Now Jes­sica never wanted to see Cla­jak again. He’d been through thou­sands of women of many species and had left each one be­hind with scarcely a sec­ond thought. But this lit­tle wisp of an Earther, this Jes­sica McIn­ness, wouldn’t leave Cla­jak’s mind. She had in­deed been re­mark­able.

  I’ll get over it. In a few days, she’ll be just an­other lovely ex­pe­ri­ence to en­joy the mem­ory of.

  He hoped he was right.

  A chime an­nounced a vis­i­tor at the door, then Be­vau’s deep bari­tone filled the room. “May we en­ter, Cla­jak?”

  “Of course.” He turned from the win­dow, re­lieved to be dis­tracted.

  Be­vau and Egilka came in, look­ing fresh and rested. No doubt they’d found com­pany of their own to spend the night with, Cla­jak thought. Both looked around, clearly won­der­ing if their Dramok’s guest re­mained.

  “You let Jes­sica McIn­ness leave?” Be­vau asked, dis­ap­point­ment clear in his voice.

  Cla­jak smiled rue­fully and sat on the lounger. Again, Jes­sica’s scent hit him, and his sexes stirred. His smile faded. “I may have ru­ined your chances with her, my Nobek. She was most un­happy when she left.”

  Be­vau arched an eye­brow at him. Egilka, feign­ing dis­in­ter­est, went into the kitchen and rooted around for some­thing to eat.

  Cla­jak con­tin­ued. “She thought we wanted her for our child­bearer. I guess I didn’t make our be­trothed sta­tus clear be­fore en­joy­ing her many charms.”

  Egilka snorted. “I’m glad you cured her of that mis­con­cep­tion.” He found a chunk of left­over ronka meat and tore off a bite. Be­tween chews he said, “Many hope­ful lit­tle hearts will be spared when you fi­nally ac­cept your re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.”

  Cla­jak pursed his lips in ir­ri­ta­tion. “I am in no rush to clan with Nar­pok. She’s not a par­tic­u­lar fa­vorite of yours ei­ther.”

  The Imdiko shrugged. “Per­haps not, but we do have our duty.” He fin­ished off the meat and sat at the far end of the lounger. “As lit­tle as you wish to ac­cept it, Em­peror Zarl will not be able to at­tend his al­ready sparse sched­ule much longer. It’s time to put aside self­ish pur­suits.”

  Anger at be­ing forced to en­dure an­other of Egilka’s lec­tures made Cla­jak snap, “That’s easy for you to say. You’re older and have had your ex­pe­ri­ences.”

  His clan­mates both laughed. Egilka shook his head. “You’ve had twice my ex­pe­ri­ence in the fun and games de­part­ment, my dear Dramok.”

  Be­vau chimed in, his grin fit to split his hand­some face. “You’ve had more fun in your short sixty years than most Kalquo­ri­ans three times your age. You have not been de­prived by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion.”

  Their teas­ing made Cla­jak an­grier. “Don’t you start on me too, Be­vau.”

  Egilka’s light tone was no help in tak­ing the sting out of his next words. “It’s time you ac­cept the in­evitable. Grow up and stop be­ing so self­ish.”

  Jes­sica had called him self­ish too. Cla­jak’s tem­per erupted. “You should talk about the in­evitable, Egilka. You’ve chased the doomed task of cur­ing our women’s in­fer­til­ity for decades, know­ing full well the hope­less­ness of the work.”

  It gave Cla­jak no short­age of mean sat­is­fac­tion to see his clan­mate’s ex­pres­sion harden. “You’ll be the first to apol­o­gize when I suc­ceed. With just a lit­tle more time—”

  “You’re out of time,” Cla­jak in­ter­rupted de­spite Be­vau’s warn­ing hiss. “The Im­pe­rial Clan and the Royal Coun­cil, on the ad­vice of the Med­i­cal Board, have cut off all fund­ing to the Fer­til­ity Project.”

  The color drained from Egilka’s face. “They can’t. Not now, not when I’m so close.”

  “You’ve been say­ing that for years. The hy­brid fe­tuses be­ing car­ried by the clanned Earther Mataras show no de­fects thus far. With the first ba­bies due early in the fourth quar­ter, all med­i­cal fund­ing is be­ing di­rected to their care.”

  As Egilka’s ex­pres­sion be­came one of naked dev­as­ta­tion, re­morse over­came Cla­jak. What the fuck is wrong with me? How could I be so cruel to my own clan­mate, my beloved Imdiko?

  Want­ing to take the words back and know­ing he couldn’t, Cla­jak whis­pered, “My fa­thers are all very sorry, Egilka. So am I. I know how dis­ap­pointed you are.”

  A cold, aloof ex­pres­sion, the one Egilka used when he’d been hurt the worst, slid over his an­gu­lar face. He stood. “The only way you could know is if you cared. Since all you care about is your­self, you can­not pos­si­bly un­der­stand how this feels.”

  He stomped out of the suite. That’s two to­day, Cla­jak thought, his face flam­ing with shame. He dared to look at Be­vau and wished he hadn’t.

  The Nobek’s hand­some face was filled with a mix­ture of dis­gust and pity as he stared at Cla­jak. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “There was no need to be so bru­tal to him, damn it. I have half a mind to beat your ass, Cla­jak. I should, but I’m so mad I’m afraid I’ll se­ri­ously hurt you. When are you go­ing to get a han­dle on that child­ish tem­per of yours?”

  Cla­jak hunched. “This is why I can’t be em­peror yet. I’m nowhere near ready. I can’t even lead my clan de­cently.”

  “You can but you won’t.” The Nobek shook his head, dis­ap­point­ment tak­ing over his ex­pres­sion. “You can’t avoid your du­ties to your clan and peo­ple for­ever, Cla­jak. Sooner or later, you’re go­ing to have to be the man you fear to be.”

  With that quiet crit­i­cism, Be­vau also left the suite.

  Chap­ter 4

  Jes­sica’s quar­ters, while pleas­ant, weren’t nearly as op­u­lent as the suite Cla­jak’s clan used. Ev­ery­thing from the green lounger to the size of the room it­self was on a smaller scale. The paint­ings on the wall were of jour­ney­man qual­ity and framed in molded syn­thetic ma­te­rial in­stead of the pol­ished rare wood. Small light­ing globes drifted across the plain ceil­ing.

  She didn’t mind. The room was cozy and pleas­ant in its sim­plic­ity. Be­sides, the fewer re­minders she had of this morn­ing’s dis­pute with the Kalquo­rian prince, the bet­ter.

  Her win­dows looked over a side lawn of Is­rala’s es­tate where a dozen Earther men played foot­ball. They all wore the tight shorts Is­rala pre­ferred de­spite the cooler tem­per­a­tures, most of their young, slim bod­ies ex­posed to the glare of the twin suns. Their game was vig­or­ous enough to keep them warm. Tanned skin shone with per­spi­ra­tion. They might have been an en­joy­able sight any other time, but Jes­sica couldn’t help but com­pare their physiques to that of Cla­jak’s. In com­par­i­son to his chis­eled mus­cu­la­ture, the for­mer sol­diers looked un­fin­ished. Their gen­i­tals, out­lined by the thin fab­ric of their shorts, seemed child­like in their small­ness.

  Think­ing about Cla­jak made Jes­sica shed fresh tears. She’d never been so hu­mil­i­ated in all her life.

  The door chimed, an­nounc­ing a vis­i­tor. Michaela’s voice came over the in­ter­com: “It’s me.”

  Jes­sica hur­riedly knuck­led her tears away and smoothed her hair back. “Come in.”

  The door opened, and Michaela hur­ried in. She stopped short at the sight of Jes­sica’s face. “You’re cry­ing. Was it so hor­ri­ble?”

  Jes­sica was equally taken aback by Michaela’s ap­pear­ance. “You don’t want to know. Why are you dressed as Michael?”

  The in­ter­sex flushed but lifted her chin as if chal­leng­ing Jes­sica to find fault. Her wig was miss­ing, show­ing Michaela’s shorter tresses. Her hair had grown since they’d come to Pla­sius. As Michael, she’d kept it cropped close to her head, al­most as mil­i­tary short as the sol­diers she worked with. Now it was nearly to her shoul­ders. This morn­ing she’d pulled it back in a pony­tail, giv­ing the il­lu­sion of short hair again.

  Her face was ab­sent of any makeup, and the dark blue shirt she wore ac­cen­tu­ated the broad­ness of her shoul­ders. The flat­ness of her chest meant Michaela had bound her breasts. She wore the shirt un­tucked and her black pants were cut straight in the legs to mask the fem­i­nine swell of her hips. She wore men’s square-toed black boots.

  She looked like a very fash­ion­able teenage boy. Male or fe­male, Michaela couldn’t stand to look any­thing but her best.

  She flopped onto Jes­sica’s lounger with a heavy sigh. “I’m Michael in case I run into that clan again. They may as well see both ver­sions if they’re go­ing to in­sist on chas­ing me around.”

  Jes­sica sat next to her friend. She frowned to let Michaela know the ex­pla­na­tion didn’t fool her. “They al­ready know what you are. If you think they’ll re­ject you sim­ply be­cause you’re run­ning around as Michael, you’re wrong.”

  Michaela’s lower lip trem­bled. “I can’t bear to have sex.”

  “With them or with any­body?”

  A tear spilled over Michaela’s long black lashes, and she swiped at it an­grily. “I don’t want some men shov­ing their cocks in me be­cause of some duty to breed.”

  Jes­sica took Michaela’s trem­bling hand. “Did the clan you met act dis­gusted?”

  “How could they not be?” She took a shud­der­ing breath. In a low voice she ad­mit­ted, “They were very kind and praised my danc­ing as the best per­for­mance they’d ever seen. They also ex­pressed sym­pa­thy for how I had to hide my true na­ture all those years.”

  “So they don’t mind you be­ing both male and fe­male.”

  “They said they would be hon­ored to have such a rare, unique per­son as part of their clan.”

  Jes­sica felt a burst of hap­pi­ness for her friend. “That’s won­der­ful Michaela! Why are you freak­ing out?”

  Michaela’s hand tight­ened around hers. “They’ve only seen me as a fe­male, which isn’t re­ally see­ing me at all. If we have sex, they’ll have to come to terms that I have both a cock and a pussy. Won’t they be hor­ri­fied? Any­one else would. Even you and you’re my very best friend!”

  “I would be no such thing,” Jes­sica as­sured her, though she won­dered.

  Michaela con­tin­ued on as if she hadn’t heard her. “Maybe they won’t have to see me. I mean, I could get preg­nant by other means, right? They could start the em­bryo in a lab then im­plant it. No one would have to fuck me.”

  “I don’t know about that. Those Kalquo­ri­ans are a pretty lusty lot.” Jes­sica couldn’t keep the bit­ter­ness out of her voice.

  Michaela turned from her own fears to con­cen­trate on Jes­sica. “The clan you met hurt you last night, didn’t they? That’s why you were cry­ing.”

  Jes­sica shook her head. “Not in the way you’re think­ing. I only met the Dramok, who just hap­pens to be the Crown Prince of Kalquor.”

  Michaela’s jaw dropped. “Prince Cla­jak? You’re go­ing to be part of the Im­pe­rial fam­ily?”

  Jes­sica barked harsh laugh­ter even as her eyes stung with the threat of tears. “His clan is al­ready en­gaged to a Kalquo­rian woman. I guess he just wanted to sleep with an Earther be­fore he went off the mar­ket.”

  Michaela’s tem­per was al­most as quick as Jes­sica’s. Her dark eyes snapped, and she fumed, “He didn’t tell you un­til he got you into his bed? What an ass­hole!”

  “Yeah. A to­tal ass­hole.” Jes­sica rel­ished the pro­fan­ity.

  Michaela stroked Jes­sica’s hair. “I’m so sorry. Here I am, dump­ing all my shit on you and you’re hurt­ing.”

  Jes­sica man­aged a smile. “Your drama keeps me from feel­ing sorry for my­self. Cla­jak’s not worth one sin­gle tear any­way.”

  Her friend groaned. “Damn, Dramok Ko­rkla is the prince’s as­sis­tant. If I let him clan me, I’ll see Cla­jak’s stupid face all the time, and I’ll prob­a­bly have to be nice.” She flopped back against the cush­ions and came back up with a hiss. Her face con­torted with pain.

  “Are you okay?” Jes­sica said.

  Michaela gri­maced as she reached un­der her shirt to ad­just some­thing. “I haven’t bound my breasts in months. I for­got how un­com­fort­able it can be if the bind­ing shifts.”

  Jes­sica’s door chimed. Star­tled, both of them shot to their feet. Michaela’s eyes were wide. “What if it’s Ko­rkla’s clan? They said they’d visit me to­day. That’s why I’m here, try­ing to avoid them.” She looked around the room as if look­ing for a place to hide.

  “For heaven’s sake, it’s prob­a­bly just Is­rala look­ing to see how her match­mak­ing skills worked out.” Jes­sica headed to­wards the door. “If it is your new boyfriends, you have to face them sooner or later any­way. You’re sup­posed to find a clan.”

  “They’re not my boyfriends!” Michaela edged as far back into the room as she could un­til she bumped into the far wall.

  “En­ter,” Jes­sica called.

  The door opened, and Gor­geous Hunk, the one Cla­jak had iden­ti­fied as Prince Be­vau, stood over her. The smile on his breath­tak­ing face was ten­ta­tive, and he held a huge bou­quet of flow­ers in his hand. The sweet aroma washed over Jes­sica, and the first thing she thought of when she came out of her sur­prise was, I’d love to see that face be­tween my legs. She was in­stantly wet.

  “Hello Jes­sica McIn­ness,” he said with a bow, his voice the deep­est she’d ever heard. It seemed to rum­ble in her body, vi­brat­ing sen­si­tive parts. She sti­fled a groan.

  His gaze flicked be­hind her and he bowed again. “You have a vis­i­tor. Greet­ings, Michael-Michaela Blake.”

  Michaela came close, her eyes wide. “Damn, he’s the hand­somest man I’ve ever seen,” she said to Jes­sica in Eng­lish. “I thought the dim light­ing last night was play­ing tricks on my eyes, but no, he’s fuck­ing hot!”

  Be­vau grinned at her, ob­vi­ously pick­ing up her ad­mir­ing tone. He looked to his right and spoke in Plasian to some­one else in the cor­ri­dor. “Here she is, Ko­rkla.”

  Three more Kalquo­ri­ans stepped to Be­vau’s side. He moved back to avoid crowd­ing the door­way. Jes­sica also stepped back to stand at Michaela’s side. She rec­og­nized the new­com­ers as the first clan she’d danced for the night be­fore. The per­fume of the flow­ers re­ceded, and her head cleared of the ram­bunc­tious thoughts she was hav­ing about Be­vau.

  Ko­rkla’s clan nod­ded at her be­fore riv­et­ing pur­ple eyes on Michaela. “Good day, Michaela,” the tallest one said, his voice gen­tle as if speak­ing to a ner­vous an­i­mal.

  “Hi Ko­rkla. Govi, Raxs­tad.” Michaela drifted closer to the men. Jes­sica glanced at her friend, star­tled by the husk­i­ness of her voice. Her ex­pres­sion was a sur­prise too. Michaela still looked fear­ful, but some­thing else was there also. Some­thing that looked an aw­ful lot like de­sire.

  Ko­rkla took up Michaela’s small hand and swal­lowed it in his larger paw. “You are as hand­some a man as you are a beau­ti­ful woman.”

  “Thank you.” Michaela’s voice was breathy, and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the clan.

  “Is­rala’s gar­den is in bloom and quite stun­ning. Would you like to come with us for a walk?”

  “Okay. See you later, Jes­sica.” With­out a sin­gle glance back, Michaela let the smil­ing men lead her away.

  Jes­sica stared af­ter them, her mouth hang­ing open. Af­ter all the ear­lier hys­ter­ics, she’d never ex­pected Michaela to sim­ply take off like that. Per­haps there was hope for the sad lit­tle dancer af­ter all.

  Be­vau moved to be framed in the door­way once again, and Jes­sica stiff­ened. He was just as gor­geous as ever, but most of her lust seemed to have dis­si­pated. Re­al­iz­ing her mouth was still agog at Michaela’s abrupt de­par­ture, she snapped it shut and glared at him.

  “May I come in?” he prompted when she said noth­ing.

  “I’m not hav­ing sex with you,” Jes­sica blurted. Her face warmed.

  Be­vau’s eyes bright­ened with amuse­ment, but to give him credit, his ex­pres­sion never changed. “I am sorry to hear that. How­ever, I came to apol­o­gize for Cla­jak’s be­hav­ior. He should have made our clan’s mat­ing sit­u­a­tion clear be­fore se­duc­ing you.”

  “Shouldn’t he be the one mak­ing amends?” Jes­sica asked, but her voice was no longer un­friendly. She liked that Cla­jak’s own clan­mate un­der­stood she’d been badly used.

  “Yes he should,” Be­vau an­swered, his mouth tight­en­ing for an in­stant.

  “Come in.”

  Be­vau stepped into her suite, the flow­ers in his hand fill­ing the room with a heady fra­grance.

  “These are for you,” he said, of­fer­ing them gin­gerly, as if Jes­sica might throw them in his face. “It’s an Earther tra­di­tion to of­fer flow­ers when one apol­o­gizes, isn’t it?”

  She took the short-stemmed flow­ers from him, in­hal­ing deeply of the lus­cious fra­grance. “Thanks. They’re beau­ti­ful.”

  She looked Be­vau over, en­joy­ing how his form­suit clung to his mus­cu­lar body, out­lin­ing ev­ery bulge. His smile turned wicked, and Jes­sica blushed. She turned away, hur­ry­ing to the kitchen area. She found a bowl for the flow­ers and car­ried ev­ery­thing to the bathing basin while Be­vau made him­self com­fort­able on the lounger.

  While the wa­ter­fall bur­bled into the bowl, she glanced at the Kalquo­rian. Damn, he was stun­ning. She felt warm all over just look­ing at him, es­pe­cially in the pit of her belly. He watched her with a cal­cu­lat­ing ex­pres­sion, and she snatched her gaze away.

  “I take it Cla­jak is still mad at me. As if he has a rea­son,” Jes­sica grouched.

  She put the flow­ers into the bowl to float pret­tily on the wa­ter. She took an­other deep breath of the in­tox­i­cat­ing fra­grance. She won­dered if she could find a way to get Be­vau naked. It was a shame to keep such a gor­geous crea­ture cov­ered in any way.