Chapter 2
Haya stopped in the middle of the passage. Reyna drifted in a flurry of daydreams. She didn’t notice the quiet until a shadow crossed the shaft of light pouring down through the ceiling. Reyna snapped out of her reverie to find Haya staring at her.
Reyna looked around for the first time. “Where are the others?”
“Your sister and your friend are in their own rooms. This is yours. You didn’t notice when we dropped them off. You didn’t notice when we stopped here. You were absorbed in your own thoughts. You didn't answer when your sister said she would see you later and you would go collect your luggage from outside. Is anything bothering you?”
Reyna cast a quick look at Haya’s face. This was Damen’s sister. On closer inspection, Reyna could see the resemblance. Haya looked more like Damen than their brother Rohn. She had a copper tinge to her long hair and long, muscular limbs. She had none of Rohn’s blocky bulk or dark brooding features.
Haya waved toward the room. “Are you going inside?”
Reyna stuck her head into the room and took a peek at the big bed. Curtains of the same patterned tapestry that hung in the passages and halls outlined windows overlooking the western valleys. “Thank you. Is that all?”
“What else do you want?”
“Your husband is Assan, isn’t he, Haya?”
“You know he is.”
“Do you visit his family much?”
“Only at the gatherings.”
“Do you still attend the gatherings after you’re married? I thought they were intended for young people to find partners.”
“Everyone attends the gatherings, from the very youngest to the very oldest. They’re intended for everyone.”
“What does everyone do at the gatherings? I mean, what do the old and young and the already-attached do while the unattached are trying to pair up?”
“The young play. The already-attached catch up with their relatives they haven’t seen in years. The old people sit around and talk. They exchange news from all over Kratak, and they make decisions about how the Clans relate to each other. Sometimes they negotiate peace between Clans that have been at war with each other.” A trace of a smile crept over her face. “Isn’t that what people do everywhere?”
“I guess they do.” Reyna started to soften toward this strange woman.
Haya held back so much, the tiny cracks she opened up to let out personal information fascinated the genealogist in Reyna. She wanted to find out every detail about the Krataks' life. The person standing in front of her intrigued her sense of mystery and discovery.
Haya shifted from one foot to the other. “Aren’t you going to go into your room?”
“Not right now. I’d rather talk to you.”
“What do you want to talk about? There’s nothing to talk to me about.”
“Everybody’s got a story to tell.”
“And it’s your job to tell it. Isn’t that right?”
“I would do it even if it wasn’t my job. I’ve always been interested in people.”
Haya started to walk away. “I’m not interesting.”
Reyna hurried after her and fell in at her side. “How did you meet Callan?”
“At the gatherings. That’s where everybody meets.”
“Did you spend your whole life in this Keep before that?”
“Of course. Everybody does.”
Reyna stopped walking. “No one’s life is that boring. What did you like doing when you were growing up?”
Haya stopped, too, and looked back at Reyna with a sharp expression on her face. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Then she walked away.
Reyna stayed rooted to the spot. In that moment, Reyna knew for certain Haya was hiding something. Maybe these Krataks secretly practiced some kind of black magic. Maybe they sacrificed babies to their alien gods by the light of the moon.
Then Reyna shook herself. That was ridiculous. These people agreed to host the research team and reveal everything about their culture. She hurried after Haya. “What’s it like living with dominant men?”
Haya cast a sidelong glance at her. “I’m sure it’s not much different from the way your men live with dominant women.”
“Well, women among the Allies aren’t exactly dominant. We’re egalitarian. The men choose their own work and their own way of life.”
“We heard the generals and politicians are all women. All the leaders of your military are women, and women make the decisions about how your society operates.”
“That’s true, but the men choose it that way. Any man could become a general or a politician if he wanted to. They don’t want to, though. They choose different paths.”
“I have only your word for that. You’re here to study us, so you’ll find out for yourselves what it’s like here. I’ll never know for certain what your world is really like.”
“You could visit it someday. Don’t tell me these men would forbid you to explore the galaxy beyond your home world.”
“Your world doesn’t sound like anywhere I would want to visit.”
“Why not?”
“I can see for myself what the men and women of your world are like. I like it better here.”
The blood rushed to Reyna’s cheeks. “I can see we got off on the wrong foot. I meant to ask you what it’s like living around these men who are so much bigger and stronger than you physically. I’ve never been around a man bigger and stronger than me. In our world, the men are smaller and the women are bigger.”
Haya glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “That’s exactly what I mean.” She turned off into a different room in the side of the passage. Before Reyna could respond, Haya shut the door and left Reyna alone.
Reyna stared at the closed door. How could anybody be so rude when she only asked a simple question?
The central hall stood empty a few steps away. Haya must have been on her way back there. Why did she turn off? Did Reyna say something to offend her? What could she have said, when she was trying to make light conversation? She could have asked a lot more penetrating questions than that.
She could have asked for more detail about the gatherings. Haya made them sound like run-of-the-mill family reunions. Damen, on the other hand, characterized the gatherings as hotbeds of sexual promiscuity. Which was right? Maybe both were right. Maybe brother and sister had very different experiences of the same event.
She could have asked point-blank what Haya meant by saying she wouldn’t want to travel to a world where women were bigger than men. The Krataks expressly invited the Allies research team to their planet to study their customs and culture. They did that knowing full well the Allies wanted Kratak to join their Alliance. Why would they accept the research team if they didn't want to join? They must want the Allies to know and understand them.
Yet despite their express invitation, everyone in Clan Harkniss treated the team’s questions with reticence and even hostility. Was the other team in Assan Keep experiencing the same resistance? Why would they want to hide anything from their future Allies? Why would they invite the research team here if they never really intended to fully disclose their ways?
Reyna never shrank from a mystery in her life. The instant she suspected a mystery or a cover-up, she attacked it like a rabid dog. She never let it go until she uncovered the hidden truth. Her job gave her the perfect outlet for her tenacious compulsion to ferret out every subtle layer lurking beneath the surface.
She would study these people with everything she had until nothing remained hidden. The Allies assigned her to research unknown races for a reason. She would bring back the Krataks’ secrets on a silver platter, and her superiors would use those juicy tidbits to the Allies’ advantage in all their future dealings with this planet.
Reyna walked alone into the great hall when she noticed it wasn’t as empty as she thought. Whitney Anglesey stood across the room. The room was so huge Reyna didn’t see him there before. He gazed up at one of the intricate tapestries covering the walls. He rubbed his hands together.
He smiled when Reyna walked up to him. “How was your room?”
“It’s very nice, but I didn’t go in. I just took a look and came back here. Where are the others?”
“I guess they’re in their rooms. I’m glad you’re here. I was hoping to catch you alone.”
“I don’t think we’ll have much chance to be alone while we’re here.”
“Neither do I. That’s why I’m glad to have the chance now.”
“What do you want to talk to me about?”
He looked left and right. Then he took her by the hand and pulled her around the corner into another passage going off somewhere Reyna couldn’t see. He guided her into a corner out of sight from the hall. He murmured under his breath. “I had to see you. We haven’t been together in three weeks.”
He lifted his face and pressed his lips against hers. His kiss always made her heart flutter before, but now it left her cold. She couldn’t bring herself to return it. “We haven’t been together because we’ve both been in quarantine getting ready for this mission.”
He moved closer and crushed her breasts with his chest. “I know. I’ve been dying to see you. I’ve missed you so much.”
She didn’t have the heart to turn her head aside, but she didn’t want to kiss him right now. “We shouldn’t do this. The family could come back at any moment.”
“So, what if they do? We have no reason to hide our relationship from them.”
“I only meant....”
“We’re going to be together. You said we’d get married when we came back from this mission, so they might as well know the truth about us.”
“I know what I said.”
She regretted those words now. Back in their world, she loved him enough to kiss him and touch him. Like him, she couldn’t wait to sneak off into any odd corner to get her hands on him. Back home, she was the one ambushing him in halls and deserted passages to slip her hands down his pants and stimulate him to a fevered pitch.
Now that thought turned her stomach. She couldn’t touch him here. Why? What did this place do to her? She wanted more than anything to push him away, but she cared about him too much.
Touch him? All of a sudden, his body seemed impossibly tiny. The prick she knew lay nestled between his legs reminded her of a child’s toy, not something any real woman could make use of.
What was she thinking? How could she scorn this man she grew to cherish? What happened in the last few hours to change her feelings?
In answer to her thoughts, a deep, rumbling voice boomed out against the Keep’s stone walls. “What’s going on here?”
Whitney jumped and spun around to find himself face to face with Damen. Reyna’s breath caught in her throat. Her spirits soared at the sight of Damen. He towered over tiny Whitney. He could snap Whitney in half with his little finger. Standing next to Damen, Whitney looked more ridiculous than ever.
Whitney recovered immediately. “We’re having a private conversation here.”
“You’re not having a private conversation in the middle of the passage where I can hear you through the door of my room.”
Whitney looked around. No one could tell one door in this Keep from another. “I thought all the men lived down the other passage, where Rohn put me and Ben and Tanner.”
“We put you three over there together. The rest of us live scattered around wherever we please. I’m the only one living in this part of the Keep. Callan and Haya and their daughter Asya live somewhere else. Rohn and my parents live in one of the upper levels.”
Whitney started to turn his back on Damen. “We had no idea we were right outside you room. If we had, we would have gone somewhere else. Anyway, we never intended anyone to overhear our conversation. We’ll leave now. Thank you for telling us.”
Damen spun Whitney around fast. “It sounds to me like the lady doesn’t want to continue this conversation. I just heard her say you shouldn’t do this now.”
Whitney tried to stand up to him, but anyone could see Damen’s sheer size intimidated him. “If you heard that, you heard we’re bonded. We’re as good as married. I’ve earned the right to talk to her in private.”
Damen frowned at Reyna. “Is that true? Are you bonded and married?”
Reyna turned on Whitney. “We are not bonded that way, and you know it.” To Damen, she said, “We aren’t married. That’s not how it is.”
“How is it, then?”
“We’ve been very close for a long time, but we haven’t committed to each other. We’re not exclusive to each other—not yet.”
“You haven’t made a commitment. I have. I’m as good as married to you, Reyna, and you know it as well as I do. I don’t understand why you’re turning your back on me, now that we’re on this planet. You have nothing to gain by it.”
Reyna’s temper flared. Not many people knew she had one. She kept herself under strict control. She had never lost her patience at work or with Whitney before. “Don’t you think there might be a reason I didn’t make a commitment to you yet? Maybe you weren’t the right man for me after all, or maybe I thought there might be some reason we wouldn’t make a good match. I don’t know, but when I see you act this way, I’m glad I never made a commitment to you.”
Whitney’s eyes flew open, and he let out an audible gasp. “Reyna! What is wrong with you? How can you speak to me like that?”
Reyna saw herself at a remove. She didn’t recognize herself. Never would she speak to Whitney or any other man like this at home. These Krataks infected her mind with some hostility toward the men of her own people. She couldn’t see them except through their eyes. She could see nothing but their puny size and their pathetic weakness.
She turned her back on Whitney and approached Damen. When she got close to him, she fell under his magnetic spell. His eyes brooded in their sockets, and they changed color when she came near him. Flecks of green and gold shimmered across their metal-grey surface, and swirls of black and gold ripple across his skin.
Reyna stopped right in front of him. She had to look almost straight up to make eye contact with him. He glared down at her with knitted brows. She touched the medallion pinned to his buckler. “What does this mean?”
His nostrils flared, and he inhaled a deep breath of her scent. His skin patterns caught her in a web of psychedelic confusion. She bobbed and swam through them in a world of his internal turmoil. “It’s a symbol of my identity. Every medallion represents the identity of the man wearing it, his Clan and connections to the rest of Kratak.”
She traced the design with her fingertip. That was the closest she could let herself get to touching his magical skin. “It looks like a face, or maybe a tree. It looks like a tree would look if it had a face.”
He gazed down into her eyes. “How is it that you have no patterns in your skin?”
A smile lit up her face. “I don’t understand how you have patterns in your skin. I can’t stop staring at them. They seem to speak to me from a part of yourself no words can express.”
“I keep looking at your skin for some sign of how you feel inside, but I can’t see anything. You’re a closed book to me.”
“I wish I could be an open book to you. I wish there was some way I could show you how I feel inside.”
“You’ll just have to tell me with words. That’s all you’ve got.”
“It must be fascinating to be able to communicate with your people with your skin. It would create more closely bonded relationships. You wouldn’t be able to hide anything from anybody.”
“I don’t want to hide anything. I want everyone to know how I feel.”
“I don’t want to hide anything, either. I want everyone to know how I feel, but the only way I can express it is in words.”
“Tell me. Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”
Now that he challenged her to express her feelings, she struggled to define them. He fascinated her and horrified her. He contradicted everything she knew about relating to other people. He contradicted everything she knew about herself.
Whitney interrupted before she had a chance to answer. He strode over to them and shoved his arm between them. He tried to push Reyna away from Damen. “What are you doing, Reyna? You’re acting like a love-sick child. You should hear yourself. Get yourself together before you ruin all our chances here. You’re a professional scientist, and you’re disgracing yourself and the Allies.”
Reyna didn’t have time to speak before Damen planted his hand on Whitney’s chest and pushed him back a step. At the same time, he hooked his other arm around Reyna’s shoulders and drew her against himself. “It looks to me like she’s made her decision. You can go back to the hall now. The others will be gathering there for the midday meal. We don’t need you here anymore.”
Whitney stared back and forth between the two of them with his mouth hanging open in horror. “You can’t do this, Reyna. You’ll sabotage the whole mission.” He shook his finger at her. “Just wait until I tell Rose about this. She’ll straighten you out.”
He strode away and disappeared around the corner into the hall. Reyna relaxed, but Damen wouldn’t let go of her. She couldn’t pry herself out of his embrace. She could only stand there and gaze up into his eyes. “Thank you, but he’s harmless. He wasn’t really bothering me.”
“He interrupted you when you were talking to me. That is unforgivable. Will he tell your sister to censure you? She said she’s in command of the team.”
“She wouldn’t censure me, and I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just talking to you about your medallion and your skin. She couldn’t censure me for that, and we’ve always worked together as equals. She’s not really my commander. Now where were we, when he interrupted?”
Damen scanned her face. “Never mind. I think I can already read you well enough to know what you’re feeling when you look at me.”