Page 11

TASHA

“So, Cherry. Now that they’re out of earshot. Tell me… Are you alright? Like, actually? You’re not being held hostage? Or afraid for your life?”

Cherry snorted at me from her place on the bench beside me. We were currently seated in an ancient, wooden wagon, being pulled along by two massive, four-legged alien beasts called shuldu.

“OK, first of all? We aren’t out of earshot,” Cherry replied. “Those guys have insane hearing. They can probably hear every word we’re saying right now.”

I pursed my lips and glanced at Silar and the warden, both of them in their saddles atop the shuldu ahead of the wagon. Silar’s mount was a brown-reddish colour the exact same shade as the dusty ground. Warden Tenn’s mount was a pretty pale grey, dappled in white. Both creatures had gigantic horns arcing out from their heads.

“I don’t even see their ears,” I said, on a whisper this time. Just in case.

“They’re under the hats. And they are extremely cute, by the way.” She made two rounded fists and perched them jauntilyatop her head before letting them fall. “Oh!” she then said, as if remembering something important. “If you’re taking complaints about the program, I actually do have one.”

I leaned in, wondering what horror she was going to reveal about her quiet killer of a husband.

But instead, she said, “I would have liked a book. A book like the ones the men received about human culture and, er… anatomy…”

Her cheeks flamed, dark red in the shade of the wagon’s covering.

“Oh, God. What happened?” I asked, dread sliming through my belly. What did she need to be warned about when it came to Zabrian anatomy?

“Nothing bad,” she said quickly, her cheeks even redder now. “But it would have been nice to know about the whole, um, Zabrian genitals situation in advance.”

“‘Zabrian genitals situation?’” I repeated uneasily, feeling my brows crawl all the way up to my hairline. She made it sound like some horrific historical event akin to a plague or a war.

I glared at Silar’s bare back, with its gold hide and his bright aqua mane of hair tumbling down, wondering just what the hell the guy had going on in his pants.

“It just would have been more fair,” Cherry said, sounding somewhat flustered now, “if we’d gotten similar information about the Zabrian males that they received about us.”

“I know,” I replied with a sigh, leaning my spine against the wagon’s back wall. “The Zabrian Empire gave me so little to go on. Including, apparently,” I added, my tone growing barbed, “anything about these guys’ convictions.”

Cherry sobered at once.

“I need you to know,” she said gravely, “that I don’t consider Silar, or any of the men here, to be murderers. Silar killed a man in self-defence when he was a child. That very same manmurdered Silar’s mother. My husband watched his mother die and was unfairly convicted as a murderer before he even hit puberty. He was sent here with no support, no contact with any other family… Nothing.”

Jesus. I sucked in a breath. Cherry blinked, her eyes growing shiny and red.

“Silar is the greatest man I’ve ever known. There’s a very good chance I would be dead without him,” she went on. With the obvious tears in her eyes, I would have thought her voice would waver, but it didn’t. It was strong, steady, like these were the truest words she’d ever spoken. “He’s the best husband I ever could have asked for.”

She gave a teary laugh and wiped at her eyes. When she spoke again, her eyes were fastened to her husband’s back. I watched her in profile as she spoke.

“All I’m asking is that you give him – all of them – a chance.”

“I’ll endeavour to be fair to everyone,” I said quietly and at length. “Including any future brides, should the program proceed. They deserve to know what they’re in for.”

“I agree,” Cherry said, nodding enthusiastically, her blue eyes coming back to me. “It’s why I told Darcy and Magnolia the situation before their weddings.”

I mulled over what she’d told me. Her explanation of Silar’s conviction would certainly make sense stacked against the mostly positive first impression I’d gotten of the man. He didn’t seem bloodthirsty or cruel, and Cherry seemed to be thriving in her marriage to him. I was going to inspect his ranch right now, to make sure that he was providing adequately for Cherry. He’d agreed to that instantly; he didn’t appear to have anything to hide.

“We’re obviously of the same mind, then,” I said. “And, in the spirit of making sure everyone knows what’s what, maybe I can write another book. This one about Zabrian males. The empirewouldn’t give me much information to use, but maybe I can collect enough notes while I’m here to put something together. I am staying for a month, after all.”

A whole month… With him…

If the warden could indeed hear me, he did not look back.

“Yes!” Cherry said excitedly. “And we’ll help you, too. I know Darcy, Magnolia, and I have lots of thoughts and, er, experience to contribute.”

“Experience? Like experience with the ‘Zabrian genitals situation?’”