The Bonding Read online

  She laughed. “No.” She squeezed his hand. “No, it’s just, we couldn’t feel like this, carry on like this, if we weren’t biological matches. Right?”

  Tam exhaled with relief and pressed his fist to his chest, glad to feel her there, all hope and determination, inside him. He’d had the same thought on multiple occasions.

  She pressed her own fist against her sternum. “Now where are you taking me?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I can’t wait,” she said. Her gaze dropped to his dick, which had hardened as soon as he walked in the room and smelled her. “First, I need your serum,” she said.

  “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

  __________

  NISSA HAD KNOWN, in a theoretical sense, that Sierra-Six was large, but the train ride they took that afternoon reinforced her awe at its colossal scale. She’d never fully fathomed its vastness.

  It might technically have been a spaceship but it was closer to the scale of a moon or a dwarf planet.

  Tam lived in Third Quadrant, which held housing for the warriors, as well as their training facilities and entertainment sectors. WarCom was in First Quadrant, with the ship’s controls, engines and major weaponry. Second Quadrant, he told her, held non- warrior housing and departments.

  Relatively simple when he explained it that way, but in reality it was complicated by hundreds of levels. There were departments dedicated to mapping, media, culture, communications. The list went on. Sierra-Six was as populated as a small planet and just as complex. A person could live there for years and never see the whole thing.

  From the smile lurking around his lips, Nissa knew Tam was excited to show her something new. So was she.

  It was the first time she’d had fun in a long time, five hundred years in the pod notwithstanding.

  Before entering cryo, she’d lived in terror for months, always afraid someone else she loved would die. In the face of Tam’s easy happiness, she couldn’t repress her hope for the future, even if that hope left her feeling guilt and shame by turns.

  Not for the first time, she missed her mother and her constant, steady guidance. She’d know exactly what Nissa should do, how she should proceed, what to make of Tam and their bond.

  She was awash in a sea of strange faces. Sierra-Six was so enormous that if they had to, the hundred Trianni could live here. She shrugged off the frisson of sadness. She longed to run her hands through the silken strands of scarlet ferns in her gardens, the ones she’d tended with her own hands since childhood, to smell the rich, squashy crimson mosses that covered the fountains, to breathe in the scented flame-bush. Working in the gardens had given her a sense of calm that she’d taken for granted.

  She’d never known just how strongly she loved her planet until she’d left it. Did Triannon even live? What had become of her people after so many years? Would there be people to lead anymore?

  Tam held a basket of food in one hand, his other arm wrapping warm and reassuringly around her waist. He’d rolled up his sleeves and she traced her fingers over the veins of his forearm. The eternal peace she felt at contact with him made her feel like a thief who’d stolen something that should never have belonged to her.

  Her father would never accept him. How could Tam possibly fit into Trianni politics? After five hundred years, how would she? The uncertain nature of their bond niggled. She still didn’t understand how it worked. Would they really die if they were separated? Were their feelings even real, or strictly chemical in nature? The thought that Tam’s feelings might be artificial was too painful to let linger. She shook her head.

  What if my own feelings are fake? So many questions. So many doubts. She squeezed closer to Tam, forcing her thoughts aside.

  The train slid along invisible tracks, the windows revealing nothing but the tunnel’s blackness punctuated by rhythmic green lights. The train car wasn’t entirely empty but it wasn’t full either. Tam held her in a loose grip, chatting politely with another male. He’d shed some of his ferocious jealousy in their time on board, relaxing, she supposed into his role as mate. The other Argenti treated her with a mixture of curiosity and reverence but there was a palpable undercurrent of envy that hung like a thick cloud, blurring every interaction.

  Everywhere they went, stares veered toward open curiosity and thinly concealed lust.

  Tam’s defensiveness, Nissa had learned, wasn’t reserved only for her. He felt for his fellow Argenti. It had taken Nissa a while to fully understand the ramifications of a race without females. On the brink of extinction, they bore a quiet desperation and a fissured sense of hope. Her presence was a reminder to them of a hole in their existence, of what most of them would never have—a mate, a family, love. Most of all, a future.

  The survival of their species was at risk. She felt guilty every time she looked at them. Tam would have shielded her from that and them from her.

  She sighed, ashamed and irritated all at once. She didn’t want to cause anyone pain but was she to constantly apologize for her existence?

  Her ears popped as the train shot through the tunnel and out of the main body of Sierra-Six, moving on slender tracks.

  Black space opened around them, velvety and star-dappled. Through the windows of the train, base spread behind them, glowing purple and blue. The planet around which they orbited, Sellimar, glowed yellow-green and dimpled.

  She turned to look ahead again. They approached a vast transparent sphere. Blinding white and crystalline. The dome she’d glimpsed when they’d first arrived.

  “What is that?”

  Tam squeezed her hip. “The Fields. That’s where we are going.”

  “But what is it?”

  “Just wait.”

  The other Argenti met Tam’s eye and smiled. Unlike Tam he didn’t sport the array of Tribe weaponry. His build was different too, tall but slender. Not every male at S-6 was a Tribe warrior. Some were simply civilians of Argentus living on base.

  He bowed to her politely. “I hope you enjoy your first trip to the Fields.” His voice was somber but his eyes were warm. Nissa smiled. The male’s gaze drifted to Tam. “It’s not a harvest day. You should have privacy, especially in the higher levels.”

  Nissa looked away to hide her heated cheeks, knowing why he thought they’d want privacy.

  In a matter of seconds, they passed through the bridge and the train slowed against a dock.

  Tam shifted his grip on the basket he held and took her hand to lead her down a small platform, following behind the Argenti into a whole world of sunshine that fell warm and soft on her face. The air was fresh and flush with life and soil and water. The smell of growing things. She closed eyes that burned with memories of home, basking in the golden light.

  Tam’s gaze was soft on her skin, watching her. “Come,” he said simply and led her through a field of feathery yellow grasses toward a balcony. Looking over, he pointed out the terraced levels below them and the complicated gears that moved the levels to maximize solar exposure.

  A farm. “On a spaceship?” she asked. “You have a farm on a spaceship?”

  He raised a brow. “How else would we grow food?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It just seems impossible.”

  He frowned and together they surveyed the many levels below them.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

  “Yeah.” He eyed her askance. “Where did you imagine our food came from?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it. But I guess I imagined you grew it on other worlds and brought it all in on ships.”

  “That would be a waste of energy, bringing food back and forth,” he answered reasonably.

  “No more so than bringing enough terra and water.” She held her arms out wide. “You’ve made a planet here, just hanging in the sky. It’s incredible.”

  Her people were so different. Their lives had been so much simpler. Planet-bound and insular. They’d never imagined aliens would descend from the sky an
d enslave them. She’d never imagined a whole civilization surviving in space like Tam’s.

  “When you think about it like that...” He said it almost indulgently, the way you might speak to a child, and she poked him in his flank, making him jump.

  She’d learned to recognize his faces and this one made her run. Gathering her skirt, she made it about four steps into the grasses before he reached her.

  In a smooth move that reminded her that his muscles weren’t just for her enjoyment, he tossed her over his shoulder and jogged down a path, through grass that grew as high as his hips, one broad hand splayed across her bottom.

  His shoulder dug into her stomach, making it hard to breathe around ridiculous bubbles of mirth that rose in her belly as the contents of the basket jostled and clanked.

  “Put me down,” she tried to say, but laughter muffled her words.

  “You move too slowly.” He squeezed the curve of her bottom. “Besides, you’re too short. If you were standing, I’d have to bend over to pat your ass. This is easier.” He squeezed it again and gave it a loving stroke, laughing when she tried to kick him.

  He stopped jogging abruptly and dropped the basket, shifting her in his arms, moving her so that her legs straddled his hips and an arm supported her weight. The steel of his sheathed blades pushed against her breasts. “I’ll put you down for a kiss.”

  His lips were warm and comforting. He smelled like plants and tasted bright and fresh. She would never get enough, not if they lived to be old and wrinkly and gray.

  “There. Now put me down.”

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. “We’re here anyway.” He dropped her to her feet at the top of the sloped terrace, readjusting his pants with a hand in his pocket, a little bouncing dance and a wry smile.

  An orchard spread on the right, filled with trees in every shade. Three different crops grew in fields to their left, orangey-pink. Warm light slanted over the fields and always, beyond it all, deep space, fathomless black.

  “All these colors.” She’d never seen anything like it “The vegetation on Triannon is all red. I never imagined plants could come in so much variety.”

  “Every planet we come to is different.” Tam spoke softly. “On Argentus the sea is turquoise and the plants are blue.”

  “Do you miss it?” She’d seen it on the screen in their chambers, and in his memories.

  He met her eyes for a beat, then nodded, but didn’t speak.

  She stepped forward to stroke the craggy blue bark of a nearby flowering tree. It was surprisingly soft beneath her fingers. “Our sea is green. Pale and almost yellow around the beaches.”

  “Like your eyes,” he said with a mocking smile. “Our eyes are almost always green. There are a few with yellow eyes. Our creation myths tell of the first Trianni, born with eyes fashioned from the sea. Red vines for hair.”

  “That’s what I thought when I first saw you. When I knew I had to bond with you.” She angled her head, not wanting to interrupt. He turned away to survey the Fields, as if he were uncomfortable. “You were in bed. Your hair looked like vines.” He looked embarrassed. Tam was nothing like the pretty courtiers she had known on Triannon. He was rough, gruff and all man. Gentle words didn’t come naturally to him.

  She pulled his big hand into hers, traced the calluses on his palm. “I thought you were the biggest person I’d ever seen. Enormous.”

  “I am.” He stared at her for a long moment, the smile fading. “There’s a big difference between me and the courtiers of Triannon. I’m just a farm boy. I shouldn’t get to have you.”

  She wanted to say something to make him understand what he’d become to her, but she didn’t know what the future held and it hurt too much to think about it. The same knowledge glimmered in his eyes.

  Instead they let the moment drop into the gentle breeze of the Fields. His words disintegrated amongst the colors as if they’d never been said.

  He led her through a grove of trees in bold blueish-purple that he said gave the lintorippi berries as well as fresh salad leaves. One field held a low crop of furry beans the color of blood that he said were rich in protein.

  “This is A level,” he said, “but there are six more. B Level has a lake and C level has animals. When we find a planet, our scientists evaluate its life. Sometimes they have something that they deem valuable so we borrow specimens.” He pointed out different types of vegetation as they walked, impressing her with his wide and easy knowledge.

  “How do you know so much about them?” she asked. “I wasn’t kidding when I called myself a farm boy. My father wasn’t a warrior. He taught me everything he knew. I’d probably be back there farming if he hadn’t died.”

  She squeezed his hand, surprised that their Bonding hadn’t transferred all those memories to her. Mostly she’d seen the death and fury of his mother’s and sister’s lingering illness from the plague, followed by his father’s descent into grief-addled madness.

  She’d never lost a family member—at least not yet—but she couldn’t deny the thrumming fear, constant in the back of her mind, that her mother’s and father’s pods might be found with them dead inside.

  “I can’t see you as a farmer.”

  “No?” He looked back at her, hard body clad in black and covered in weapons against the vibrant plants beyond.

  She tried to imagine him with farm tools. Tan and bare-chested beneath the sky. Waking early to turn soil. All she saw was knives and muscles.

  “No,” she said. He was all warrior to her, long and rough and perfect. Heat pooled in her belly.

  He held up a leaf, rolled it back and forth between his palms. The air filled with spice as tiny pink threads rode the air currents. “I worked the land with him every day.”

  He looked out over the Fields. He probably would have been happy on Argentus with a mate and children, working a farm by day, cozying up to his farmer’s wife mate each evening. If the Vestige hadn’t sent their plague.

  So much space in the universe—endless—and yet not enough to prevent war. His face was hard. She stroked a hand down his back and squeezed his big, dry palm. After a few moments, she broke the silence. “Come, let’s eat.”

  They were quiet for a while. “I want more time,” She suddenly said.

  He understood her immediately. “I don’t. I like fucking you every three hours.”

  She sighed at the word fuck. The way he said it, in his raspy growl, always made her instantly aroused. Tam’s smile said he knew. Damn him. He always knew.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “To start, we need sleep. Getting up every couple of hours is exhausting.”

  Tam shrugged with a lazy half-smile. “I’m the one getting it up.”

  She lobbed a fruit at his head. He caught it, of course, and took a lazy bite.

  “I’d like to start trying to stretch it. See how long we can go.”

  He finished his fruit. “Okay, eyana. We’ll try.” He ran a knuckle under his lower lip. “It’ll hurt you, though. I won’t like that. I’ll want to fuck you better. So you’ll have to tell me when to wait and when to go.”

  She narrowed her eyes. That had been easier than she’d expected. He was silent and again his thoughts were a mystery.

  “Do you think the chiefs will make a decision today?”

  Tam bit into a piece of crusty brown bread. “No. Slinnyar’s blocking. He comes up with new delays daily.”

  “Why?”

  “He fears another war with the Vestige. He fears loss of life. Or another biological attack on Argentus.”

  Reasonable fears.

  “And the admiral?”

  “I think he favors retrieving the pods. So far, Argentus hasn’t intervened. It depends on the results of the DNA tests. They might then.”

  Nissa ate a few berries. “I just wish I could speak with people. Explain that a decision needs to be made. Now.”

  Tam cocked his head to the side. “Maybe there is a way.”

  “How?”
/>   He shook his head and pulled a small digi-comm from one of his pockets. “Let me send out a few comms.”

  __________

  TAM STOOD before the war council the next day. “She agrees to the test,” he said. “I want it on record that she agreed without condition. But first, we require two conditions for two separate scenarios.” Tam looked at each of the chiefs in turn. “The first, if the DNA is a match, you guarantee a visit to her planet and if it’s reasonable and possible, we help her people.”

  He held up two fingers. “The second, if the DNA is not a match, you leave it to warriors to volunteer for individual missions to retrieve the pods. Each warrior who takes a mate can use a ship as they see fit in service of her race.”

  Conversation surged, echoing off the dark bulkheads of WarCom. He’d just proposed an armed but unsanctioned fleet. Some were outraged, others inquisitive.

  The admiral called for quiet. When all the voices were lowered, he finally spoke. “Those are hefty conditions, son.”

  “She’s got one card, sir. You’re asking her to play it. She’s willing, but I need your word.”

  The admiral and the chiefs all stared at him. “The DNA is a match, sir,” Tam said softly.

  9

  I’ll wear my dress for you,

  And you’ll wear your sword for me

  “LET’S GO OUT,” Tam said that evening. He was dressed in his formal attire, his nustal on his back.

  She didn’t need to think about that twice. Nissa jumped to her feet. “Yes. Please.”

  His eyes were warm but something lingered at the curve of his lips. He trailed his hand down his favorite knife sheath across his chest. “Wear your red dress.”

  She tilted her head to the side, surprised, since he hated that dress. It made him crazy, knowing that her breasts bounced and swayed before the eyes of his brethren. “What’s going on?”

  Behind him the forest gleamed, a kaleidoscope in blue. “It’s past time we put a little pressure on the chiefs.”