His discomfort amazed him. He was more accustomed to making other people uncomfortable. And he did not like her appraising stare—as though she were deciding whether or not to buy him. If he could win her alive, he would teach her manners someday! It was not until she began to grow breasts that he knew for certain he had won. He got up then, and

“People grow old. They die.” “All of them,” he agreed. “All but you and I.” “You die constantly,” she said. He got up and went to sit beside her on the sofa. Somehow, she kept still, subdued her impulse to get up, move away from him. “I have never died,” he said. She stared past him at one of the candlesticks on the mantel. “Yes,” she said. “I

“Is that why you came when … when my difference attracted you?” He shook his head. “I came to see what you were.” She frowned, suddenly cautious. “I am myself. You see me.” “As you see me. Do you imagine you see everything?” She did not answer. “A lie offends me, Anyanwu, and what I see of you is a lie. Show me what you really are.”

She came back, sat down again, and handed him a rock. “Break it,” she said tonelessly. It was a rock, not hardened mud, and though he might have broken it with another rock or metal tool, he could make no impression on it with his hands. He returned it to her whole. And she crushed it in one hand. He had to have the woman. She was wild seed of the

“I cannot kill him—or even understand what there is to kill. I have bitten him when he was in another body, and he seemed no more than flesh, no more than a man.” “You never touched him,” Isaac said. “Lale did once—he reached out in that way of his to change Doro’s thoughts. He almost died. I think he would have died if Doro hadn’t struggled hard

“I could go after her,” he said. “I know you sent her to warn your field hands.” Anyanwu turned to face him angrily. “You are many times as old as I am. You must have some inborn defect to keep you from getting wisdom to go with your years.”

There are people he listens to, people he values beyond their worth as breeders or servants. People who can give him … just a little of the companionship he needs. They’re among the few people in the world that he can still love—or at least care for. Although compared to what the rest of us feel when we love or hate or envy or whatever, I don’t

Wild seed always had to be destroyed eventually. It could never conform as children born among his people conformed.

“I kill, Anyanwu. That is how I keep my youth, my strength. I can do only one thing to show you what I am, and that is kill a man and wear his body like a cloth.” He breathed deeply. “This is not the body I was born into. It’s not the tenth I’ve worn, nor the hundredth, nor the thousandth. Your gift seems to be a gentle one. Mine is not.”