Chapter 12

Tarin’s hand came up and cupped his new bonded’s face for the second time.

“With me, you never have to be afraid you will lose my love or regard. Nothing in your past is unacceptable to me.”

Sam began slowly. “I met Mary when I was sixteen and turned seventeen the following June, entering West Point that year. I always knew I was bi-sexual, but at the time heterosexual was the norm on Earth. I graduated at twenty-one and we got married. She became pregnant with Sara almost immediately. When Sara was four, Mary contracted a virulent form of breast cancer and after torturous treatments was dead within a year. I had Sara tested for the BRAC 1 and BRAC 2 breast cancer-causing genes. I was pathetically grateful that she didn’t carry them in her genome.”