Free The Nonborn King by Julian May

you want them now Admit it' Well, then
    The fading redactive lancet softened to a sweet searing burst that coursed along his nerves and sent him falling, aflame like the meteors m helpless sexual transport "Enchantress," he groaned, flat on the giass floor of the turret with his feet tangled in the skirts of her flowing peignoir Then, as he recovered. he began to laugh to cover the other emotion
    Mercy knelt beside him. cradling his head and kissing his eyelids "Don't be afraid," she said "It will all work as you planned."
    "I'm not afraid of anything'" he protested "Together, we'll lick 'em all. Lady Wildfire '
    "I don't mean that, you schemer ' She looked down at him. relaxed in her lap with his head against her swollen belly "But you do almost make me believe you can bring the glory back "
    "I can' Trust me I've got everything worked out How to handle the Firvulag, the way to win the loyally of the Tanu diehards, the restoration of the economy, all of it I'll be king and you'll be queen, and our winter dreams will alt come true "
    His face with its golliwog gnn was bright with jacky-lanthom radiance He felt Mercy's mind start with an abrupt sense of deja vu that was so intense that it made even the sleeping fetus stir
    "I've seen your face before," she said wonderingly "Back in the Old World I'm sure of it It was in Italy in Firenze "
    "Not bloody likely The only time I came to Old Earth was on my tnp to the auberge and I went right to France with no detours That was after you'd already gone through the timegate '
    "I saw you, she insisted "Or was it a picture of you? Perhaps in the Palazzo Vecchio. But whose portrait'?"
    "Not an Italian gene in my bod," he murmured, reaching up to stroke her hair Meteors sketched a surreal hdio behind her head "Dalnada, where I grew up, was a Scottish world And all of us test-tube brats had certified tartan chromosomes "
    He levitated until their lips met She melted into him again, as he knew she would, triggering the neural conflagration that he could not help craving in spite of his fear When he regained his senses, still lying in her lap, the baby was kicking him in the ear and the damn meteors exploding in pyrotechnic mockery
    "Shame on you for disturbing my darling Agraynel," Mercy said
    Alken felt her maternal thought-song soothe the unborn girl Suddenly, for no apparent reason, his eyes filled with tears Mortified, he whirled his most impregnable mental barrier into place so that Mercy would not know how much he envied the baby. He said. "Only one more month until it's born. And then I'm going to have you, my Lady Wildfire! Find out how you knock me out of orbit, and give you some of your own back with interest!"
    "Not until May," she chided him. "At the Grand Loving, as we agreed."
    "Oh, no! That's just the official wedding- You aren't going to hold me off that long! -. And come to think of it, why shouldn't I lake you metapsychically right now, just the way you've been mind-screwing me?" His arms closed around her shoulders, pulling her strongly down. His coercive power began to bore into her softness "Show me how you do your magic sex! Show me, or I'll just find out by experimenting!"
    "You may not!" she cned, countering him with a psychocreative riposte that atl but blinded him. "It would make a fearful womb-quake in addition to the neural surge. That's the way we women are made- It would be bad for the baby."
    He released her. The damned fear came again, and so did the tears. "To hell with the baby."
    Her face came close to his. Her expression of indignation changed into tenderness. "Ah, poor little one. I see. I see."
    Her lips descended to drink his tears.
    He thrashed wildly to escape her physical embrace, sprawling onto the floor. His mouth lightened to a thin slot and his eyes were wide and black. "I don't want that from you! Ever."
    "Ah, well." She shrugged. "But you needn't fear it, really. It's quite natural for the two womanly functions to combine in the loving."
    "You