“Oh Tagen,” she whispered. “You look awful.”
The sorrow in her words made him look up, and in her eyes was enough horror to shock him back to sanity. He was naked. He was naked, Heat was coming, and she was right there.
“Leave me be,” he said hoarsely, and tried to shut the door.
Her hand flew out to stop it. “Come downstairs!”
“When it cools—”
“It’s not getting any cooler!” she shouted. “You can’t do this, Tagen, you’re going to die!”
“I cannot die from Heat!”
“You can die from dehydration, dammit! When did you last drink anything?”
“I…” His anger waned, became confusion. He knuckled sweat from his eyes and his hand shook. “Last night.”
“You never came downstairs last night,” she argued. “You haven’t had anything to eat or drink for almost a whole day. You’re scaring me.”
“Everything scares you.” Tagen tried again to shut her away. “Go, Daria. I am not dressed.”
“You’re not dressed?” She uttered a high, incredulous laugh. “I don’t care! Tagen, if you could see yourself-“
“Later, I have told you! Later!” Tagen took a breath, let it out slow, and said, “Please. I cannot bear to climb your stairs.”
“I’ll help.” She started forward, one hand outstretched to him.
Heat surged, and Tagen swung blindly. His hand struck her on the breastbone and sent her crashing to the floor with her legs wide apart. He sank his claws into the soft wood of the door frame to keep from leaping on her, and his last thread of temper snapped. He fell back on Jotan, knowing she would not understand, but unable to keep silent a moment longer.
“Back, woman!” he roared. “Stay back, or by hell, have me! I have only so much will!”
She screamed, making him think disjointedly that he’d said it in N’Glish after all. But her legs drove out to catch his slamming door and she wouldn’t let panic budge her.
“Damn you!” Tagen’s voice cracked on frustration. “I have tried and tried to woo you and you wait until now not to run from me! Now! Look at me now!” All his body was Heat. He seized the door in both hands and heaved, snarling.
Daria lost her half-upright position, but kept her legs rigid and the door open. The tendons of her slender throat stood out in strain and she screamed again, this time with pain.
The sound of it broke his anger and without it, he had no strength. Tagen let go and the room spun, as if the door had been his only anchor in space. He sent out his claws blindly, dug them into wood, and slid down to his knees. Grey stars burst and swirled before his eyes, in rhythm with his pounding heart. He could not stop shivering. He could not catch his breath. He sagged forward onto his hands, trying to get blood to his head before he lost consciousness.
‘I cannot die from Heat,’ he thought, over and over, until his senses stopped swimming and his arms finally steadied.
“Tagen?”
He sighed. “Bring me drink.”
“Promise me you won’t lock me out if I leave.”
He raised his head, but the look of worry in her face stilled his irritation. “I do promise,” he said wearily. “As an officer and a son of Pahnee. Does that satisfy?”
She nodded and gained her feet, rubbing at her knees. Then she only lingered above him, looking fearful. “Do you need help to lie down?” she asked. “You could lean on me if you—”
“Please do not touch me.” He looked at her. “Please.”
A tear slipped from her eye—the blue one—but she nodded and turned away. She was limping as she walked. He had done that to her.
He watched her until she disappeared down the stairs and then he rose, climbing the wall and digging his talons into the carpet until it tore. He was ruining this room. He was ruining the human who had given it to him.
He returned to bed, curling on his side and wrapping himself again in sodden sheets to disguise his throbbing erection. He could still smell her, the fragrance of female sweat, young and healthy and faintly spiced with musk. The thought came to him that he truly must be as dehydrated as Daria believed, because if he’d had his full strength about him, he’d have taken her when she fell.
When he struck her and she fell.
“Tagen?”
He roused, rubbing at his face in a daze. It seemed only seconds since he’d seen her on the stair and yet here she was again in his doorway with a laden tray. “I’m losing my mind,” he muttered, and dropped onto the pillows.
Her brows knitted at the Jotan words, but she didn’t ask for a translation. She set the tray at hand beside the bed and poured him a glass from the pitcher of iced water. It was cool in his hand, but too heavy to hold steady. Much of its contents spilled down his chest, but even that was a blessing. He could feel his tissues swelling with moisture.
“Thank you,” he said, when the glass was emptied.
She took it from him and gave him a bowl. The food within was bright orange, cut into large chunks, and smelled of fruit. He put one to his lips and tasted sweetness. Chilled juice trickled down his throat. He closed his eyes and chewed, pausing often just to breathe.
“You’d know if you were really sick, right?”
He couldn’t look at her. The anxiety in her voice was hard to hear, but the sight of her was devastating. “It is only Heat.”
She filled his glass for him again and set it at the edge of the tray. “Can I do anything to help?” she asked.
He opened his eyes and looked at her.
Her cheeks colored and she dropped her gaze. “S-sorry.” She stepped back, twisting her hands convulsively in her shirtfront. “I’ll check on you in a little bit,” she said. “I’ll…knock first.”
Tagen ate another piece of fruit and closed his eyes again. There was a misery in her voice and it was not fear of him, but shame. He had made her ashamed because she could not bring herself to mate with him. He despised himself.
Daria retreated, closing the door quietly behind her. It seemed to Tagen that she stood a long time just outside, but eventually, she moved away. She went, not downstairs, but to her room and closed that door as well.
He could hear nothing after that, so he doubted she was cleaning. What then, in the middle of the day?
Tagen’s imagination immediately presented him with a vision of her undressing in her shadowed, ocean-cool room. Sliding between her soft, grey sheets, her creamy skin enveloped imperfectly in folds of loose fabric. Taking herself and her distress to bed, a natural enough reaction, but Heat would not let him stop at that. He could see her moving as the females in the late-night tee-vee programs moved when the urge was on them to mate. Touching herself with maddening slowness. Her teeth biting at her lip as she moved her hand between her legs—
A hoarse cry escaped him and Tagen reached for his hated stimulator and fit it over his aching shaft. He gripped the sheets, his eyes tightly shut, and let himself go to fantasy. He could still smell Daria’s sweat heavy in the air; it amplified the sensations assailing him. He lost the will to reason and the understanding of the need for silence. Mating growls ground out of him, hunting for harmony in his non-existent partner. They gave way to ragged groans as his tsesac continued to swell, indifferent to the mechanical pull of the stimulator.
It went on and on, a timeless crossing of intense pain and friction without pleasure. At last, he could feel the first jets of quick-cum pulsing out into the sleeve that gripped him. The pace increased with excruciating slowness, and more and more often, his rusty groans drew out into cries as he tried to will his body to empty.