With a quick swipe of his long fingers, the Nulaxian made the contract disappear from view. Filed in the universe’s shared database.
It was done.
It had happened so quickly that it felt wrong.
In a mere matter of moments, I’d signed my life away, scribbled down onto a million floating pixels that resembled paper and with my blood. A contract. A promise.
For a marriage ceremony, it had felt cold and impersonal.
And yet…
This Kylorr was my husband now.
“No…” came my father’s voice, surprisingly brittle. For a moment, I thought he was protesting but then he continued with, “No harm will come to her. Do you understand, Kylorr?”
A slick whisper sounded in the room. When I looked down, I saw large blades had extended from the gauntlets, resembling long claws, the shimmering sharpness of them enough to make me pale and balk, stepping back into Fran.
My husband smiled. All his teeth were sharp, but his fangs glinted like his gauntlet’s blades.
I suppressed a shiver, despair and fear rising in my belly, making me want to vomit. So much for not showing him my fear. It shone on my face now like a beacon. And when those red eyes came to me, that smile only widened when he saw it.
“I will do whatever I please with my wife, Rye of House Hara, Lord of the Collis.”
His voice was like an endless fog. Deep and dark, wrapping me up and making me lose my way. Lost.
His wings flared behind him, an unbreachable wall, the dark span of them shocking. His hand clamped over my arm, tugging me toward him, away from Fran, away from my father. The hot smear of his blood was like a brand on my flesh, the strength of his grip evident.
“She is mine now.”
Chapter 5
Gemma
“It will be a three-day flight to Krynn,” Rivin grunted, releasing my arm abruptly enough to make me stumble into the quarters. It didn’t help that the trail of my wedding dress twisted around my legs. The Kylorr male frowned down at me. For a moment, he stepped toward me, as if to help, but then looked away. “How many meals do you take a day?”
Rivin was my new husband’s ambassador. Not the one who’d brokered this marriage with Mr. Cross, but he’d been the only one present as Azur’s witness. The one who’d stood quietly in the corner of the courtroom, his hand casually draped on the hilt of his sword, as I’d signed my name in blood. The one whose arms Azur of House Kaalium had shoved me into the moment we’d left.
My husband hadn’t even let me say goodbye to my father, to Fran, and that stabbing tendril of cruelty nearly made me cry.
But if he thought he could break me, he was wrong.
“Am I to be a prisoner on board?” I asked Rivin, straightening when I got my legs underneath me. He was dressed in the same fashion as Azur: armored. Though, unlike his lord, he wore a flexible plating down his chest and had circular, decorative rings cuffed to the bones of his wings. “Locked away in this room until we arrive to your home planet?”
Truthfully, it would be a relief. Perhaps my husband wouldn’t seek me out on our wedding night. Perhaps he would just leave me alone. Which was the next best thing I could hope for, being the bride of a Kylorr.
Rivin had bright blue eyes, resembling the color of the Nulaxian male’s. A deep scar ran down his left cheek, curving around his mouth like smile lines. Only this male was scowling something fierce.
Strangely enough, I didn’t see fangs. Could…could the Kylorr retract them?
“How many meals do you take?” Rivin asked again.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, None.
But I would need my strength and a clear head once we arrived to Krynn.
“Three.”
He turned.
“What about my belongings?” I asked hurriedly. My three trunks from home. My entire life packed into them. I needed to change out of this dress. I needed to burn it next.
“They will be given to you once they are searched,” Rivin informed me, his heavy footsteps treading back up the short set of stairs. Those stairs led to a door I knew would be locked from the outside, which led out to the hallway of the Kylorr’s ship.
I watched that door close behind him.
Then I was alone.
Dragging in a deep breath, I slumped down onto a chaise lounge, plush and draped in black velvet. The whole room was appointed with expensive furnishings—including the largest bed I’d ever seen on a space cruiser, a glistening bar cart of multicolored liquors in various crystal decanters, and a complete Halo system installed into one of the wall panels. There was a second door that I assumed led to the washroom. And behind the bar cart, there were floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out into open space, dark and starry, where the ship was docked in a private bay.
Not even as soon as I got my bearings in the room, a gentle hum sounded and we pushed off from the docking port, the launch sequence seamless.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I clenched my fists in my dress, feeling my thumb throb. When I opened my eyes, I saw the dried stain of my blood, dark red against white cloth.
I thought of his voice, soft like smoke but as unyielding as stone. It was my fear that this was his room, his private quarters. When my gaze flitted to the bed, I stood and walked to the Halo panel. I tapped on the setting to darken the windows and to project the mountains of the Collis instead.
Home.
Not anymore.
I felt a breeze across my face as the Halo panel adjusted the temperature in the quarters to that of our province. I heard bird songs, bright and melodious. I smelled the pine trees after a rain. Instead of the darkness of space, I spied the peak of Mount Hara. I was transported home for a brief moment of time.
But instead of peace, all I felt was crippling worry. Worry that my father wouldn’t keep his word. Worry for my sisters. Worry that I would never see them again. Or Fran.
Instead of the bed, I curled up on the chaise. Lying on my side, I felt velvet tickle my cheek and I thought of the red glare of my husband, thought of the sound of his wings and the whisper of the blade across his palm, the slice blooming black.
With Mount Hara in my sights, we set course for Krynn.
For three days, I waited.
My trunks were returned to me on the night of the first day, and I could finally change out of my bloodied wedding dress. I pressed my face into the textures of my clothes, breathing in the soap Fran used to wash our laundry and feeling my throat go tight with grief.
On the second day of our journey, I spent it mostly curled up on the chaise lounge. Rivin locked the door whenever he came to drop off my meals—three a day. All were travel rations, dried chunky bars of high-calorie meals. His lips seemed to press tighter and tighter with every single one he delivered to me, and I wondered about that.
The second night, I decided to help myself to the bar cart, wrinkling my nose at the whiskey and going instead for the blue liquor of Bavian slew. It reminded me of the blue salt caverns, and I downed the first glass like a shot, the taste pleasantly sweet but tart.
It didn’t take much to get me drunk—I never drank, after all, leaving that particular habit to my father—weaving around my new prison, my head light, giggling like a loon.