Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
He grunts and walks away from the bucket, moving toward me. He moves slowly, almost like he's stalking me, and I get flustered and step aside. He doesn't even pause, just keeps on heading toward the house. Duh. I'm overreacting.
As he strolls past me, I catch a musky whiff that seems familiar. It's the same scent that was in the house earlier this morning, the scent of sex. Alien sex.
My face heats and I'm reminded again how long it's been since I've had any sex at all. Surely that's why I'm unsettled this morning. Well, that and the whole door situation.
I watch him as he heads inside the house, and when he shuts the door behind him, I notice a large...splash. Right in the center of my front door, complete with drip-marks.
Oh my god.
"You missed a spot," I call after him.
Zhur opens the front door and eyes me. When I point, he looks at the spot on the door— is it a spot or more of a splash? A stain? A coating?—and then he shakes his head. "That one stays."
I sputter. "Excuse me?"
"That one stays," he says again. "My scent has to bake in."
And then he shuts the door, as if that answers everything, and I stare at the enormous jizz stain on my front door in horror. Do I clean it off? If I do, is he going to replace it because he's determined to keep this “marking” story going?
Please, God, don't let anyone come visiting. I will never live this down.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
ZHUR
Maeve is uncharacteristically silent as we drive her air-sled into town. We park it in front of the store, and then, as if a switch has been flipped, she is suddenly all smiles. She waves at Simone down the street with her little stall of baked goods and then beams a smile at me.
"Look like a happy newlywed," she chirps, still smiling. "Or I'll kill you."
Right. This is all for show. Maeve is excellent at this sort of pretending. She'd be good on Praxii Minor, I think to myself, baring my teeth in a passable smile and following behind her. I can still smell last night's marking marathon in my fur, despite the quick washtowel bath I had this morning and the fresh clothing. If anyone else smells anything, they don't indicate it. Simone chats happily with Maeve, shooting me a few looks as she fills a box of pastries for her friend. A few human females stop at the cart and they all start talking.
No one gives me a second glance. This is a good thing, I think. All it took was marrying a human female.
I want to scrub my hand down my face and groan into my palms, because I have married a human female. A marriage ceremony, not a mating. It implies gravity to the union. If word of this gets back home, no one will take me seriously. They will think I've lost my mind, that I'm mentally unfit to rule, that my brother was right to depose me. Praxiians hate the weak, after all, and this will seem weak to them.
But I watch the humans edge a little closer to the bakery cart on the opposite side of Maeve, their faces drawn and full of worry. Tired faces that have seen more ugliness than they should. Maeve reaches out and touches my arm, linking hers around mine and resting her cheek on my bicep as she tells them a story about how I cleaned the sink in the barn using my fingertips instead of a scrub brush (as if I know what a scrub brush looks like) and the women giggle shyly, looking at me with cautious hope.
Like I might be a friend instead of an enemy.
I see why Lord va'Rin has dedicated his life to helping these humans. Their eyes are so sad, their postures downtrodden, as if they're afraid to stand tall. Afraid to take up space in the universe. It isn't right. If marrying Maeve has made me benign in their eyes, at least that is something. I absently pull her against me and nuzzle her hair, trying to be the affectionate newlywed they imagine me to be.
Maeve stiffens in my grip and then leans in, relaxing against me.
The conversation wraps up and we take the box of pastries with a thank you to Simone and a few credits sent in her direction. The other women wave goodbye and then Maeve and I return to the general store. "Good job," she tells me. "We're really selling this."
"I am glad."
She turns her face toward me and tugs my arm again, leaning in. "Don't grab me without warning, though. It makes me think of last night."
A sick feeling curdles in my stomach. "I will try to remember."
"See that you do," she says, speaking through teeth gritted in her smile. "Come on, let's pick up our supplies."