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“I heard your cry.”

Tasha’s cheeks got even redder. Cherry laughed.

“Sorry,” Cherry said. “That was my fault. There was a pinching incident. Though, in my defence, I think that pinch was warranted.” She tossed Tasha a meaningful look that I could make little sense of.

“If you say so,” Tasha muttered, rubbing at her small human ear. My eyes followed the movement of her fingers against that soft little slip of skin.

“Come on. Let’s go find Silar and we’ll show you the rest of the property,” Cherry said.

She reached for Tasha’s hand and pulled her past me out the bedroom door. I followed close behind, keeping those two joined human hands in my sights as I wondered, and pretendednotto wonder, what it would be like to walk with such smooth, slender fingers laced easily with my own.

Not just any fingers.

Tasha’s.

Once outside, Cherry and Silar continued with their tour of the property. Silar led the way through gardens and fields while Cherry filled the silence. Every once in a while, Tasha asked a pertinent question, but otherwise she seemed content to listen and observe, her keen dark eyes sweeping over the scene.

Even with her obviously discerning judgment and her mostly neutral expression, I could not help but think Silar’s property had to be making at least a somewhat favourable impression on Tasha. I, myself, was impressed with the state of things.

The gardens were well-tended, the various plants blooming and the fruit trees bearing what would be an incredible harvest later in the season. Silar’s bracku herd was healthy, as were his shuldu. Even the Terratribe II cherry tree, a plant not native to this world, appeared to be happy in its new place on the property. I was certain that it was a little larger now than it had been when I’d dropped it off here some time ago.

Everything was thriving. Just like Cherry and Silar were. Cherry no longer held Tasha’s hand as we walked, but Silar’s instead. Tasha walked on Cherry’s other side, ignoring me completely.

It made me feel rather ridiculously like a young boy back at the Zabrian Academy. Every time that Tasha did not turn my way when she could have, it made me want to reach out and forcefully tug a bit of her pale hair from its neat twist at the back of her head.

An imbecilic notion, to be sure.

But a notion I entertained for far too long, and far too seriously, all the same.

“Well, I must admit,” Tasha said as we returned to the house, “this is a beautiful property. A beautiful home.”

“A beautifullife,” Cherry emphasized, turning a dazzling smile upon her husband. Silar stared down at her in mute adoration. Then, he raised his hand and brushed a single knuckle along his wife’s cheek, just below the delicate place beneath her eye.

Feeling as though I were intruding upon an intimate moment, I turned my attention to Tasha instead. Her gaze was fixed upon Cherry’s face, and the Zabrian hand that so tenderly caressed it. I watched Tasha’s expression as it changed. Her features crumpled slightly, as if Cherry had pinched her again. Her eyes looked suddenly more glossy than before, and she gave a rather wet-sounding inhale through her nose.

She did not exactly look happy, but she did not seem aggravated, either. Was it surprise? Confusion? Perhaps it was unusual for human males to touch the faces of their wives this way.

I could not understand why that would be.

If I were married to a human like Tasha, I imagined I’d spend a great deal of time gently drawing the pads of my fingers, or thesurface of my knuckles, or the tip of my tongue along the prettily curved contours of her face.

The tip of my… what?

And why in the great span of the empire am I fantasizing about what I’d do if I were married to her?

Marriage was something for the others. Not for me.

I’d craved it once, as a very young man.

And that foolish endeavour had become the greatest mistake of my life.

It was why I was out here, warden to the exiled convicts of our empire, instead of taking my place as a captain of the Zabrian Guard.

I could have been a general by now.

I shook myself out of those thoughts quickly. Regret was a road down which I’d long since learned not to travel. My life might not have been as beautiful as the one Cherry shared with Silar, but it was a life, and one that I’d become proud of in my own way.

And it was a life that had certainly become more interesting now that a certain pale-haired, dark-eyed, red-cheeked human was in it.