16

Airborne

ad libitum

at the performer’s liberty

The deserted parking bay felt comfortably cool, full of swirling air currents, in the last hour before dawn. “There she is.” Brennen pointed.

The small jet at the western end looked like a silver dagger. Gleaming, back-curved wings tapered to join a knife-edged chine that protruded from the fuselage, sweeping like a blade from its nose to twin atmospheric engines.

The pilot in Firebird leaped for joy. “It’s pretty,” she said as casually as she could. “What’ll it do?”

“I mean to find out.” He opened the passenger entry. Seating was side-by. On her seat Firebird found a combat type, five-point flight harness. The Cirrus racing class, whatever that specified, rose a notch in her expectations. She adjusted her harness as he laid a duffel bag and soft flask in the cargo area, then her clairsa case, and secured all with a heavy net. “I’ll be just a few minutes,” he said, then made a thorough walkaround.

“How many standard g’s are you qualified for, without a gravity suit?” he asked as he climbed into the pilot’s seat, so close that their legs almost touched. She laughed inwardly when she realized his flying leathers were the same kass-brown as the craft’s interior. Both were trimmed in forest green.

“I don’t know. Netaia doesn’t use your standard g’s. Two-thirty-seven pressure units, however that converts. Five-eighty with a life suit.”

“And you don’t scare easily.” He ignited the engines, then handed her a headset.

She clipped it on before answering. “That’s right.”

Smiling, he got flight clearance and then slid a throttle rod forward. The Cirrus glided out over the city.

Out, she was out, she was out! Buildings and greenery changed angles every moment. Through a glare-shielded cockpit that afforded almost 360 degrees of vision, she feasted on the growing sky glow, the jagged skyline of the capital city, and its ring of green hills.

As soon as they left the outer city’s slow-zone, Brennen maxed the accelerator and aimed the jet’s sharp nose for the clouds. Thrust pressed Firebird back and down into her seat, and she reveled in the sweet, familiar feeling. She’d breakfasted lightly, hoping he didn’t intend to fly conservatively. He climbed at battle speed until the sky started to darken. Surely he was relishing her feelings, if he sensed them at all.

He stalled over the top in thrilling weightlessness and then set a lazy, downward spiral.

“She seems to handle well.” He reversed the spiral. “But this really doesn’t demand much maneuverability.”

Firebird sighed. “This civilian racer climbs faster than our tagwings. No wonder we lost the war.”

“This isn’t entirely civilian equipped.” As if to prove that, he tightened the spiral, accelerated the dive, and they dropped like a spinning leaf, reversing again and again. His hand moved confidently on the rods and touchpanels, barely tightening, mostly relaxing. It was a tawny hand, fine boned—neither long fingered and slender like Phoena’s, nor broad like her own, more typical of the Angelo line—but strong looking and—

Stop! she commanded herself. He’s reading your emotions!

He turned to her, and though his voice stayed casual, tiny smile lines around his eyes confirmed that he’d read that emotional flicker. “Are you game for some fast low-level? That’ll give me a chance to test her gravidics.”

“Sure. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

“Then hang on.”

The next few minutes were breathtaking. He dove into a blackstone badlands area of spires and canyons and skimmed the ground at near-attack velocity, barely clearing boulders, cornering at dizzying speed and doubling back with somersaulting accuracy. A natural arch loomed ahead. The Cirrus shot through before Firebird could check his setup vector.

They soared again. “No problems?” he asked as they burst through a cloud.

“That was great,” she cried. This man could fly! All the same, she touched the snugging control on her harness.

“All right, then. One more thing.”

He nosed down and pushed the throttle forward.

Acceleration squeezed her up into her seat. The rugged ground rushed closer. Suddenly her mouth went dry. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Her legs, as if possessed with minds of their own, braced against the fore bulkhead.

He leveled out. “Too much,” he said gently.

“Wait,” she cried. “No, don’t abort. Do what you wanted.”

“Too much like Veroh?”

He’d realized it before she had: That felt exactly like her attempt to crash her tagwing. A bitter, metallic taste poisoned her memory.

She tore her stare away from the horizon, met his questioning look, and tilted her chin. “If you feel this ship can handle what you wanted to try, do it. I know you’re not suicidal.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she growled.

He hesitated only a second, then took the jet into a long climb. “If you want me to stop, just shout.”

“I will,” she said, then pressed her lips together.

He nosed over again. She forced her limbs to relax, averting her eyes from the upracing ground, watching the intensity on Brennen’s face instead as he waited, waited for the right moment . . .

Trebled gravity drove her hips into the seat. He took the bottom of the turn through the stone arch and soared skyward again. She whooped. “I’d’ve thought that was impossible!”

“And I’d thought,” he answered, “I would never know a woman who enjoyed that.” He straightened out and steered for a broad, striated mesa. “I think the compensators pass inspection. Let’s give her a rest.”

He made a casually perfect landing on dark stone and cut the engines. Firebird climbed out onto the silent plateau. Hot, dry wind whipped her hair around her face. She gloried in the lifting, falling feeling and stretched kinks from her limbs, gladly breathing the scent of unseen flowers and faraway thunderstorms.

Please, please don’t take me back to MaxSec.

Brennen strolled to the rim of the tableland and peered over at a glimmering yellow desert. In civilian clothes, out of the cockpit, he seemed a different man. Not a telepath, nor an enemy officer, just a man who . . . who wanted her, who had her alone, kilometers from anywhere. Sensitive skin tightened at the back of her neck.

He pulled his hand from his coat pocket and pointed downward.

A hunting bird soared far below, its markings almost the same as a redtail kiel’s. Seven to eight hundred years ago, the first colonists used similar terraforming stock throughout the Whorl. By the time they reached Netaia, their science had blossomed into a high form of art. It vanished during the Six-alpha catastrophe.

The bird swooped beyond a hillock. Brennen turned. “Would you like to fly it now?” He inclined his head toward the silver racing jet.

Delighted, she sprinted back across the tableland.

He caught up as she boarded. “The control panel is totally different from a Netaian display. I’ll show you.”

He adjusted the seat and foot bars for her and went over the display several times. When she felt satisfied that she’d unscrambled the board, she fired up the engines and gently took it off the mesa. Concentrating hard, she dropped into the badlands at half Brennen’s speed and cruised along their contours, mounting small ridges and dropping into adjacent watersheds. A half-eight through and over the looming black arch bolstered her confidence. Gradually she accelerated through twisted canyons, pulled into a climb over the mesa, and watched the badlands disappear behind. The mountains far ahead were shadowy green, rich with summer.

“Find a place to eat,” Brennen suggested.

“It’s not time yet, is it?”

He touched the panel. “If that’s how closely you watch your instruments, I’m surprised you passed flight school.”

She chuckled.

“Actually,” he said, “you are a good pilot, for such a new one. The NPN was foolish to waste you.”

“Despite the fact that I couldn’t crash a fightercraft properly when I was supposed to?”

“That,” he said, “was my fault.”

The green mountains rose to jagged, tightly folded ridges. Firebird crested the first ridge, then decelerated. Her chest squeezed tightly again. Finally, she found the breath and the courage to ask. “It was you, that day. Wasn’t it?”

His voice murmured in her headset. “You needed to know. Can you forgive me?”

She nodded, swallowing hard. War had risks. Wastlings died, and she couldn’t grieve Corey continuously. Still, she spoke lightly with an effort. “Yes. How much landing room will we need?”

“I’ll talk you through.” Near the divide of the second range, they spotted a round lakelet nestled in a cirque amid old-growth forest. She set down below it in a long meadow. As she climbed out, Brennen pulled out the clairsa and lunch packet and swung them over one shoulder, then held out a hand to her. “Watch your step. Tripvine.”

“Is that what’s blooming?” Though she’d tried to thrust Corey out of her mind, she ignored Brennen’s hand. She felt dirty, disloyal. She bent down to examine the tangled ground cover. From under a round leaf she picked a blossom with a shape like a tiny purple trumpet. She held it to her nose. “Yes, that’s it.”

“They export the extract for perfume, but the stems are as tough as docking cable. I’m not exaggerating.” He offered his hand again. “I would bring him back if I could,” he added. “I give you my word on that, too.”

She looked up into kindly eyes. The electors, not Brennen, had sent her and Corey to die.

She took his hand. Carefully they walked up the vine-covered field to the lake, where water and leaves riffled in a fragrant breeze.

“Over by the water, on one of those rocks?” she suggested. He changed direction without comment, and they scrambled over fallen trees and stones to the tallest boulder, well over twice her height.

He boosted her to his shoulder level. She found a good toehold and scrambled the rest of the way up the lichen-mottled stone. Brennen tossed her the bags and then jumped to the top, holding her clairsa case.

She gulped air.

“Does that disturb you?”

“No,” she lied firmly. It was about time he relaxed and let himself play. “Do something else.”

Turning toward the shore, he lifted one hand. A glacier-smoothed boulder rolled into the air and landed with a slurping splash.

There it was. In or out of uniform, he was a gene-altered Ehretan. “We don’t flaunt our abilities.” He sat down beside her and stared up at the rocky skyline. “They cost energy and wear us down. And,” he added somberly, “we survived by controlling ourselves. If the Federacy ever decided we were dangerous, we wouldn’t last. There are too few of us.”

She slid off the uncomfortable dress shoes Carradee had sent, then knelt and helped him spread out the lunch parcel. There was dark bread, thinly sliced; a fish spread and a tub of soft, pale, sweetish cheese; and a bag of spiky green fruit. They ate for a while, discussing only the food. Finally, Firebird raised the obvious subject again. “I suppose it took a lot of work to learn those skills, though.”

“It did. Sentinel College is grueling.”

She poured clear red liquid from his flask into a pair of squared cups and offered him one. “Did they teach other things, too? Arts, science?”

“My education was slightly strange. They took me to college for Sentinel training before I finished junior school.”

“Which did you finish first, then? Your master’s training?”

“Yes. Then a year after that—”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen,” he admitted. She tried to imagine a seventeen-year-old youth, trained as a Master Sentinel. They must’ve utterly trusted him.

“After another year, I finally finished Academy,” he said.

“Why did you pick the military?” She envied the choices he’d had.

“Desperate to fly,” he admitted, “like you, but we weren’t well off. This was the only way I could afford to get into a cockpit. By then, I was getting pressure to take a second degree, in politics. I ignored any courses that might’ve fit anyone else’s plans. I wish I’d broadened. I would’ve had time.”

She nodded. Graduating precociously, he would’ve had plenty of time.

“What about your Academy?” he asked.

She sipped the tart, cool fruit juice. “It must be the same everywhere. Flight. Dynamics. Slip physiology. Weapons, navigation, strategies.” She slowed, trying to recall what kept her so busy for so long.

“Interrogation and resistance.”

She glanced up sharply. He was smiling. Very well, she could make light of it if he could. “Not enough, though.”

“Poor instruction.” He offered a small yellow disk. “Have you ever had citrene?”

On her tongue, it melted to a puddle of sour sweetness. “Oh, that’s good. Are there any more?”

He dropped several into her palm, then repacked his dishes and scattered the crumbs over the edge of the boulder. Firebird wrestled momentarily with an urge to tell him about Hunter Height and its airstrip.

Corey wouldn’t have told him.

Stop, she commanded herself. Corey’s gone. You’re alive, and you shouldn’t be—wouldn’t be, except for Brennen.

She ate the last citrene and pulled her clairsa from its case. Hunter Height could wait a day.

She played several classical pieces. He sat close, knees pulled tightly to his chest. Encouraged by his unblinking attention, she closed with the theme and variations she’d just composed. She didn’t introduce it, but his eyes closed as she began. She let her feelings melt into her music, and when she finished, he sat without moving.

“Did you write it?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

There’d be no deceiving him. “After I spoke with Ellet.”

He took a long, deep breath. “Mari?”

“Hm?”

“May I touch your mind?”

Yes? No? What should she answer?

“Only a touch, Mari, only a feathering. As you just touched me.”

Her neck hairs prickled again. Ellet had warned that she would never be the same, never get away if she ever let him approach her. But she had good powers of resistance. He’d admitted that publicly. And I played that suite to impress him. Maybe, she conceded, just this once, and I could still escape.

But her voice trembled. “All right.”

His eyes reflected the sky. He didn’t move or speak.

Past the surface of her awareness blew a sensation of approval so deep, so complete, that she wanted to shout for sheer joy. Someone knew her completely, all her strengths and her flaws, and was neither intimidated nor ashamed. Laughing at herself, for her fears that hadn’t come true, she set the clairsa back into its padded case. “You know what I need most of all, don’t you?”

“I could help fill that need in you, Mari, for as long as I live.”

Only then did she appreciate Ellet’s warning. A person who’d been loved in that way would never settle for anything less. Glowing inside, she leaned away from him and hastily changed the subject. “Could you really free-fall?”

He glanced down, and when he looked up again, his eyebrows had arched. “Yes,” he said. “It’s well within my grasp if I’m rested.”

“And if I jumped?”

He shrugged slightly. “I could land you. Do you want to try it?”

What perverse impulse made her choose that subject? But I might never get another chance, she told herself. “Yes, I do. If you’re rested.”

He grinned and pointed toward a high ridge. “We could launch from that ledge.”

After a thirty-minute climb, they stood high on the broad, windy ridge. Far below lay dark forest and the silver Cirrus, dropped like a giant’s dagger on shimmering green meadow. The gale made it seem ten degrees colder up here. It tugged her hair forward, whipping her face.

“Brennen,” she said abruptly, “something’s been bothering me.”

“Yes?”

“It’s crazy, it—seems like a contradiction. You Sentinels are trained in emotional control. You have to be, to face the barrage of others’ feelings. Ellet explained that. But then how . . .” She scuffed a stone with one foot. “How can a Master Sentinel fall in love?”

“We have hopes,” he answered, “as personal as anyone’s. If we release our emotions, we love deeply, maybe more deeply than others. We don’t forget the wonder of finding and winning.”

Gazing into the hazy distance while trying to contain her hair with one hand, Firebird nodded. It was time. “Then what’s pair bonding? You promised to explain.”

He sat down on a large flat stone. She took one just downwind, slightly sheltered by his body from the hair-lashing blast. “I wouldn’t think it was as ‘rough on outsiders’ as Ellet wants you to believe, though few of us marry out.” He took a long breath. “It’s a deep, permanent link that manifests in the emotions. Each feels with the other, anytime the other is near.”

“The way you can read my feelings now?”

“No. Deeper, more certain, and eventually the awareness blends with the other senses. There’s an adjustment period, but for my married friends, it wasn’t long. I’d guess a few weeks for you—but less for me, because of my training.”

“But an outsider wouldn’t be taken over?”

“Absolutely not,” he insisted. “Only . . . uncomfortable, for a time. A little confused.”

She studied the rocks at her feet, flaked fragments of a disintegrating sedimentary layer. “I want to believe you. But it’s easy for you to make that statement and impossible to prove.”

“I’ve met nongifted people who married my kind. They were distinct individuals, even decades later.”

She shifted to a more comfortable position on her rocky seat and asked casually, “Your parents are pair bonded?”

“They were.” He sounded wistful. “They were very happy. After my father died, it took my mother two years to recover enough to go back to her work. That’s a powerful argument against your having me, by the way. In my profession, I could leave you a young widow.”

He hadn’t bristled when she asked about his family. “They were both Sentinels?” she pressed.

“Not military. But both came from starbred families, and both trained.”

“Then Ellet . . .” She hesitated. “Are you and Ellet connatural, Brenn?”

“Marginally, I think.”

That confirmed Firebird’s guesses. She plunged ahead. “She all but dared me to ask what’s unique about your family.”

His eyebrows came together for an instant. He covered his mouth with one hand. “I’ll tell you what I can,” he finally murmured, “if you’ll let me make sure you tell no one else.”

“You mean, do something to my mind?”

He nodded soberly.

Squill! She’d asked for it! But surely he couldn’t do any worse than what she had already experienced. “Go ahead,” she insisted. “I want to know.”

He touched her forehead with one finger, holding it there long enough that she almost wished she’d backed down. Then he drew his hand away. She felt nothing. “It’s a very old family, Mari. It’s always been small. But my brother and I, and his children, are the only heirs to an ancient . . . religious promise.”

She’d heard the Ehretan survivors called “mendicants.” “Yes? What is it?”

He flushed. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, even now. I’m under command myself.”

He compelled her to silence for that? She almost laughed, then guessed, “Is the secrecy meant to protect your family?” Ellet had mentioned renegade telepaths.

After a long hesitation, he said, “Yes. There’s no wealth involved, no personal benefit. I’m sorry. I truly cannot say more.”

Obviously, to him this was no casual matter. She picked up a smooth brown rock and hefted it, watching him, waiting to see what he said without prompting.

“I would hope to have my own children someday. Soon, actually.”

Children! He’d said it softly, and obviously, he meant it just as seriously as poor Corey meant it. Admitting that hope made him vulnerable. But . . . children? Immediately?

“I was a wastling,” she answered, stalling while she tried to picture herself as a parent. It was only slightly less difficult than trying to imagine an eternal being. “I wasn’t supposed to have children, and I didn’t try to want them.” Her voice softened as their eyes met again. “The . . . altered genes don’t make this impossible, do they?”

“No. We’re all mixed blood now.”

Yes. Korda had said that. “And you know that I come from a long line of daughters.”

He frowned. “I saw that in the portrait gallery. Why?”

“There hasn’t been a male born into the succession in over a hundred years. Not since the last time an Angelo prince married against the Powers’ will, out of the noble families.”

“I suspect that could be cured, whatever causes it. How has the surname survived?”

“Since Prince Avocin’s time, the men who married us took the name as a matter of rank and pride.”

“I would not.”

She opened her hands. “Of course not.” A gust of wind caught her hair and tossed it wildly. She seized it again.

Brennen folded his hands around one knee. “Here is a secret I can tell you, Mari. The ayin—the complex of brain areas that gives us our abilities—ages slightly each time we use it. Over time, we lose our powers.”

She didn’t miss the fact that this time he changed the subject. He stared at his lightweight boots. “Here’s another. My people have lived as exiles for almost two hundred years. Everyone outside the kindred builds walls against us. They either give us more honor than we deserve, or fear and suspicion that we have to understand. We feel it. We do inspire fear.

“So you see, few people know me. If you did, the way I know you from access, you’d understand how well we complement one another.”

But they were worlds different in blood and allegiance, right down to their little cultural habits. Her mind echoed with words he’d spoken in other places: “A matter of Federate security . . .” “I’m sorry to have deceived you . . .” “You could still be a great help to us . . .”

“Ellet said I could cost you the High command.”

“That’s true.” Shrugging, he shifted his feet.

“Why?”

“My single-mindedness would be suspect,” he said dryly. “You’re not starbred. You’re not even Federate.”

With the rank he’d achieved at his age, he could have taken a shot at the top, where waning powers might matter less. “No, I’m not Federate. At this moment I have no home at all. At least you have Thyrica.”

“And something even deeper. I hear that you visited our chapter room.”

Cosmic mercy . . .”Do people from other backgrounds worship your god, Brenn?” she blurted.

He raised his head, and the light in his eyes became keener. “Yes. Many do. Grace and truth aren’t limited by home worlds.”

“On Thyrica, then?”

“And at Tallis, Caroli, Luxia. Wherever we’ve lived in numbers, we’ve drawn inquirers.”

Firebird heard a note of utter confidence in his voice. She envied it. Whatever he believed, he gave it all his heart and mind. She hadn’t felt that sure of the Powers in years. “But you don’t push your beliefs on other people.”

“That’s forbidden.”

“Why?” she demanded. “That’s strange to me.”

“I know,” he said softly. “It’s our greatest pain and our deepest regret. The powers our ancestors gave us came from their immoral experiments on their own children. We live with the consequences, good and bad. Until we redeem ourselves by serving others, we’ve forfeited the spiritual rights we were promised, especially the right to proselytize. We’re under divine discipline. Someday,” he added wistfully, “that will change. But . . . because we tried to force ourselves on Ehret, we live as exiles.”

A hereditary racial guilt?

“Someday,” he repeated, “we’ll be released to actively seek converts. That’s another promise, another prophecy. But for now, it’s a terrible irony. We have much to offer. We’re in an era of collective penitence but individual mercy. At least we can point the way when outsiders inquire.”

Mercy . . . Again the ache pressed on her heart. Could a divine ruler demand utter obedience but stop short of punishing the guilty? And what did he mean, “redeem themselves”? Her head whirled with questions.

No, her conscience shrieked, stop! She stood close to committing fresh treason. For someone born to her position, acknowledging any authority higher than Netaia was deadly apostasy.

She mustn’t ask. Tossing her stone over the side, she looked at Brennen steadily, knowing he would read her feelings all the more easily through her eyes. “Let me tell you how I feel, Brennen. I won’t refuse you, but I can’t commit myself, not yet. Not to any person, and certainly not to a strange religion.”

His eyes flicked to each of hers in turn. “You’d like to,” he murmured.

She felt her cheeks flush. “Who wouldn’t?” If such a transcendent being could exist! She forced her gaze to stay on Brennen’s. Her longing for understanding had momentarily overcome her need to keep a distance.

“But you still don’t trust me,” he said.

“I’m afraid to trust anyone.”

“I understand,” he said gently. “Because you’re valuable to the Federacy, you suspect my intentions. You have that right.” He took her hand and massaged it. “I don’t know what I would do if I had to choose between you and my people. And I can’t put you above my God. There must be one highest priority in your life for which you’ll give everything—your possessions, your rank, your hopes, even your life—or you’re not a full person.”

“Don’t I know it.” She’d given everything for the Powers, the electors, and the Angelo family. She slid her hand out of his. “And what do you do when that highest priority fails you, Brenn?”

“You find a higher.”

If only it were that quick and easy. Higher than the Angelo family, there’d always been Strength, Valor, and Excellence; Knowledge, Fidelity, and Resolve; Authority, Indomitability, and Pride. Higher even than those, in her heart, were truth, justice, and love—not the sweet warmth of human affection, but her searing, self-sacrificial love for Netaia and its people.

Could Brennen’s higher master return that to her?

He stood and brushed rock dust from his leathers. “Meanwhile, would you trust me enough to jump if I went first? It is the easier way down.”

She snorted, appreciating the paradox he saw. She would trust him with her life in free-fall, because the worst that could happen would be a fast, fatal landing. But if she let him get too close, the worst that could happen might be . . .

Unfathomable.

Shivering, she scrambled to her feet. What if she bound herself to a Sentinel, and then one day he turned on her? How deep could that misery run?

But if they were truly bonded, heart and mind, could he ever do such a thing?

She stepped up to the cliff they’d climbed and peered over its side. The ridge was nearly as tall as the MaxSec tower, and here it was just as sheer. “I hate climbing downhill.”

“Good. We’ll jump.” He eyed the cliff’s distant foot as if picking a landing spot. “I’ll go first. Once I’m down, give me a minute to rest. You’ll feel it when I take a good kinetic grasp on you. Then don’t wait too long, and be sure to jump outward.”

“Like tower jumping.” An Academy skill she’d enjoyed.

He walked to the other side of the ridge. She stared, still not quite sure he meant to do it without a parasail, an anchor line, or even a cushioned landing pit. Then he started to run. After six long strides, he leaped onto—nothing. Her heart pounded as she watched him drop. His shadow rushed to meet his feet. Seconds fled. . . .

With knees bent and arms outstretched, he alighted, absorbing the impact with loose-legged grace. He dropped to his knees, resting, then got up, turned and raised an arm. She felt something invisible take tingling hold of her.

Hesitating, she almost lost her nerve. That was ridiculous. She’d wanted to fly since she was four, and Ellet had insisted it was easier to control another falling object than one’s own body. Brennen had just proved he could do that. She walked back ten steps from the edge, sprinted forward, and jumped.

Her hair whipped behind her shoulders and upward from her head. Chill mountain air tugged her outstretched arms. The hilly horizon lifted itself, and it was glorious—like the swell of an orchestra. When she blinked, the falling feeling went on, and on, like a dream. But she had to watch.

Brennen stood below. Time expanded, stretching every half second into a minute. Treetops clutched for her feet but couldn’t catch her.

At last, Brennen’s arms opened to receive her. She slowed almost to a stop, caught the glitter of his eyes, and then fell the last meter against his chest. She clung there and laughed herself breathless.

He held her close. One of his hands slipped up into her tangled hair and curled around the back of her head. Enraptured, she shut her eyes. A hesitant kiss warmed her temple. She tilted her head back, abandoning caution.

As he kissed her lips, her insides turned to fire. She’d never felt this kind of heat. She wanted to bathe in this warm, incense-filled sea . . . no, to drown in it.

Suddenly alarmed, she struggled for breath. His arms fell away, and a rueful expression clouded his eyes. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I’ll never try to hurt you or dominate you. And I’ll never take advantage.”

“I . . . I know,” she stammered. She pressed her head against his shoulder, then pushed away and headed downhill toward the Cirrus jet. How could she explain that she was terrified, not by his feelings, but by her own?