"I belong nowhere else," she argued. "I belong by your side." Unexpected tears stung her eyes; she

thought of the past week-how it had felt to be away from him-and her heart clenched.

His black eyes narrowed. "I never denied that you belong in my life."

"Just that I couldn't be here with you," she said, and for some reason, she thought of her father. Of his

constant inaccessibility, and of the job in D.C. that always ranked ahead of her in importance.

Jared leaned close, hoping none of his soldiers would see him brushing a kiss against her forehead. "I send you away for your protection, Kelsey," he said. "I'm not safe."

"I don't want to choose safety."

"You will be missed back there," he argued, imagining that with her presence at Mirror Lake after his

crash, there would be many questions should she vanish, not to mention that she would be missed by her

family. "Police will get involved, perhaps federal agents. It could expose me."

"We could cover my trail," she said. "There's only my father, and he lives far away. I can make this work."

"Kelsey, stay today." He rubbed his jaw, studying her. "Tomorrow even, but then you must go back."

She'd be d.a.m.ned if any man-alien leader or not-was going to make unilateral decisions for her. She'd

had enough of strong men and their choices on her behalf. Twenty-eight years as Patrick Wells's daughter had ensured that.

"No freaking way," she snapped at him, clutching at his pendant where it rested at the base of her throat.

"You are not just going to send me away like some child!"

He shook his head. "You are far too intelligent to be disregarded in that way," he said. "I would not. But I

also must make decisions based on my knowledge of this war. Such decisions are different, Kelsey, than one-sided choices on your behalf."

"Please, whatever I need to know, tell me," she urged again. "I'm strong. I can handle whatever it is."

"Tonight," he said, with another glance around them, back inside the cabin. "My people wait for me now. But tonight we will be together."

With those words, he vanished inside the house, and eight or nine hours suddenly seemed an insufferable period of time to wait to see him again. Powerful men, she mentally cursed. She had always promised herself she would steer clear of them. And then what did she do? Like some silly storybook dreamer, she'd gone and fallen in love with a king.

Chapter Seven.

Night did come. Eventually. But not without behaving like a tricky, coy thing, managing to stretch hours and minutes endlessly for most of the day. At least, it seemed that way to Jared, who spent the time deliberating with Scott about a new penetration plan that Anika had been devising, a way to get inside the Antousians' camp without detection. Between that, his advisers' concerns about his crashed aircraft, and rumors that their enemies had infiltrated the highest ranks of the U.S. president's security, his day had dwindled to nighttime at the pace of Antousian gorabung torture. And this was precisely why he had no business with a bondmate, he thought grumpily as he endured his final meeting of the day.

Even as Scott and Anika argued, he listened quietly, returning to his discussion with Kelsey out on the deck. How he'd wished they could have been completely alone at that moment, so he could have cautiously-tenderly-explained the bond they'd formed with each other. But at least his confession about the mitres data had been a solid beginning: Soon Kelsey and Thea would sit together and work to retrieve the information stored in Kelsey's mind.

He could have done Thea's job himself, at least in theory-after all, he was the one who'd left the data within her. Beyond that, he'd gazed right into her very soul when he'd formed the bond in the first place. But his gut told him that a true intuitive, someone with the highly developed skills Thea possessed, not a low-level intuitive such as himself, was the right choice in this instance. No matter how attached he was to Kelsey, he might be too clumsy, might even inadvertently hurt her somehow. No, it was worth the emotional risk of pairing Kelsey with Thea once his cousin returned from Base Ten. Perhaps after cycling, Thea would be calmer and less threatened by Kelsey.

But that thought prompted another, less pleasant one: How would Kelsey feel when she learned that in forcing a bond with her, he'd invaded her innermost thoughts? That he'd seen Jamie Watson, who had crushed her heart at such a tender age by betraying her with another woman. He'd watched as her mother had died, two days shy of Kelsey's sixteenth birthday, leaving her alone at a time when a girl most needed a mother. He understood those emotions; he'd lost both his parents at age ten, and been left to decipher far too many family and leadership puzzles all alone. Even worse, he'd lost his beloved protector, Sabrina, a year later, when they'd been separated by conflict. She'd been as much a mother to him as his own birth mother had been, and he'd never stopped grieving that loss. He'd always prayed to find her again, but had finally given up when he'd been exiled here on Earth.

Did he love Kelsey already? Perhaps. But if he did, he knew it had much to do with how intimately he'd gazed into her heart. So how could he admit to her that he knew her much more deeply than he'd so far admitted?

Wiping rain from his face, Jared entered the firelit main room of the guesthouse, an older stone structure dating back at least seventy-five years. As soon as he made his entrance, his soldiers nodded to him, leaving him alone with Kelsey, as they had been instructed to do. Darkness had fallen, and she stood by the fire waiting for him, bathed in the glow of the flames. He wished she were bathed in nothing else, he thought, and his body tightened in reaction to the image.

"I promised you nightfall," he breathed into the shadows between them, every part of his body electrified by longing. "That we'd be together. I could hardly think of anything beyond that promise all day."

Slowly she turned to face him, her spiraling curls worn loose and long across her shoulders. He loved those curls; they weren't the soft, wavy kind. They had a life of their own, and every time he'd seen her with her hair down, his hands had burned with the need to touch them.

She laughed huskily, teasing him with her eyes. "I have no doubt that you're a man who keeps his promises, Jareshk."

With that one word, his mind filled with an unshakable image, just as it had the previous night: her pale hand caressing his royal mark. "Jareshk?" he repeated, his heartbeat quickening. It wasn't possible-she had no way of knowing that name. Or did she? "Why did you call me Jareshk?"

"I'm not sure," she said, her auburn eyebrows drawing together in a perplexed expression. "It just kind of... came out."

He pressed a hand to his eyes, feeling unsteady. "You used my childhood name," he explained, swallowing hard. "A name you could not know."

"I just heard it in my mind."

"No one has called me Jareshk since I came of age at sixteen," he told her, not able to express the loneliness that had dogged him then. "My parents called me that, as did my protector, Sabrina. But then, for reasons no one precisely understood, including myself, I refused to answer to it years ago," he said. "Without reason or explanation, I no longer allowed any of those who served me to address me by that name. And yet now you call me Jareshk, and I burn inside." He shook his head. "I do not understand my own reactions."

"Maybe you didn't like the name," she suggested gently. "Maybe it was just-as simple as that."

"No, Kelsey," he said, feeling something roar to life within his soul, "my feelings for you are the farthest thing from simple!" He cupped her face within his palms roughly, needing to see into her eyes. "This attraction," he breathed, "is too familiar."

"Like we've been together before," she agreed, feeling his grip on her tighten.

"Do we know each other, Kelsey? Is that it?" He searched her face with a look of utter desperation. "Did you know me... somewhere before?"

Slowly she lifted her hands and closed them over his. "I think I've always known you, Jared," she said, expressing a thought that had been catching fire within her for days. She knew this man; everything within her recognized him. "And you me."

He nodded. "I have seen something in my mind." He dropped his hands, and turning his wrist over, rubbed the underside of it thoughtfully. "I must know what it means to you."

She nodded her encouragement, and very carefully he raised his other hand; a silvery beam of light spread through the air, falling on his open wrist until an undulating sphere of energy appeared in the air between them, lighting the darkness. She gasped in wonder at the exotic beauty of it. "This is my royal emblem," he explained, his eyes never leaving her face. "I am marked for life by it."

Her whole body quivered, her hands trembled, and she had to touch the swirling ma.s.s of color and light. "I know this," she said, carefully lifting her fingertips toward his mark. "I know this, Jared! I've touched it before."

Her skin made contact with his power; the energy of it coursed into her body; then memory exploded out of the darkness and into her being, and Kelsey fainted.

All these years, Jared thought, and we never knew. All these years, and they might never have remembered again, not if destiny hadn't had its way with them. Holding her head in his lap, he wiped at his eyes, whispering her name over and over in an effort to wake her. Remembering what it had felt like the first time she'd caressed his mark, the way his entire body had quivered in reaction. It had been the most sensual, erotic thing he'd ever experienced in his young life. To be touched that way, the intimacy of it; few could possibly understand how erogenous his royal emblem truly was-that when she stroked it, she stroked him. More than that, her gesture had made him feel how she loved him.

And he'd loved her already then too; it had been so easy to love her, from the very beginning.

No wonder their newly formed bond held such power over him! Taking a mate was a rite of mystery for his people: How much more so now that he understood what Kelsey truly meant to him? He couldn't remember much, not yet, only refracted glimpses. Mirror Lake, some rocks... but enough to know that bonding with her had completed something crucial inside of himself.

She stirred at last, blinking bleary eyes up at him as she came back to consciousness. "I'm confused."

"I know," he soothed, stroking her hair. Did she remember, as he did? Something had obviously made her faint, but still he chose his next words carefully. "It was too much," he said, "too fast."

"Did you remember too?" she asked, wiping at her own eyes.

He bowed his head, unable to find words, then finally whispered, "Yes, love. I remembered a little. I remembered you; oh, G.o.ds, how I remembered you." The rain on the rooftop brought even more memories rushing to the fore. "It was raining-"

"-by the lake!" she finished for him, bolting upright. "Yes, yes! And you kissed me, there in the rain." She lifted fingertips to her mouth, brushing them over her lips in wonder. "You were my first kiss! You were the one."

His own memory was so vivid, he could feel her mouth against his, could almost see the way she'd looked, but not... quite. He reached for a lock of her hair and slowly rubbed it beneath his fingertips, hoping the texture would awaken more memories.

"I had never seen anyone so lovely in all my life," he said, feeling everything shift inside him. His mind, his memories-it all seemed to be coming into alignment. "I wanted to take you with me. I promised I'd come back for you."

"Just like I said, Jareshk," she said, resting her cheek against his shoulder. "You're a man who always keeps his promises."

"Unless I am prevented from it." He felt anger roil inside of him. How dare his people have done something like this-and who would have done it? He could recollect nothing but the dim awareness of what he'd lost, nothing more. "I am so sorry," he said.

She pulled back to stare into his eyes. "Did you make me forget?"

"No, Kelsey, but one of my people obviously did." He could think of only a few Refarians capable of erasing a memory bond, and he recalled that one of them had been on board the cruiser that summer he ventured here to Earth. The summer he had been coming of age. "And I will learn who did this."

"Was it because I'm human?"

He rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. "Because they wished to protect me." He sighed. "It's always been the same with my people." He used his limited intuitive ability to grasp within his mind, seeking whatever remnants of memory still remained. He knew he could use his bond with Kelsey-the same d.a.m.n bond he was supposed to break-to search out her memories, as well.

With that thought came another, as the present came rushing back with perfect clarity: Kelsey was not a child any longer; nor was he on the verge of his awakening. She did, however, contain data lodged deep within her mind that put both her life and his rebellion at risk. Who and what he was had already caused her enough pain, and in that moment he vowed that he would not cause her more.

"Kelsey, it's been a long few days," he said softly. "I will walk you to the main cabin so you can rest."

"It's still early..." she protested, but he leaned low, brushing a kiss against her cheek.

"I have some people to see." Yes, he would meet with his elders in the coming days, but it was more than that. If tonight had convinced him of one fact, it was that he couldn't hurt her-not any more than he already had-by revealing the bond he'd created with her the night of his crash. Especially not when he'd become convinced that it would have to be broken for her own protection.

Chapter Eight.

The stranger searched the landscape with black eyes. Eyes that had seen bloodshed and warfare rip this very parcel of ground apart. Eyes that knew this dark earth, stained red with the blood of humans and aliens and hybrids alike. But back in this past, the lake still reflected the azure sky like a child's dream. Standing within the mitres' chambers, he stared out through the portal at the shimmering images of an Earth long vanished, except in his memories-until now.

Moving through interdimensional s.p.a.ce as one might step through a sliding door, he left the mitres in his wake, stepping fully into prewar Earth. A bitter smile pulled at his lips. They'd called what they were engaged in then a war- they all had. What simpletons they'd been. They'd never conceived that the horrific events to come would make such an idea laughable, ridiculous. They'd been like children playing war games, nothing more.

The stranger's smile transformed to a scowl as he thought of the man who had caused the war's escalation. Jared Bennett, their supposed leader, had called the blight down upon them all. That was why he had to pay with his own blood-and why Jared had to be stopped now, he thought, squinting up at the snow-covered Tetons. Drawing the clean mountain air into his lungs, the stranger stirred the hatred in his heart, allowing it to fuel his intentions. He would not acknowledge his ties to this land, to this very place, nor would he acknowledge the memories. No, his mission had brought him back ten years into this past, and he would remain focused on that, he decided, walking out of the woods and into their present.

"She waits, my lord," Anika whispered in a low voice, pressing Jared toward the back stairs that led to his quarters. His chest constricted in antic.i.p.ation; like yesterday, today had seemed interminably long while he suffered through war council meetings, including one with the elders where it required everything within him not to accuse Aldorsk of treachery.

Taking the steps two at a time, he found himself in the lower hallway, surprisingly anxious. The day had provided ample time to question, and to even doubt his sanity for allowing their bond to continue, but at last the night had come-again. Another night with Kelsey, only he wasn't sure he could be so strong this time. The urge to complete their mating was physically and spiritually overwhelming, and growing stronger with every day their bond was allowed to remain intact.

Pausing outside his own room, he hesitated, lifting a hand to the pine door. For a moment he sensed her energy radiating into his fingertips, then farther into his body. Only with a bondmate was such a thing possible. The effect on his Refarian senses was so sharp that his eyes watered in reaction. Without waiting another moment, he pushed open the door.

There, by his hearth, she sat on silken, jeweled floor pillows. Crimsons, azures, rubies. He'd never seen them before, but then again, his people spoiled him far too much. Undoubtedly Anika and her twin sister, Anna, had made a point of spreading them on the pine floor of his bedroom, treating him like a Refarian king, not a rebel leader in exile. Kelsey glanced over her shoulder at him, her skin golden in the firelight.

"They said I should wait here," she said, her voice husky with promise.

"They were most definitely correct," he said, closing the distance that separated them. He tossed his jacket onto the bed, along with the flashlight he'd used walking up the trail from the stone guesthouse. "Are you comfortable?" he asked.

Kelsey watched as Jared shrugged out of first his coat, then his pullover sweater. For the briefest moment his shirt rode upward, revealing a taut, muscled abdomen that somehow she had never fully expected. The sight was luscious, and she ached to reach out a hand and stroke his warm, bronzed skin in appreciation. He never seemed to notice, walking right past her toward his dressing area. "Would you like a gla.s.s of Scotch?" he asked. "Nothing like a drink by the fire."

"Sure," she said, suppressing a giggle.

"Very sorry, but I have no ice or water handy," he said. "Will you take it straight?"

"Of course." The notion that Jared had immersed himself in human ways enough to have discovered whiskey amused her to no end. Apparently some cultural things proved no problem at all. He returned, bearing the bottle in one hand and two gla.s.ses in the other. With a flourish, he poured a drink for her, and it struck her that he was attempting to court her in whatever way he had discovered was common in human culture. Then, after pouring his own, he sat beside her on the lounge pillows. It seemed that sitting on the floor was customary for his people, especially as they relaxed, she reflected.

He settled in front of the fire, one hand loosely holding his gla.s.s, the other planted on the pillows between them. Out of the corner of her eye, she kept watching the hand, wishing it would edge closer to her. For a painfully long time neither spoke, until she began to feel her face flush hot, and she searched desperately for something to say. That was when he tossed back the rest of the whiskey with a quick shot. "I wish to touch you," he told her, without a trace of shame or self-consciousness.

"Okay." What else did you tell a bold alien?

He knelt then, turning until he faced her. "I wish you to touch me as well," he continued. "I wish it very much." She swallowed hard, and nodded.

"Kneel," he urged her, taking her hand and drawing her upward. "Here, like I am doing. Face me." She found herself forming almost a mirror image of him. "Ah, yes," he whispered, slipping his hand around the back of her neck. His long fingers combed through her hair. "Just as I sus-pected. My awakening memories only make you all the more beautiful."

"Are you remembering more?" Kelsey had been fighting to retrieve her own memories all day, but so far she could only touch shadowed thoughts within her mind.