Ronan looked surprised. "Memories."
"How could you have …? Wait! Are you saying …? You are saying that you have … memories that aren't yours?"
Ronan and the others shared a look. "You no have dat neider? How younglings …?" He stopped and seemed to struggle with what he was trying to ask her. I cannot explain in your language. I do not know the words.
So explain telepathically! And while you're at it, explain to me how it is that the fathers are supposed to nurture the young and there was no father around when we … uh … took the eggs. There should have been three, right?
They must eat! Jarek said a little defensively.
Kate glanced at him. But there should have been one, at least, that stayed to protect, right?
The three of them looked uncomfortable and defensive at the same time.
Sometimes the males follow the queen to seed her again … or try. Usually the queen will not allow it, but sometimes …. If she is young and has not produced before. There were only three. She could not be sure all would survive.
Well that certainly wasn't likely if she abandoned them to be taken care of by three males that abandoned them to follow her off to screw again!
The males were young, too, Ronan said tightly.
How the hell do you know that?
"Do not know. Guess," Jarek said.
Ronan and Dax both sent him an irritated look.
They would not all have left if that was not the case, Dax said. They were more driven by their instinct to reproduce than the caution of the old ones to protect the young they had already spawned.
"The old ones?" Kate asked blankly. "You're talking about memories again? You have actual memories from … ancestors?"
Gathered knowledge passed to off-spring, Ronan said. Humans do not do this? They are not truly memories-not the way you think of memories. We did not experience these things. We simply know because it is written in the mind.
Kate stared at him, digesting that. They'd always suspected that some animals had 'racial' memory coded into their genes. There had never been any solid proof of it-except for the fact that a lot of animals could be separated completely from their parents and still have the same behavioral traits. But those things couldn't be actual memories either.
She had a lot to learn about the Sirians, she realized in dismay, and not a lot of time to process it!
She shook her head, trying to shake the suspicion that she'd taken on an impossible feat. It could take years and years-maybe generations-to understand the Sirians, and vice versa! It was mind boggling to think how very different they were from one another!
And depressing!
They had to have a place to start, though, she decided, and the most important one to her, at the moment, was an understanding of their current situation. "The babies stay with me. If they're human like you said-or mostly human-they'll need me. I'm not saying that the three of you can't stay …. Always assuming you don't decide to hunt another … queen … to breed." And she didn't think she would be sorry if they did-at least not at the moment!
"Why need?" Ronan asked curiously.
Kate stared at him as it abruptly sank in that the reason the females of their 'clan' tended to abandon their young was simply because their young didn't really need a mother! They were clearly capable of surviving pretty much on their own as long as they didn't fall prey to a predator.
A very little thought convinced her that it might not be a good idea to point out to the Sirians just how weak and vulnerable a human baby was.
They had bred weakness into their young, she realized abruptly. Early human primates wouldn't have been as weak-no more than the primates of Earth were now. It was their tendency to nurture that had resulted in babies that had to be nurtured just to survive.
* * * *
Ronan made it clear that he wasn't at all pleased at the discovery that the quarters they'd been assigned to was for them alone and that she had her own quarters. They had a brief, semi-heated 'discussion' about that when she had finished a cursory 'orientation' of the amenities of their quarters, told them she thought it would be best, for the time being, if they stayed in their quarters, and headed for the door to go to her own cabin.
"Where Kat go?" Ronan asked-actually demanded although his tone wasn't exactly argumentative.
Kate sent him a look of surprise, struggling with a rise of resentment. "To my quarters."
His lips tightened. "Mate. Stay here."
Kate flicked a glance at Jarek and Dax, saw from their expressions and body language that they weren't any happier about the situation than Ronan was, and focused on Ronan. "I've already been assigned a cabin of my own-And I signed on as single. There isn't room in my cabin for the three of you-or enough room here for four."
Ronan glanced around. "Not enough room for three," he said dryly. "Cannot protect nestlings from dis place, though, you no stay."
Kate gasped indignantly. "Your nestlings are safe!" she snapped. "I'm not going to … drop them or anything!"
"Protect mate den nestlings be safe," Jarek pointed out.
His tone was at least somewhat mollifying even if the comment was as insulting as Ronan's. "You three have been locked up since we got on board! We're halfway to Sirius! I think I can manage the other half by myself, thank you!"
"No could protect den," Dax said tightly. "Caged before. Can now. Must."
"Don't think for one minute that the three of you can gang up on me and get your way!" Kate snapped.
"I'm not only perfectly safe, it isn't practical to consider changing things around at this point. Besides, we need to try not to attract attention to ourselves-any more than we can help."
Ronan studied her through narrowed eyes for a long moment and seemed to capitulate. "I go with. You stay in cabin."
Kate was about to object, but she decided it would be better to agree to his compromise than to stand arguing with them. Finally, she merely nodded.
By the time they reached her quarters, however-in a completely different quadrant of the ship-his expression was as dark as a thundercloud. The polite smile she'd pasted on her lips as she turned to tell him bye fell flat. "What?"
"We go in."
She didn't particular want to invite him with that look on his face!
On the other hand, he looked ready to explode and she didn't think the corridor would be a good place for that. Reluctantly, she led him in to her quarters. He looked the small space over with an expression of disgust.
"I told you it was too small to share. It wasn't made for sharing."
Ronan studied her assessingly. "Mak baby wid …." You said the females of your clan nurture the younglings. The males do nothing but breed? They do not stay nearby to protect their mate and their younglings?
Kate hesitated. The truth wasn't going to support her argument, but she had taken on the task of teaching them the ways of humans. If she lied when it was more convenient to her, she was going to create as many misconceptions as she was trying to eliminate.
"We don't do a lot of mating," she hedged.
Ronan sent her a skeptical look. "Why so many humans den?"
She frowned at him. "I didn't say we never had! We spent generations making the mess, though! It'll take generations to repair the damage, too!" she informed him testily.
"No answer question."
Kate released a huff of irritation. "We contract. We don't call it mating-because it often isn't about mating at all, not in the sense you mean. We aren't allowed to reproduce indiscriminately. We pair up-usually male and female-for companionship and economic reasons. And, yes, the males and females live together-share living space. If they decide to have a child and if they're granted permission, then they usually stay together and take care of the child together-at least for the duration of the contract and sometimes longer."
That explanation seemed to throw him for several moments. "Pair up but no have young … baby?
Why?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "You like fucking, right?" she said dryly.
His brows rose and then descended. A speculative gleam entered his eyes. "Share libing space for dat?"
"I strongly suspect that's the main reason men do!" Kate said sardonically. "They like having it handy for when they want to have sex so they don't have to work as hard for it. It's really difficult to find jobs, though, and keep them, so that's part of it, too. It takes credits to live and nobody can count on being employed all the time. So they pair up and share expenses. Sometimes they contract with several partners, in fact, for economic security."
He studied her thoughtfully and moved closer. Kate eyed him warily, but he'd reached her before she even thought about retreating. Settling his hands lightly on her upper arms, he pulled her closer still, lowering his head and covering her mouth just as she opened it to demand to know what he was doing. A jolt went through her at the contact. The muscles low in her belly fluttered. Heat wafted through her. Her mind clouded.
Her instantaneous reaction was almost more disorienting because he now looked nothing like the man she'd come to think of as Ronan but rather a complete stranger, and yet on a primal level she knew him. With her eyes closed, every other sense was more alert and absolutely convinced she knew him on the deepest level.
Her mind identified him as Ronan and reacted accordingly
Then it is your custom that mates share living space. And this is not so that the male can protect?
He had an unfair advantage, she thought with a flicker of resentment quickly drowned by the pleasure wafting through her. He could kiss her and communicate at the same time using his mind! She couldn't talk with his mouth on hers and she couldn't think worth a damn either! Sort of … I guess, she managed finally.
He lifted his head and studied her frowningly. What is 'sort of'?
We rely on the police and the military for protection … mostly. Kate opened her eyes reluctantly and peered up at him through her lashes.
Ronan's lips curled faintly at the corners. He leaned close again and sucked lightly at her lips. Curling his arms around her at the same time, he lifted her off her feet and headed toward her bunk. If it is not for protection and not to breed younglings, then the only reason that humans shave living space is for sex? He asked as he settled on her bunk with her.
" To share life, companionship, living expenses-to be helpmates," Kate murmured as she reached for the closure of her jumpsuit and opened the one piece suit from neck to crotch. This is one very nice way to settle a disagreement.
Ronan sent her a quizzical look, but dismissed further discussion.
Kate was all in favor of actions speaking louder than words. She'd forgotten just how much she enjoyed everything about Ronan. His scent and taste were branded on her psyche, though, and brought memories of her pleasure in him to the surface as he peeled her suit off and explored the flesh he exposed with feverish lips and hands. The weeks of separation might never have happened. She was alive as she had never been before, feeling everything more keenly.
There was no surprise, this time, to discover he was as naked as she was by the time he'd peeled her suit away, just gladness that there was no impediment to the momentum he'd gathered along the way to disrobing her. She was ready-more than ready. The moment he peeled the suit from one leg, freeing her of restrictions and dove over her again, she curled it around him and bumped her pelvis against him in invitation.
It was no stranger's cock that plowed her cleft and anchored its head in the mouth of her sex. The familiar tug of her flesh as he seated himself and curled his hips to probe deeper had her gasping with anticipation. She squeezed her eyes more tightly to focus on the sensation, shifting and undulating against him to help him fully sheathe himself inside of her.
A profound sense of pleasure enveloped her when he achieved full penetration and set a rhythm that rang with the same desperation that filled her. She didn't suffer a moment of doubt that she was going to reach her goal. She was halfway there by the time he entered her and climbing faster than the ship they were in had when it left Earth's orbit.
Her climax still swept through her with a swiftness and magnitude that caught her off guard enough to drag a cry from her. She sucked in a breath and held it as shudders rattled through her, her skin prickling all over as he achieved his own orgasm.
Breathless from the battle, she lay panting beneath his weighty bulk in the aftermath, trying to push any thought at all from her mind that might interfere with the glorious sense of completion. They came anyway, settling like an unwelcome flock of crows in a freshly planted field.
He'd blindsided her. She'd had some vague notion that she would eschew intimacy now that there was no hope whatsoever of pretending they weren't what they were, that she would backtrack and achieve the objectivity she'd lost somewhere along the way.
No such luck!
"And let that be a lesson to you," she muttered dryly. She'd already let them breach any defenses she might have been able to gather to herself before that first time. There would be no going back.
Ronan uttered a muffled chuckle that sent a jolt of surprised pleasure through her. "Dis lesson I no mind, Kat. You teach me more, I like much better."
She didn't know what surprised her more-that he had a sense of humor, or that he seemed to instantly grasp the irony in her comment.