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She looked up at him, her amber eyes wide with uncertainty and fear. “I get it. And if you’re trying to scare me, then congratulations—you’ve succeeded.”

“Good.” Xairn let her go abruptly and crossed to the other side of the room, putting some distance between them. He reached for the door.

“Wait—where are you going?” Lauren protested.

“Out.” Xairn threw her a glance over his shoulder. “These are close quarters. I need some air.”

“But…how long will you be gone? You’re not going to leave me here alone in this weird place, are you?” The pleading tone of her voice gripped Xairn’s heart like a fist.

“Of course not,” he said roughly. “I’m not leaving the alteration house. And I swear I’ll be back later tonight. You can have the sleeping platform—I will take the couch.” His hand was on the knob but her soft voice called him back.

“Xairn,” she said. “Please, I’m sorry you felt like you had to tell me all that but I still don’t believe you’re like…like—”

“Like the rest of my people?” he demanded. “But I am, Lauren. I told you because I needed you to see why nothing can ever happen between us. Why I can’t trust myself with you.”

“I trust you,” she said softly, lifting her chin to look him in the eyes. “Even if you don’t trust yourself.”

Xairn felt his heart clench like a fist. “You shouldn’t.” Before she could say anything else or try to stop him, he left.

It was the only safe thing to do.





Chapter Twelve





Lauren lay on the bed, curled in a ball after he left. She shut her eyes tightly and tried to think about home, about the fact that she’d be seeing her mother and walking on the warm, sandy Florida beaches very soon now.

But the images filling her mind were too disturbing.

Lauren wrapped her arms around herself protectively. God, the things Xairn had told her had been awful! And he’d spoken so dispassionately. His voice was utterly flat as he described the atrocities his race perpetrated against women. Clearly females were nothing more than property to them—to be won in barbaric contests and then marked like cattle.

But though his voice had been flat as he talked, his eyes had been burning. The way he’d looked at her when he spoke made it clear that each word hurt coming out. He didn’t want to tell me. Didn’t want me to think he was a monster.

Lauren sat up in bed and ran a hand through her long black hair. It felt rough and tangled and she wished for a hot bath and a hairbrush. He’s not a monster, she told herself forcefully. He’s protective and sweet and thoughtful. I know he would never hurt me.

But he’d admitted that he wanted to mark her as his—to put the ‘marks of possession’ on her. Lauren shivered. She supposed she could do the collar and maybe even the piercing—well, the nipple piercing, anyway. But there was no way she was going to let any man—no matter how much she was beginning to care for him—brand her or give her a piercing below the navel. There were lines she simply wasn’t willing to cross for anyone.

Well, she’d have to think about it later. Maybe talk to Xairn some more when he wasn’t in such a dark mood. Sighing, she got up and went to see about getting the hot bath she’d been longing for.

She was happy to find a small but luxurious bathroom with surprisingly Earth-like accommodations in the adjoining room. There was a recognizable toilet which looked completely normal except for being a startling shade of bright blue. A matching marble tub with gold taps sat in one corner and a shower stall in the same color stood across from it. There was even a plush purple robe hanging from a hook on the back of the door.

Lauren was glad to shed her scratchy silver-blue muumuu and put on the robe instead. It fell to her knees and felt as soft as feathers whispering against her bare skin. Then she turned to the tub and twisted one of the gold taps.

To her dismay, instead of water, a thick stream of what appeared to be bright pink oatmeal started pouring from the gold spout between the taps.

What the hell? She twisted the other tap but that only made the pink oatmeal flow faster. Already the bright blue tub was more than half full of what looked like psychedelic breakfast cereal. It was like the Quaker oat man had taken a dose of LSD and then decided to cook up some new flavor. Shocking strawberry, maybe.

Lauren twisted the knobs this way and than but with no result other than to completely fill the blue marble tub with the thick, viscous stuff. At last she got them turned off and stood there, her hands on her hips. The steam rising off the shocking pink oatmeal actually smelled pretty good—kind of flowery—but there was no way she was getting into it.