* * * * *
K felt like her heart was going to burst as she walked down the corridor. She couldn’t stop seeing the pain in Boone’s eyes, hearing the agony in his voice when she told him she was leaving and never coming back.
I had to, she told herself over and over again. I can’t stay with him and expect him to give up touching and love and sex and everything he wants so I can train the suit for five long years. And I can’t take the suit off because I’ll kill him. This is for the best. It’s the only way.
But if it was all for the best, then why did her chest feel so tight? Why were her eyes stinging with unshed tears?
K fought grimly to keep them back. She was almost out of here, almost to the airlock where the small shuttle Hesler had loaned her was docked and waiting for her return. She only had to keep up this ruse a little while longer and then, the minute she was safely locked inside the shuttle, she could give in to the emotions that were threatening to drown her.
If only I could have hugged him one more time…felt his hands on me, his mouth on mine just once more…
K pushed the thought away savagely. There was no point in entertaining such useless wishes. But she couldn’t push aside the emotions they engendered quite so easily. Love and longing and loss flooded her, making it hard to think, hard to move, hard to breathe, when she just wanted to sink down and die right here in the middle of the hallway.
Purity but it hurt to feel—hurt so much.
“K,” she heard Boone shout and knew he was coming after her. She couldn’t go through another scene with him and maintain her composure—she just couldn’t. Walking faster, she tried to keep ahead of him.
When I get back to the Tainted ship I’ll have Hesler start the training on my suit right away, K swore to herself. I’ll do what he does—turn off the emotion. I’ll never let myself feel ever again, not if it means feeling like this.
Suddenly, a strange, high-pitched sound came echoing down the corridor.
K turned, her hand automatically going to her hip and the hilt of her blaster. But before she could draw it, something small and incredibly fast was under her feet.
She tried to keep her footing but the thing was too quick for her—just a blur of motion. And then another one joined it. K couldn’t help herself. Suddenly graceless, she found herself falling.
“Purity!” she gasped. “What—?”
But before she could finish her sentence she was flat on her back. Then one of the things attacking her pounced on her chest.
Chapter Thirty-one
Boone stood in the doorway for a long moment, shoulders slumped, eyes burning. God…to think he had lost her just like that. How was it even possible? How could it be that they had gotten to her in time to keep her from getting purged—killed—and he had still lost her?
Slowly, his head came up.
“No,” he growled, his voice thick with rage. “No, I don’t fucking accept this. I can’t fucking accept this. K,” he shouted, striding after her down the metal corridor. “If you think I’m going to just let you walk out of here, walk out of my life forever without—”
His words were interrupted by a thumping sound and a muffled exclamation of pain. Then he heard K yelling something and…was that barking? What the hell was going on?
Boone broke into a run. He rounded the corner and skidded to a stop when he saw K lying on her back on the floor with something small and furry dancing all over her chest. Another animal just like it was prancing around her feet.
“K?” he asked, bewildered. “What the hell…?”
“They tripped me.” Her black-on-black eyes were wide. “The first one ran right under my feet and tripped me so this one could jump on me!”
“Oh, you naughty boys!” Mom came racing up the hallway, completely out of breath. “I’m sorry, Boone!” she gasped, panting. “I know I shouldn’t have taken them but we were halfway from Minotaur when I found them hiding under my bed and then they were so sweet and quiet I just couldn’t bear to give them up. Really, they’ve been no trouble at all until just now but when they heard K’s voice on board again they just seemed to go crazy. Especially that one.”
She pointed at the small furry animal enthusiastically licking K’s face.
Finally Boone’s stunned eyes made sense of what he was seeing. He took a closer look at the tiny furry animals with their big pointed ears and bushy tails and understood.
“The voxes!” He bent down to scoop up the excited little creature still prancing around K’s outstretched legs. It immediately began bathing his face with its long pink tongue. Its eyes whirled like jewels, flashing colors at him—deep gray, muddy brown, angry black…
My feelings, he realized suddenly. It’s showing everything I feel. And right now he felt gutted—completely destroyed and enraged at the thought of losing K.
K!
Quickly he turned to her. The vox she was holding on her chest looked up at him and howled mournfully. Its eyes spun even more quickly than the eyes of Boone’s vox. Stormy bluish-gray, bruised purple, sickly green…the vox’s eyes registered everything she felt.
And what she was feeling was a far cry from nothing.
Suddenly K seemed to realize she was being watched.
“What are you doing? Why are you staring at me?” she asked sharply, scrambling to her feet with the howling vox still in her arms.
Boone gave her a long look. “I always said these little guys told on you, didn’t I? That’s why you didn’t like them.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“You know what I’m talking about.” He reached out with a free hand and cupped her flushed cheek. “K…”
“Boone, I…” Her voice began to tremble and a single tear escaped one of her black-on-black eyes. She brought her hand up to his. “Oh, Purity, I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I…I…thought…”
Boone took the vox from her gently and handed both of the yipping little creatures back to Mom. “Here. Take them away—K and I have to talk. Really talk this time.”
“I don’t…I can’t…” K protested as he led her back toward his quarters.
“You can and you will.” Boone closed the door and sat her firmly on the sleeping platform. “Now talk. And this time don’t lie to me about what you feel. This time tell me the truth.”
* * * * *
“I don’t know what you expect me to say.” K looked away from him, her insides churning. To be caught in her lie so easily! To be told on by those yipping little creatures she’d warned Boone about back on Minotaur! If only…
“I expect you to say you love me,” he said softly. “Because I love you and I think—I hope—you feel the same way.”
“I told you…” K took a deep breath. “I don’t even know what love is.”
“Then just tell me how you’re feeling—what you’re feeling. Right now. And don’t lie and say nothing,” he said sternly. “We both know that isn’t true.”
“All right.” K’s shoulders slumped. “But it won’t change anything. It’s just…just going to make things harder.”
“Nothing could be harder than thinking you don’t care, darlin’,” Boone said gently. “Go on…tell me.”
“I feel…I feel…like I might die when I think about life without you,” K started in a low, broken voice. “I want to be with you all the time…touching you…feeling your arms around me, holding me. But I know…I know that can never be. Because even stronger than my desire to be with you is my desire not to hurt you.” She took a deep breath. “That’s why…that’s why I couldn’t shoot you. The drugs from my suit, the High Sentinel…everything from the outside was telling me I had to blast you. But something in here…” She put a fist to her chest. “Wouldn’t let me.”
“Oh, baby…” He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “Sounds like love to me.”
“It doesn’t matter if it is or not.” K shook off his touch. “If I take off my suit and finish out my cycle, I’ll kill you.
If I leave it on, I’ll have to take years to train it—years during which we can never fully consummate our relationship. Years when you’ll never even be able to touch me. You’ll be stuck with a sexless robot. How’s that for love, Boone?”
“I told you I have a solution for all that,” he said gently.
“You said you thought you had something that might work. And you said it would take months to test it. I don’t have months, Boone. I have a few hours—half a day max before I start having complications from wearing an unconditioned suit.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute…” He held up a hand. “What do you mean ‘an unconditioned suit?’ Start from the beginning.”
K took a deep breath and explained everything Hesler had told her. “So I only have a few hours before I start having problems. How sure are you that your formula will work?”
“Not sure enough.” Boone looked grim. “Not sure enough to bet your life on it, K.”
“Then we’re stuck.” K felt a lump in her throat again and tried to hold back the tears. “There’s nothing we can do. Oh, Boone—if only you’d let me go. It would have been easier if I never had to tell you this.”
“The hell it would,” he said roughly. “At least now I know you want to be with me. That you still care.”
“Yes, I care. Even if…even if we can’t do anything about it,” K said quietly. She sighed. “What were you working on, anyway?”
He ran a hand over his face tiredly. “A DNA swap. I was going to take some of your DNA and give you some of mine. I thought that would help me keep up with your Erian mating cycle and, uh, service you as many times as you needed me to. And getting some of my DNA would calm you down a little.”
“That sounds perfect,” K said wistfully. “If only it was perfected—if only we could use it now.”
“I just need a few more weeks to test it,” Boone protested. “Are you sure—”
K shook her head. “I told you, I only have a few hours. I have to get back to the Tainted ship and have Hesler teach me to train my suit. And once the training process starts it can take five to seven years to complete.”
Boone took her hand. “I’ll wait for you, baby,” he said roughly. “I don’t care if it’s five years or fifty years. I’ll wait until you can take it off again. It’ll just give me that much more time to perfect the formula.”
“Boone…” K gently withdrew her hand. “It’s not just the training period—after I get the suit perfected, I’d still have trouble touching, even after I was able to take it off.”
“So what are you saying?” he demanded. “What are we talking about?”
“I’m saying it could take me years to be able to have skin-to-skin contact again,” K told him.
“I’ll wait,” Boone said stubbornly. “As long as it takes, I’ll wait.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” K said gently. “Even when I could take off my suit and touch again, there’s no guarantee I’d be able to enjoy it. Hesler, he…” She cleared her throat. “He told me he’s had his suit trained to perfection for five years and he still doesn’t want to touch anyone. He can do it—but he doesn’t want to.”
“Well, has he even really tried?” Boone asked. “I mean maybe if he gave it a chance—”
“He went through one entire sex cycle,” K said softly. “He said it was Hell. The worst kind of Hell.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to feel that way about you, Boone. And I don’t want you waiting for me on the off-chance that I actually can enjoy skin-to-skin contact again. It’s not fair to you. I can’t do it—I won’t do it.”
Boone stood up abruptly and started pacing. “Damn Hesler. That black suit wearing bastard,” he growled. “ How do we even know he’s telling the truth? He’s trying to recruit you, K. How can we trust his word?”
“He’s an honorable man,” K said in a low voice. “He did offer me a place among the Tainted but he didn’t try to pressure me to take it. He—” A sharp pain suddenly lanced through her. K winced and put a hand to her abdomen.. “He’s not lying. I…I’m starting to feel the pain again, Boone.”
“Where? Where does it hurt?” He looked at her anxiously. “Are you sure it’s the suit?”
“It has to be. Hesler said it wouldn’t control the hormone surges for much longer.” K gasped as another pain lanced through her. “Purity, it hurts.”
Boone knelt in front of her, staying protectively close. “Damn it, this would be so much easier if Hesler was lying. Are you all right? Do you need to lie down?”
“No…” K pressed a hand to her abdomen gingerly. “I think…I think it’s backing off a little now. But I should probably go soon.”
"So I'm losing you all over again."
K felt a lump in her throat. "We're losing each other," she pointed out quietly. "Oh, Boone…"
He let out a harsh sigh. “I just don't want to see you go off with Hesler and his band of Tainted knowing I'll probably never see you again."
"It's not his fault," K whispered.
"I know. I just want someone to blame, I guess." Boone ran a hand through his hair. "I shouldn’t be so hard on Hesler. Without him, we never would have gotten you back at all. I was sure those damn Purists would purge you the minute they got their hands on you.”
“Oh, they didn’t want to purge me,” K said bitterly. “They wanted me because of my blood. Apparently the Empress of Eros has the ability to completely control her people. And he said as soon as I was ready he would have the current Empress assassinated and—” She stopped abruptly and pressed her hand to her mouth. “Purity, Boone—the Empress. My mother. The High Sentinel said he already had people in place around her, just waiting to purge her!”
Boone jumped up. “I’ll have Loki open a channel, see if we can reach Eros from here. Maybe if he boosts the signal…”
“Help me!” K reached out a hand and he pulled her up carefully. “We have to warn her, Boone. I may not like her but I don’t want to see her killed.”
“Come on, then.” He lifted her into his arms and headed for the ship’s command center.
“Loki,” he roared as he ran. “Loki, open a channel to Eros. Hurry, before it’s too late!”
Chapter Thirty-two
“I still don’t understand why you’re having me do this. I thought we wanted to get away from Eros,” Loki grumbled as he set about boosting the signal.
“We do.” K was openly agitated, pacing back and forth and wringing her hands. Boone wondered how her pain was and hoped it wasn’t getting worse. “But we don’t want the Empress to die in the process.”
“Die?” Rolf gave her a startled look. “Why would she die? How?”
“Never mind,” Boone growled. “Just open a channel and be sure they know it’s the princess calling.”
K gave him a look and he shrugged. “Sorry, darlin’—I know you don’t want to be called that, but we need to get through to her and we don’t have time to go Loki’s round-about way this time.”
“I’ll have you know I have excellent connections,” Loki said snippily. “Still, if you insist on going the pretty-pretty-princess route and waving your precious golden crown…” In another minute he was speaking rapidly to what looked like a minor official at the court. The man kept denying his request until Loki motioned for K. “Come over here and show yourself, Princess Paladin. They won’t believe me.”
K stepped forward and addressed the man on the viewscreen who was short and plump with curling green whiskers.
“It is I, Princess Krissana. Let me speak to the Empress now.”
“Your majesty!” The man turned as green as his whiskers. “At once! I’ll fetch her at once!”
The next moment the regal image of the Empress was filling the viewscreen. Boone gave K a look to see how she was taking it—seeing her mother again after her escape from Eros had to be traumatic.
To his relief, she seemed calmer now. Probably seeing her mother alive and unhurt had gone a long way toward making her feel better. Bu
t the first words out of the Empress’s mouth were anything but calming.
“Krissana!” Her voice cut like a knife and she glared at K with unmistakable anger. “How dare you run off like that just when the planet was used to having you back?”
“I had to leave,” K said, lifting her chin. “You had my whole life planned for me and it wasn’t a plan I wanted to follow.”
“And I suppose this is better?” The Empress gestured at her black skinsuit. “Going back to the enemy? Turning traitor after all I did for you?”
“The only thing you did, Mother, was to try and separate me from the man I love and dictate exactly how I would live my life,” K shot back. “That wasn’t acceptable to me. So I left.”
“And went back to the Purists,” the Empress snapped.
“No, I was captured by the Purists,” K corrected her through gritted teeth. “While I was fulfilling my promise to Boone to rescue his sister.” For someone who wasn’t used to having to deal with anger, Boone thought she was handling herself rather well.
“Captured, were you?” It was plain the Empress didn’t believe her.
“Yes, by the High Sentinel—my old mentor,” K said. “And while he held me, he told me of his plan to overrun all of Eros, using me as a figurehead. He said that the Empress is able to control her people through a psy-blood bond. Is that right?”
“It is.” the Empress sounded guarded. “But only one Empress at a time can rule.”
“Which is why he planned to have you assassinated,” K told her. “He said he already had people in place around you. I’m calling to warn you that even though he’s dead, there might be another to take his place. Someone who would implement the plan and try to have you killed.”
The Empress’s lips tightened but she nodded tersely. “I’ll have my people screened at once. You have my thanks for the warning.”
“You’re welcome.” K nodded. “And now I need to go.”
“No, what you need to do is come home.” The Empress’s eyes flashed. “Only you have the exulted blood to rule after me.”