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“What is it?” I grunted, keeping my hands busy with the saddle.
“Good. You’re up,” came Warden Tenn’s reply. “I need you at my office today. Leave now, if you want to make it in time.”
“In time for what?” I growled, mentally groaning over how much work time I’d lose out on by going to Warden Tenn’s station. It was nearly half-a-day’s ride from my ranch to get there.
“In time for her arrival.”
“Whose arrival?”
“Your bride’s.”
My tail tightened around my data tab so forcefully that the useless screen, already damaged, became webbed with new cracks.
“Who?” I asked idiotically, knowing exactly whom Warden Tenn meant, but suddenly unable to come up with any sort of sensible reply.
“Your bride,” the warden said rather impatiently. “Cherry Dawson.”
My hands froze on Tarion’s saddle while my heart leaped like a shuldu.
“I thought she was not meant to come for another twenty-two days,” I said unsteadily.
“That was originally the case. But it sounds like she was in a rush to get going. She joined up with a supply delivery shuttle and will be here before the sun is high.”
Too soon.
I wasn’t ready. It would have been comical if it weren’t so catastrophic, just how pathetically unready I was. I’d planned to build a small addition onto the ranch for her to have her own room. Not only had I not gotten to it, but I hadn’t even started building her bed yet!
Ruefully, I thought of the info packet left open on my own bed. It contained a collection of articles and essays on human biology, technology, history, and culture put together by some human-Zabrian liaison named Tasha and then translated into Zabrian before printing.
Having been at this penal outpost since childhood, I’d lost out on most of my chance at an education. All the learning I’d done here was through blood, hunger, and hooves kicking too close to my head. I did not need to read often and the practice did not come easily to me. Even so, I’d done my best to muddle through the dense package of pages, squinting at the words in bleary-eyed exhaustion after each long day’s work. Despite my best efforts, I tended to fall asleep mid-sentence, words like eyelashes and Terratribe and wedding dress bleeding into my dreams.
All that work and I hadn’t even gotten halfway through the blasted thing. In my mounting panic I suddenly could not even recall the information I had read.
If this was a test, I was already failing.
“Can’t Fallon take this one? I’ll claim a different female from the next lot in twenty-two days.”
I felt like a coward and a fool the moment it was out of my mouth. No doubt the warden felt the same, because his voice sliced forcefully out of the data tab’s speakers, crackling with anger.
“No, I’m not giving your bride to Fallon. These females may not be Zabrian but they still deserve respect while they are here, and by the Empire I will make sure they get it.” He heaved a sigh. “I realize that you have not been among females for your entire adult life, Silar, but even so, I expect you to use your head. The human women are not cattle to be traded among you at will. Cherry Dawson has already been told your name, not Fallon’s. She is prepared to marry you. She is coming. Today. So get yourself into that saddle and be here to meet her in time or I swear on my badge that I will wrangle you like a rogue bull and drag you here myself.”
The connection was severed. I stared at my silent, freshly-cracked data tab, Warden Tenn’s words echoing through my head.
She is prepared to marry you.
I slid my data tab into my pocket and put on my hat.
She is coming.
I got into the saddle and took hold of the reins.
Today.
I turned my back on my ranch, faced dawn on the dusty road ahead, and left to collect my bride.
7
CHERRY
