Courting Kel (17 page)

“If she gives one,” he muttered.

“Oh, she’ll greet you. She may even fondle your
personal
wealth
to see if you deserve me. That’s the Amazonian way of judging a
man’s worthiness.” Grinning, she winked.

Aren shifted in this seat, wondering if his shaft and sac
had truly drawn upward with Kel’s implied threat to his manhood. “Is that why
you were still a virgin when you came to me? No man’s
wealth
deserved
you?”

Her eyes swirling, Kel said, “I never thought of that but
you may be right. Should I ask her or will you?”

Aren laughed. “If your eyes failed to reveal your teasing,
I’d never leave the ship.”

“Quaking in our boots, are we?”

“Can’t speak for you, Kel, but I am.”

* * * * *

Amazonia

From the air, Amazonia appeared completely flat. Tiny
patches of deep green dotted an otherwise tan and brown landscape. Aren
wondered if the images were real or only the illusion Basalia had agreed to
reveal.

“Oh,” Kel said, disappointment in her voice. “It’s even more
desolate from up here than it is down there.”

“Yet Amazonia has a reputation for beauty.”

“I don’t see why. Ondrican is beautiful, whether viewed from
Peg’s back or from the ground. This is…ugly.”

“Its beauty lies in its women, Kel. In our galaxy Amazonia
is renowned for its incomparable women.”

“Perhaps I should blindfold you, lest you be tempted to
betray…”

“My marriage vows?” he taunted, knowing Kel had caught
herself in kniqudac of her own making. Much as she wanted to deny him and their
Ondrican marriage, she was beginning to feel married. Her words betrayed her
true emotions.

“I never realized my home was so large.” She pointed at the
series of humps that looked more like sand dunes than structures. “Not all of
it is housing. We
do
have a formal government, Aren. Some of the
buildings are for those offices. More are for training and schools. We even—”
She rubbed her belly. “We have a nursery where mothers and babes stay for a few
weeks before and after birth.” Grinning briefly, she added, “Another kind of
school, I guess, that teaches us how to care for the infants.”

Suspecting Kel’s babbling was due to nerves, he said,
“Everything looks so…round,” Aren said.
As round as your breasts and
buttocks, Kel.

In the far distance, he spotted a large patch of varying
shades of green bisected by a wide blue stripe. “Your planet is not entirely
devoid of beauty, Kel. Look there.” He tipped his spacecraft so she could see.

“That’s where the invaders hide before they attack.” Her
disparaging frown fading, she added, “Boas and skeetmosques and graackocrtos
greet them. By the time they emerge, they are more than willing to surrender.”

“Why don’t they assemble in the open? At least they could
see your warriors coming at them. And they would be in better condition to
fight.”

Kel just grinned. He should have known she’d reveal nothing
of her homeworld’s defenses.

“No doubt that’s why Basalia instructed me to land here—so
as to avoid the kniqudac and such.” Aren set his ship down in the exact center
of the vast courtyard Basalia’s palace formed around it. Waving his hand, he
widened the entire ship so he and Kel could debark side by side.

“Neat,” she said, seeming oblivious to this new to her skill
and tugging down her vest in a useless attempt to cover her bare torso. She
looked down, apparently at the material covering her lower body from just below
her navel to her thigh-high boot tops and huffed. “My clothes are so
tight—Basalia will deplore how fat I’ve become.”

But the first words out of the queen’s mouth were, “A
breeder! By all the gods, Kel’s brought us a magnificent breeder.”

And the speculative look Basalia raked over Aren—lingering
on his
personal wealth
—had Kel announcing in a loud voice, “Majesty, may
I present Prince Aren of Ondrican. My husband.”

Fighting back a smile, Aren met his mother-in-law’s emerald
gaze, and saw she fought laughter as well.

Maybe this ruse will end happily after all.

* * * * *

What have I done?
Once Kel told her mother—and half
the women on Amazonia!—Aren was her husband, she had no choice except to accept
him. Having accepted him, she would have to share her rooms with him. Eat every
meal with him. Never have a private moment to think what the future held for
her.

Entering her receiving room, she strode to the wide, curved
window overlooking her small garden. She wished she’d had a plant with the
prickliest quills to stuff into her mouth before she said one word to her
mother.

Aren, she noted when she sought him, remained in her open
doorway. His hand curved around the door’s rounded jamb.

“Have you a book?” he asked.

“A book?” she echoed as if she’d never heard the word.

“Yes. And a chair to sit on while reading it. In another
room of course.”

“Another—?” Realizing she sounded like a ratrop, she shut
her mouth.

“You need time to think, Kel, before we can sort this out.
Since I’ve little desire to spend time with Basalia, I thought I could read
while you think. You seem to do your best thinking while bathing.”

As if he had grown another head, Kel gaped at him. She
hadn’t expected this…courtesy.
Sensitivity
, she silently corrected,
wishing he were a brutish boor she could forget without caring.

“Though not as luxurious as yours at your palace, I have a
bathing room,” she said.
Sweet Goddess, am I inviting him to join me or to
remain here and read?

Closing the door, he chuckled. “As I said, you seem to think
best while you bathe.”

“How would you know? While on Ondrican, I can count bathing
alone on the fingers of one hand,” she countered, laughter in her voice. “And
have several fingers left.”

“Is that an invitation, Flame?”

“Perhaps…not.” Sitting on the curved window seat, she
studied him with fresh eyes. As if she had never seen him. Met him. Mated with
him.

His stature still impressed her. Imposing size, true. But
his height and width seemed less important when she acknowledged his
self-confidence. His innate power. The kindness in his eyes that overlaid the
hint of humor in them. His lips, so firm and disciplined as he withstood her
scrutiny. So soft and giving when he kissed her.

His simple garb enhanced his appearance of power. His vest
hugged his powerful torso, caressing pecs and rib cage Kel longed to touch.
Clenching her fingers together, she folded her hands in her lap. His leather
pants seemed to be painted over his skin, barely hiding his—

“Since we will dine with Basalia and her council, I think a
tunic or robe might be more—”

“Appropriate for a married man,” he suggested.

“Comfortable,” she countered, feeling the first hint of
anger override lust and—as much as she abhorred it—jealousy. She found it
intolerable that any woman would share her lust. View him as a sex machine she
could have without thinking about Kel or Aren’s husband status. On the heels of
jealousy came rage. A fury only destroying that guanshit prophecy cloth could
assuage.

“Where might I find a book, Kel?”

Tempted to send the wretch to her mother’s library, Kel
quickly reconsidered. Her mother had the greatest sexual appetite Kel had ever
encountered. Kel doubted her marriage would keep the queen from seducing Aren.
Given the opportunity—which Kel had no intention of providing.

“Through that door.” She pointed at another curved wall. “I
maintain a small library. You’ll find a variety of comfortable chairs in there
as well.”

Rising, she paced to another door in the same curved wall.
“I think an hour’s thinking will leave me sufficiently reasonable for our
discussion.”

Threat or promise?
Aren found it impossible to
decide. Expelling his held breath, he entered Kel’s small library. Books filled
shelf after shelf curved to match the half-moon walls. As crammed in as the
books were, it looked as if Kel had more of them than he kept in the
Princesses’ Palace and his lodge combined. A flash of pink from one of the
lower shelves caught his attention. Hunkering down, he discovered the book
spine was unreadable. He eased it from its wedged-in place between thicker
tomes.

“Pixie tales,” he said, grinning at yet another curved door,
one he suspected led to Kel’s sleep chamber. Opening the book, he discovered a
story he’d read to Drew before she grew and learned to read for herself.

Following Kel’s growth up the bookcase shelves gave him a
brief and far too sketchy insight into his wife’s complex mind. She read
voraciously. Books he selected at random had well-worn pages, yet their spines
showed little wear. She cared for her books as he prayed she would care for
their children. And would pass on to them the knowledge she had garnered from
reading.

Military tactics from planets long ago destroyed by invaders
or their own peoples. Philosophy and physical science. Paganism and single
deities. Literature from worlds he’d only heard of crowded alongside books
extolling fashion fads from bygone eras. Yet nowhere could he find a single
tome about Amazonia. But then Kel had told them her world had only oral
history.

Hearing a door open, he returned to her receiving room,
pleased to find Kel wearing the multicolored gown he had given her.

“It seems,” she said, facing him, “the prophecy cloth is not
the only fabric inclined to follow me. You’ll find your own clothes in my sleep
chamber.”

With a nod, he went to change, offended by her wording.
My
sleep chamber, not
ours
… So, she had thought about them but had yet to
acknowledge their marriage. Not to herself anyway. Not in any permanent
fashion.

Somehow he had to make her see reason. Just how he hadn’t
the smallest clue.

Storr claimed he would tie a reluctant woman to the
bedposts—standing, of course—and touch her everywhere she loved being touched.
He’d have her watch couples or ménages fucking until she could bear it no
longer but must have what others were having. He’d make her beg for release. A
game Aren and Tage had played sometimes when off planet, with women who only
pretended not to want to fuck.

Kel seemed to arouse when watching the princesses fuck their
mates. Watching others fuck had a certain appeal to Aren, but only as a last
resort. He knew Kel’s body and its secrets. What he needed to learn were the
secrets of her mind and of her heart.

If I ask Basalia for advice…
Would she think him a
fool, unworthy of her daughter’s love? Or would she read his heart and know he
only wanted Kel’s happiness?

When did I become such a romantic
? he wondered,
returning to Kel’s receiving room and finding her surrounded by six comely
women in warrior garb and armed to the teeth.

Kel shot him a chagrined look, saying, “Basalia wishes a few
private moments before her council joins us for dinner.”

“Very well,” Aren said, holding out his arm to Kel.

Her companions tittered as if they’d never seen such a
courtesy. Which they most likely had not. Kel shook her head slightly and
remained where she was. One warrior opened the doors to the hallway. Kel went
out while five females herded him along, the sixth joining them after she
closed Kel’s doors.

With Kel leading the procession, his guards indulged in
comments concerning Aren’s appearance. They wondered if his body was as
powerful as his biceps. They complained that his sleeveless robe hid too much,
that they wished he’d dressed in clothes similar to those he’d arrived in so
they could evaluate his assets. Although uncomfortable with their speculations,
he took some pleasure in watching Kel’s back and shoulders stiffen. At the
doors to what he assumed were Basalia’s quarters, Kel faced them. Her turn
coincided with a lurid comment about the size of his shaft and how well he
wielded it.

Kel’s smile remained soft but her eyes swirled dark-gray and
stormy-black. “The size of my husband’s cock and how he uses it are for me to
know and for you to imagine only.”

“Yes, Princess,” the warriors chorused, two springing
forward to open the doors. Two others, a hand on each of his buttocks, urged
him forward.

Kel’s eyebrows quirked, as did the corners of her lips.
“Whatever you imagine, you’ll fall far short,” she said, holding out her hand
to him and winking at their escorts. “And keep your hands off my man.”

With a gentle tug on his hand, Kel took him forward. The
closing doors muffled the women’s laughter.

At first glance, Basalia’s receiving room differed from
Kel’s only in size and seating capacity. Aren gauged it as three times larger
with twice the number of chairs, divans and low tables. One table, larger than
the others and round—like everything else he had seen so far—stood near the
window seat where Basalia sat, looking like the queen she was and a lot like her
daughter. But he noticed differences as well. Her skin was paler, likely due to
spending little time outside. Her bare arms seemed rounder than Kel’s—not
saggy, just…round. He darted a glance at Kel’s breasts, which were definitely
rounder than before he’d gone to see his father. Then he looked back at her
mother. No discernable difference in their bosoms. He was growing quite fond of
roundness and wished he could see Basalia’s ass to assess how Kel’s might look
as she grew older. Since the queen was seated, her emerald-colored skirts
pooled around her, he could only imagine that her hips were slightly wider than
Kel’s, her waist a modicum thicker. More glimpses of what Kel would look like
as she aged.

“Come closer,” Basalia said, her husky voice much like
Kel’s. So much like her daughter’s that, were he not looking at them both, he
might not have known who spoke.