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Silar flicked his tail.
“No. Cherry thought she was coming to marry a normal Zabrian male with a farm.”
The warden cursed, his jaw jutting.
“Could Cherry not have waited until after the ceremony was complete?” I moaned, dragging my hands down the sides of my face.
“It is only fair your bride knows the truth before the wedding,” Silar said.
Maddening. The man was maddening.
“Fair?” I wailed. “You had time to win Cherry over before she found out the truth about you! You had days to talk and… Well, maybe not talk, because you couldn’t talk your way out of an empty room with open, unlocked doors… But even so! You had days to do whatever it was you did to make her love you!” My tail unwound from its hook and pointed accusatorily at the centre of Silar’s muscled chest. “You even said you would kill me if I told Cherry the truth about our pasts before you did! And I kept the secret for you! So how is this fair?”
“You said you’d kill him?” Warden Tenn interjected, pinning Silar with a narrow-eyed look.
“I was angry,” Silar grunted. “I would not have done it. Probably…”
“Probably?!” Warden Tenn tipped his head back, staring up at the sky with a flatly beseeching look. “Empire, help me. Because if these boys don’t kill each other then I might just be the one who will.”
“Worried that the bride you were so excited about is about to run away, Fallon?” Zohro sneered from somewhere behind me. At some point he’d made his way from his stupid place near the warden’s station to stand among us.
“Don’t start, Zohro,” Warden Tenn sighed, dragging his face back down and scrubbing a hand roughly over it.
“Yes. Don’t start,” I growled, turning on him. “You are just bitter about the fact that you do not have a bride. You refused your chance and you regret it now that you have seen them.”
The deep pink flesh of his bare chest swelled as he took an indignant breath. But he just as quickly let it out again, clamping his fangs together and hissing in anger. Anger, because I was right, and he knew it.
He’d gone on and on about how defective the humans must be if they were to be paired off with the likes of us. How weak and ugly and small. How foolish we were to accept them as brides.
But now, for the very first time, he’d seen them. He’d seen the soft skin, the smiles, the shining hair. He’d seen the enticing curves of their bodies, heard the lilting melodies of their voices. And now jealousy was eating that idiot up from the inside out.
Too bad. He’d lost his chance.
I would not lose mine.
“I’m going to talk to her,” I said, surging forward, my heart stampeding against the fencing of my ribs. I could not lose her. Not now. Not when I’d waited for her, wanted her, spent every night dreaming of pink hair and a voice that I hadn’t even heard yet. Until today.
“Fallon,” the warden warned as I ploughed my way out of the group. My boots kicked up dust, my feet swallowing distance in long, anxious strides.
“I’m marrying her, Warden,” I said tightly, not bothering to speak loudly or turn around. I knew he’d hear me. We Zabrians had excellent hearing.
Shuldu take only one mate and they mate for life. When they find their match, they know.
I saw Darcy. And I knew.
From the moment she’d stepped out of that human craft, she’d been mine.
And I was not about to let something as tiny and unimportant as the fact I’d once murdered a man get in the way.
5
DARCY
“So what is it?”
Cherry had started trying to tell us whatever it was and then, as if specifically trying to drive me up the fucking wall, had faltered.
“What is it about these guys?” I pressed. “What is it we need to know before we marry them?”
