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And the warden was in the way.

“I don’t think so,” Warden Tenn shot back immediately.

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t have a husband or a fiancé here. As the warden, I am responsible for your wellbeing in this world. Therefore, I will stand right here and supervise your descentfrom Silar’s wagon to ensure that you don’t do something… unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate?”

Why did I get the impression he’d been about two seconds away from saying “stupid” instead?

“Yes,” he said. “Unfortunate. Like landing poorly on your ankle. Or on your…”

His eyes zipped down to the region of my hips and then bounced right back up. He cleared his throat.

“Mywhat?”

“Your… Your backside.”

“My backside?”

“Did that not translate? Your…” He hesitated. “Your hindquarters.”

“My hindquarters?!”

“The part of you that would have a tail if you were to have one,” he huffed in a rush, visibly frustrated.

My ass. The warden thought I was going to fall on my poor little tailless, human ass.

“How about you just worry about your own hindquarters?” I hissed, face on fire. “And I’ll worry about mine!”

“My hindquarters,” he replied with maddening confidence, “do not require any supervision.”

“Well, neither do mine!”

“Incorrect.”

My mouth gaped.

The man really just said I was incorrect. About my ownbutt.

Forget the genitals thing. The first chapter of my book on Zabrian males will be a scathing review of Warden Tenn’s absolutely nonsensical arrogance.

“Look,” I snapped, “this whole macho man, ‘I’m a big, rough and tumble warden’ schtick might work for keeping your men in line. But it doesn’t work on me. I’m not a convict or a citizenof the Zabrian Empire. You are not my superior. So if I fall and break my own human butt, well, that’s on me.”

Before Warden Tenn could respond, I took a tiny breath for courage and jumped.

I didn’t land poorly on my ankle, like the warden had suggested I might.

I did, however, land with my right foot on top of his left boot. And it turned out that an alien warden’s gigantic foot did not a stable landing pad make.

I was going down.

I wasn’t sure what would be bruised most in the fall.

My human pride…

Or myhindquarters.