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you and keep my mind on what you are saying.”
    She slipped it on, and the deep vee of the neckline fell to just below her navel. She enjoyed the warmth of the shirt, but his scent was heady. Her own hormones kicked into high gear, but she took a seat at the table and waited.
    He placed an order and sat across from her. “So, why did you pick a fight with the prince?”
    She touched her eye, but there was no remaining damage. Even her ribs felt fine. “Um. I needed to keep his attention on me. Orpheus and Inga needed to get to their ship.”
    He shook his head. “They were not travelling by ship. He used an Admaryn gate. I believe they were gone before the first strike hit you.”
    She frowned. “That is bizarre. The Admaryn never had postings on Tival worlds.”
    Xeric smiled, “I did not say that they got to the gate alone. It was what delayed me from coming to your assistance. It is also the reason that I am here with you, aside from my unwillingness to leave you to your own devices. I helped one of my own kind and exposed myself as one of the Nameless. That is an unacceptable lapse.”
    “You did that for me?”
    “For you and for another of my kind. Orpheus was one of those who left our world to seek a mate of another species. He waited twelve generations for Inga to appear, and when she did, he synched his life to hers. They died on the same day, two hundred years after they first joined.”
    Tears pricked at the corners of Orphia’s eyes. “That is so sweet.”
    “Fortunately, that is not a fate we will face. The Nameless do not have children, but neither do they age.”
    “Convenient. I have been around enough aging and death to last me a lifetime or more.” She added the last with a twist to her lips. “So, why isn’t this place crawling with Nameless, if we all live so long?”
    He shook his head, the antlers moving in the light streaming through the wide windows. “There is a regular turnaround. While we do not age, we can and do die. The Orb frequently puts us into dangerous situations…as you just found out.”
    She rubbed the spot where the guard had struck her. “Yeah, but how did I heal so fast?”
    Orphia was amazed as a telltale darkening of his cheeks showed his blush.
    “Hirn are healers. It is not commonly known, but it is the same skill that your ancestor showed with the horse.”
    She blinked. “I thought it was just a Nameless thing.”
    “Oh, we can heal using a concentrated burst of time, but it ages the tissue that we heal. The healing is a much gentler method of bringing you back to full health.” His bright, boyish smile was incongruous on a man so large.
    “Thank you. It was not a pleasant moment for me, so having you remove the aftermath meant more than I could say.”
    “Whatever I can do to help you along, it is my pleasure.”
    A slot in the wall opened, and a covered tray appeared. “And there is my breakfast. This should straighten out my nausea.”
    She uncovered her selections, oatmeal, eggs, bacon, grapefruit juice and toast. If she could keep it down, this would set her up for the rest of her day.
    With the leather shirt keeping her warm, her body’s physical shock was somewhat mitigated. She added sugar to the oatmeal as well as some cream and began to eat.
    Xeric was looking at her food with interest. “May I try some? I am not familiar with Terran foods.”
    She smiled and mumbled, “Grab a spoon and dig in.”
    He did as she suggested, and soon, she was ordering another round of breakfast. Actually, she ordered two rounds. He had eaten most of hers, because he enjoyed the flavour better than the food of the Hirn.
    She grumbled at him, but secretly, she was glad that he liked the same foods that she did. Travelling and trying to find edible foods at funerals had been her biggest challenge, so having Xeric eat the same things she did meant her life had just gotten easier.
    She snorted mentally. Of course, for her life to get easier, she had to die. It