And there were no shadings of emotions, no altering of events by the mind’s interpretation of it. It was a safeguard for colonists in the event that any of the laws were broken by any of the other colonists. It was also insurance for the colonists that if anyone ran into trouble, they could actually use the PMAI to alert colony security to their distress.

They aren’t designed for long range transmissions, however.

Which had dismayed and distressed Noelle when she’d finally remembered the damned implant—until it occurred to her that it had recorded personal events she damned well didn’t want to share!

Thankfully, it would only record what had happened—not how she’d felt about what had happened—so she didn’t have to worry about having her privacy regarding her personal feelings exposed, but she rather thought she didn’t actually want to share even the events.

After she’d pulled the memories up and reviewed them, she was positive she didn’t want to share. She was going to have to demand a ‘wipe’ on the grounds of privacy once she got back to the colony!

If she got back.

Chapter Eight

Drak left his suite in a state he was completely unaccustomed to—too disordered to think straight. A large part of it—most of it—was due to his state of high arousal and the psychotic break his system had had with his mind when he broke off his pursuit of completion rather than finishing what he had started. His system was still screaming for release and threatening to explode. His brain was wrestling with his desires and trying to figure out why it had seemed like the best course to stop when everything inside of him was screaming don’t stop.

Had she indicated that she was willing to fight to the death to prevent culmination?

He certainly did not recall that she had.

In point of fact—now that he thought about it really hard—it seemed to him that she had been completely open to the possibility.

Not eager of course, but then that was not to be expected—unless it was eagerness to cut one’s throat!

She had not struggled, though, and she had not been dead or unconscious.

That generally constituted ‘willing’ in the minds of any of his clansmen.

Inwardly, he shrugged. He was in the habit of considering that a conquest himself, if it came to that. Women who presented only a token protest or struggle were ready and willing to be bred. They fought long enough to convince themselves the man would be a strong breeder and then they pretended to be paralyzed when he bestowed the mating kiss, he was convinced, to make certain the man did not get the idea that they were actually wanted.

Which meant they were willing to allow a man to mount them as many times as it took to reach that goal.

Was it confusion because he knew she was not one of ‘the people’?

He did not think he could convince himself that it was reluctance or revulsion because she was not his kind. The nearly constant state of arousal that he had experienced since he had captured her gave that the lie.

He cooled as he strode automatically toward the great hall once more and, as he did, his brain began to function somewhat more rationally.

Kadin’s arrival with the clothing he had asked for—or at least the knock on the door panel—had recalled him to enough awareness to remember there was a need far more important than assuaging his lust.

The woman could be the key to superiority for his clan.

He was halfway down the stairs before he recalled that that was why he could not allow his lust to overrule his good sense. By the time he had stomped across the great hall to the great entrance, bellowing that they were going a-hunting for meat for their celebration feast, he had managed to regain most of his facilities and recall how he had arrived at that conclusion.

His beautiful little captive was not of his world, Aiper, or the god, Aiper’s, sister world, K’naiper. She came from the stars with her people—which meant that her people had knowledge that had been lost to his long ago.

He could not afford to risk alienating her only to assuage his lust on her. He needed to try to establish a friendship with her that might be parlayed into an alliance between his people and hers.

The little that remained to them of the ‘old times’ was rotting before their eyes no matter how hard they worked to preserve it. And most of it, truth to tell, had been useless—as far as they knew—even when it was found or captured.

She might be able to restore some of their treasures and if not, then possibly some of her people might.

They would not have the same things, he knew—but similar, maybe, and maybe similar enough they could figure out what purpose his mysterious treasures had been meant to serve.

For that to happen, however, they had to be willing to help.

He would have to convince them that an alliance with him would be an advantage to them.

Noelle wondered what the hell was going on. She’d braced herself for rape, given herself a pep talk about how to behave as a victim to survive her ordeal and then—nothing.

She’d braced herself several times when it seemed he was about to do what he’d captured her to do.

And then—nothing!

He’d kissed her stupid and then just left! Or quit—in the middle of something that had actually begun to seem not so terrible after all!

Maybe he just wasn’t attracted to her?

Maybe she was just too different from the women he was accustomed to and that was a turnoff he couldn’t overcome? Either physically or because she wasn’t a warrior woman and that was glaringly obvious?

Reviewing the event log from her PMAI was no frigging help at all!

Basically, it just made everything seem way worse than she’d realized at the time—because she recalled she’d been feeling all sorts of things as the events unfolded and, reviewed without any sort of emotion, it looked like she’d just gone limp and he’d dropped her.

Maybe that was it? She didn’t have enough … spunk? Maybe he was so used to the women struggling that her going limp was like reeling in a … dead fish? Maybe he lost his hard-on the minute she turned to mush?

Or maybe they were physically different where it counted and he knew it and he hadn’t figured out what, if anything, could be done about it?

She didn’t know, but she did know he was driving her crazy!

She’d gotten over scared.

Well, most of it.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say she’d gotten over terrified? She wasn’t absolutely, blithering idiot terrified after having been around him through the capture and several days of captivity?

Because there was no indication that she needed to worry about anything painful.

Because even though the warrior women had acted as if they were terrified and panicked when the barbarians had come after them, and they had maintained distain and a lack of cooperation since capture, they didn’t behave as if they knew the torture would start any minute.

Truth to tell, she was starting to get bored.

Given her situation, she supposed she needed her head examined. She was a captive and she still didn’t really have a clue of what was to become of her, or what the plan was.

She was pretty sure, though, that this is how the women were reproducing! So much for the idea that they were asexual!

They should have known that it was highly unlikely that any higher life form would evolve in such a way as to spontaneously reproduce!

Of course, she’d begun to suspect when she and Monica had been taken to the river to bathe that they’d been mistaken about all of the villagers being female anyway. She’d forgotten that observation in light of the frightening events directly afterward, but she remembered then that she’d thought maybe the natives simply dressed androgynously, that there actually were male and female natives.