Like, for example, his mother, who would not only ship him off to the skalkits to save her own neck but probably send along his dog and gerbil, too.

No, Eyanna had to be different. He had to be stuck with the one Sapphian who was a saint.

“Your children are safe in the village until they are full-grown. You said this.”

“Yes.”

“So they do not need you now. And if you are there, the people will always remember they are your children and maybe they will send them to the skalkits. But if you are not there, Eyanna, if you are not there the people may forget they are yours.”

She looked stricken by this logic. He almost felt ashamed for manipulating her, but hey, it was for her own good. She couldn’t go on living the way she had been before, and he certainly couldn’t.

“Your children are safe in the village. And outside the village,” he waved his hand at the surrounding area, “there are skalkits. You cannot take them outside. You cannot help them, Eyanna.”

Tears filled her eyes. Her golden shoulders heaved.

“And you can always come back,” he reminded her. “Anytime.”

Following the riverbank with Eyanna was an exercise in frustration and fear that could have been designed to train Special Ops agents for enemy territory. The ground was uneven and the days, and the walking, were endless. Unlike those first few days on this world, Denton now knew what lurked in those trees. He was constantly tense and his eyes grew tired from watching the jungle with every step. Then there was the constant rein he had to keep on Eyanna, who looked more and more reluctant with every mile. Most of the time, she looked like a cat being dragged out for a walk in the rain. He had to keep up a constant barrage of chatter to keep her going.

Only one thing kept him going: Eyanna’s body gracefully moving ahead of him. And that was its own form of torture. Damn. Skalkits or no skalkits, he hadn’t been this rabidly horny since he was fifteen. It had to be something in the air. That or Eyanna.

“How much further do we go?” she asked one night at their campfire.

“I don’t know. Not far.”

He said “not far” because that’s what she wanted to hear, but the truth was, he had no idea. He was looking for something—a cave, a ravine, anything that looked like it might be safe.

“How did you get away from the skalkits, Eyanna? The first time when your people sent you there.”

She had been eating a large piece of fruit, but at his question she lost her appetite and put it aside. “My man hid a knife and cut himself free. Then he cut me free also.” She played with her toes in the dirt, her face close.

“What… What happened to your man?”

“The skalkit got him when we ran.”

“I’m sorry.”

She looked up at him with surprise, as if she did not know what to make of his sympathy.

“Do you not…” He felt kind of like a heel for saying it, but he could not go on like this forever. “Do you not miss having a man?”

She stood up to tend the fire. He was starting to recognize her body language. Whenever she tried to avoid a conversation by working, it meant she disagreed or didn’t want to talk about it. He supposed Sapphians learned at a young age not to argue.

“Eyanna…” he pressed gently. “It is not good for a woman to be without a man.”

She poked at the branches. “When my man was taken, I promised there would never be another.”

Great. That was annoying. It was also plain stupid, especially for a Sapphian. As far as he had seen, they were all complete sluts and had sex about as often as they ate. Besides, Eyanna being celibate was like the biggest, most perfectly shaped Christmas tree in the lot going unsold. What a waste.

“Your man is gone, Eyanna. That will not help him. And being without a man is not good for you, sweetie.”

She looked directly into his eyes through the fire, her hair flickering gold. “I can see you want a woman. But I will never be with you, Denton. Never.”

“Oh. Okay.” Denton took a bite of fruit. It tasted very sour.

The next day, when it was time to stop for the night, he said, “We should make a small fire. I think the big fires may attract the skalkits.”

So they made a fire with a handful of twigs. He tried to gauge it right because he really didn’t want to completely freeze his balls off. When they lay down to sleep, it was just right—cold but not chattering-teeth cold.

He pretended to try to sleep, then sat up, rubbing his arms. “Eyanna, come over here. If we sleep close to each other it will be warmer.”

She hesitated, looking at the pitiful fire as if wishing it would magically grow. But she was cold, too. After a minute she came over. He let her lie closest to the fire and spooned up next to her.

She was stiff, on her guard, but he did nothing further, just lay behind her. After a long time, she slept. He could hear her breathing deepen.

Denton had lain awake for hours the previous night, horny and sullen, and had come up with this plan. But he had only planned this far. He was pleased that he had pulled it off, that she had fallen for the “big fires may attract the skalkits” line. But now that he was lying here, pressed against her in the dark, he realized that he should have thought it through a little more carefully. Had he imagined that just the power of being next to him would change her mind? That she would get all sexy in her sleep and turn around and grab him? It wasn’t happening.

He could set this up as a routine. They could do this every night and maybe, eventually…

But Denton knew it was not going to happen that way. Because it was this night, and Denton was already out of patience. He was patience-free. He was also ripe. He had put up with too much crap in the past few days, needed to win too badly. And her tender bottom was pressed against him and he was right there and it was so selfish of her to deny him. After all, wasn’t he taking care of her? Wasn’t he offering her a life better than the one she’d lived as an outcast in the gorge? Didn’t she owe him? And what, really, did it cost her to be nice to him? The other Sapphians, all those allook saheed groupies, had never given it a second thought. Why was she so freaking stingy?

He lay there awake for a long time, all night in fact, thinking up these and plenty of other excuses. He didn’t really think he would do anything. He was only playing games with himself, making himself miserable. But it was like those days in Zurich when he had debated whether to buy the manuscript. Deep down, in perhaps the only place where Denton was ever really honest with himself, he knew how this night would end, how it was destined to end from the time he’d suggested they make a small fire and she’d agreed.

And so it did. Before dawn he cautiously moved her little skirt aside. Then he rolled on top of her, pinning her down, and he took her.

It felt amazing. It should have felt amazing. But even though he closed his eyes and pretended hard, he was still aware of her struggles. And even though he tried to move in a way that would give her pleasure, even though he’d talked himself into believing she would get into it once he’d started, his movements felt false. She didn’t get into it. And when he finished there was a heavy, polluted feeling accompanying the gratification.

He rolled off her. “Wow. I think… I was dreaming, Eyanna. I had a dream that we… I’m sorry.”

She got up and moved away a few feet down the bank and sat, staring at the water. Her chin trembled.

“I was dreaming,” he said again. “Wow, that was weird.”

Still nothing. He lay back down, looking up at the sky. A fluorescent pink sat at the crack of the horizon, like a box lid being opened on endless treasures. This world was so freaking beautiful that it made him cry sometimes. And right now, he hated it to death.