Unleashed by the Defender (Brides of the Kindred #25) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,43

him. He had to get over his desire for her since it was clear she wanted to keep a professional distance between them.

I have to leave her alone—respect her wishes, he told himself firmly. But deep inside, the feral part of him was growling, insisting that the little female was his and his alone and that soon he would bond her to him and fill her womb with his seed…

No! J’are shook his head. He would never hurt Imani that way—never do something she didn’t want him to do or take what she was unwilling to give. Even in his feral state, he wasn’t the kind of male to engage in rape. He would never breed Imani and bond her to him—never.

But what if you smell the Willingness on her—what if you smell her heat? whispered that little voice in his head. What if she wants it?

She doesn’t, J’are told himself firmly. She said so and I’m going to abide by her wishes.

And that was that—he was certain of it.

Twenty-Three

The public anti-grav pool reminded Imani of visiting the YMCA with her mom when she and her brother were little. Her mother had taken them both there for swimming lessons and then, after they learned to swim, she’d taken them just to play and have fun.

There was a long white counter at the front where you checked in and paid and rented a locker for your things. This was also the first place on Yonnie Six where Imani had seen any children. They were all little girls, there with their Mistress mothers or nannybots, and they ran, screaming and laughing, down the echoing corridors inside.

As J’are had told her, the anti-grav pool was located in a tall, white building not far from the Luxx. He explained that the pool itself took up several stories in the middle, with the ground floor devoted to a sprawling restaurant, while the top floors were private spas.

Imani was hungry by the time they got seated and she was glad that J’are was allowed to sit with her. As he explained it, this was one of the few restaurants in the city of Opulex where this wasn’t frowned on.

“Yet another reason Mother Hownow took me here,” he said dryly. “It was one of the few places she could treat me like her son in public.”

“It’s nice.” Imani looked around the large dining area with kids running back and forth while their mothers sat and talked with friends and bodyslaves. The chairs and tables were made of some kind of green wicker and there were potted plants everywhere, which gave the whole place kind of a casual jungle feel.

J’are nodded stiffly.

“I haven’t been here since she died.”

Imani put a hand on his.

“You must miss her a lot,” she murmured.

He nodded stoically, but she thought his eyes were suspiciously bright.

“Sometimes I hated her for taking me from my home world and bringing me here, but mostly I loved her. She was a good mother—a little strange for Yonnie Six—but wonderful all the same.”

“She really must have loved you a lot to want to adopt you from so far away,” Imani said.

“Oh, she did her research before she got me,” J’are said seriously. “She honestly thought I would be well-suited for life on Yonnie Six because the females of my people Claim the males.”

“So she equated that to a Mistress owning a bodyslave?” Imani asked.

He nodded. “As I said, she always hoped some kind Mistress would fall in love with me and Claim me. She even had a special room built in her home for that exact purpose. It simulated the environment of my home world exactly. You can even watch and see the three moons converge in the sky to simulate the Night of Claiming and the Night of Bonding.”

“Wow, she really thought of everything!” Imani exclaimed.

“Everything but the fact that no Mistress actually wanted to Claim me and let me Claim her in return,” J’are said ruefully. “Since bonding with a Nightwalker means being immediately impregnated with his child, which has a 95% chance of being male…” He shook his head. “No self-respecting Mistress was willing to take a chance on that—not even to inherit all of Mother Hownow’s money and property.”

“Because having a male child here is a big no-no, right?” Imani asked.

“It’s a sign that you’ve been penetrated by a male,” J’are said grimly. “Which is pretty much the worst crime you can commit here on Yonnie Six. It’s also social suicide if anyone finds