“Tequila.”
The waiter turned dark, wide eyes to Rohan. Their blackness against the gold of his fur made them seem fathomless and terribly alien. “I’ll drink what the lady is drinking,” Rohan said, making it an act of gallantry. With a bouncing leap, the creature was up the tree, gripping the ropes and racing away.
“You just full of courtesy, aren’t you?” Sammy asked. “Do you even like tequila?”
“Well enough.”
“What do you drink at home?” she asked, fixing those emerald cat eyes on him.
“Champagne, martinis. In the summer months I’ll drink the occasional beer or gin and tonic. Wine with dinner. Why do you ask?”
“How often do you drink?”
“Every night,” he blurted before he could help himself. “And why the interrogation? You sound like my doctor.”
“Do you drink to relax or to forget? Or both?”
“You make too much of this. I drink because … I enjoy a drink in the evenings. That’s all.” Though he found himself remembering the night five weeks ago when he’d heard Juliana’s tinkling laugh as she flirted with the young officer who was currently inhabiting her bed. He had drunk himself into insensibility that night.
Another Isanjo landing next to the table caused Rohan to start and pulled him from his brooding reverie. A bowl of dipping sauce and pieces of bread were slapped down on the table. The pungent scent of the sauce set Rohan’s eyes and mouth to watering.
“You were drunk tonight,” Sammy said, and popped a piece of bread into her mouth. “Otherwise you would never have come backstage.”
“Do you rate your charms so low?”
“I rate your sense of propriety a good deal higher” was the dry reply.
“Well, you’re probably right about that,” Rohan admitted.
“So, why did you come?”
“Because you’re beautiful … And … and I’m lonely.”
“And do you think two bodies clashing in the dark will alleviate that?” she asked.
He was embarrassed to discover that his throat had gone tight. He swallowed past the lump, coughed, and said, “Are you propositioning me, young woman?” He hoped his tone was as light as the words.
“No. You have to do that. I still have some pride left. Not a lot, but some.”
“You find your … er … profession to be demeaning?” The look of contempt and incredulity almost cut. He looked away from those blazing green eyes. “Well, I think you answered that question.”
Sammy shrugged. “It’s this state religion of yours. Women are either Madonnas or whores.”
“And which are you?” he asked, deciding to hit back.
It was the right move. She gave him an approving smile. “Whichever you want.”
“Oh, I doubt that. I think you’re not at all accommodating,” Rohan said.
Their drinks arrived. She lifted hers and smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “For an aristo, you’re not at all stupid.”
“Thank you. And for a stripper you’re not at all common.”
They clinked glasses. She sipped. Suddenly nervous, he threw his back in a single gulp. “Whoa, slow down there, caballero. Otherwise I’ll be carrying you out of here.”
“My driver would handle that,” Rohan said.
“Yes, but he can’t handle propositioning me,” Sammy retorted. She picked up her menu. “Shall we order? I’m famished.”
She made love as well as she stripped.
Rohan rolled off her with a gasp and a groan. Shudders still shook his body. She sat up, straddled him, and raked her mane of hair back off her face. She drew a forefinger down his nose, traced the line of his lips, stroked his neck, and then rubbed his paunch. Futilely, Rohan tried to suck in his gut. She chuckled deep in her throat, and Rohan felt his penis try to respond, then collapse in defeat.
He had wanted her so badly by the time they reached her apartment deep in Stick Town, where the Flutes congregated. He had ripped off her clothes and shoved her down on the bed. Then, with clumsy fingers, he’d freed the clasps on his shirt, ripped loose his belt, pulled down the zipper, skinned his trousers over his hips, and fallen onto her. There had been little foreplay.
He reached up and gently touched that gamine little face. “I’m sorry. That probably wasn’t very good for you.”
“I’m sure there will be an opportunity for you to make it up to me,” she said softly, and bent forward to kiss his lips. She tasted of vanilla with a hint of tequila on the back of her tongue.
He rubbed his hands across her groin, and stopped when his fingers hit deep, twisting scars beneath the silken fur. How had he not felt them earlier? Too absorbed in his own pleasure and the sensations sweeping through his body. She froze and stared down at him.
“What—?” he began.
“I was on Insham.” He yanked back his hands as if he’s been the one who had applied the knife and cut away her ovaries. “Of course, I’m one of the lucky ones. Neutered beats dead.” The words were flat, matter-of-fact.
He found himself making excuses, offering the party line. “It was the actions of one overzealous admiral. The government never … we stopped it as soon as word reached us.”
“But not before three thousand seven hundred and sixty-two children were killed. Do you know how many are left?” He stared up at her, at the glitter in her eyes, and shook his head. “Two hundred and thirty-eight.”
“You know the exact count?” It was inane, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Oh yes.”
“How did you …?”
“One of your soldiers saved me. Me and a few other children. He guarded the nursery, shot and killed other SpaceCom troops who weren’t so … squeamish.”
“You think that’s the only reason he acted?” Rohan asked. “Maybe he knew it was barbaric and immoral. Can’t you give us humans that much credit?”
“You humans started it.” She pressed her lips together, as if holding back more words. “But perhaps you’re right.” She paused, lost in some memory. “I always wonder what happened to him. Did your government court-martial and execute him for refusing an order?”
Rohan couldn’t continue to meet her gaze. He turned his head on the pillow, catching a scent of lilac as his stubbled cheek rasped across the silky material of the pillowcase. “No. All the troops, and there were a number of them who refused the order,” he added defensively, “were allowed to resign from the service without prejudice.”
“I’m glad. I would hate to think he died for an act of mercy.”
They were both silent for a long time. “None of you would have suffered if the Cara had just obeyed the law.”
Sammy smiled and drew her finger down the bridge of his nose. “And if they had, I wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t be lying, sated, in my bed.”
There was no answer to that. He struggled to sit up past the curve of his belly and kiss her. She made it easy by lying down next to him and cradling his dick in her hands. Her head was on his shoulder, hair tickling his chin, breath warm against his neck. Tentatively he asked, “Do you hate us?”
“What a silly question.” She paused. “Of course I hate you.” The words landed like a blow. “Oh, not ‘you’ as in you. Humans in general, yes. You personally, no. Humans are mean, violent monkeys, and the galaxy would be better off if you’d never crawled off your rock, but you seem to be all right.”
“You’re half human.”
“Which means that I’m at least half as mean. You should keep that in mind,” she said, her voice catching on a little chuckle.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rohan mumbled as sleep fell on his eyelids as soft as snowflakes. He drowsily thought back over the evening, the quick steps of her tiny, arched feet, the play of muscles in her belly. The memories and the heat of her skin pressed against his had his dick hardening again. He remembered the flash of light from her claws. Unease banished torpor. “Those were gloves, right? The claws, I mean. They were sewn onto gloves.”
There was a sharp pricking against the soft skin of his penis. His eyes snapped open, and he tried to peer past the bulge of his gut, but to no avail. He pushed up on his elbows, the pinpricks becoming stabs of pain. “Shit!” he yelled as he saw the extruded claws inset with the diodes. The razor-sharp tips pressed against the pink, wrinkled skin of his rapidly deflating dick.
“No. They’re real.”
He stared up at her, now deeply frightened. She retracted the claws, then she fell onto his chest, hair spread like a cloak across them both. He took her hand in his and inspected her fingers, trying to see how the claws were sheathed. He noticed that the pads on the tips of her fingers were completely smooth, but then she kissed him hard, her tongue demanding, forcing past his teeth. His erection returned, and all thought about her odd hands was driven from his head.
“I won’t hurt you, Han,” she murmured against his mouth. “That much I promise.”
Tracy stared, stricken. “We … SpaceCom … killed … children?”
“Yes. All but a handful.” Rohan refilled his glass. “I wasn’t lying to Sammy, it really did start with an overly pious and deeply bigoted admiral.” He shrugged. “And some good came from the revulsion that shook the League once word of the butchery got out. The laws on aliens were relaxed somewhat.”
“Was this why the Cara vanished?” Tracy asked.
“Yes. Within days of the slaughter, the Cara were gone. Their shops standing empty, the freighters drifting abandoned and stripped in space or laying derelict on various moons and asteroids, as if a great storm had swept through and tossed them aground.” Rohan looked around the bar with the exaggerated care of the profoundly drunk. He leaned in across the table and whispered, the words carried on alcohol-laden breath, “They could still be all around us, and we wouldn’t even know it.”
There was a prickling between Tracy’s shoulder blades, as if hostile eyes or something more lethal were being leveled at him. “That’s stupid. Space is big. They probably just went someplace else. Got away from us. Went back to their home world. We never found it.”
“In what? They abandoned their ships.”
Tracy found himself reevaluating the sullen drinkers, the jovial bartender, the waitress. Did each face hide a murderous hatred?
Rohan resumed his story.
For their two-month anniversary, Rohan gave Sammy an emerald-and-gold necklace. It was a massive thing, reminiscent of an Egyptian torque from Old Earth, and it seemed to bend her slender neck beneath its weight. He had bought it originally for Juliana, but she had never worn it, disparaging it as gaudy and more what she would have expected from some jumped-up, nouveau riche trader than a member of the FFH.
“So, I get your wife’s castoffs?” Sammy asked with a crooked little smile.
“No … that’s not … I never—”
Sammy stopped the stammered words with a soft hand across his mouth. “I don’t mind. It’s beautiful, and it’s rather appropriate. I got her cast-off husband.”
They were at his small hunting lodge in the mountains, enjoying a rare snowfall. The only light in the bedroom was provided by the dancing flames in the stone fireplace. Outside, the wind sighed in the trees like a woman’s sad cries.