Purity Read online

Boone’s throat was suddenly dry. “Fourteen?”

  “At a minimum. Though some females in their first cycle may require penetration and completion up to twenty or even twenty-five times.”

  “That’s…” Boone coughed. “That’s simply not possible.”

  “Not for one of your species, no. But for an Erian it’s the norm.”

  Boone shook his head. “But…we’re all human. All our people came from Earth-that-was.”

  “That was millennia ago,” the Empress snapped. “We’ve evolved. You only have to look in the viewer at your own excessively large frame to see that. Where would your people be if they hadn’t mutated in order to live on a heavy G world? In the same way, my people have adapted to live on Eros. The compounds in our atmosphere have molded us into what we are today—a highly sexual people.”

  “I…see,” Boone said slowly.

  “You begin to see,” the Empress corrected him. “I hate to be blunt, but there’s simply no way you could satisfy an Erian female’s sexual appetites during her mating cycle. Especially not a royal one. Our appetites are more…voracious than most.”

  Boone frowned. “So you’re saying I can’t be with K because I can’t get it up twenty times a night? There are other ways to satisfy a woman, your highness.”

  The Empress’s eyes flashed. “Indeed? And you’re really so full of hubris that you believe your crude sexual methods could help Krissana get through what is certain to be the most difficult trial of her life?”

  “I think she’d have an easier time being with someone she wanted,” Boone said stolidly.

  “The mind may be willing but the body is weak,” the Empress said, frowning. “You think that because you were able to help her through the first phase of her cycle you will be able to finish the job.”

  “I would certainly try,” Boone said.

  The Empress shook her head. “Trying isn’t enough. Though you might be able to satisfy her cravings manually or orally during the first and second phases of her cycle, when she goes into the third phase and her eyes turn pure gold, Krissana won’t just crave multiple sexual encounters, she’ll die without them. Only a pure bred Erian can help her.”

  “Damn it,” Boone growled. “There must be a way—I know I’m not the only non-Erian to love somebody from Eros. I won’t stand by and let K be raped by some stranger just because he has the right bloodlines and I don’t.”

  The Empress actually threw back her head and laughed—long peals of mirth that made the short hairs on the back of Boone’s neck stand on end.

  “Oh, do forgive me,” she said at last, blotting her eyes daintily with an embroidered linen napkin. “But rape? You speak of rape? You really don’t know anything about the Erian sex cycle, do you?”

  Boone glared at her. “I don’t know what’s so funny. What else would you call putting K in a room with a stranger and telling her to go for it even if she doesn’t want anything to do with him, because he’s your choice to be the future Emperor?”

  The Empress sobered. “Firstly let me say that whoever Krissana chooses as her consort with be simply that—a consort. He will never be the ruler of this planet. Only Krissana has the exulted blood—only she can rule. And secondly, let me inform you that it is much more likely that she will rape him—whoever it is that she chooses—than the other way around.”

  Boone shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “About matters beyond your span of knowledge, obviously,” the Empress snapped.

  Boone struggled to control his temper. “Well then please, your highness, enlighten me.”

  “Gladly.” She leaned forward on the throne. “When a female royal goes into the third and final stage of her cycle, there is no stopping her—no controlling her. She must mate and she often becomes quite…feral at that time.” She steepled her long, slender fingers and looked at Boone. “Believe me, I am actually doing you a favor by taking away Krissana.”

  Boone frowned. “What exactly are you implying? I don’t—”

  The Empress cut him off with a wave.

  “I’m afraid this conversation is at an end. I have many matters to attend to and you have taken enough of my time.” She nodded at two of the guards who were standing on either side of her throne. “Escort him out and see that he goes only to his own chambers. I don’t want him anywhere near the princess,” she ordered.

  Boone started to protest but the guards had both leveled their pulse sabers at him. Clearly this discussion was over. He turned to leave but he couldn’t resist saying one last thing.

  “This isn’t the end, your highness,” he told the Empress. “I swore to K that I would take care of her and that I wouldn’t leave her.”

  “My dear giant,” she returned. “Did it ever occur to you that Krissana might not want you to keep your promise? She’s back where she belongs—she has a home and a life and duties to take on. She doesn’t need you anymore.”

  Boone wanted to say that the Empress had no idea what K needed—no idea at all. But by that time he had already been herded out of the throne room and was being marched back to his quarters.

  I’m sorry K, he thought with a mixture of frustration and regret. Sorry I brought you here at all. But I swear I’ll figure something out. Some way to get you out of here.

  But how when they were practically under house arrest here at the elaborate and well guarded palace? And even if he did manage to escape with K, what was he going to do with her? He wasn’t afraid for his own safety—even if she did go feral when she entered her third phase, he could handle himself. But he did worry about her dying if he couldn’t give her what she needed. If he couldn’t satisfy the sexual demands of her body.

  God… Boone ran a hand over his face as they passed down the long marble hallways that led to the guest suite where he’d been installed. All this was so much simpler back before I kissed her and started her damn cycle.

  But as problematic as it was becoming, he couldn’t regret his deepening relationship with K. Couldn’t regret loving her or stop hoping that she could learn to love him back.

  * * * * *

  “I can’t believe it—nothing has changed.” K looked around her old room in wonder.

  In the center of the room her old sleeping platform still stood. It was big and puffy and pink with delicate white hand stitched lace edging everything. Her favorite stuffed animal, a purple bearicorn, was lying in state in the center in the middle of the many pillows. To the left of the bed was a shelf filled with toys and to the right was a dainty white dressing table, a miniature of the one she remembered being in her mother’s rooms.

  “I used to sit here,” she murmured, placing one hand on the back of the tiny ornately carved chair. “Sit here and pretend I was getting dressed for a ball.”

  “That you did, child.” Vanja, her old nurse, smiled. Her kindly face was just as K remembered it—a bit more wrinkled and careworn, maybe, but the faded blue eyes with their thin outer gold rings were still kind and understanding. “You loved playing dress up and pretending you were a grown up lady,” her nurse went on. “It was your favorite game.”

  “I guess…it won’t be a game for much longer.” K sat heavily on the pale pink sleeping platform and ran a hand through her hair. She had tucked her skinsuit into one of the inner pockets of the stylish red dress she’d gotten from Illesca so she didn’t have to explain it to anyone. It made barely a lump under the silky red fabric but K was very aware of it, especially as the needs of her body grew. Her nipples were already tender and tight and between her legs she could feel herself growing damp and sensitive. The feeling of emptiness inside her was becoming too intense to deny.

  K knew she needed to put the suit on soon…but something still stopped her. How would she feel about Boone once the suit was on again? Would she retain any emotion at all? Or would it wipe her clean and turn her back into the emotionless killing machine she’d been before he found her? More importantly, did she want to go back? Her doubts that