She turned her cheek away from him. “No thanks.”
Gunt’s expression changed in slow motion, developing from lust to rage. His hand shot out and closed around her throat. “What?”
She gurgled, trying to suck air through her closed windpipe.
“You think you’re too good for me, vecking human?”
She shook her head, and he dropped her. A door whisked open down the hall. Before he had the opportunity to do or say anything more, she took off running. The expensive rugs slipped under her bare feet. She didn’t hear Gunt’s footsteps behind her. Chancing a look back, she saw him walking purposefully but not running. Perfecting his cover, she supposed, in case anyone saw them.
She slowed her steps as well. No reason she should act guilty either. By the time she reached Zander’s door, she’d caught her breath and held her head high. She didn’t know how to open it, though. She stared at the door, waiting for Gunt.
He arrived behind her. “Let me know when you change your mind,” he said as he reached past her, pressed his palm to the security screen, and opened the door. “If you tell the prince, I’ll say you offered yourself to me. He won’t believe a human over his own species.”
Chapter 4
“She’ll be back from her feeding soon,” Zander told Daneth, who had arrived full of information on human reproduction. “You can take her for the implants then.”
Daneth believed a “natural conception” was important for Zander’s child. He said they would only resort to harvesting her eggs and breeding offspring in the lab if natural conception failed after 200 planet rotations. Zander had grumbled about having to breed the human for two hundred days and nights. If things went as badly as they had the night before, he would insist on a lab breeding by the third moon passing.
Lamira burst into his chamber, a spot of high color on her cheeks. Red blotches marred the slender column of her neck, too. It must be from the wet collar.
Humans and their weak constitution.
“What took you so long?”
She lifted a shaky hand to her hair and smoothed it away from her face. “Oh...um, Gunt gave me a tour of the pod.” She pulled her shoulders back and drew a breath. “My lord, the crystals provide excellent light here. I could grow plants for the pod—food you could eat, or flowers.”
“I have no need for—”
Daneth lifted a finger. “My lord, this could be useful knowledge for rebuilding an over-mined planet.”
He was right. But surely that wasn’t the only reason this human had been selected as his best mate. Knowledge of agriculture could be found or bought. “All right,” he grumbled. “You may grow things, Lamira. Later, you can tell me what supplies you’ll need.”
Her face lit up so bright, it almost made the hassle worth it. Almost.
“You may take her now.”
Daneth planned to insert sensors in her female canal and womb which would send constant feedback of her physical state directly to Zander’s armband.
Lamira’s eyes went wide, the beautiful green of her irises growing as her pupils shrank. He didn’t have to be an expert on humans to recognize fear. Veck, he could smell it on her. Why was she so afraid of Daneth?
Before he could explain what would happen to her, Daneth had touched his wand to the back of her neck, and she crumpled. His physician swung her up over his shoulder.
“Not like that,” he snapped.
Daneth put her down, supporting her upright, and stared at him.
“Don’t carry her like that. It’s disrespectful to the mother of my future children.”
Daneth bowed. “Yes, of course, my lord. You’re quite right.” He picked her up in two arms, cradled like a baby, instead.
Zander scowled, not liking the intimacy of it. “I will carry her.” He waved an impatient hand to dismantle the hologram he’d been working on and surged to his f
eet, snatching his bride—no. Not his bride—his slave—from Daneth’s grasp. “Let’s go,” he growled.
“The procedure will only take a few moments, my lord. It would be useful if you stayed, and I could show you what I learned about her anatomy and arousal.”
His guard Gunt followed them with an overly-interested gaze. Zander turned back to give a disapproving glare.