“I will not. Why should I believe you?” K demanded.
“Aside from the two seizures you’ve already had which were only stopped by skin-to-skin contact with me?”
“You gave me medicine the first time,” K pointed out stubbornly. “I felt the needle pierce my flesh.”
“The first time but not the second time. It wasn’t the medicine that helped you, K, it was this.” He pointed at his broad chest. “Me. And while I’ve never had a big enough ego to think I’m God’s gift to women, you apparently Imprinted on me because I was the first person to touch you after your damn suit came off. So, lucky for you, I am your personal wonder drug. Now come here before you start shaking and seizing again.”
“That isn’t going to happen.” Except she could already feel her muscles quivering as the shivering pain started again. K ignored it and continued to glare at her captor. “If you think you can make me want to help you by using some kind of filthy erotic Erian trick on me, you’re wrong.”
Boone scrubbed one hand down his face. It made a whispery sound that seemed loud in the dim room as his palm passed over the dark stubble on his jaw. “Let’s get something straight right now, darlin’. I am not now and never will be interested in molesting you. I know how it looks with you naked and me in just my shorts but I swear to you I haven’t been taking advantage of you.”
K frowned, confused. “Taking advantage?”
“Touching you someplace I shouldn’t,” he clarified and then frowned. “You know, your breasts? Your—”
“Oh!” K’s hand flew to her mouth and to her shame and horror, she felt her cheeks getting hot with embarrassment. “You’re talking about…about procreating sexually? With me?”
“Right, exactly.” He looked uncomfortable. “The point is, I haven’t been doing anything like that. And you have my word as a gentleman I never will.”
“I can’t believe…it never even crossed my mind.” She had only a vague idea of what was involved in sexual procreation—some kind of penetration she was sure. But just the idea of him doing that to her made her skin hot and cold all over and she felt suddenly even more naked. Dropping her defensive posture she wrapped her arms around her bare chest and drew her knees up to her chin.
Boone was staring at her worriedly. “Great, now I’ve freaked her out even more,” K heard him mutter to himself. “Look, darlin’, if it makes you feel any better, this isn’t forever. According to Loki you need to be touched a lot right now because you’re in the infant stage. Once you reach the next level—which should be fairly soon since you’re already technically grown—you won’t need to be held as often.”
“So I can look forward to you contaminating me ten times a day instead of twelve? I don’t think so.” She glared up at him fiercely. “Don’t come near me again. If you do, I’ll kill you. I don’t need your hands on me and I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
He frowned. “We’ll see how you feel in another half hour or so when your body starts craving a touch fix.”
“You’re lying again. Every time you open your mouth you lie.” K held herself more tightly, trying to stop the shivering. “I don’t even believe you really have a sister in the pshalite mines.”
Boone snorted. “Oh right. I made it all up to have an excuse to capture my very own pet Paladin. Because I love going to bed with a prickly bitch who doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I don’t know what your reasons are and I don’t care. Just stay away from me.”
“Fine. Have it your way.” Boone settled back against the headboard of the sleep pallet and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ll wait it out. But the minute you start seizing I’m coming to get you.”
“And then I’ll kill you.” But it was an empty threat and K knew it. Already she could feel her body shaking and her vision was blurring. Her stomach clenched like a slick fist and the big muscles of her thighs were knotting up painfully.
Despite her physical symptoms she didn’t want to believe it. Surely he couldn’t be right! Surely she couldn’t need him to touch her. K bit the inside of her cheek, trying to breathe past the pain, to control it. I fear nothing, I feel nothing. I fear nothing, I feel nothing.
The minutes passed, feeling like hours. Boone watched her struggle silently, not going to her though his blue-green eyes were troubled. K clenched her hands into fists and matched his stare with her own. She would triumph over this pain and if she did not, well, at least she could die fighting it. Would Purity still accept her, as contaminated as she was? K didn’t know but as the agony grew even greater, she thought she was about to find out…
“That’s it. I can’t watch this anymore.” Boone was suddenly off the sleep pallet and towering over her. K tried to scramble away from him but she couldn’t move—her muscles were all locked into horribly painful knots. “C’mon, darlin’.” He scooped her up as though she was a child and took her back to the pallet where he cradled her in his lap and pressed her against his chest. At once her muscles unlocked and she went limp.
“No.” K didn’t like the way her voice sounded. It was more of a weary moan than a fierce battle cry.
“Be quiet.” He sounded both irritated and concerned. “Lights out,” he said and the room was plunged into darkness. “Just be quiet and breathe,” he told K sternly.
K had no choice in the matter. She lay against his broad chest and felt completely surrounded by him. His heartbeat and the low rumble of his voice filled her ears and his scent filled her nose. His arms, wrapped around her like warm, flexible steel. No escape. He’s everywhere—there’s no way I can get away from him…
“Why are you doing this to me?” she heard herself whisper. “Why can’t you just give me back my suit or let me die?”
“Because I took an oath to preserve life.”
“And because you think I’ll help you.”
“I know you will—you want your damn suit back too much not to. But I hope in time you’ll see that there are other options besides suicide even if you have been ‘contaminated.’”
“Death is the only honorable choice.” K didn’t like the slight hesitation she heard in her own voice. What she was saying was true. She was Impure now—she should die. But somehow it was harder to resign herself to death now than it had been earlier. Why was that? K didn’t have an answer.
Boone shifted in the darkness. “I don’t think you’ll be quite so ready to kick the bucket once some of those damn emo-dampers have been flushed out of your system. It’s easy to face your own death if you’re numb. We’ll see how you do once you can feel again.”
“I don’t want to feel,” K protested but what she wanted didn’t seem to matter. Even now there was a lump in her throat for some reason. She swallowed it down with difficulty.
“Of course not. Feeling hurts. And while you’re pretty used to physical pain, I bet you’ve never dealt with the emotional kind, am I right?”
“I don’t have too. I have surrendered my emotions to Purity.” But her voice wavered as she spoke. What if he was right? What if it wasn’t the holy nothingness of Purity filling her that had muted her emotions for so many years? What if her suit had been giving her medicine to rid her of her feelings?
Her thoughts raced as she lay silently in his arms. What if she really did have Erian DNA? Did it make her weak like the natives of Eros? Would she begin to crave Boone’s touch, to act like a depraved, disgusting Erian? How had her life gotten so off track so quickly? I am a trained warrior. A fourth level Paladin. I fear nothing. I feel nothing. Then why did she feel so helpless right now? What good was her strength or her training doing her? None.
“You’re awfully quiet, K. Are you plotting another way to kill yourself?” He sounded half serious, half amused.
“No. I… Do you like having emotions?” she blurted.
“Not always. Like I said, feeling can hurt. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be numb.”
“Do you…have emotions toward me?” She didn’t
know why she asked. Somehow it seemed easier to talk to him in the darkness when she couldn’t see him.
Boone sighed. “I ought to. I ought to hate you. You’re a cold hearted Purist and your ‘purge squad’ killed two of my crew.”
“I was following orders and I would do so again,” K said sharply, twisting in his arms. “And as I have no emotions myself, I do not care that you hate me.”
“Be still.” His grip on her tightened until she stopped struggling. “I didn’t say I hate you, I said I ought to.” He shifted behind her again, positioning them both so they were lying on their sides on the sleeping pallet, just as they had been when K had first woken up. “But somehow I can’t. I feel too damn sorry for you.”
“You feel sorry for me?” K was incredulous. “I am a fourth level Paladin while you are simply—”
“I know, I’m just one of the great unwashed masses, a poor, ignorant soul who hasn’t been touched by the shining light of Purity.”
“Well…yes. Are you making fun of me?” K asked suspiciously.
“Not at all,” Boone said dryly. “Just trying to see things from your perspective. And to point out that if you took a minute to look at things from my point of view you might think differently.”
“Why would I want any viewpoint other than my own?”
“Because maybe if you had one you’d see that not everything you’ve been taught is perfectly right. What’s so great about Purity anyway? Why take the idea of simple human contact and pervert it—make it a sin and a crime?”
“To touch is to contaminate,” K said, reciting the words she’d been taught since birth. “Contamination is against the precepts of Purity.”
“But why? Why is it wrong? What’s so bad about it? About this?” He stroked one large, warm hand down her bare arm from shoulder to elbow.
K shivered, her skin tingling from the illicit touch. “It’s just wrong. Touching leads to…to other things.”
“To what? To love? To sex?” Boone’s breath was hot against the back of her neck.
K could feel her cheeks getting warm again but she struggled to control her embarrassment and speak calmly. “Sexual reproduction is the worst kind of contamination—one cannot sink lower than to allow oneself to engage in physical congress with another.”
“They feed you that line and you just accept it? Don’t you ever wonder what you’re missing?”
“I have no sexual urges if that is what you are asking,” K said stiffly. “When Purity fills you there is no room for anything else. The unnatural desire to procreate sexually is completely eradicated.”
“I gotta tell you, darlin’, you’re not exactly making me want to convert. From what you’re telling me Purity doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“Fun?”
“Enjoyable. Entertaining. Pleasurable.”
“And you find it pleasurable to debase yourself sexually?” K demanded, squirming in his unbreakable grip.
“With the right person, yes, very pleasurable,” Boone said mildly. “But I understand if you don’t get it.”
“Of course I don’t. I have never gone against the precepts of Purity.”
“Until now.”
“Yes, until now. And that was not of my own choosing.”
“Well I’m sorry I had to make the choice for you. But I think you’ll find in time that touching and being touched isn’t the horrible thing you’ve been led to believe. I mean, take this…” He pulled her closer for a moment, his arms tightening gently around her. “Lying here with me, warm and comfortable in the dark together. Is it really so bad?”
“Of course it’s bad,” she said automatically. “It’s…I’m contaminated. We both are.”
“But does it feel bad? Do you hate it?”
“Yes.” K stiffened in his arms, determined not to forget her training. “It’s…what you’re doing, what you’ve done to me is the worst thing that could possibly happen to one of my kind.”
Boone sighed, his breath moving the tiny wisps of hair that had escaped from her braid, tickling her neck. “If you really believe that then you’ve got a lot to learn. I’m sorry you find me holding you so distasteful and that you’re upset—”
“I don’t get ‘upset,’” K said coldly. “I fear nothing—”
“I feel nothing,” Boone finished for her. “Yeah, right, I know.” He yawned deeply. “Anyway, I’m sorry but until you get over the worst of your touch-craving we’re gonna have to be joined at the hip for awhile.”
“But…how long will that be?” K whispered, trying to swallow the panic that threatened to eat her.
Behind her she could feel Boone shrug. “Don’t know. No more than a week hopefully. Maybe two. We really don’t have any idea. As far as I know, no adult with Erian DNA raised by the Purists has ever gotten away from them before.”
“I didn’t get away, you took me,” K said sharply. “Are you saying I have to go through a week of this? Sleeping like this every night and getting sick every day if you don’t…don’t contaminate me?”
“You make it sound so romantic,” Boone said dryly. “We’ll just have to take it one day at a time. But right now it’s time to get back to sleep, okay? You think you can keep your suicidal tendencies under wraps for a few hours or do I need to put the plasti-seal back on your wrists?”
“I will be still,” K said reluctantly. She didn’t want her hands bound again—it made her feel helpless and afraid, even more helpless and afraid than she already was. And though she tried to release the turbulent emotions to Purity, somehow they wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Your word of honor as a Paladin?” Boone prompted.
“I swear to Purity that I will be still while we sleep,” K said through tight lips.
Boone yawned again. “All right. Loki would say I was crazy for trusting you but I’m gonna take you at your word, darlin’. Settle down and let’s get some sleep, we’ve got kitchen duty tomorrow.”
K didn’t know what kitchen duty was but it didn’t really matter, did it? No matter what she did, she was still stuck. Trapped here in an enemy vessel without her squad or her suit, being continuously contaminated and unable to do anything about it.
Briefly she thought of all the prisoners she and her squad had captured over the years they’d been flying together. Was this how they had felt, knowing they were slated for either termination or the pshalite mines? Hopeless, helpless, completely out of control? It was a sobering thought and one she didn’t like to dwell on. This must be what Boone means by taking another point of view.
K found she didn’t like it—not a bit. She had never felt much of anything while doing her job and leading her squad. Once in awhile there was a faint thrill of victory when the fighting was especially arduous but she had worked to eradicate even that positive emotion from her Purity seeking soul.
Purity help me, K prayed silently in the darkness. Fill me with the cold, the dark, the nothingness. Fill me with yourself. Still the disturbing emotions remained, refusing to be purged.
But worse than the bad feelings were the good ones.
As she lay secure in Boone’s arms, his deep, slow breathing lulling her to sleep, K couldn’t help thinking of what he’d said. “Lying here with me, warm and comfortable in the dark together. Is it really so bad?”
No, K thought before she could stop herself. It’s not so bad. It wasn’t horrible or painful or disgusting as she had been led to believe it would be. Contamination was actually quite…comfortable. Boone was warm and comforting behind her, cradling her in a way her suit had never been able to. Her head was pillowed on one of his massive arms and her body seemed to fit perfectly into the curve of his big frame. It gave K a strange feeling—the feeling of being one person in two bodies. Of being somehow joined even though they were still separate entities. Why was that?
She didn’t have any idea but she did know one thing—the feeling of contentment and security she felt in Boone’s arms was not to be trusted. He was still the enemy and the
moment she got a chance she was going to kill first him and then herself.
Wasn’t she?
Of course I am, K told herself firmly. But right now she needed to get some rest if she was going to have any chance of escape tomorrow. Sighing she settled herself more comfortably against her hated captor and surrendered herself to sleep.
Chapter Five
Boone woke up before his alarm went off with the idea that he was in the middle of something important. At first he couldn’t remember what it was. Then he looked down at K, her slender asexual body curled against his and her sleek head pillowed on his bicep. She was a Paladin and he had gone to the trouble of luring her aboard the ship and capturing her because…Because of Shayla.
The moment he thought his little sister’s name the memory came rushing back like a dog with sharp teeth just waiting to be called.
The transport officer had come to Boone’s lab in downtown Titus, his face grim. “I’m sorry but the Star’s Hope has been taken by pirates. Your sister was aboard, wasn’t she? We think she and the rest of the passengers have been sold to the Purists for their pshalite mines on Midas. I’m very sorry for your loss.” Boone still remembered the look in the man’s eyes when he gave the news—it was as though Shayla was already dead.
Sorrow and remorse filled him. All my fault, I shouldn’t have let her go. But she wanted a trip off planet so badly and she worked so hard in school. It only seemed fair. She begged me to go with her but I said no, my research was too important, at a critical stage. If only I had gone, I might have been able to do something. Might have been able to protect her, to escape with her…
The guilt was crippling and for a moment he wished he could crush the emotion and just be cold and calculating like the girl in his arms. But the best he could do was push it away and shove his fear for Shayla to the back of his mind. If he let himself dwell on the way he had failed her he would go insane.
Boone sighed. He had to keep working toward the ultimate goal of bringing his little sister back home in one piece, both emotionally and physically. I’m coming, Shayla, he vowed silently as he did every morning. I swear I’ll get to you out of there or die trying.