Query Read Free Page A

her chair out for her.
    Freddy pulled her shawl around her and sat down. He poured a cup for her and set it in front of her with one of the biscuits on a small plate.
    “You have done that more than once.”
    “A time or two. I confess that when the computer sent me here, I thought I was to bring a bride home, not set up residence. My time here has been entertaining. Pouring tea is part of that.”
    “That was convoluted. What computer?”
    “When I woke after my long hibernation, I expected that a Terran had passed by or landed and woken me. I was unprepared for the order to install myself in the Guardians and wait. Aissa calculated the odds and knew that any woman who was a match for me would contain the Delphic genes.”
    “Aissa?”
    “The computer that monitored the sleepers on Admar.”
    It all suddenly clicked. “Admar! That is where I know your physique from.”
    He raised his brows and drank from the delicate cup. “Do you now? I think I would have remembered that.”
    She blushed and looked at the fierce marks that were now on his cheeks and neck. “That isn’t what I meant. I am still absorbing the information they gave me. Language stuck but the details of species are blurry.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment and ran the details of the Admaryn through her thoughts. Elves, fey, humans, half-breeds and genocide, all rushed to her.
    “So, you were in favour of the Terrans surviving?”
    “I was willing to take the chance that we hadn’t killed them all and that one day they would return. They did. You did. We are not so far from Admar, but it would have been a universe away if I had not woken early.”
    “So, you expect me just to take you as you are? What if I am not into men?”
    “Then, I would not have smelled the heat between your thighs when you looked at me.” He quirked his lips.
    Her blush fired up again. “You are very pretty. Based on the histories, few of the women of my kind were able to avoid the lure of yours.”
    He sipped at his tea. “We had gotten to the point where sex was for pleasure; survival was no longer under our control. The women of Terra were eager for a little play in the day-to-day fight for survival. They were offered an easier life with pleasure, and they took it.”
    “Until they began to bear children and the Admar came after them and their families.”
    He sighed and set his cup down. “Correct. When the council of planets saw what had been wrought, they raised the resistance and the tide turned. It was too late for your species. They had to start fresh, but your beginning was our ending.”
    “Does that bother you?”
    He shook his head. “Survival was assured by breaking the purity of our kind. We are now part of races that we hadn’t even heard of. Whispers of the Admaryn are held in the archives and genealogy of dozens of species. They made it into the future after all, just not in the forms they would have chosen.”
    She smiled slightly. As long as the conversation moved away from sex, she was fine.
    “So, while I am not expecting you to fling your thighs wide this moment, I am going to attempt to woo you with my charms.”
    Damn it.
    “I don’t even know you.”
    He was going to reply when an alarm sounded.
    He set his cup down, inclined his head, stood and ran out with the rest of the team. Even Ember waved at her as she sprinted past. It seemed they had something to do.
    “Well, I guess I am alone, and exploring is on the agenda.” She finished her tea, nibbled the biscuit and washed up.
    When she went to grab Rune’s teacup, she nearly dropped it. While he had been professing mild interest toward her, their future seemed twined.
    Images of her sitting in his lap, laughing and sipping from that teacup flooded through her. She was reading the cup’s fortune.
    With a snort, Freddy washed the cup and put it in the cupboard. It was just like being at home, but the view out the windows was a reminder that she was definitely somewhere else.
    The