never meant to lie to you—”
“It’s all right.” He raised a hand to stop her. “I am over my wounded pride.”
“Um…you are?” Ari raised her eyebrows at him in surprise.
Lathe nodded. “I was recently reminded that as bad as BleakHall was for me, it must have been doubly terrifying for you. I don’t blame you for being afraid to tell me the truth about yourself.”
Relief washed through her.
“Thank you,” she said earnestly. “Thank you for accepting my apology.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Lathe said seriously. “I’m afraid I can be a bit…stubborn at times.”
“I am too,” Ari admitted, remembering how determined she’d been not to even let him try to heal her. Speaking of the healing though… “Should…should we get started?” she asked Lathe. “I mean, with you, um, biting me?”
She could feel the blood rising in her cheeks as she spoke. Goddess, it was really embarrassing but just the thought of having those sharp fangs sinking into her flesh again was already making her feel wet and hot between her thighs.
“Yes, that is why we are here.” He nodded and then frowned. “I just have to find the right place to bite and inject my healing essence.”
“You…you’re not going to bite my neck are you?” Ari asked, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. “Doctor Sylvan has prescribed some numbing cream for the, uh, injured side but I still don’t like the idea of getting bitten there. And the other side of my neck is really tender too.” She hoped that didn’t mean the corruption was spreading but she was afraid it did.
“Hmm…” Lathe frowned. “That presents a unique problem. “I had intended to bite the unaffected side of your neck—there are plenty of big blood vessels there to carry my essence straight to your heart and circulate to the rest of your body.”
“Isn’t there anywhere else you can bite instead?” Ari asked anxiously.
“Well…” He sighed. “There is but you might not like it.”
“Just tell me,” Ari said. “Where else could you bite me?”
“The second-best place would probably be on your inner thigh area—the inguinal crease,” Lathe spoke reluctantly. “The femoral artery is located there and it’s very large and fast-flowing—it should be able to handle the amount of essence I’ll need to inject you with.”
Ari’s heart started beating faster.
“So…you want to, uh, bite me between my legs?” She couldn’t help remembering the last time he’d been between her thighs, when he was covering her scent with his own.
“Not directly between your legs,” Lathe hastened to assure her. “Just at the place where your thigh meets your torso.” He cleared his throat
. “You could, of course, keep your undergarments on. And I would promise not to do anything…improper.”
Like licking my pussy until I pull your hair and moan? Ari thought dryly but didn’t say. The very idea of saying it out loud made her feel nervous and hot.
“O…okay,” she managed to get out at last, then she realized he was watching her with those gorgeous turquoise eyes of his, waiting for an answer. “I guess as long as you…as you promise not to…not to do anything improper.”
“Of course not,” Lathe said seriously. “So then…should we begin?”
As he spoke he removed his white doctor’s jacket and slipped off the couch, kneeling at her feet Clearly he was waiting for her to let him in.
“Oh, um…” Blushing so hard her face felt hotter than the fire, Ari took the unspoken hint and obeyed, parting her thighs.
Lathe moved between her legs and lifted the flirty red skirt of her dress but for a moment he just sat there—staring not at her panties but at her face.
“Thank you, Ari,” he murmured. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“You…you’re welcome,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Now spread your legs wide for me and just relax. I promise not to take too long.”
Ari did as he said. Leaning back against the plush back of the big leather sofa, she parted her thighs, trying not to think about what had happened the last time she’d been in this position for him.
“Just relax,” Lathe repeated softly. He ran his big, warm hands up her thighs, making Ari shiver as his gentle touch seemed to set her on fire. “Gods, you’re lovely,” he murmured as he touched her. “Forgive me—I know that’s not very professional of me to say but I can’t help it. Your skin is so smooth and soft.”
“Th-thank you,” Ari stuttered, feeling hot and cold all over at the same time. “I…I don’t mind you, uh, saying that.”