thin cloth.
“What kind of information?”
“You asked what I did at night. If I wasn’t hunting, I would study.”
“Study what?”
“Everything. In my…profession, it’s important to keep up with political and economic affairs. If I knew where my next job was going to be, I studied everything about that world so that I could pass as whoever I was mimicking.”
“Did you enjoy that?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “If my life had turned out a different way, I suspect I might have enjoyed being a scholar.”
“That’s what I was going to do. Be a scholar. I wanted to study plants. But my life didn’t turn out the way I had expected either.” She waved a hand. “And I don’t mean the abduction. When my aunt became ill, I had to return home and run her shop. It wasn’t a bad life, but it wasn’t the one that I had anticipated.”
Yes, he could see his shy mate bent over a screen or investigating the life cycle of a plant.
“I wonder how many lives turn out the way we originally intend,” she murmured.
While they had been talking, he had unfastened the knot of her garment and spread it open to reveal her pale, delicious body. He circled a taut pink bud, and she arched into his touch.
“We seem to have drifted away from the fooling around portion of this picnic,” she said breathlessly.
“Then I must remedy that at once.”
His head descended, and there was no more talking.
Chapter Twenty-One
After Aidon made love to Hanna, so slowly and deliciously that she was still tingling, they talked some more. She told him some of her childhood adventures, and he reciprocated with his own much more dramatic incidents. As ostracized as he seemed to have felt, he spoke of his companions with lingering affection, and she wondered if he even realized how important they had been to him.
A new sound rose above the jungle noises—a harsh, almost burbling sound—and Aidon’s head lifted.
“What is it?” she asked nervously.
“A gakhal.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not particularly.” He turned to her with a speculative look on his face. “But it is good eating. I think you would enjoy having it for our evening meal.”
“You want to go hunting?” Once again, her stomach churned at the thought.
“Yes. It sounds as if it is just to the right of the pool.” A faint click sounded, and she looked down to see that his claws were extended and tapping against each other.
“We can go after it.” She forced herself to say, but he shook his head.
“I don’t think you’re ready for that, saachi. But perhaps…”
“Perhaps what?”
“You could stay here. You would be quite safe, and I won’t be far away. Just don’t go near the edge of the jungle.”
She sat up quickly, glancing nervously around the clearing. Certainly it had been peaceful enough while they were here, but the memory of everything he had shown her on the way played through her mind.
“What about those mice things?”
“They won’t bother you out here,” he said reassuringly. “Most of the jungle creatures avoid clearings like this one. They don’t like to feel exposed.”
“I’m not crazy about it either.”
“Then I won’t leave you.” Even as he spoke, the burbling cry came again, and she heard his nails click.
“No, it’s all right. I know you wouldn’t leave me unless it was safe. Go do your hunting.”
“You are sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said as firmly as possible.
He rewarded her with a swift, hard kiss, then disappeared across the clearing almost too quickly for her to follow. She tried to recover her relaxed attitude, but the jungle that had looked so peaceful only moments before now seemed fraught with danger. Every sound, every rustle of the leaves, made her jump. One sound repeated several times before she focused on it—a little whimper. The soft noise reminded her of a child’s cry.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. No one would leave a child out in the jungle.
The sound came again, and she couldn’t ignore the distress in the low cry. Drawn to her feet despite her best intentions, she very cautiously approached the edge of the jungle. A leaf trembled, and then a tiny, ugly head poked through the vegetation. Big dark eyes, set in a flat-nosed face with tiny ears and a wide mouth, stared back at her. The little creature’s mottled skin fell in heavy wrinkles around its face, all the colors of the jungles mingling in the soft folds.
“What’s the matter, little one?” she asked. “Are you lost?”
Aidon’s warning echoed in the back of her