"Jared," she said, her blue eyes focused, "we have no idea if I could even carry a child like that. I'm human. And you're..."

"Of an alien species," he finished, his heart swelling with the possibilities, both of joy and of crushing heartbreak. For a moment, holding her about the waist, he noticed the golden-hued darkness of his skin juxtaposed against the alabaster beauty of her own. There were dark men like himself on her planet- much darker ones even-and fair-skinned ones on his own, but holding Kelsey this close, he noted that even her scent was exotic. Dark to light they stood, as different as any two creatures could be, yet every cell within his Refarian body yearned to cycle with the woman, to give her babies and an unbounded future, just as any normal human man might.

Glancing downward, he realized that he'd placed a protective hand over her belly-an unconscious gesture of both promise and faith. "My heart believes it's possible, Kelsey. Maybe it's illogical, but I have to believe you could carry our child."

"But what if I can't?" she said in a soft voice. "How will you produce an heir?"

He wrapped his arms about her, drawing her flush against his chest. "I never worried about it before I met you." He sighed, cupping a hand about the back of her head. "The council constantly urged me to mate with-" He caught himself, halting. "Well, to mate. To produce an heir to the throne."

She leaned her cheek against his shoulder, sighing. "With Thea," she finished.

"Yes, with my cousin," he agreed. "Because of her bloodline."

"They won't be pleased about this." She drew in a nervous breath. "Your joining with me." She pulled back to look him in the eye. "They won't be happy about this at all."

"But it is my decision," he said firmly. "I am the king, and while they advise me, they don't control me." He swore he saw relief wash over her features. "Besides, I have a theory as to how our memories were erased, and if my suspicion is correct, it will make winning over the council all the easier."

"But now that you've mated, producing an heir has to be important to you." Her voice had become plaintive, and he swore she trembled against him. "I mean, why would you have mated with me, Jared, when it almost guarantees the end of your line?"

He shook his head emphatically. "The line would have ended even if I'd not joined with you," he said. "I would never have mated with Thea."

"But it is important to you now, though?" she pressed. "Right?" He glimpsed hopefulness in her eyes-the hope that perhaps now, with her, he would finally yearn for a child. Clearly she still did not understand their predicament, but he would make sure that she did.

"Kelsey," he whispered fiercely, "all the odds are stacked against us, love. Don't you see that? You are human; I am Refarian. I have never once cycled in all my years, which means it is hardly probable now. It is unlikely that we will ever conceive-that is what I am telling you. Do you understand? I will probably never give you a child. It is unforgivable that I didn't tell you this before now. You should have known last night, before you lifebonded yourself to me. If you regret the decision, then I shall seek the council's permission to-"

"Stop it," she cried, and jerked out of his arms. Beautifully naked, like pure porcelain grace, she moved all about the room. Agitated, but gorgeous, she rounded on him. "Jared Bennett!" she almost shouted. "Stop it! We are not parting ways here. I want you. I took you. I accepted our bonding willingly last night!"

Then silence. She stood before him, her chest heaving, her full, supple b.r.e.a.s.t.s rising and falling with every labored breath.

"What, precisely, are you saying?" Jared asked after what seemed forever.

She flung her hands before her, spreading the fingers wide in an exasperated gesture. "I'm saying to shut up't"

"And you understand?" he asked, unwilling to relent. "Everything?" His nonexistent cycles, the terrible odds- could she really grasp it all?

She stepped close, placing one soft hand on his shoulder. "I understand that whatever it takes, we're going to make sure you have one of these cycles."

How did she intend to trigger that which had never come upon him? He loved her for her faith, he blessed her for her determination, but he grieved the unlikelihood of it all. Still, he found himself whispering, "How?"

"By tempting and coaxing and seducing you into it, Jared," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. "That's how. We will make this happen-together."

"Together," he repeated in a murmur, searching her face in an effort to find some measure of faith there for himself. He wanted to believe, and that alone had to mean something.

"I love you, Jared," she insisted, fire flashing in the depths of her blue eyes, almost turning them golden green. "And nothing will ever change that. Because I love you, I'll do whatever it takes. And I mean whatever it takes."

Strange, but he felt a slight thrill chase up his spine at her words, as if she'd just thrown down a s.e.xual gauntlet of sorts. Or maybe what he heard was the first whispered call of something ancient as it stirred in his loins: the very first, distant murmurings of a blood fever, awakened from slumber at long last.

Chapter Twenty-four.

Everything in Jared's life revolved around logistics, he thought with an irritable grumble. His council, Thea, Scott-he couldn't perform so much as a bodily function without ten people expressing their opinions on the matter, so why should his mating with Kelsey be any different? She had, of course, been right-the council wouldn't be pleased about his choice of a human for his wife and mate. Whenever he was called to chambers, they inevitably brought up the issue of his succession, which made it difficult to imagine the elders embracing Kelsey Wells, their first queen in more than twenty years, he reminded himself, and the first non-Refarian queen in hundreds more. And perhaps it was that thought that caused his champagne headache to swell behind his eyes anew.

Oh, yes, the council meeting would make his head ache for certain. It would be arduous and long and exhausting, but in the end he would force their hand, and they would accept Kelsey as his chosen one. In fact, they would even perform the union ceremony-today, if he had his way with things. While a formal ceremony wasn't required by royal tradition, he knew it was important to Kelsey, and more than that, he wanted the elders' official seal on their union. Besides, it didn't make sense to have a protracted bonding period. They'd completed their joining, and in the compound's tight quarters the rumors would soon begin to fly if he didn't solidify Kelsey's place in front of the council as soon as possible.

Which brought him to his other significant hurdle-and one he dreaded even more than the council- Thea. They'd pa.s.sed each other briefly during breakfast this morning, and she'd averted her eyes, feigning great interest in her bowl of cereal. She'd left soon thereafter, hurrying off to her research down here at the guesthouse. She'd been reviewing a set of maps and journals sent to them on the latest transport from back home. They'd belonged to the earliest Refarian explorers sent to Earth, those pioneer teams who had come to Earth centuries earlier and mapped the rugged terrain until they had located the ideal hiding place for the mitres.

Jared pushed against the wooden front door to the guesthouse; warped long ago by the elements, it required an extra shove with his shoulder just to get the thing open. Ducking his head so he wouldn't smack it on the low door frame, he entered and found Thea standing in front of a table with both her hands spread wide. She squinted at the antiquated notations, never so much as acknowledging his entrance.

"h.e.l.lo, Thea." The front door to the small guesthouse creaked as he closed it behind him.

"Cousin." She said nothing more, not once pointing her gaze in his direction. He strode toward her, a small bouquet of narcissus in his hands. He hated that his palms had grown damp around them, and hated even more how difficult this conversation was going to be. He loved Thea-he truly did-just not in the way that she loved him.

"You're reviewing Prince Arienn's maps," he noted, seeing his ancestor's elegant, spidery handwriting on the paper before her.

"Yes."

"And you're angry with me." It was a statement, not a question.

She blew out a heavy sigh and moved a measurement calculator over the map. "This just isn't a good time," she finally answered.

He placed both hands behind his back, standing at parade rest with the bouquet of flowers still in his hand. "When would be better?" For a moment she tapped her finger against her lips, seemingly lost in thought, and finally he pressed her. "You won't answer me?"

"My work here is"-she sidestepped to the far end of the table to examine another map-"important."

"Tell me of it then," he encouraged, ambling to the other side of the room along with her. Perhaps if they could focus on what they shared in common, that would help break the ice between them.

At first she said nothing, but then very softly she began to describe a few new details she'd uncovered, becoming more animated as she spoke. She believed there were other gateway entries to the mitres, an entry beyond the one Jared had unsealed a week ago. "Prince Arienn recorded everything very methodically," she explained, waving her hands excitedly over the open maps. "These journals are the key, Jared. I don't know why we couldn't get them before."

Well, he knew exactly why: They'd been locked in the palace vaults, and it had taken one very clever spy to sneak them out. The Antousians held his family's palace now, not Jared, and that included all their possessions, the jewels in the vault, his parents' crowns. All of it. "I remembered seeing them in the vaults years ago," he told her. He'd been captivated to discover his ancestor's tales of this faraway planet, Earth, and had sequestered himself one rainy afternoon, flipping through the pages for hours on end, reading in the man's own words how Prince Arienn had led his Earth expeditions shortly after the war with the Antousians began. How Arienn's father had entrusted him with their newly developed weapons system.

Prince Arienn had been chosen for several reasons: his complete trustworthiness at a time of great unrest on Refaria; his cultural sensitivity; and, most important, because of the power that coursed through his D'Aravnian body. Like Jared and Thea, Prince Arienn had been a dual being, and once the mitres had been fully installed, he had fulfilled his true mission by seeding some of his own power into the shielding unit. Last week, Jared had seen that remainder of his ancestor's essence when he stood within the mitres. It had been a hushed, eerie feeling to realize that the long-dead prince had successfully managed to leave a portion of his energized self behind.

"I saw his energy," he admitted in a hushed voice. Her gaze snapped upward, her clear eyes locking with his. "It was in the coiling unit, cool now, but it was still there." He hadn't told anyone else of his discovery; no one else could possibly understand. "It was a soft blue-green, but it still glowed."

She nodded, one hand fluttering to her throat. It was a tremendous revelation for each of them, to know what their power had the potential to do. If this ancestor had seeded it that way, then they might do the same with the mitres if the time ever came. If the need became great enough. "He wrote about it in..." She turned from him, rifling through a stack of aged, bound volumes. "Here! In this one. He meditated for three days in the chamber, praying and seeking guidance before he did it. None of our kind had ever attempted something like that." She paused, flipping through pages until she arrived at one with a thin slip of paper marking it. "Right here," she said, tapping the page. "You should take it with you and read it." She handed the book to him with a genuine smile of excitement.

He took the proffered volume. "There's much to learn from Arienn's journals. Thank you for studying them."

Just like that, the smile died on her lips. "You don't need to try to placate me," she said with a heavy sigh. "Just take it, Jared. Take it." She moved away from him, turning to the stack of journals, and painstakingly straightened them into a neat stack. "Look, I have a lot of work to do here today, so if you don't mind..." .

He paced toward the fireplace. "We need to talk."

"I know that you mated with her, Jared, so don't bother trying to let me down gently."

His fist tightened about the flowers. How in All's name had she known? Everyone in the d.a.m.nable compound seemed to know. With a quick downward glance he checked himself for telltale signs of the mating. The day had turned quite warm already, and he wore only a light turtleneck, the sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms, but one quick inspection confirmed what he already knew: Nothing glowed. The luminescence of his mating with Kelsey had faded by morning, or he would have thought twice about even leaving his chambers. He didn't exactly want to parade the evidence in front of all his soldiers, even if he would soon be married.

She answered his unvoiced question with a shrug. "I knew the moment she arrived that you would mate with her. I just didn't know how long it would take, although I certainly hoped it would be longer. But this morning when you came upstairs, I could tell it had happened."

"It doesn't show," he argued lightly.

"Jared"-she cut her eyes at him-"I'm an intuitive. Trust me, it shows. Your energy has altered, it's surrounding you differently. It shows. And it shows all over her."

"I'm sorry." It seemed ridiculous to apologize, and yet there was nothing else he could say. He knew it had to hurt her.

She kept her focus on the maps, hiding her eyes from him, and for a long stretch of moments they were each silent. Jared dropped the white bouquet on the table between them. "Those are for you."

"I get the flowers and she gets the guy?" she said, spearing him with her gaze. He made no answer, for there was none to give. At last Thea spoke again. "I won't pretend you're here for my approval."

"I'd still like to have it."

"Why bother?"

"Because you matter to me a great deal, cousin. You know that you do." She sniffed in disdain. "You matter to me very much, and I also believe that you and Kelsey could be friends-very good friends."

"Oh, please-"

"She's strong and spirited like you, and filled with life, like our kind has almost forgotten to believe in."

"I won't ever accept her or welcome her here. You should know that, Jared. I won't make this easy for you," she said coldly. "Not when it's the end of your line. One thousand years of unbroken succession, Jared-have you really thought about those consequences? Or at least thought about your people? You have an obligation to them, you know, and you've utterly disregarded it by mating with that human!"

At last, his temper flared. It was one thing if she admitted that he'd hurt her, but quite another to insinuate that he'd failed his people in any way. "Disregarded my people?" he hissed, circling the table. "Shirked my obligations?"

"You still have-no, excuse me, had-time to provide them an inheritor to your throne. But you chose your own path."

"I have lived every day of my life for the Refarian people!" He pressed fists into his thighs to try to quell his hot fury. "I've never once lived for myself. Never-" "Except in this that mattered most of all," she said softly.

Jared slammed his open palms down on the wooden table, and the entire room shuddered at the impact. "I have served none but my people," he gritted. "In kingship and war and battle and torture and life and death, I have served them." She stared at him, her hand pressed against her cheek, obviously waiting for his explosive tirade to continue. He shook his head. "I never thought to hear such things from you, cousin -even when you were hurt."

"You've always wanted the truth from me. Good leadership requires honest advisers."

"Sometimes"-he hesitated, meeting her gaze to be sure she truly heard him-"it would be nice simply to be a man. Not a king. And sometimes, cousin, it would be nice to have my only living family member treat me like a mortal, not a G.o.d."

With those words he spun from her, storming out of the room.

Didn't he understand that she loved him? Thea wiped at her eyes, staring at the door Jared had just slammed. She wanted to shout after him, to run up the .trail, crying it over and over, Don't marry her! Love me, as I have always loved you.

She shook her head and slowly turned back to the work-table. Jared had never understood what he was to her- well, to any of them, really. Because if he truly understood her feelings for him, he would never have treated that love so lightly, and he certainly would never have disappointed his people. For him to allow his line to end, and in the midst of such war and turmoil... it didn't even seem true to his character. His heart of compa.s.sion was one reason they all served him with such ardent devotion. And yet on this one topic he had never relented, not once in all the years that they'd fought together, and no matter how much pressure the elders applied, he refused. Plainly, unbendingly, he always refused.

She wiped at her eyes again, pacing this way and that about the small lodge room. There had to be some way she could stop this wedding. Perhaps if she spoke with the elders herself... Yes, that was it. She could use her persuasive powers with them, and they would then talk sense into Jared!

Reaching for her sweater, she made to leave, and only then did she notice the small bouquet of white flowers that Jared had left behind. She'd been so upset with him, she'd never bothered to ask about it, and had forgotten until just now, when she noticed it where he'd knelt by the hearth. There lay a small bouquet of white narcissus, obviously tossed aside in anger. She dropped low and carefully retrieved the haggard blooms, and a wave of intuition whispered in her ear. He'd held them tight in his hand, almost crushing them, he'd been so upset. Closing her eyes, she lifted the tiny flowers to her nose and smelled them. Fresh as the morning air all around these mountains, she thought, and maybe it was the purity of the bouquet-maybe it was the intense separation she felt from her cousin-or maybe it was just realizing that she truly had lost him forever, but she pressed them against her heart and began to sob. Flowers. Why did he have to pick a bouquet of white flowers?

When Thea had been but a small girl, her mother had brought her to the capital city of Thearnsk, where the main palace stood in the city's center. She'd been eight that day, much too small for her age, and with unusual fair coloring, qualities that often made her feel alone even in large groups. Her mother had held her hand tightly as their transport had stopped inside the royal compound at a security checkpoint. Only two years had pa.s.sed since the a.s.sa.s.sination of Jared's parents, and with the war reaching a b.l.o.o.d.y crescendo, the palace-the whole city, actually-remained under a very high security warning. Their transport was brought below the palace guard station, and at least seven of the king's military guard questioned them, searching the gifts they'd brought, opening them and ransacking them, much to Thea's youthful disappointment. And even though both she and her mother bore the D'Ashanian royal seal on the inside of their wrists, it took retinal scans and other identification before they were finally allowed inside the palace to visit the young king.

Thea's heart pounded and she clutched the only present they hadn't ruined, at least in her tender estimation: a bouquet of white flowers. Cessanaram, they were called, and she'd cut them from her mother's country garden. She was, after all, a country girl. It was her first visit to the sprawling, mammoth city where her cousin made his home. Everything she'd seen on the way to the palace had awed her, frightened her, thrilled her. But nothing about that day could possibly compare to finally meeting J'Areshkadau Bnet D'Aravni. She'd been promised to marry her cousin and king since she was just a baby. Everyone knew it. One day, she would be his wife.

The guards ushered her into the throne room, and there by the window, high atop a dais and seated in an engraved silver chair, sat the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. Unlike her, he had shiny black hair, straight and worn just to his shoulders; black eyes to match; and lush, dark skin. But the thing she noticed most of all, even more than his flowing robes of D'Aravnian purple and gold, was the way he stared out the window, as if transported away to somewhere else, a place so special only the king himself could see it.

The guards cleared their throats to signal their arrival with quiet whispers of, "My lord, sir," and when he realized they were waiting for him he stood abruptly. The embroidered robes billowed around him like a regal cloud as he took the steps down to where they stood waiting. Thea clutched the Cessanaram blooms in her small hands, praying that she'd be able to breathe. He was so beautiful. Special. The king! Her fingers trembled, her throat went dry, and from behind her she felt a slight nudge from her mother.

"Darling," her mother whispered under her breath, "you must go to him."

He continued in his path toward her, a gentle smile on his lean, dark face, but she could think of nothing to say, not a single right thing to do, as he closed the distance that separated them. All her protocol training seemed to fly right out of her mind until at last he stood just before her. And then, unbelievably, he bowed to her! The Refarian king placed one fist over his heart and dipped low.

"My 1-lord," she stammered, bowing herself, unsure how to respond. Then, for lack of a better idea, she dropped to her knees before him, trembling from head to toe. "It's an honor to meet you, my king," she managed thickly. She noticed that he wore boots of the softest, most perfect leather, high up to his knees. No one, not even her father, had boots so polished and fine.

With an elegant flick of his wrist, he waved her back to her feet. "Please, my cousin," he urged, his voice as warm and peaceful as the hot-spring brook that ran behind her parents' home. "I am quite pleased to meet you." She gaped up at him, feeling so very small next to him. She was only just eight years old, and everyone knew the king was nearing his thirteenth birthday. At last he extended one graceful hand. "Here," he offered gently, and helped her back to her feet.

When at last she stood before him again, speechless, he reached for the flower bouquet she clutched in her hand. He must have known she was struck absolutely speechless; otherwise he surely would have waited. "Are these for me?" he prompted gently. "I love Cessanaram, you know. My mother used to grow them in our garden." His eyes filled with sadness for just a moment, his gaze wavering from her face as he lifted the buds to his nose. But then he smiled. A glorious, true smile, the sort little girls dreamed of when they imagined kings. "They smell like my mother," he said, closing his eyes for a long moment.

She smiled too, because while so many agreed that the young king had lived a life of only tragedy and loss and hardship, she'd done something to make him happy. And for reasons she couldn't begin to fathom, she was glad that she had. It would be years-many long years-before she understood exactly why.

Chapter Twenty-five.

The silvery-blue image of Jared's lifelong mentor and adviser, Councilor Aldorsk, wavered before his eyes, finally taking shape in the council chamber.

"My lord," the elder said, his deeply lined face breaking into a genuine smile. "Are you well?"

"Yes, Councilor," Jared answered coolly, "I've never been better, but we've business to discuss."

Gray eyebrows shot upward in curiosity. "Just the two of us?"

"It is private business, Aldorsk."

Jared detected an almost imperceptible dark shadow pa.s.sing across the elder's features before he answered, "I am here to serve you, my king."

"Fourteen years ago, you accompanied me on a mission to this planet-I wish to know what happened then, that summer I came of age." Jared hadn't soldiered for so many years without being a preeminent strategist. In this case, he would not hesitate or back down simply out of respect for his mentor; he pressed forcefully ahead. "And I wish to know why I remember so little of my time here on Earth."

"I-I am not sure why you do not remember more, my lord." The man's voice quavered, and he blinked