have an unlimited supply of soldiers now.”
“It is a blessing, Chloe. I have seen it. So long as you are not mated, you will have this power,” Asana added.
“How is that a blessing? He’ll keep me locked up here turning humans for the rest of my life and if I don’t, he’ll kill everyone I care about!”
“But don’t you see? Now he can’t force you to be his mate.” Kaleb said, gripping her chin to turn her face to him as his eyes dropped to her lips. Chloe felt her stomach tighten under the intense gaze of his hooded eyes. She didn’t need to be a telepath to understand that it was desire clouding them.
“It means he won’t allow me to be anyone’s mate,” she whispered as he leaned closer, stopping just before their lips touched.
“But it gives us time,” he replied, his lips barely grazing hers with each word. Unable to stand it anymore, Chloe pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Kaleb let Chloe set the pace, so the kiss was gentle, tentative, as she explored the new sensation. Kaleb growled when her tongue darted out and swept across the seam of his lips, but he still held back, remaining conscious of Asana’s presence and not wanting to push Chloe. After years of serving his father, Kaleb was not well practiced in gentleness and restraint, but he would learn for Chloe.
Using more willpower than he realized he possessed, Kaleb broke the kiss, despite every cell in his body screaming for him to push it further. “We all knew you would be more powerful than any who came before you, that you would change the world; I just didn’t know how much you would change me,” he whispered, looking into Chloe’s hazy eyes.
She smiled demurely and her eyes fell to his lips again. She wanted more. More time, more kisses, more everything with Kaleb, but Asana’s thoughts came pushing in, reminding her of the danger looming over them all.
Lucias will return soon. Kaleb can’t be here when he does and I must go to him first, to tell him of my vision of how your mating will destroy your ability to turn humans into our kind. I will leave it to Kaleb to share what else I saw; he knows the story well, but you must not let him linger.
Chloe nodded, still wrapped in Kaleb’s arms and in a blur, Asana was gone. Chloe watched as the door closed and her eyes went to the camera mounted in the corner above it.
“Kaleb, what about the surveillance?” she asked in a panic as she tried to step out of his arms. “Lucias is bound to go back through the footage to see what happened with Molly. He’ll want to know everything about how it happened and then he’ll see you here.”
Kaleb held on to her and pulled her close again. “I took care of it. Before we came I disabled the feed to the cameras in this wing. Our kind has had to learn how to cover our tracks over the years through many changes in technology,” he responded, reaching up to twist a strand of her hair around his finger. Seeing the worried expression on her face, he continued, “Don’t worry; he won’t know it was me and I’m guessing he’ll be too distracted with his latest discovery to care. The footage he wants is still there.”
“You can’t stay,” she said, satisfied with his response, but still worried.
“I know. I just want to hold you for one more minute, okay?”
Chloe responded by laying her head on his chest and relaxing against him. They stayed that way, neither of them talking or thinking of anything except how good they felt in each other’s arms. When their time was up, Kaleb reluctantly released his hold on Chloe, pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead, and walked to the door.
“Wait; Asana said you would share something else she saw.”
“Another time,” he said, looking back with his eyes full of joy and a bit of sorrow. “Don’t worry; it is something very good and I will do everything I can to make sure it comes to pass.”
With that, he disappeared through the
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
John O'Riley
Brenda Sinclair
Christopher George
Stephen Lloyd Jones
Karl Iagnemma
Celya Bowers
Jill Gregory
Aria Cunningham