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  “This is really good.”

  She chuckled. “I know. It is similar to something back home called hummus. I have asked for the recipe, but the ingredients are completely foreign to me, so I doubt I could get it right. I can just come here for it.”

  The sandwich was more of a roll, but it was another thing she was getting used to. The Jhenno food was close enough to her own that the alterations she had undergone let her digest it. Without the specific enzymes, she would have been in for agonizing cramps and deadly gas.

  Jherin got his servings and he tucked in. He ate with amazing speed.

  “Wow, it is like you haven’t eaten in years.” She chuckled and continued with her sandwich.

  He grinned and continued to work his way through his meal.

  They finished at the same time.

  She set the plate aside and poured more tea. He sipped at his wine, and the suns finished their descent. Lights sparked up throughout the restaurant district and the orb in the centre of the table began to glow with soft light.

  Jherin put his hand, palm up, on the table.

  Kyna slid her hand into his, and the music soared in her mind. She chuckled. “How do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “When you touch me, I can hear the music. When your mind gets excited, the music turns into an orchestra.”

  He smiled softly. “It seems I have a tell as well.”

  The server nervously brought the bill, and Kyna swiped her wrist over the pay spot.

  Jherin narrowed his eyes. “What was that?”

  “I paid for dinner. I have an implant in my wrist that I use to pay.” She shrugged.

  He sighed. “I should have arranged to access my accounts.”

  She rose to her feet and took his hand. “It’s fine with me. You were a little preoccupied when you woke up.”

  Jherin chuckled. “Yes, I seem to recall that I was.”

  On the walkway, she steered them toward the square where his statue on display. He came to a sudden halt, and she heard him cursing in a sibilant tongue.

  She covered her mouth with her free hand and giggled. It was a striking statue. A naked male Drai with wings extended holding the world of Jhenno aloft in his hands. His fingers were talons that gripped into the surface of the globe, and his genitals had been tastefully understated by simply lopping them off.

  He gave her a dark look. “Well, this explains your surprise at seeing me naked.”

  Laughter spilled out over her fingers, and she tried to memorize his look of petulance. It was truly priceless.

  “We are not staying in the city. I am taking you back to my home.”

  She blinked. “Why?”

  “Because there are people here who are not friendly to you. I want you safe and safe is away from here.” It was all the warning he would give her.

  Once again, she was in his arms, and with a thrust, he had taken off and was on his way back to the blue sands.

  She pressed her face against his chest and breathed in his scent mixed with the wild dry wind. Kee was completely relaxed in his arms until he threw her high into the air. She screamed, and under her, he went from a tall man to a huge creature. She landed on his back with a thud and scrabbled for a handhold. His back was wide enough for her to crawl on, and she moved up until she could straddle the base of his neck.

  He undulated, and she grabbed for the soft hair that ran down the ridge. She didn’t know if it hurt him, but she hoped so. He had scared her out of three years’ growth.

  If tossing a woman into the air was Drai foreplay, he had missed the mark with his new Terran.

  Chapter Six

  Getting off a seventy-foot dragon was not as easy as she would have imagined. He offered her his leg to help her down, and she was stuck with that. She put her feet on his claw, and he lowered her to the ground.

  She stepped back as he shifted back into his naked self. “You are very pretty, but if you ever do that again, I will make you match that statue in every detail.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I thought it would be better to get first exposure to it over and done with.”

  “Quite right, but on the ground would have been preferable. At least then I could have seen all of you instead of panicking and scrabbling for a handhold.”

  He bowed low. “I apologise. I allowed my enthusiasm to override my common sense.”

  “Could you shift for me again? This time, let me explore a little?”

  Jherin nodded. “I will do so in the morning. You have had a trying day and there are dark circles under your eyes.”

  She sighed. “I did have an early morning and a very weird day. Show me to a guestroom, and I will be out like a light.”

  “I will show you to our bedroom, and I will watch over your sleep.” He offered her his arm, and she took it, letting him lead the way through the now fully appeared sandcastle.

  “Aren’t you going to sleep?”

  “Not for the first few years. I will begin writing memoirs of your history and how you came to be here.”

  To her surprise, the sandcastle was fully furnished and the first floor housed a library that made her implant perk up and take notice. It could scan as well as display, and the idea of reading all that and having it translated for her immediately was highly tempting.

  Instead of diving into the library, she let him haul her up one set of stairs to a huge ballroom and then another layer of steps led her to the tower where the bedchamber was the solitary occupant. The room she had initially been sitting in the first time was part of a sitting room or study attached to the bedchamber.

  He towed her into the bedroom, and he went to the wall, knocking on it with bare knuckles. A desk appeared, assembling itself out of the blue stone. Another knock and a wardrobe appeared in the same manner.

  “I wasn’t sure of your size, but there are a few wrap dresses inside that should fit you.” He smiled shyly.

  Kyna chuckled and opened the closure of her bodysuit. “I will worry about that tomorrow. I can always put my bodysuit back on.”

  He blinked rapidly, his yellow eyes showed his conflict over respecting her privacy and the fascinating reveal of her skin.

  She peeled off the bodysuit and folded it, draping it over the chest at the base of the bed. Kee had to ask, “Is there a lav?”

  He swallowed and pointed.

  She walked past him and into the lav. To her surprise, the water ran clear. There must have been piping deep in the earth to bring it up to this level.

  She used the facilities, finger brushed her teeth and washed her face. With a sigh of relief, she unpinned her hair and let it flow free for the night.

  Strutting around naked wasn’t something that she enjoyed, but after a week in the tank with strangers ogling her every hour on the hour, she didn’t care anymore.

  She headed back into the bedroom, low lights gave it a romantic aura and the bed had been turned down for her. She crawled between the sheets and looked around. Jherin was sitting at the desk and his pen was moving over a huge tome of paper with a steady pace.

  Kee snuggled down in the bedding and smiled, “What are you doing?”

  “I am writing the details of our first meeting. The smallest parts of history can leave clues to the greater moments if you know where to start looking. We are a great moment in waiting.” His smile was warm as he looked at her over one shoulder.

  The smile said he was content to wait until she said yes. It was sweet that he was pretending she had a choice. How many other Terrans had left with the thought that they could have a simple job in the stars and instead been placed carefully into the path of an alien species? Kee closed her eyes and read stories to herself until she drifted off, content in the knowledge that she was in no danger, despite the hunger in her companion’s gaze.

  Memory of his outrage at the statue kept her smiling until morning.

  Kee slipped out of bed when light teased her lids. She checked her reflection in the mirror of the lav and her
normal morning hair was suspiciously absent. Her skin was clean and her hair was in straight, even waves.

  If she didn’t know better, she would think that something had bathed her while she slept. There were no traces of sweat or oil anywhere on her person.

  Feeling a little more timid in the light of day, Kee tiptoed out of the lav and to the wardrobe that had appeared from nothing the day before.

  She grabbed the first dress that came to hand and wrapped it around herself. It had lacing up the back, and he was quite right, she was able to make it fit with only a little adjustment.

  Her suit would have been her preferred means of clothing herself, but it wasn’t where she had left it. The dress covered her and the sandals that she dug out of the bottom of the wardrobe were a fair fit. The book on the desk was too tempting, so she wandered over and looked in at Jherin’s first impressions of her. The script went in all directions and yet was very tidy, but she couldn’t read it.

  She flicked through her translation protocols but nothing could make out the words.

  Sighing, she closed the book and patted the cover. Her hair swung loose and she wrinkled her nose. Pinning it up was second nature, so she went to the place where she had put her pins and was disturbed to find nothing where they had been the night before. She opened and closed drawers until she found something that would do the job. Replacing her plain wire pins with the gem-studded gold twists wasn’t her idea if a fair trade. She slowly coiled her hair into a bun and secured it. The gold scraped along her skin as she pushed the pins into place, one by one.

  Now that she was dressed, she came to the conclusion that she was stuck. With careful steps, she made her way down to the library. Jherin was nowhere to be found.

  Her stomach rumbled and she looked around for something, anything, to snack on. There was nothing.

  She did what she always did in that situation—she found something to read.

  The archive was small but it held some of the most amazing information. The dates on some of the documents were astounding. The only thing of that age back on Earth would have been carved in stone, and here it was on sheets of plastic, vellum and woven paper.

  Ancient treaties, pathways drawn through the stars, it all had been drawn out and recorded faithfully.

  As fascinating as the trade records for Jhenno were, she was far more interested in the romances and sex books that she found on a high shelf. For some reason, sex was on her mind.

  She sat down at the research desk and opened the first tome on a stand built for that purpose. Kee blushed as the contorting figures almost seemed to move on the page. Whoever had put the coloured inks onto the page was a master of three-dimensional painting.

  She had picked up a book on Drai mating practices, a Kama Sutra of dragons or, at least, men with wings.

  To her surprise, Drai women didn’t have wings and they certainly didn’t shift shape. The majority of positions were male dominant and Kee could understand why it had to be that way. The wings could be flattened for a few moments but a flexing of muscles would have both persons involved off the bed and into the air.

  What really got Kee’s attention was the biting. She had read of the biting in a few of the species, and even amongst humans, there was the occasional couple who enjoyed the flare of pain during intense moments.

  She had to admit that seeing the ecstasy on the woman’s face in the drawings she felt a tingle between her thighs. It seemed like quite the normal thing now that she had met an actual Drai.

  She heard footsteps and looked up, sure that her face was scarlet, being caught reading a sex manual.

  Jherin arrived with his arms laden with parcels. “I brought some food to get us started.”

  She smiled and got to her feet, slowly closing the book in front of her.

  He chuckled. “Don’t close it on my account. I know every book in here and I am heartened by your interest in that subject matter.”

  “I am heartened by your interest in food. Do you know where my suit and my hairpins went?” She bit her lip.

  He nodded for her to follow him. “I am guessing that the nanites have taken care of them or broken them down and reshaped them.”

  “Nanites, like nano machines?”

  “Exactly like that. Tiny cleaners who even scrub you while you sleep. I got them from Avari far before I slept here. You woke up clean, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, they were at work last night. They seek out movement or anything different and make it tidy or repair it. I am guessing that your suit is in the wardrobe, just not in the precise configuration you remember it.”

  She blinked. “They took it apart?”

  “More than likely.” He entered a kitchen area and set the parcels down on the kitchen table.

  Prepared foods, meal packs and meat and vegetables in a raw state were all unpacked and put away. He moved around the kitchen with ease.

  She had a thought and she expressed it. “Why did you go to sleep?”

  He turned, lifted one of her hands and pressed his lips to her palm. “I was waiting for you.”

  Kee blushed, “I doubt that.”

  He gave her a serious look and led her back into the library.

  Humming to himself, he sought out a book and brought it to the desk, still holding her hand. He flipped through the pages and opened it. “Read it, please. It is in Common so you should be able to.”

  She started to read and took a seat when she got to the point about the mates dreaming of each other. Her memories of the few dreams she had had as a teen had always involved a dragon flying in a violet sky. Her dreams had ceased when she was an adult. She didn’t have time for them.

  The next step in Drai courtship was the song. He stood with his hands on her shoulders and the song rose again in her mind.

  According to the book, the song confirmed that she and the Drai in question were compatible on the psychic plane. The physical union was up to the two beings brought together by their connection. Psychic nature could only take things so far.

  Kee kept reading, unsuccessfully ignoring the neck rub that Jherin was giving her. A physical union would cement the link they had in their minds and speech would be possible without words.

  “What does that mean?” She pointed to the sentence in the book.

  “Precisely what it says. Our minds can already work on the same frequency, so when we mate, they mesh a little. It grows with time, but you will be able to chew me out immediately when we fly together.”

  She chuckled and leaned back into his hands. He was very good at working out the knots that hunching over books generated.

  Her stomach growled, and she looked up at him. “Was that food for eating?”

  He laughed and nodded. “I believe your first meal of the day is overdue.”

  She smiled and got to her feet. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. Tell me, what else do the nanites do?”

  Jherin put a hand at the small of her back and gave her a list of the capabilities of the tiny housekeepers that she could not see.

  Chapter Seven

  After a meal of fruit and pastry, she asked him, “So, when do I return to the city? That archive is calling to me.”

  He cleared his throat. “The entryway is being repaired for the next week or so. There is no way for you to get into the archive, even if you were in the city.”

  The shredded metal came to mind. “Right. So, when do you begin your work?”

  “I already have. They have been receiving requests for additional colonists for the last two centuries. I am looking over the species who are applying for space.”

  “Can I help?” She bit her lip. She didn’t know anything about the species herself, but she could access the Alliance information with a thought. That had to be useful.

  “Certainly, you can access breeding rates when I list a particular species.”

  She perked up. “I can do that.” And she did. For five hours, they sat in the library and went over the
species who had applied for the population expansion. Once they had chosen species that would not outbreed their space, they went for ones who did not have a history of attacking neighbours over territory.

  Jherin used a data pad; his clawed finger flicked the pages and rotated the display with dexterity.

  “You could look this all up yourself. Are you just humouring me?” For the first time in her life, she was not the person that folks had to run to for help. She felt rather vulnerable in this situation. No job, nothing to do and no one to take care of.

  “Your ability to access the database is turning a five-day job into the work of hours.”

  She snorted. “You are humouring me.”

  He took her hand in his. “I am not. We are beginning a partnership, you and I. I may have the books, but you have read them. While I deplore the changes and implant in your body, it is a very handy thing.”

  “Why do you deplore them? They were for your benefit after all.” She chuckled and took his data pad from him, setting it aside.

  Jherin blinked in surprise and sat back as she insinuated herself between the desk and his body. Cautiously, she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.

  He gripped her arms and gently pushed her back. “Are you trying to prove something to me or to yourself?”

  She smiled and touched his jaw. “Neither. I have nowhere to be, nothing to do and unlimited privacy with a man I find very attractive. What is your objection?”

  He blinked and a slow smile crossed his features. “No objections. I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t using me to prove a point.”

  Chuckling, she let him draw her down to him once again. This time, he did not push her back, but rather, his hands shifted to hold her waist and back as he drew her across his lap with her legs together to one side.

  He kissed her and sighed, “You are perfect. More than I ever dreamed of.”

  She chuckled. “You are exactly what I dreamed of and a little bit extra.”

  He drew his lips across hers and slipped his tongue along the seam of her mouth. She invited him in and moaned when he tasted better than she remembered.