Purity

  He left the fresher and settled in the sleeping platform beside her. She was obviously asleep but she gave a soft sigh and rolled over toward him. Pressing her face to his chest, she curled up against him like a sleepy kitten.

  Boone stroked her long black hair and felt his heart swell. Yes, he could definitely teach her to love. He was sure of it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  K woke up with a delicious sensation of warmth from her fingertips all the way down to her toes. When she opened her eyes, she realized why—her body was pressed full length against Boone’s. They were touching from chest to thigh, completely entangled with each other.

  One short solar month ago, waking up in such a situation would have horrified her. Now she felt comforted and content—well rested for the first time in days.

  She snuggled closer to the sleeping Boone and took a blissfully deep breath, breathing in his warm, masculine scent. It wasn’t quite time to get up yet. Maybe they could sleep a little while longer cocooned in each other’s warmth. Her eyes were just about to slip closed when they fell on her skinsuit lying discarded on the floor.

  Purity! She sat up, untangling herself hurriedly. The suit didn’t even twitch—it had no ability to move on its own—but it still seemed to stare at her accusingly. It couldn’t speak either but K knew what it would say if it could.

  What’s the matter with you, lying on the sleeping platform with the enemy, reveling in filth? Actually enjoying contamination. Are the years of teaching and training you went through to become a fourth level Paladin so easily lost and forgotten? Didn’t you swear to kill him the moment you could? To kill him and purge yourself?

  Yes. Yes, she had promised all that. Hardly knowing what she was doing, K got out of the sleeping platform and went to crouch naked over the discarded suit. Hesitantly, she picked it up off the floor. It seemed to writhe in her hand and she almost dropped it again but something made her hold on.

  The suit wasn’t just a shed skin—it represented her entire past. Years of training and hard work which she was throwing away and for what? The pleasure of Boone’s touch? Was she really so far gone that she would do anything, give up everything, just to be close to him? An Impure male she hadn’t even known a month ago—a male who had killed her entire purge crew?

  And what would happen once they recovered Boone’s sister? Would he decide he had no more use for her and leave her? Maybe he would tell her again to go join the Tainted—those Paladins who had left Purity but refused to purge themselves. And what would K be left with? Nothing but bittersweet memories and regret.

  The skinsuit had mostly external weapons—like the plasma gauntlets that she’d worn to kill Sweetie. But it did have a few other emergency armaments that weren’t visible to the naked eye. K suddenly found one of these in her hands now—a short, sharp curving blade made of tempered Pembla steel. It was kept in the sleeve of the suit, a safeguard in case the Paladin wearing it had to purge him or herself suddenly and without warning. One swift slice of the super sharp blade could sever the jugular, insuring almost instant death.

  K held the blade up, studying it by the dim glow coming from the ceiling. There was no morning or night in space but the lights had been configured to a standard twenty-four hour day and so they brightened gradually in the morning and dimmed just as gradually at night. The growing light caught the curved blade and reflected a beam of radiance into her eyes, blinding K for a moment.

  “K?” Boone’s deep voice made her look up. “K?” he asked again. “Are you all right?”

  K looked up and realized what she must look like to him. She was crouched naked on the floor, holding her skinsuit in one hand and a lethal weapon in another. The look on Boone’s face was uncertain and worried.

  “I’m fine.” She made herself put the blade back in the suit and then folded it neatly and put it on a nearby chair. “Just…thinking.”

  “About what?” He patted the spot beside him on the sleeping platform. “Come back to bed and tell me.”

  K came back and sat beside him, being careful to keep some space between them. She pulled the sheet around herself, creating a barrier, making sure he couldn’t touch her.

  Clearly her actions weren’t lost on Boone.

  “Come on, darlin’—don’t be like that,” he murmured, sitting up beside her. “Look at me.” When she wouldn’t, he tried to cup her chin.

  K jerked away from his touch. “Don’t.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked softly. “Are you regretting last night? Letting me touch you? Letting me make you come?”

  “Yes…no…” K shook her head. “I don’t know. I just feel like…”

  “Like what?” he prodded gently when she didn’t go on.

  “Like it shouldn’t be so easy,” K burst out. “To give up years of hard work and training. To abandon all my beliefs. All because it feels good when you touch me.”

  “I’ve been touching you for weeks now, K,” he pointed out in a low voice.

  “Yes, but not like this. Not like…” K shook her head. “I know I asked you to and I wanted you to. But I shouldn’t have wanted it. Shouldn’t have taken…so much pleasure from it.”

  “You had to have pleasure,” Boone said. “It was the only thing that could stop your pain. Are you telling me you’d rather still be in agony?”

  “I should prefer pain to pleasure. Nothingness to emotion.” K looked down at her hands. “But…you’ve changed me, Boone. Being with you, touching you…I have all these feelings inside and they’re all about you.”

  “I have feelings for you too, K,” he said and his deep voice was warm and gentle. “Deep feelings. I’m sorry I had to touch you last night. Your cycle…I think it pushed us into doing something we should have waited on. Would have waited on if we could have. But just because you needed to be touched and I had to touch you doesn’t mean I didn’t want to do it.”

  “You did?” She gave him a quick glance from the corner of her eye.

  “Of course I did. Holding you in my arms, touching you, making you come…it was perfect. Didn’t it feel good to you too?”

  “Too good,” K muttered. “I can’t remember ever feeling so relaxed, so…”

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “So safe,” K whispered. “So protected.”

  “So loved,” Boone murmured. He tilted her chin up again and this time K let him. When his lips brushed lightly over hers, she kissed him back—kissed him despite the accusing black stare of the skinsuit lying folded on the chair to her left. Purity, she knew she shouldn’t give in to emotion but it felt so good—too good to stop.

  “Boone,” she murmured between kisses. “I don’t know about that…about love.”

  “It’s okay, darlin’. I’ll teach you.”

  K was beginning to feel the urges growing in her again, possibly brought on by the intimate contact. It reminded her of what was happening today—they were finally going to get to Eros and then her cycle would be in full swing. What was going to happen to her? Would she really be attracted to some other male—someone who wasn’t Boone? The thought still gave her a crawling sensation all over her body.

  No, it can’t be, she told herself uneasily. Boone is the only one I want—the only one I can stand to have touch me. Nothing can change that. I won’t let it.

  Her eyes fluttered open, she looked up at him and realized that the lights in their room were fully on. The artificial dawn of the ship was over—it was day and time to get up.

  “Boone,” she whispered.

  “Mmm-hmm?” His eyes were still closed but he opened them to look at her. “K, I—” He frowned and his eyes widened.

  “What is it?” K asked, suddenly worried at his expression. Purity but she hated having so many emotions all the time!

  “Your eyes…” He cupped her chin and studied her carefully.

  K sighed, a dull resignation overcoming her.

  “Have I lost the last blackness of Purity? Is it all gone?”

  ?
??It’s gone all right.” Boone was still staring at her intently. “But your eyes…”

  “What? What’s wrong with them?” K demanded.

  “There’s nothing wrong—they’re beautiful. I always wondered what color they’d be but this…I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Let me see. I have to see.” K jumped off the sleeping platform and went to examine herself in the viewer hanging over the sink in the fresher. Leaning forward, she looked at her reflection in disbelief.

  The woman reflected in the viewer was so different than what she would have seen one standard month ago when she first came aboard Boone’s ship that K almost didn’t recognize herself. Gone were the flat, sexless planes of her body, replaced by full breasts and curving hips. Her long black hair was free of its normal braid to hang in wild waves down her bare back and her face looked softer somehow—more vulnerable. Less stern and hard…more open and free.

  But it was her eyes that had changed the most.

  K stared at them in the viewer—they had gone from the almost solid black on black of Purity to the light on white of the Impure. Not so light, actually—her irises were now a brilliant violet. But instead of being one solid color like Boone’s or Mom’s, she had a golden ring around her outer iris like Loki’s. Not just one ring though, she saw, leaning forward. There was another golden ring in the center of her iris and a third circling the black dot of her pupil.

  “Purity,” she whispered. “I look…”

  “Beautiful,” Boone finished for her, coming into the fresher to stand behind her. “Exotic. Amazing. Your new eyes…they take my breath away, K. Who knew you were hiding such gorgeous peepers under all that black?”

  “But are they normal?” K stepped back from the viewer and turned to face Boone. “Or is there something wrong with me? Some genetic defect whoever mixed my genes—”

  “Don’t start that,” he said firmly. Putting both hands on her shoulders, he steered her out of the fresher. “You’re perfect, K. I’m sure it’s just a small variation in the Erian DNA. After all, Loki’s got that same gold ring around his eyes.”

  “Yes, but I have three of them. Three rings,” K protested. “Surely that can’t be normal. I—”

  Just then the door burst open to reveal Loki slouching against the doorway.

  “Damn it, Loki!” Boone hurried to get a sheet from the sleeping platform and draped it around K. “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”

  “No time for knocking—we’re in orbit around Eros and I am going to go find myself a man. Maybe several men.” Loki preened. “And don’t bother covering up Princess Paladin because you know I don’t have any interest in…in…”

  “Yes, we know—you’re not interested in female anatomy,” Boone growled. “But there is such a thing as modesty and…Loki, what’s wrong?”

  Loki was still standing just in the doorway but his lazy slouch had turned tense and he was staring at K, his gold ringed eyes wide.

  “What is it?” she demanded in irritation. “Are you going to lecture me again about how I killed your partner? Save your time and go find another one instead.”

  Loki’s mouth worked as he stared at her—he seemed to be having trouble speaking.

  “Princess,” he managed to get out at last.

  “Stop calling me that,” K snapped. “I’m tired of your sarcasm. I’m not a—”

  “Princess!” Loki suddenly fell prostrate at her feet and pressed his forehead to the floor. “Forgive me! Forgive me, Princess. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Well this is just ridiculous,” Boone muttered, staring out at the huge crowd and the richly uniformed Erian soldiers who had been sent to meet them. They were standing on the gangplank of the ship which was currently docked in the main bay of Lunestra, the capital city of the entire planet. Loki was on one side, preening for the crowd and bowing to everyone and K was on his other side, keeping well back and away from the press of people crowding around them.

  For the life of him, Boone couldn’t understand how it had all happened so quickly. But of course, the whole thing was Loki’s fault. From the moment Boone had finally dragged him up from his prostate position on the floor of the sleeping quarters, the pilot had been babbling about a stolen princess and the blessed triple rings.

  Loki had been falling all over himself to apologize to K and kept calling her princess until Boone was afraid she might pull out the wickedly curved blade he’d seen her with that morning and slit the effete pilot from groin to gizzard. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t far from wanting to gut Loki himself—the moment they finally got rid of him and got some peace, Loki had apparently jumped on the communicator and blabbed everything to anyone who would listen. Which had resulted in the current crowded conditions outside their ship.

  Boone’s main impulse was to turn around and go back into the ship but they couldn’t stay there forever, especially not with K entering her cycle. Also, he had an uneasy feeling they wouldn’t be allowed to go back. The Erian soldiers had on gorgeous, flamboyant uniforms but they were still armed to the teeth. Somehow Loki had managed to involve the local government as well as drawing a crowd.

  “Boone,” K whispered at his back. “What do they want? What are they all talking about and why are they all staring at me?”

  “Got no idea, darlin’,” he murmured. “But don’t worry—just stick close to me. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “I can protect myself,” she objected sharply. But Boone noticed that when he took her hand, she didn’t try to pull away. In fact, she entwined their fingers and held on tight, pressing close as though she wanted to disappear into his shadow.

  It wasn’t surprising that such a loud, vibrant crowd would upset her, he thought. Though the Purists’ home world of Athena was densely populated, it could hardly be described as a party planet—at least to hear K tell it. And everyone knew that the most frightening thing about the Purist Paladin squads was the way they fought in almost total silence, like a well oiled machine whose parts didn’t even have to speak to each other to work effectively.

  In contrast the crowd greeting them on Eros was loud, rowdy and colorful. Everywhere he looked Boone saw painted faces, gaudy costumes and outrageous hairstyles. Both men and women wore make-up and jewelry aplenty. The whole scene reminded Boone of old vids he’d seen of Earth-that-was documenting an ancient street celebration. What was the name of it again? Oh yes—Marti Gras.

  Suddenly an elaborate gold and purple coach rolled to a stop a few hundred feet from the ship’s gangplank. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, right down to the prancing white horses with plum colored plumes attached to their bridles. The animals snorted and stamped their hooves which glittered in the bright Eros sunshine. Boone stared at them—did they actually have on golden horse shoes?

  Before he could consider the extravagant display, two footmen in gold and purple livery jumped down from the back of the coach and put long silver trumpets to their mouths. A trilling fanfare rang out and the crowd’s babble fell to a dull roar as a sense of excited expectation filled the air.

  Boone couldn’t take much more. “Loki,” he muttered in his pilot’s ear. “What exactly did you bring down on us? What is all this pomp and circumstance bullshit?”

  “Isn’t it amazing?” Loki looked at him, his eyes shining. “I have a cousin who works in the royal palace who knows the under-gardener, who fucks the chambermaid, who’s best friends with the empress’s hairdresser, who of course, has the empress’s ear. So I was able to get word to her almost at once.”

  “Get word of what?” Boone wanted to strangle his friend out of sheer frustration. “Just what the hell did you tell them?”

  Loki frowned. “Why, that K is the lost princess, of course. What else?”

  “Lost princess? What are you talking about?” Boone demanded. But just then an officious little man with a pointed blue goatee which matched his elaborately tailored waistcoat and trousers came
prancing up the gangplank.

  “Ahem.” He came to a stop in front of Boone and nodded his head. “I am Pontillius Grabar, her majesty’s Grand Viceroy and I am here to see the one claiming to be the lost princess.”

  “Nobody’s claiming anything,” Boone growled. He could feel K shivering behind him, overcome by the noise and the crowds, and a wave of protective possessiveness washed over him. She hadn’t asked for any of this, damn it!

  “Oh, yes they are—we are, I mean.” Loki stepped forward and made an elaborate bow which the little man with the blue beard barely acknowledged. “I believe that this female…” He pointed to K who was still standing behind Boone. “Is in fact and indeed the princess who was stolen from her room in the royal palace so many years ago.”

  “Is that so?” The little man frowned. “You had better be correct, my dear fellow. The empress had been searching for years for her one and only daughter and she does not take disappointment well.”

  Loki went pale. “You won’t be disappointed, your eminence, I swear it. Just look at her—look at her eyes.”

  “Very well.” The Grand Viceroy beckoned to K. “Come here, my dear. Come out where I can see you.”

  For a moment Boone thought she wasn’t going to come. Then she stepped out from behind him, head held high, and took a step forward.

  “I am no princess,” she said clearly, her voice rising above the murmur of the crowd. “I am a fourth class Paladin.”

  An excited murmur ran among the crowd, people picking up K’s words and passing them along. A Paladin—she says she’s a Paladin. What—you mean like a Purist? Oh my Goddess, the lost princess is a Purist!

  The Grand Viceroy stared at her for a long time before speaking.

  “You may have been raised as a Paladin, my dear, but you most certainly were not born one. We will have to have some DNA tests to be for certain, but I believe that you are the one we have been looking for.”