Page 44

“How will I know which is my favourite without trying them all?”He sounded amused but reasonable.

“Well, I know one thing specifically that will trim your list.”She grunted as he pressed her flat.

“What is that?”

“Lord Wenvari, you like to watch my face, and I only bend so many ways.”

He smiled.“Excellent point.What about turned to one side?”

“Maybe, but you will have to line up.I will have a limited range of movement.”

“Your stamina does need work, Reem.I am delighted with your current capabilities, but I am waiting patiently for your body to settle into its new lines.”

“Lines?”

“You now wear the same veins under your skin that I do.They are rising with every peak you visit.”

“Yeah, about designs.Yours are lightning.”

He kept massaging her thighs.“They are.”

“And each time you wanted to speed things up, I detected the crackle of energy along my body.”

He chuckled.“I was eager.I believe the urge to see your eyes go blank will fade in a century or two.”

“Our contract is only five years.”

“What were you planning after that?”

“I was going to work as long as possible to make money for retirement.Buy a small house, grow some herbs, and live out my very short life on Wenavik.”

“How short was it?”

“Was it?”

“Your lifespan.”

“In my family, ninety-five years or so.I was already close to fifty.”

He continued his slow massage of her back with a strong slide from shoulder to ankle.“Well, it is now considerably longer, and your fertility has been...refreshed.”

“Yeah, I guessed as much.The records from the different Hmrain that had human consorts all indicated that eggs with Hmrain DNA had been assembled.”

He chuckled and kept working on her until she was limp.“While you were studying my people, I was learning how to take care of you.”

“Like a pet?”

“Like a new species that I want to see thrive.”He leaned down and kissed her shoulder, then the other, and finally the back of her neck.

“I can’t move.”

He laughed and scooped her up.“You have such a strange effect on me.I feel lighthearted.I never feel that way.”

“Oh, I learned about that, too.My genetic donor was a class called ambassadors.They were designed to look generic to several species with a little effort.One of them was sent to make sure that the Ra project worked, and she left her child with its other mother.”

“Ah.Interesting.I felt that the designers would not have left us alone without some supervision.”He chuckled.“I would not have noticed that someone came to check.I have always kept to myself if I could.Also, I don’t know faces, so that is a factor.”

She smiled.“It would affect your interaction with people around you.Everyone would look the same.”