Taken (Selected Book 2) Read online

  I knew that was silly.

  When she took my hand and pulled me to the sofa, I let her. She sat me down then pulled a chair in front of me, sat down, and took both my hands.

  "I am also afraid. I have things to tell you. I do not know how you will react."

  "Are you going to tell me everything was a lie, and even if I had won, you would take me away?"

  "No."

  "Are you going to tell me you lied when you said you wanted me?"

  "No!"

  "Are you going to tell me I am your slave, and if I don't behave, you will whip me?"

  "No! Sapphire, how can you think these things?"

  "I'm coming up with things that would make me upset. Are you going to tell me-" And she put her fingers over my lips. I nodded, and she withdrew them, taking my hand again.

  "Did you get that out of your system?"

  "Did I make my point?"

  "Perhaps. I still don't know if you're going to be angry or how angry. I will tell you this. If you cannot stand my touch after I tell you these things, I will release you. I will let you go home."

  "I don't think you should say that. I might pretend anger."

  "I don't believe you will pretend. Now let me say this." And so I nodded.

  "You know this is not my native form."

  "Yes. You changed somewhat dramatically."

  "Yes. A human could not be changed sufficiently to be compatible with my old biology or to form a proper mate. And so I changed, quite dramatically."

  "So you could find a human mate."

  "Yes. I have not changed enough to mate with you as you are now. You will also need to change, but not so much as you might have had to for another race."

  "Will I still look human?"

  "Outwardly, there are no changes at all, unless you ask for some. But we will enhance some of your systems, and your reproductive biology will change somewhat more significantly."

  "Will I-" I turned away. "Will there be a male involved?" I didn't wait for her to answer. "You haven't said, but I think your race has males, doesn't it?"

  "My original race does," she said gently. "We will not."

  I'd been holding her breath but didn't realize it until she answered. "All right. When does that start? After we talk to Jasmine?"

  She looked away. "You have already had some changes."

  "What?"

  "I think Jasmine told you, didn't she? Your empathy was increased."

  "Oh. That. Yes, she told me."

  Bronze looked back. "You have had other changes. Small changes. I will not explain them today. I will be upset if you ask about them. You won't notice them. If you go home, we don't even need to revert them. I will tell you this. You are healthier than you were."

  "Well, that's not so bad, is it?"

  "No."

  "I want to know why you can talk to me this way when you couldn't before."

  She looked away. "We've met. Did you know?"

  "We met on the arena floor when I gave you my ribbon."

  "We met before that, but I looked different."

  "What did you look like?"

  "It was during your testing."

  "Oh. One of the dreams while I sat in the chair being tested?"

  "I met you. I wanted you. I thought I wanted you when Jasmine told me about you."

  "She told you about me? When?"

  "You were still swimming with the dolphins. We met sometime after that."

  "I liked the dolphins." I smiled briefly. "I liked Minerva, too, at first. But she's a bitch."

  "Minerva?"

  "The computer. It didn't have a name, so I called it Minerva. It said I wasn't the first to do so." I sighed. "I remember little once I was in the chair."

  "I still looked like I always did. It was after I met you that I decided I wanted you, and I knew I would have to change before you could be mine. Sapphire, my species has an elaborate mating process, like many species. I will tell you more in the weeks ahead. Our rituals involve selecting a mate and pursuing her relentlessly. It is driven by our biology. Once we select a potential mate, we can be quite relentless. Changing myself is extreme, but the members of my species understand."

  "You did this to yourself for me." I put as much compassion into it as I could. "Is this supposed to make me angry? I am flattered. I am very confused, but flattered. I'm not worth this."

  "You are! You are to me. And there would have been others who agreed with me, but I got to you first." She grinned at that. "I'll forever thank Jasmine for that."

  "Was she there?"

  "Jasmine doesn't only oversee the center here. She oversees the entire mating candidate program. And she is informed when someone comes in who appears particularly intriguing. This isn't the first time she's called me about a candidate, but it's the first time I wanted someone enough to change."

  I squeezed her hands. "I can't imagine wanting someone enough to take such an overwhelming risk. Perhaps after spending time with her, a lot of time."

  "Humans need more time than several of the species, including mine."

  "Are you responsible for my being collected?"

  "No. If I hadn't wanted you, Jasmine would have found someone else, or she may have decided you were one she wanted. She's been waiting, too. You would have been collected."

  "All right. But I still don't see why I should be angry."

  "There are two reasons. The first is due to the way your body was enhanced. Your empathy was made higher."

  "I know. I can imagine it's a part of the reason I've been as receptive to you as I have been."

  "It's worse. You are now slightly psychic. So am I. But only with each other. What I feel, you will feel. And what you feel, I will feel. And it will grow with time. We won't be able to talk mind to mind, but if you're hurt, I'll know. If we fight, it's going to be agony for both of us."

  I smiled, took my hand from hers, and caressed her cheek. "Hmm. I don't seem to be angry. Do we go talk to Jasmine now?"

  "We met."

  "You told me. During my testing."

  "No. Not during your testing. It was after your medical exam."

  I stared then asked in a cold, dead voice, "What did you look like?"

  She sent an image to my visor. Of a Temier, one of the tiger-people. I stared at it.

  "You were a Temier? Bronze, you were a Temier?"

  "Yes."

  I started to cry. "No! You can't do this to yourself for me. You didn't know me. I'm nothing. I'm just one of seven billion other humans. You were beautiful and sleek, and I was half in love with you just looking at you."

  "Sapphire, am I not beautiful and sleek in this form?"

  "Yes, but... You could have talked me into changing instead. You could have made me-"

  "No. We could not change you enough. I could make you look like a Temier, but you would be very small. And worse, you would be barren. It doesn't work. If I wanted you, I had to change."

  "But. You shouldn't have done this. You shouldn't have. What if you hated me?"

  "I couldn't hate you."

  "You just barely knew me."

  "I didn't decide until after your testing, and then some time more. It was not an easy decision, but as I have gotten to know you, it was the right choice."

  "But-" I slumped then muttered. "Not for me. Not for me."

  "Yes, Sapphire. For you."

  I started crying again, crying for her loss, her sacrifice, crying for what she had done to herself so she could be with me.

  Crying for the hateful things I'd told her.

  She moved to my side and pulled me into her arms. I melted against her.

  "Shh," she said. "I like this body. It is a good body."

  "You picked this body from the dreams they gave me, based on which one I liked the most!"

  She stiffened.

  Oops.

  "How do you know that?"

  "What else could it have been? I don't remember any of the others, but I remember this one, and only this
one. I remember there were a lot more, but no specifics. And you didn't look like this. So either you gave me this dream, or you picked from the one I seemed to most like."

  "I picked the one you most liked, Sapphire, but you were presented only with choices I liked, too. I like this body. We gave you choices of smaller bodies, too, more delicate bodies. But you liked this one the most. If you had picked a more delicate body, I would not have done this for you. I couldn't go from being a powerful Temier to something that wasn't just as powerful. This is a powerful body, and I enjoy it a great deal. It can do things my old body cannot."

  "I don't believe you."

  "I can stand on two feet."

  That shut me up. "Oh."

  She lifted a hand and started at it, manipulating the fingers. She reached out and caressed my face. "The sense of touch was nearly overwhelming at first, and I can do so many things with these hands." She smiled. "It's a good body, and I like it. Thank you for picking it."

  "I didn't know at the time."

  "No, but thank you anyway."

  I stilled and then softened against her. "You thought this would make me angry, that you did this for me?"

  "No."

  "You are Temier. Are you still Temier?"

  "Much of me is still Temier. The language I speak is Temier, but I speak Catseye as well. That is the language I use with Jasmine, except when I roar. That is all Temier."

  I began to laugh.

  "What?"

  "I belled the cat. The mouse belled the cat."

  "I don't understand."

  "There is a story about scared mice living in a house. Mice are small, helpless rodents, and cats love to chase and kill mice. So the mice waited until the cat was asleep, and they put a bell around her neck so she could no longer catch them. I belled the cat in our first challenge."

  She began to laugh. "That's why Jasmine was amused by it."

  "And you belled the mouse. That's not part of the story." I pulled her arm more tightly around me. I paused. "I already know, but you need to say the last part. You need to say it."

  "Sapphire, my human name is Moirai."

  Rules

  The clues had been there, of course. I should have put them together. But until she'd told me we had met, and she'd been Temier, I had missed them all.

  But at her words, it all came home to me.

  "Moirai."

  "Yes."

  "That's what you thought would upset me."

  "Yes."

  "Because I told you-"

  "Yes."

  I climbed from the sofa. Bronze -- Moirai -- didn't attempt to stop me. I walked to the windows again. I tried to think. I didn't know what to think. This, on top of everything else, and I was overwhelmed. I'd told Moirai I wanted nothing further to do with her, that what she'd help do to me was unforgiveable.

  I stood at the window. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to do. Moirai gave me time, but then I heard her climb from the sofa and approach me. She came to a stop immediately behind me. I could feel her, not quite touching me.

  I managed to engage my brain to put a few thoughts together. If I let this make me angry, recovering would be impossible. I couldn't understand why she would do this.

  "You're insane," I whispered.

  "No," she denied. "I'm not. Sapphire, please don't hate me."

  I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging tightly. I thought I'd felt vulnerable, but in learning the truth, a new level of vulnerability wrapped around me, pressing against me.

  "You should have told me from the beginning," I whispered. "You did everything wrong."

  "Maybe I should have," she said quietly, almost whispering directly into my ear. "Maybe I did it wrong. I was making the best decisions I could."

  "How am I ever supposed to trust you when you've been deceiving me every step of the way?" And then I clearly took one half step away from her, putting distance between us.

  I could feel her eyes on me. People say that, but with us, I thought perhaps it was true. I could feel she was wound tightly and afraid.

  I didn't know what I was feeling.

  "I don't believe that is fair," she said. "I never lied to you. I kept things from you, but you knew I was keeping my identity secret from you. You had to know there was a reason. You knew I had changed myself for a mate."

  I turned to face her. "You changed yourself for me. That's insane. Bronze, don't you see how crazy that was?"

  "I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life alone, Sapphire. I was willing to give a great deal for a different result."

  The weight of that statement was nearly overwhelming. She had placed her entire future happiness in my hands. I knew there was a great deal I didn't know about this. But there were things I did know, too. I didn't want to leave Earth, and I didn't want the responsibility she was thrusting at me.

  "You put too much on me."

  "I know."

  I stared up into her eyes, her large, blue orbs. "You changed everything, even your eyes." She nodded at that.

  "Do you hate me, Sapphire?"

  I turned around again. I couldn't answer while looking at her. "No." It felt like surrender. I didn't want to forgive her. I wanted to be so angry at her. But my emotions were beating on me, and I wondered if some of them were hers.

  She stepped closer, and when she set her hands on my shoulders, I didn't pull away. When she pulled me against her, I let her, and then I leaned backwards, resting my head against her shoulder as she wrapped her arms more completely around me.

  We stood like that for some time, and then, slowly, she drew me back to the sofa. We sat, and I let her pull me against her, facing away as she supported me. I leaned my head to the side this time, again resting against her shoulder.

  We sighed together.

  I didn't understand my emotions. They were bouncing everywhere. I didn't like it. I didn't like that I couldn't control them, and I didn't like that they wouldn't settle down. Fear, anger, sadness, despair, hope...

  Hope? Hope for what. I didn't understand that at all, either. Was that mine? Hers? I didn't understand this empathy thing. I didn't know if everything I was feeling was my own, or if some of it was hers.

  "I know you have questions, Sapphire."

  "Right now," I said, "Two. Will you answer? Why hide it until now, and what's with being able to speak?"

  "The second is easiest to answer," she replied. "I was afraid you'd recognize speech patterns. That's why Moirai could only answer you via text, too."

  "But we talked. We talked after I was collected. I saw you."

  "You saw what the visor showed you."

  "Oh. I suppose in the visor, you can be anything."

  "Yes."

  That actually amused me. "Little cheat. No. You're a big cheat."

  "Are you angry?"

  "No. Why hide who you were?"

  "Fear."

  "Of what?"

  She didn't answer right away, and I wondered if she would. "It's stupid," she said finally, so quietly I almost didn't understand.

  "I think you owe me the truth."

  "If I lost you, then maybe at least you could remain friends with Moirai. But then you told me you didn't want to know me any longer."

  For a long time after that, neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved, except from time to time she would stroke or caress me. It felt good, and I knew it was lulling me. She was lulling me. And that felt, good, too.

  I thought she was waiting for an answer from me. I was, too.

  "I'm frightened," I whispered.

  "I know," she whispered back.

  At that, I turned around. I think she thought I was pulling away from her, because she reached for me, but I turned around to face her then threw a leg over hers to straddle her. With someone my own size, I would have loomed over her, but instead, I could easily relax against her, like a small child held by her mother. And so I relaxed against her, laying my head to the side and breathing against her neck. She stiffened
slightly then relaxed. Her arms wrapped around to hold me.

  "If I'd truly been angry, would you have let me go home?"

  "If you couldn't stand my touch, then yes. It seems you can stand my touch."

  "Don't get cocky," I said. "What Sapphire giveth, Sapphire can taketh away."

  "Sapphire, I can't help being cocky," she replied. "But I will certainly not take you for granted."

  For a while we remained like that, and then she chuckled. "You do realize you're acting like a mate."

  "I told you I can struggle tomorrow. I'm too overwhelmed to fight anymore today."

  "So you'll grow angry tomorrow?"

  "I'm going to be deeply upset as we leave Earth. I may reject any affection. I don't know."

  "We'll be back. My job is here, in your system, and it is not so hard to travel. It isn't safe for all of us yet, so we don't often travel your cities. But as humans grow increasingly accustomed to us and begin to accept us, it will improve."

  "Don't count on that ever happening. You're a Xenobiologist. Please tell me you understand about race relations amongst humans."

  "So stupid."

  "I know. You represent an extreme case of that, and if we can remain so xenophobic within our own species, imagine what we're going to be like with you. Frankly, taken as a whole, humans are utter assholes."

  "Humans as a whole are maturing. It takes time. Some of you are already quite mature." She tightened for a moment. "There are places it is safe for us, like here and a few others. Your parents could come here."

  "Really?"

  "You will be my mate. You're starting to realize it." She squeezed me again. "But my point is this: when we leave, it is not forever for you."

  "You left your home forever, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "How can I be a xenobiologist when there's no xeno to biology over?"

  I laughed at that. It was strained, but a laugh nevertheless. But then I pushed away from her. "I have needs."

  "I know."

  "You will satisfy them."

  She looked me up and down and grinned.

  "Not those needs!" I smiled. "I'm hungry. And I want us to talk to Jasmine so I know the rules."

  "It's been a difficult day for you. Are you sure?"