Mind of My Mind Read Free

either of them myself. And I'm hoping that she and the boy I have in mind are
    stable enough to stay together without killing each other. That will be a beginning."
     
    Emma shook her head as he spoke. How many lives had he thrown away over the
    years in pursuit of that dream? "Doro, they've never been together. Why don't you leave
    them alone? Let them stay separate. They avoid each other naturally when you're not
    pushing them together."
     
    "I want them together. Did you think I had given up?"
     
    "I keep hoping you'll give up for the sake of your people."
     
    "And settle for the string of warring tribes that I've got now? Not that most of them
    are even that united. Just families of people who don't like their own members much even
    though they usually need to be near them. Families who can't tolerate members of my
    other families at all. They all tolerate ordinary people well enough, though. They would
    have merged back into the general population long ago if I didn't police them."
     
    "Perhaps they should. They would be happier."
     
    "Would you be happier without your gifts, Emma? Would you like to be an ordinary
    human?"
     
    "Of course not. But how many others are in full control of their abilities, as I am?
    And how many spend their lives in abject misery because they have 'gifts' that they can't
    control or even understand?" She sighed. "You can't take credit for me, anyway. I'm
    almost as much of an accident as you are. My people had been separated from one of
    your families for hundreds of years before I was born. They had merged with the people
    they took refuge among, and they still managed to produce me."
     
    And Doro had been trying to duplicate the happy accident of her birth ever since. She
    had known him for three hundred years now, had borne him thirty-seven children through
    his various incarnations. None of her children had proved to be especially long-lived.
    Those who might have been were tortured, unstable people. They committed suicide. The
    rest lived normal spans and died natural deaths. Emma had seen to that last. She had not
    been able to keep track of her many grandchildren, but her children she had protected.
    From the beginning of her relationship with Doro, she had warned him that if he
    murdered even one of her children, she would bear him no more.
     
    At first Doro had valued her and her new strain too much to punish her for her
    "arrogance." Later, as he became accustomed to her, to the idea of her immortality, he
    began to value her as more than just a breeder. She became a companion to him, a wife to
    whom he always returned. Both he and she married other people from time to time, but
    such matings were temporary.
     
    For a while, Emma even believed in his race-building dream. But as he allowed her to
    know more of his methods of fulfilling that dream, her enthusiasm waned. No dream was
     

 
    worth the things he did to people.
     
    It was his casually murderous attitude that finally caused her to tire of him, about two
    centuries into their relationship. She had turned away from him in disgust when he
    murdered a young woman who had borne him the three children he had demanded of her.
    For Emma, it had finally been too much.
     
    But, by then, Doro had been a part of her life for too long, had become too important
    to her. She could not simply walk away from him, even if he had been willing to let her.
    She needed him, but she no longer wanted him. And she no longer wanted to be one of
    his people, supporting his butchery. There was only one escape, and she began preparing
    herself to take it. She began preparing herself to die.
     
    And Doro, startled, alarmed, began to mend his ways somewhat. He gave her his
    word that he would no longer kill breeders who became useless to him. Then he asked
    her to live. He came to her, finally, as one human being to another, and asked her not to
    leave him. She hadn't left him. He had never commanded her again.
     
    "Will you take the