Page 63 of Hot Zone

Fifteen

Rustam stared down at Tessa in shock. What did she mean, he didn’t own her? Of course he did. She’d given herself to him. She’d specifically accepted his offer to make her his consort. True, she’d done it deep in the throes of passion, and that maybe wasn’t the most fair time to ask a female to take the title. But there was no rule saying a male had to play fair. And accept his offer she unquestionably had.

He was just infatuated enough with her to hold her to her word, even if it was unchivalrous of him.

She stepped back, violet sparks flying from her hair and fingertips. God, she was glorious when she was riled up like this. “Humans don’t tolerate slavery,” she declared.

He snorted. “Have you looked around? Xerxes rules the greatest empire on Earth on the backs of slaves. The Greeks take slaves, the Egyptians, they all have them. And as for owning women, every great prince on this planet has a harem of women whose lives he utterly controls. He can have them all killed on a whim if he likes.”

Tessa visibly checked her outrage. Still throwing plentiful sparks of anger, she said carefully, “You forget. I am not of this time. In my own era, two-thousand-plus years hence, slavery has been abolished for the most part on Earth. I will not be your slave.”

“You are not my slave. You are my woman.”

“What’s the difference?”

He frowned. He’d never had to explain the concept before. Everyone understood the layers of social order in his home world. “There are drudges who do manual labor. They are not slaves in the Earth sense. They are paid modestly and can change employers at will, but I admit their lives are hard and mostly unpleasant.”

Tessa frowned but refrained from commenting.

“Then there are the working classes. They comprise most of society. Those males take a single female to wife and maybe receive licenses to have one or two offspring if they show a special talent.”

If her eyebrows went much higher, they would disappear over the top of her head. He ignored her disapproving look and plowed on.

“Then there is the breeding class. The nobility. Within it, males compete fiercely for wealth, prestige and power. The more of each they amass, the more females they may take into their…harem is probably the closest equivalent word on Earth.”

“And you’re one of these males?”

Despite him trying not to let it, his mouth twitched into a smile. He answered dryly, “I am.”

“So you have a harem of women waiting for you back home?”

He nodded. “Of course. But I have no consort. Or at least I didn’t until I found you. A male may only have one of those. She is first among his females. It is a position of great prestige. And power, I might add.”

“Do males of your class marry, or just collect females and toss them into their harems?”

He drew back, insulted. “We do not marry…nor do we collect females. The genetics are thoroughly analyzed, and matings chosen to maximize the potential of the offspring. In my case, because I am a star navigator, all females I take must exhibit genetic potential in that area.”

“Then how do you explain me?” she challenged. “I’m no star navigator. I’m just some human who can find lost things.”

“I—” He broke off, frustrated.

There was no explanation for her. He was drawn to her as to no other woman he’d ever met. She exasperated him much of the time and infuriated him the rest. She was too smart for her own good. Too independent. Too stubborn. Completely unlike the docile, obedient females of his own kind, who understood their place as the mothers and nurturers in society.

Even now, with Tessa tapping her foot in agitation, glaring openly at him, he wanted nothing more than to throw her down and mount her wildly, to lose himself in all that crackling energy and untamed power.

“Never mind,” she said sharply. “Don’t answer that.” She turned away and jerkily went about setting up a funnel beneath the seep for water collection.

He was unaccustomed to restraining himself around a female like this. Did she not know how hard it was for him to keep his hands off her? In his society, breeding males were expected to take their pleasure whenever and wherever the urge struck them.

In certain venues, such as a business meeting, the pair in question might withdraw to a discreet side room, but it was entirely acceptable for the alpha male in a meeting to call for a short recess that he might indulge his whim.

Particularly star navigators. They were the lifeblood of his people. Without them, the Centaurian stranglehold on interstellar travel could very well be lost, and with it all the wealth and power of Centaurian society.

As Tessa bent and straightened before him, lust pounded through him, grating across his skin like sandpaper. Frustrated beyond all imagining, he stalked forward, recovered his flechettes from the throat of the dead serpent, and dragged the snake back to the fire. At least they would have fresh meat for dinner.

Tessa came over to the fire sometime later and held out a full water skin to him. “Drink as much as you’d like,” she murmured. “I’ll refill it overnight.”

He tipped up the soft container, sending a stream of water into his mouth. Over its curving top, he caught sight of Tessa watching his throat as he swallowed. She swallowed convulsively herself.

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