Korum shrugged. “It was Loris’s choice to risk everything for his son. Now he’ll pay the price. And if I have fewer people who stand in my way as a result, then all the better.”
Mia nodded and concentrated on finishing the rest of her stuffed pepper dish. Despite everything, she couldn’t help feeling just a tiny bit sympathetic toward the Protector. After all, the K was only defending his son. She imagined she’d do the same for her child – not that she had to worry about that anymore, she reminded herself. Pushing away the unpleasant thought, Mia looked at Korum instead, studying him covertly as he finished his meal.
Sometimes it was still difficult for her to believe they were so happy together. By Krinar law, she belonged to Korum – a fact that still made her very uncomfortable. As a charl, her legal standing in K society was murky, to say the least. If she didn’t love him so much – and if he didn’t treat her as well as he did – her life could’ve easily been miserable.
But she did love him. And he loved her back, with all the intensity in his nature. As a result, he seemed to be trying to suppress his inborn arrogance, knowing that it was important for her to be regarded as an equal. There was still a long way to go, of course – the gap of age and experience was too wide to be bridged easily – but he was definitely making an effort in that direction.
After they were both done with the meal, Korum stood up and offered her his hand. “Up for a walk, my sweet?” he asked, giving her a warm smile.
Mia grinned. “Sure.” She loved these after-dinner walks on the beach. They’d done them almost every night when they were in Florida, and she’d learned a great deal about Korum during those quiet times.
Taking his hand, she let him lead her outside.
They walked for a couple of minutes in silence, enjoying the soft evening breeze. The sun was just setting behind the trees, and an orange glow lit the sky, reflecting off the water shimmering in the distance.
“You know,” Mia said, thinking about their first meeting in New York, “I still don’t know your full name. You said I wouldn’t be able to pronounce it if you told me, but I’ve never heard anyone call you anything but Korum.”
He grinned. “Our full names are generally only used at birth and at death. Do you still want to hear it?”
“Of course.” She imagined something totally unpronounceable. “What is it?”
“Nathrandokorum.”
“Oh, that sounds kind of nice,” Mia said, surprised. “Why don’t you use it more?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s just the way it’s been with us for a long time. Full names have become nothing more than a formality. I doubt that anyone besides my parents knows that I’m called Nathrandokorum.”
Mia smiled, shaking her head. Some parts of the Krinar culture were strange indeed.
They walked some more, and then Mia remembered her recent conversation with her former roommate. “Do you think we might have a chance to visit New York soon?” she asked. “I was talking to Jessie, and it would be really nice to see her . . .”
Korum smiled, looking down at her. “Of course. If you want, we can go the next time you have a day off. Unless you want to go for longer?”
“No, a day would be perfect. I guess sometimes I still forget that we can just pop on over there whenever we want.”
His smile widened. “We definitely can – especially now that most of the Resistance has been captured.”
“Where’s Leslie?” Mia asked, remembering the girl who had attacked her in Florida. “Is she here, in Lenkarda?”
Korum shook his head. “No, she’s in our Arizona Center.”
“Is she . . . all right?” Mia was almost afraid to know the answer. The Resistance fighter had teamed up with Saur – the former apprentice from Saret’s lab – to try to kill Korum in Florida. Now she was in K custody, about to be ‘rehabilitated.’ From what Mia understood about the process, the end goal was to change that part of Leslie’s personality that made her a danger to society (or to the Krinar, as the matter may be). Rehabilitation – or mind tampering – was the most advanced branch of Krinar neuroscience, and Mia was just starting to learn about it at the lab.
“I assume so,” Korum said, his expression cooling. He obviously hadn’t forgotten the fact that the girl had pointed a gun at Mia and almost gotten her killed by Saur.
“Could you find out for me, please?” For some reason, Mia felt responsible for what happened to Leslie, even though the girl had attacked
her
. Still, she couldn’t help remembering the terror on Leslie’s face as she was led away by the K guardians. However misguided the fighter’s intentions were, she didn’t deserve to be mistreated, and Mia sincerely hoped she didn’t get hurt during her rehabilitation.
Korum hesitated, then nodded curtly. “All right, I will.” His jaw tightened, however, and Mia could see that he was thinking about the beach incident again.
To distract him, she squeezed his hand and gave him a big smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Of course, my darling,” he said, his expression visibly softening. “Anything to make you happy – you know that.” And bending down, he brushed his lips against her mouth in a brief kiss.
“So what are the guardians, anyway?” Mia asked when they started walking again. “Are they like your police?”
“Something like that,” Korum said. “They’re a cross between soldiers, police, and one of your intelligence agencies. They enforce our laws, catch criminals, and deal with any kind of threat from humans. Our society is so homogenized at this point that we no longer have war on Krina, the way you do here on Earth. There are still some regional rivalries, of course, and there are always a few crazies who disagree with the way things are done by the government, but we don’t have the kind of conflict that would require a standing army.”
“So you guys managed to invade our planet without an army?”
Korum laughed. “If you want to think about it that way. Most Krinar males who came to Earth received military-style training because we were expecting some resistance. But no, we didn’t need a big army to control Earth; all we needed was our technology.”
“Of course.” Mia tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Loving Korum the way she did made it easy to forget that she was doing the equivalent of sleeping with the enemy – even if the enemy didn’t actually intend her planet any harm. It was only during these types of conversations that Mia was unpleasantly reminded of the fact that the Krinar forcefully took over her planet . . . and that the man who loved her did not necessarily have humankind’s best interests at heart.
“Trust me, Mia, it was better this way,” Korum said, as though reading her mind. “Your government had no choice but to accept the inevitable, and that helped minimize the bloodshed. It would’ve been far worse if there had been a full-out war between our people.”
Mia’s mouth tightened, but she nodded, knowing he was right. There was no point in resenting the Krinar’s technological superiority; in a way, it did make their invasion as painless as possible. The fact that they invaded at all was a different matter, of course – but Mia didn’t have the energy or the inclination to fight that particular battle. Working with the Resistance once was enough.
“Can I ask you something?” Mia said, thinking back to those crazy days when she was spying on Korum. “I don’t get one thing about the Keiths’ plans. Even if they were successful in getting all the Krinar to leave Earth, wouldn’t your people have come back with reinforcements? I know you said they were going to kill
you
, but what about all the others? Are you the only one with the means to go back and forth between Earth and Krina?”
Korum shot her an amused glance. “No, of course not. My company has the most advanced ship designs, but the Krinar have traveled to and from Earth long before I was even born. I think the Keiths were hoping to control the protective field.”
“The protective field?”
He nodded. “Up until a dozen years ago, space travel was largely unregulated. Anyone could go anywhere, as long as they had a ship to take them there. Now, however, we have a shield in place to protect Earth from unauthorized travel – the same kind of shield we recently put around Krina.”
“There is a shield around Earth?” Mia looked up at him in surprise.
“It’s actually a shield around the solar system,” Korum explained. “Not like a barrier, but more of a disruptor field. When activated, it messes with our ships’ faster-than-light capabilities.”
“Why would you want something that can mess with your ships?”
“For security purposes, we want to make sure the Council is informed of – and authorizes – any travel between Earth and Krina. Also, if there happen to be any other intelligent life forms out there, and they use technology comparable to ours, the shields will afford us some protection from them.”
Mia gave him an ironic look. “So they can’t do to you what you did to us?”
“Exactly.” He grinned at her, looking so unrepentant that Mia couldn’t help but laugh.
“Okay,” she said, returning to her original question, “so what were the Keiths going to do? Use the protective field to keep the rest of the Krinar out?”
“Probably,” Korum said, still smiling. “That’s what I would’ve done in their place.”
They walked for a few more minutes before they reached the ocean. As usual, this section of the beach was completely deserted. With only five thousand Ks in the Costa Rican settlement, there was plenty of space for everyone and most Krinar tended to keep out of each other’s ‘territories’ – as informal as those were in modern times. Since Korum liked to take evening walks on this particular stretch of sand, the other Ks respectfully stayed clear of it.
“Do you want to go for a swim?” Mia asked, letting go of his hand and kicking off her shoes to test the water temperature with her toe. It was perfect – just cool enough to be refreshing.
Instead of answering, Korum pulled off his shirt, revealing a bronzed, muscular torso. “Absolutely,” he said, his eyes turning more golden by the second.
Smiling, Mia took a few steps back and slowly took off her dress, loving the way his gaze was glued to her every move. She could see the erection growing in his shorts, and her nipples hardened in response, her body affected by his desire. The fact that she could do this to him by simply stripping down to her swimsuit was exhilarating – and incredibly flattering.
“Are you teasing me?” he asked, his voice low and dangerously soft.
Her heart pounding with excitement, Mia nodded, watching his eyes narrow at her answer.
“I see,” he said thoughtfully. And before she could blink, he was already on her, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her into the water.
Held securely in his embrace, Mia laughed, reveling in the coolness of the water as they went deeper and deeper. “Is this to be my punishment?” she joked as he paused, waiting for a large wave to pass them by before going further.
“Oh, you want to be punished?” he murmured, looking down at her with a heated gleam in his eyes.
Grinning, Mia shook her head. “No . . .”
“I think you do . . .” he said softly, shifting her in his arms so that he was holding her with only one hand. Before Mia could say anything, his other hand slipped inside her swimming suit and pressed against her sex, unerringly finding her clit and pinching it between his fingers.
She bucked against him, startled by the strong sensation, and he did it again, watching her face closely. “Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice like rough velvet. “Or does it feel good?”
Mia gasped as his fingers increased the pressure. “I don’t know . . .”
“Oh, I think you do,” he whispered. “I think you know very well . . .” His fingers slipped inside, stretching her open.
“Korum, please . . .” She could feel him curving one of the fingers inside her, rubbing against her G-spot.
“You’re wet,” he murmured, “so slick I can feel it even in the ocean. It makes me want to fuck you right here and now.”
“So do it,” Mia breathed, staring up at him. “Fuck me.” She was already on the verge of orgasm – all she needed was a tiny push to bring her over the edge.
His eyes flared brighter. “Oh, I will . . .” Within seconds, she was fully naked, the torn remnants of her swimsuit floating around them. His shorts met the same fate, and then he was lowering her to her feet, letting her slide down his body. Looping her arms around his neck, Mia pressed against him. Her breasts felt tender, her nipples sensitized, and she rubbed them against his chest to assuage the ache deep within. His erection nudged at her belly, thick and hot, and her loins pulsed with the need to take him inside.
Leaning forward, she kissed his lips, tasting the salt from the ocean spray and the uniquely delicious essence that was Korum. He groaned, deepening the kiss, and Mia sucked on his tongue, stroking it with her own. At the same time, she reached under the water, wrapping her fingers around his hard shaft. It jumped at her touch, swelling up further, and Korum inhaled sharply, lifting her up and opening her thighs wide. A wave hit them, the water droplets spraying Mia’s face, and she closed her eyes, grabbing onto Korum’s shoulders with both hands. For a brief second, the tip of his cock brushed against her entrance, and then he pushed inside her in one powerful stroke.