“What did happen? Why did you come here if your planet is such a Utopia and your father was against it?”
She hesitated. “Lasara is in trouble. Emissaries from another solar system approached us, wanting to join our alliance. They were our equals in technology and seemed a peace-loving society like our own. There was nothing about them that suggested deceit. Nothing in their thoughts. Nothing—”
“Wait. Lasarans are telepathic?”
“Yes, but not like Lisette and Étienne. Or David and Seth. We don’t automatically hear the thoughts of those around us and have to learn to tune them out. For us, telepathy is like …” She shrugged. “It’s more like whistling, an acquired ability that we must concentrate to use.”
He thought back to the many times he had wished her gone those first few days of their acquaintance, the times he had stripped her bare and indulged in silent, lustful fantasies before he had even kissed her. “Have you read my thoughts?” he asked warily, wondering why she hadn’t cold-cocked him at least half a dozen times.
She frowned. “Of course not. We don’t just go around reading people’s thoughts at will.” He knew a number of immortals who did. “It’s an invasion of privacy. We only do it in critical situations that warrant such action, like to determine whether someone committed a crime.”
“Or double-checking a new ally’s intentions?”
“Yes.” She squinted her eyes at him. “Why? What would I have seen had I read your thoughts?”
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Things that would make you blush, little one. If you’d like a taste, read my thoughts right now.” He filled his mind with images of all the titillating things he wanted to do to her.
Color bloomed in her cheeks as she buried her face in his chest.
Chuckling, he kissed the top of her head. “This is all very new to you, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Intimate contact of any kind isn’t allowed between unmarried men and women on Lasara. Once they reach puberty, single males and females aren’t allowed to be alone together unchaperoned.”
“Really?” It didn’t seem as shocking to him as it might to men born in the past century because the same had been true amongst the nobility of his birth time. But he felt uneasy, knowing he might have inadvertently pushed her to do something she wasn’t ready for or that went against her beliefs.
She tilted her head back, cheeks still rosy. “I was ready, and I don’t regret it.”
Smiling, he gave her a featherlight kiss. “Just let me know if anything I do ever makes you uncomfortable.”
A twinkle entered her eye. “I’ve helped you kick dozens of vampire asses. Do you think I would remain quiet if you did something I didn’t like?”
He laughed. “No, I don’t.”
She smiled. “I like that you think I’m strong.”
“You are strong.”
She shook her head. “I lived such a sheltered life on Lasara.”
“What happened there? What did the new allies do?”
“They released a virus we had no defense against. And we have exceedingly strong immune systems. There is very little illness on Lasara. When some of our people sickened after coming into contact with the Gathendiens, we thought the Gathendiens were carriers and hadn’t realized they would infect us. It was airborne and extremely contagious, but really seemed no more dangerous than one of the mild strains of your influenza virus. No one died. Most recovered in two or three days. We thought little of it and went forward with a treaty.”
“And?”
“Over the next twenty years the Lasaran birthrate dropped to almost nothing.”
He frowned. “It left you all infertile?”
“Only the women. And most of the females born after the epidemic are, too. Of the few who are fertile, most have been unable to carry a baby to term even with assistance. If one of our other allies didn’t possess incredible medical knowledge and hadn’t come to our aid, no children would have been born in the years since.”
Ami’s people were dying, the victims of a slow genocide. If they couldn’t produce children …
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Almost a century.”
So Ami wasn’t just a miracle to him, she was a miracle to her people. “How old are you?”
Uncertainty darkened her features. “Forty-nine.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re forty-nine? You look like you’re twenty!” Dismay leeched away the warm contentment Ami inspired. She was already half a century old?
“You think I’m weird, don’t you? Because I was still a virgin?”
“What? No. That didn’t even enter my mind. You said yourself that intimacy is forbidden outside of marriage. And I’m assuming you’ve never been married.”
“No, I haven’t. But you look upset.”
“Aren’t you still reading my mind?”“No.”
“Ami, the only thing that upsets me about your age is the fact that we’ll have less time together. Unless … Can you be transformed?”
“No. Seth said it would be too dangerous because we have no idea how the virus would affect me. That’s why he told you not to bite me.”
His spirits sank.
She smiled. “But you’re wrong about how much time we’ll have. Lasarans are very long-lived.”
“How long-lived?” he asked doubtfully.
“My father is 422. My mother is 367. And their hair is just beginning to turn gray.”
Marcus couldn’t believe it. It was too good to be true. “Are you saying you could live centuries?”
“Yes.”
An elated laugh burst from him. Tightening his hold, he rolled with Ami from one side of the bed to the other until helpless giggles tickled his ears and the covers tangled about their entwined legs like a cocoon. When they came to rest, Ami stretched atop him with a grin, her hair a tangle of sunset shades.
Marcus smoothed a hand over the soft curls. “I didn’t even ask if you intended to stay,” he said, voice hushed.
She nodded, but lost her smile.
“Because you want to or because you have no other choice?”
“Before I met you,” she whispered, “I would have said it was because I have no choice.”
But now she wanted to be with him? “I interrupted you. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Tell me the rest. Tell me what happened on Lasara.”
She slid off him and curled up on her side. Marcus rolled toward her, once more settling his face on the pillow near hers.
“The fact that there is no war on Lasara doesn’t mean we lack the technology or knowledge to wage it. We, along with our allies, rid our system of the Gathendiens and succeeded in driving them from our corner of the galaxy.”
“Good.”
“But …”
There was always a but.
“One of our allies—the Sectas—indicated that the Gathendiens were now working their way toward your solar system.”
Just what they needed. Vampires and Gathendiens.
“The alliance debated whether or not we should warn you.”
Marcus leaned up on an elbow. “What’s to debate? Why wouldn’t you warn us?”
She nibbled her lower lip. “The Sectas have been studying your planet for many of your millennia—It was actually through them that I learned several of Earth’s languages, including English—and …” She sat up, tugged the covers over her breasts. “Their conclusion was that humans are a primitive species that thrives on greed and violence. You appear to our allies like locusts, plowing through your planet’s resources and destroying everything in your path with no real thought or plans for the future, constantly warring with each other, wanting to conquer each other and acquire more land and wealth. True peace has never reigned on your planet as it has on ours.”
Marcus instinctively wanted to object, but … Well, Ami had been on Earth for a couple of years now. More than enough time to have seen that low opinion confirmed.
“Though reluctant, my father and his panel of advisors ultimately agreed with our allies and decided not to warn you because you would most likely react to our sudden appearance in your world not with welcome and acceptance, but with violence and fear.”
“Yet, you’re here.”
She nodded, forced a smile. “And your people met me with violence and fear.”
“Ami.”
She shook her head. “I was so naive, Marcus. I thought the alliance was wrong. I thought you should be warned, that you would welcome our aid. And I hoped … I thought we could help each other. The population on your planet has reached a crisis point, far exceeding what the Earth can comfortably sustain. We could turn your deserts into lush, productive farmland and help you reduce hunger. We could solve your energy crisis, eliminating entirely your need of fossil fuels and eradicating the pollution, illness, and wars they spawn. We could eradicate disease, extend your life spans, help you cultivate peace.”
“Sounds good to me. But what would you get out of it that made you take the risk?”
“Women outnumber men on your planet. I thought if the comfortable, peaceful existence of Lasarans appealed to them, some might …”
Understanding dawned. “Agree to serve as surrogate mothers?”
“Ideally, yes. Or some might come to live on Lasara and marry our men. The Sectas are more advanced than we are in medical research and said that because humans have never been exposed to the virus, which we have extinguished all traces of now on our planet, interbreeding might result in restored fertility to later generations.”
Marcus wasn’t sure about the surrogate motherhood thing, but thought there were probably quite a few women who would be willing to travel to another planet, marry a Lasaran, and live a Utopian existence.
“Our people are so long-lived that we would survive this crisis without the aid of Earth women. But children are so rare on my planet, Marcus. We miss them. Before I came to Earth, it had been years since I had seen a child.”