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“I get to decide when we Phaze.” Randa blurted out. “I’m in control.” It wasn’t until after she said it that she realized she’d said “when” and not “if.”
His eyes widened, like he heard the word, too.
Randa winced and glanced over at Mara, hoping that she could do this better.
Mara obligingly jumped in to help. (The woman should quit her job as queen and become a therapist. She’d put Dr. Ashley out of business in no time.) “Don’t touch Randa first.” She summarized for Kahn. “Don’t shout when you aren’t getting your own way. Give her space when she needs it. Let her choose.”
“Done.”
Randa shook her head. “He’s agreeing too fast.” She told Mara. “He doesn’t mean it.”
“I do fucking mean it!”
“He’s already shouting!” She pointed at him in triumph. “I told you it wouldn’t work. I told you…”
Mara cut her off. “You’ll need a safe word.”
Randa gasped. “No, we don’t!”
“What the hell is a safe word?” Kahn demanded at the same time.
No way was Randa explaining it.
Mara gamely tried. “It’s --I guess?-- a human… um… code to…” Her expression creased in discomfort, as she broke it down for her honorary-brother. “If things are going too far sexually and one human feels uncomfortable, they can say a word that they otherwise would never say to alert their partner that they need a break or…”
“I get it.” Kahn interrupted.
“Thank Gaia.” Mara exhaled a long breath. “So, right. I propose we take the concept and apply it to you and Randa. If she says a certain word, you need to go away from her for a while.”
“How long is ‘a while?’”
“Until she comes to get you.”
His eyebrows compressed in outrage. “She’ll never come to get me!”
“Then that’s her choice.”
Randa blinked, seeing the possibilities of this idea.
“I’m not giving up my Match!” Kahn scowled down at his cousin, his face furious enough that grown men would back away. “Damn it, you’re supposed to be helping me keep her, Mari!”
Mara looked singularly unimpressed with his wrath. “Show Randa that you can be a good Match and she’ll always come for you.” She looked Randa’s way. “Do you agree to those guidelines?”
Randa chewed her lower lip. “I should just renounce him. It would be easier.”
Kahn went very still, like he was afraid any movement might send her running.
“You can renounce him anytime you wish.” Mara’s voice was soothing, her eyes on Randa. “No one can stop you. So there’s no risk in letting him try to prove himself, before you do. You owe it to yourself to see if this might work.”
Randa lifted a shoulder, looking everywhere but Kahn. Mara was convincing her, because she wanted to be convinced. She was self-aware enough to know it, but deluded enough to go along with it anyway.
“Fine. He’ll get frustrated the very first time I send him away, and he’ll end up renouncing me himself.”
“I’m not going to renounce you.” Kahn said in a very certain tone.
She glanced at him, their eyes locking.
“I’m solid as fucking stone, too.” He told her, remembering her little meltdown the day she’d brought the Light Phases to her home. “A boulder. Once I’m rolling towards a target, I’m real hard to move off course.”
