“I’m sorry, Kai. I don’t mean to laugh, but what you say is true. I never thought about it like that before. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, does it? Just so long as you enjoy it.”

“Anyway, since that night, Lucas comes to our bedroom every night to make love to me and then goes to sleep. He never sleeps in the spare bedroom anymore.”

“You should be happy about that,” Ryan said.

“I am. Or I was until he wanted to put this chip in my arm. But I don’t understand. If he’s so angry at me for going after Merri, why does he want to love on me all the time?”

“Well, you scared him. He thought he’d lost you. You know he had the whole pack out looking for you, and he even shut down the mines—he never shuts down the mines.”

Kai tilted his head, his mouth falling open. “He did? But he didn’t tell me any of this. Why would he do such a thing?”

Ryan smiled. “Because he’s so crazy about you, you big dummy.” He socked Kai lightly on the arm to show him he was teasing. “Blayde said he’d never seen Lucas so upset. He was frantic when he couldn’t find you.”

“He was?”

“Of course he was.”

“No,” Kai said, shaking his head. “He lusts after me, but I think he doesn’t really like me. He hates the idea that my mother tried to trick him and make him think I was a female.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Ryan looked at him curiously. “But why did she do that, Kai? Can you tell me?”

Kai shook his head stubbornly. “No. I can’t tell anyone. I’m sorry, but if I told someone, and it got back to the wrong people, my mother’s life could be in danger. I just can’t.”

“It’s okay. I understand. But there’s one thing I learned since I’ve been with the Balenescus and that’s the fact that they can always surprise you. Just when you think you have them all figured out, you find out that you don’t. Sometimes Blayde overreacts, for example, and blows up, but once he calms down, he can really be wonderful. They only overreact because they care so much. Lucas is a good alpha and a good person. Don’t be afraid to trust him with your secrets.”

Kai shook his head. “He’d never understand this one. It goes against Alliance law, and you know how he is about that.”

“In the meantime, you’re letting this secret of yours tear the two of you apart. Give him a chance, Kai. You’ll be glad you did.”

A small device on Ryan’s wrist sounded a beeping tone, and he glanced down at it. “There’s my lord and master now,” he said with a laugh. “I guess Blayde’s got the prisoners ready for transport. We’ll be gone for a while, but think about what I said, okay?”

Kai nodded and Ryan gave him a quick hug and took off to find his mate.

* * * *

It was that same afternoon that Kai got the message from his mother. It wasn’t long and chatty like her usual messages. It simply stated that she was no longer the queen, having abdicated in favor of his sister, Princess Delanon. Kai had known this time was coming soon, but it still surprised him a little. She had told him soon after he’d arrived on Lycanus 3 that Delanon was pregnant, but he hadn’t realized so much time had passed. She must be ready to have her baby by now. The gestation period for Scythians was three quarter cycles, and with a start, Kai realized he had been on Lycanus 3 for well over two of them. Still, it seemed to Kai they would have waited until after his sister was delivered of any children to ascend to the throne, and he wondered at the timing.

The next message he received was from his old nurse and body servant Merrial, and it was just as cryptic. Toward the end of the message, she had written a few lines that made Kai instantly uneasy and worried.

Princess Delanon has had unfortunate news. Her child, according to the physicians, will not be a person. As soon as it is delivered, it will be re-assimilated into the goddess. When your mother asked her to consider sending the child away, Delanon was not pleased.

Not a person? In Scythia, that could mean only one thing—the child was a male. All the doubts he’d been harboring since he’d left Scythia came rushing back. The priestesses told the women that Scythian males were brain damaged and defective, but surely Kai wasn’t the only exception to this rule. He knew he was intelligent and Lucas had carefully taught him that his genitalia were nothing to be ashamed of either. Truly, though Lucas’s were a bit larger, they looked very similar, and Lucas seemed to like them very much. Ryan had even shown him some of his porn vids, as he called them, and Kai’s were no different than Ryan’s or the other humanoids in the vids. So what made them so defective?

Again, the blasphemous thoughts assailed him so strongly he felt a little sick. What if the goddess’s teachings were wrong? What if all those children hadn’t had to be re-assimilated? The idea was staggering in its enormity. He felt uneasy to even think such blasphemous thoughts.

Why was Delanon really taking the throne from his mother so soon? Delanon had long cultivated a following among the guards. Was she staging some kind of coup? And was she doing it because her mother had blasphemed the goddess by suggesting she spare her male child from re-assimilation?

A half-buried memory came back to Kai as he sat there wondering. Once when he was a small child, he’d asked Merrial what it meant to be re-assimilated. She had shaken her head and told him to be quiet, but her mate, Lythiquo, had looked troubled.

“Tell the child the truth, Merrial.”

“Hush, Lythiquo. We don’t know anything for sure. It’s all rumors and lies. It has to be. Besides, it’s forbidden by law to speak of such things.”

Lythiquo had put a hand on Merrial’s arm. “My friend Gasheea worked in the temples. She has seen with her own eyes the priestesses carrying them to the secret chamber. They were also carrying ceremonial knives, Merrial.”

Merrial pulled her arm away sharply. “It’s the foolish prating of slaves, that’s all.”

Lythiquo dropped her head. “Like me…”

Merrial looked shocked and pulled Lythiquo into her arms. “No, darling, I didn’t mean it that way.”

They had kissed then and made up their argument, but the memory came back strongly now to Kai. They were carrying ceremonial knives. Kai got a chill down his spine so strong it shook him to his core and he shuddered with horror. A strong voice behind him made him jump in his seat.

“Kai? What is it? Are you ill?”

Lucas came up behind him and put his hands on Kai’s shoulders. He glanced down at the compnet screen in front of Kai. “What’s the matter, baby? Did you get bad news from home?”

Without a word, Kai turned and buried his face against Lucas’s stomach, throwing his arms around his waist. He nodded and Lucas rubbed a slow circle on his back. “Tell me, Kai. Let me help you.”

Kai tilted back his head and gazed up at Lucas. He saw nothing in Lucas’s eyes but concern. Taking a deep breath, Kai made his decision. “I need to tell you, Lucas. Tell you everything. I’ve been so confused and worried about my mother, but-but now I think she may be in danger because of this secret, in a way.”

“You can tell me anything, Kai. I’ve told you that so many times.”

Kai shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid when you hear what I have to tell you—I’m afraid you’ll never want anything to do with me or any other Scythian ever again.”

* * * *

Lucas sat in his chair on the command deck of the star cruiser, leaning on one fist, brooding and silent. They would enter Scythia’s atmosphere by morning, and beneath him in the decks below, slept an entire army of Alliance forces.

The preliminary strike force, masquerading as an Alliance inspection team, had been hastily assembled in the short span of time since Kai had informed Lucas of his suspicions, but other star cruisers were standing by for his signal, ready to launch a full invasion, if necessary. Lucas would speak to the new queen soon by satellite transmission, to see if she was amenable to an inspection of the temples. If she resisted in any way, he was fully prepared to force the issue, with full Alliance backing.

Lucas had been placed in charge of the preliminary force because of his close connection to the royal family, and Alliance officials still had hope that the children who were rejected were simply ferried off planet by the priestesses. The idea of the wholesale slaughter of thousands and thousands of innocent children, right under the collective nose of the Alliance, was simply unthinkable. If it were found to be true, retribution and justice would be swift and merciless.

Kai had cried himself to sleep the night before, though he’d tried to hide it from Lucas, probably thinking Lucas would call him unmanly. The truth was, Lucas could well understand how he must be feeling. If the suspicions he conveyed to Lucas were confirmed, then his mother and sister would be arrested and made to answer for their crimes under Alliance law—this meant almost certain execution. Since Delanon had so recently ascended to the throne, there might be a chance of leniency for her, but Kai’s mother had been monarch for over thirty years. During that time, how many children might have been murdered?

The queen had to have known of the temple practices—she had saved her own son, after all, while allowing countless others to be slaughtered in the name of her religion. If what Kai told him was true, she’d also made a bid to save her grandson, but the plan had backfired. According to Alliance sources, there had been a takeover, with the dowager queen now confined to her rooms, and Queen Delanon was due to deliver her child any day. They needed to get to her before she could turn the child over to the priestesses.

Kai’s planet would undergo vast changes when the Alliance took over. The Scythians would more than likely remain under martial law for the conceivable future, and the population would be required to undergo re-education for years. While the Alliance would make no efforts to change natural sexual orientation, it was to be hoped that with re-education and counseling, the women of Scythia would accept males on their planet again one day without rancor, and their society would allow natural heterosexual relationships to be accepted once again.