“It is a crime,” he said. It was very important for him to make that distinction, and for her to understand it. “As serious in its way as murder. When we find them, the criminals are imprisoned for all their lives. The humans are…removed.”
“But you don’t bring them home,” she said in her quiet voice. “No, how could you?” She shivered, despite the warmth of the air, and looked at him with eyes bright with hurt. “What happens to them?”
“There is a place for them,” he said. “We have cities built. Most choose to build their own. There is farmland, livestock. At one time, we stationed doctors among them, but they were not…well-received. Now we let it be known that medical care is available upon request. To my knowledge, such requests have never been made.”
“But they’re happy?” she pressed.
Tagen hesitated, thinking of the few times he had been present at the delivery of recovered humans to the preserves. He remembered them, a shambling, wary lot, hobbled and muted, crippled and scarred, looking as if they had known only hatred and fear their whole lives. The children might laugh—children could be happy anywhere—but even their small, filthy faces had been pinched with suspicion.
“I’m sure you do your best,” Daria said softly, and turned away.
“It will all end soon,” Tagen told her. “The Gate that brings our criminals to your world will be destroyed. It had been hoped that some peace could someday be forged between our two peoples, when your race had matured.”
“Or when yours had,” she said, still without looking at him.
“Yes.” He sighed. “But the cost of life is too high. The Gate will come down.”
“Then why…?” She turned and searched his face intently. “Is it the only one?”
Gods, she was quick.
“For now,” he said. “We do not know for certain, but E’Var may be building another. This is why we must take him. This is why we cannot allow him to come away from Earth with Vahst that he can sell.”
She nodded, stared at her feet, and nodded again. “You’ll find him,” she said.
There was no doubt, not even the slimmest reservation, in her words. Her conviction was a thousand times more strengthening than any Magistrate’s praise or guarantee of promotion. Tagen put his arm around her and she pressed against his chest at once, letting him hide her in his protection.
“I can see why you didn’t tell me,” she said. “I don’t blame you. I kind of wish I still didn’t know. It’s so hard to think that…that it could be true. It’s been Earth’s nightmare for so long, it’s almost a joke. But it’s been real the whole time.”
It was every world’s nightmare, rekindled on Jota each time the Far-Reachers encountered a new world. The Kevrian had been the first to actually engage them, and that had been the death-knell for the Far-Reacher program, but see how it had ended. Jotan, who themselves feared domination by alien forces, turning a blind eye to the slow enslavement of the human race. Daria was right. It was a joke, one so cruel, it could not be acknowledged by any power on Jota.
“You’ll keep me safe,” Daria said, her arms tightening around his waist. “Won’t you?”
“Yes,” he said.
He felt her chest hitch once in soundless laughter. “You didn’t even hesitate,” she said.
“Some things do not require thought.” He cocked his head. “Don’t require thought.”
“You’re trying so hard.”
“I must impress a great woman.”
She looked up, smiling at him with her sad eyes. “You know, for a guy who doesn’t speak N’Glish very well, you sure know all the right things to say.” She twined her hands around his neck and rose up on her toes to touch her mouth to his. “Take me inside, Tagen. Make me feel safe.”
Tagen lifted her easily into his arms. “I wish that I could be here only for you,” he said. “I would give anything to keep you from every harm.”
“Show me,” she said.
He carried her into the house and up the stairs. He took her to his bed, in the room where her unhappiness nested, but she did not object and there was no reticence in the way she reached for him. He undressed her, pressing his mouth to every piece of her as he bared it, tasting her soft skin and feeling her shiver in response as he explored all her graceful curves.
Her hands found his head, combing lightly through his hair before cupping his face and guiding his questing lips to her breast. He suckled carefully, his fingers flowing along the hollows of her throat, her round shoulders, her sloping ribs and the valley of her waist. Her body, her beautiful alien body, undulated beneath him, arcing to meet his touch and falling away to savor it. Her pleasure gave him confidence. There was something he wanted to try.
Tagen kissed a trail between her breasts and down to her soft belly. He sipped teasingly at her navel and then moved down, over the cushion of musk-rich down. She gasped as his tongue flicked tentatively at her sex, her hands clenching in his hair. The nub crowning her cleft tantalized him; it stiffened under his careful touch, and Daria’s hips rose and fell in rhythm as he tested its responses. The scent of musk flowed, maddening so near to him, and he slipped his hands beneath her, tilting her up so that he could drink her juices. The taste of her—dizzying and wild—invaded him with all the strength of pure Heat, but with none of its fury. His tongue stabbed deeper, bringing dazzling cries from his writhing partner that only seemed to thicken the fog surrounding him. He could not seem to be satisfied; her musk grew and grew as she came, and he made himself drunk on her pleasure.
At last, his entire body seared with urgent need, Tagen rose and stripped himself of his clothing. Daria’s eyes flashed wide, hungry, and she reached for him, pushing his hands away so that she could tear away the final barrier between them. Tagen forced himself to stand immobile as she pulled his jacket and shirt free, her mouth and tongue a torture on his bare flesh.
“Trust me,” she whispered. Her hands scoured down his stomach to tug at the fastenings of his pants. “I need you to trust me.”
“I do.”
She took his rigid shaft in her hands and then closed her mouth around him.
Tagen’s breath hissed explosively out of him, only partly in the shock of the unexpected action. The sensation was beyond description, almost beyond his ability to feel. He had heard of such a thing but he could never have imagined such resounding pleasure. Her tongue, her lips, her breath, her teeth—all these things in every combination, moving over and all around him. It was ecstasy, enough to be anguish.
She pulled away at last, trembling as she pushed his pants down and helped him step free. She took his hand, smiling at him with passion and with trust, and pulled him down on the bed beside her.
To enter her was a celebration of the soul. She rose above him, her arms outstretched and her head thrown back, flying somewhere in her own mind as she moved with him. Her body swayed and arched, surged and ebbed; she danced with him, the act of sex made into art so pure it hurt to see. His hands could not keep from her, touching her, proving her reality to himself again and again. She was a god in her element. She was a star at the universe’s creation. And she was his.
They climaxed together and Tagen felt this release for the first time as a joining. He thought he could almost reach out and touch her soul; he thought he could see her heart like a glow around them both. They were one. They were truly one.
She folded over, lowering herself with that dancing, dreaming grace until she lay atop him. His arms came up and closed around her waist, holding her against him, holding them joined.
“I love you, Tagen,” she breathed. “Do you know that word?”