Shivers raced up and down her body, producing a hoard of goosebumps. Her nipples tightened almost painfully. As if he’d anticipated that reaction, he slipped a hand beneath her to tease the tight buds. The third time she came, she seemed to float off into space as if her entire body had exploded into fiery shards. She was barely aware of the shudders that wracked him as he followed her into rapture and then she sank literally and figuratively, flattening out beneath him weakly in the aftermath and drifting toward a dark harbor.

    He abandoned her abruptly, rolling off onto the mattress beside her, but even the sudden chill on her damp skin barely roused her from her near comatose state. She shivered, waiting for him to pull her to him as he always had before. When he didn’t, she debated whether she was even welcome in the shelter of his warmth. Wounded pride kept her where she was until it finally occurred to her that, maybe, he was waiting for some sign of acceptance. Maybe he needed to be reassured that, despite her shocked surprise at the discovery of just how different he was from her, she still wanted him?

    Gathering her strength with an effort, she shifted toward him until she could sprawl limply across him, curled against his side with one and one leg flung across him. He stiffened. For many moments he simply lay unmoving. Finally, he rolled slightly toward her and curled his arms around her. She drifted off with the comforting skate of his hand along her back.

    It was the light brush of his lips along her shoulder that roused her toward awareness. She struggled against attaining full awareness, waiting for another caress. Instead, he rolled away from her. She felt the mattress shift as his weight left it and then heard the distinctive rustle of his clothing.

    He was leaving! Her heart slammed almost painfully against her chest wall. She tensed, readying herself to leap up, and then forced herself to relax again. He hadn’t wakened her. He wouldn’t welcome a tearful good-bye.

    Swallowing against the emotion that abruptly clogged her throat she lay as still as she could, searching the darkened room for him, listening to his movements as he dressed. When he’d finished it seemed he simply stood staring at her. Hope surged through her that he would come back to her, tell her goodbye, maybe kiss her one last time.

    She thought she felt that want in him, but maybe it was only her own desires she felt? After a few moments she heard a faint, unidentifiable sound. The door?

    She’d just decided it was when she saw the light. It had already begun to fade by the time she scrambled up to look. She stared at the faint glow where he’d been standing only moments before until there was only darkness and finally lay down again.

    The urge to cry swept over her in an inescapable avalanche. For once, she didn’t try to fight it off. For once, it was safe to allow her grief and hurt full reign. There was no one to hear, no one to care or judge her for having no control over her emotions. She cried until she was so exhausted sleep claimed her again.

    It was the maid that woke her, tapping on the door and announcing that she was from housekeeping. “Come back later!” Sybil bellowed, uncaring of how surly she sounded.

Chapter Twelve

    Anka was still seething when he reached the ship. He didn’t know if he was more furious about his ‘slip’ or Sybil’s reaction to it. He supposed it was unfair to be angry with her when he’d gone out of his way to play up those traits they had in common with, or similar to, humans and downplay the things that made them very different. She’d seemed to accept him so easily, though, he’d allowed himself to believe the differences wouldn’t matter to her, that she truly did accept him for what he was.

    Clearly he was wrong, he thought wryly. The horror on her face when she’d seen his claws was still a painful image in his mind.

    It was just as well, he told himself angrily. Sooner or later he was bound to slip up. He was what he was. He couldn’t change that even if he wanted to and he didn’t. He had as much pride in his own heritage as she did.

    In any case, that chapter was closed. He would not see her again. He’d done all that he could to help her people come to terms with the fact that they were here to stay. Now he had to focus on making certain they had a place to stay.

    Very likely, as angry as the incident had made him, it was for the best for both him and Sybil. He was left in no doubt that he was still a monster in her eyes and she was left with no doubt that he was.

* * * *

    A week passed in abject misery, two. Time seemed to have warped out of shape. In some ways it seemed every day dragged by and then something would jolt Sybil out of her absolute focus on her grief and she would discover days had passed without her even being aware of it.

    It was easy to lose track of time on the moon-harder to track it when the days and nights were marked on a clock rather than the rising and setting of the sun. The job she’d been assigned to was a shit detail, but Sybil hardly noticed or cared when she did. In the back of her mind she knew it was the military’s way of expressing their displeasure with her decision to take her knowledge and experience out of the work pool, but she couldn’t summon much in the way of resentment about it.

    She was aware of the ticking clock because of that realization, though. She knew she should be working out a game plan for what she would do when she was discharged, but she couldn’t seem to gather any enthusiasm for it and finally decided it was just as well. How could she make plans anyway until she knew what options she might have?

    It finally occurred to her that she might ought to explore a few options for employment and she went to the public terminal to look for possibilities. She had a degree in geology, but she thought she had a better chance getting something in management-maybe.

    It wasn’t until she received a threat, thinly veiled as an invitation, from Congressman Webb’s office that she remembered Meachum had insisted on talking to her about a job prospect. Unnerved when she realized she’d missed that appointment and that he’d probably interpreted it as a deliberate snub if not a challenge of his authority, Sybil accessed her calendar and made an unpleasant discovery.

    She’d missed her cycle. The jolt that sent through her brought her more alert than anything had in a while and she checked the calendar again a little more frantically, trying to convince herself that she’d just forgotten to mark her last cycle down or she’d miscounted. Her last cycle should have started a week after Anka had arrived on the moon for the peace talks. It didn’t take a lot of searching to realize she hadn’t just forgotten to make a note of it. She hadn’t marked it because it hadn’t happened.

    “Oh god! Oh my god!”

    She didn’t take birth control even though the military absolutely insisted upon it. She hadn’t seen any reason to foul her body with potentially dangerous drugs when she didn’t even have sex!

    Except she had-with Anka!

    Dropping her head into her hands she considered that, but it just seemed so unreal she couldn’t grasp it. Sure it had crossed her mind that things had changed-she had a lover. She was having sex. But he wasn’t human, damn it! He shouldn’t have been able to impregnate her!

    She struggled to think, to get a grip on her scattered wits. Maybe it was just a fluke? One of those emotional zigs that zagged and disrupted her cycle? It was rare. Her cycles were usually so regular she could’ve bet on them, but it did happen and there was no getting around the fact that she’d had a tremendous upset when they’d been captured.