Rogue Read Online Free PDF Page B

that there is a sexual reason for everything they do?"
    I almost laughed aloud, because Nindala had asked me a similar question. "Not necessarily," I replied, trying to seem impartial. "I doubt if human males are that much different from any others—no more than the women are, anyway—but I haven't traveled much before this, and I came straight here, not stopping along the way. I probably should have," I added, "but I was anxious to arrive."
    "As I was to have you here," she said graciously.
    "But you are tired, I am sure."
    "A little," I admitted. "It's been a long trip, and I'd like to get some sleep. I'm sure I'll have a busy day tomorrow."
    "I will not keep you much longer." She paused, calling out to a servant in the next room before taking another delicate sip of her wine and continuing, "But before you go, you must see my cats."
    "Your cats?"
    Nodding, she said, "I'd like your opinion of them."
    That sounded odd. What did it matter what I thought of her pets? The little toad creature was told to fetch the cats, so I had a little time to think. Okay, if this was a desert planet with intelligent life forms that looked for all the world like dinosaurs, what kind of cats would they have here? Saber-toothed tigers?
    On that thought, the door opened again, and the two cats entered—but they weren't cats, at least, not in the ordinary sense. They were tall male humanoids— undoubtedly more of Scalia's "exotic slaves"—and they certainly were exotic! Separately, each one would have been stunning, but together, they took my breath away—would have taken anyone's breath away, even Nindala's. For myself, I was just glad I happened to be sitting down when I saw them for the first time. Staring back at them in awe, I had barely managed to take another breath when one of them turned his startlingly blue eyes on me and, no doubt noting my open-mouthed expression, lowered his eyelids ever so slightly and sent a roguish smile in my direction.
    And I had an orgasm.
    Scalia probably thought I'd choked on my wine, but that wasn't it at all! I felt a fire begin to burn deep inside me when I first laid eyes on him, and his smile sent me over the edge. I'd never felt anything quite like it before in my life—nor had I ever seen anything to compare with him.
    "They are my most prized possessions," Scalia said.
    "Very beautiful, are they not?"
    I'm not entirely sure what I said in reply, but it was affirmative, though undoubtedly inarticulate.
    Scalia smiled. "I hoped you would like them."
    I took another sip of my wine—actually, it was more of a gulp than a sip—and asked, "W—where did you find them?"
    "The slave traders in this region know of my penchant for interesting specimens and brought them to me," she replied. "You would not believe what I had to pay for them! The trader said that there had been a bounty placed on them, which, of course, meant that I was required to pay about twenty times that amount in order to get them—and also to keep him quiet as to their whereabouts! Apparently, someone holds a grudge against their kind and set out to exterminate them entirely—which would have been most unfortunate, as I am certain you will agree."
    I think I nodded, but sitting there trying to imagine a whole planet full of these guys nearly made my uterus go into another spasm. I decided that a group of jealous men must have gotten an army together and plot-ted against them, for certainly no female in the known universe would have gone along with such a scheme. I mean, Scalia was a lizard, and even she liked them!
    "But they are safe here," she added firmly. "They are kept under lock and key at night, and no one beyond the palace walls knows they exist. And, unlike my other slaves, even my daughter has never seen them."
    The fact that they were both entirely nude except for jeweled collars around their necks and genitals might have been one reason Zealon had never been permitted to see them. She was much too young for such