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“Forgive me,” I growled, “for wanting to begin the proceedings properly and putting forth the best chance possible at continuing the bride program here.”

“You do not think,” Silar said, his voice gone suddenly raspy and his eyes bright white, “that in potentially ending the program, they could take Cherry away.”

I was not even sure if he realized the way his tail looped instantly around her ankle, squeezing tightly. His body tensed, every muscle straining beneath his hide. Something extremely easy to see, considering he was, as usual, shirtless.

“No, Silar,” I said. “Whatever happens with the future program, you and Cherry are legally married. As are Darcy and Fallon, and Magnolia and Garrek.”

Not to mention the fact that if someone tried to take Cherry away from Silar now, they’d end up with their throat slit, bleeding out in some forgotten corner of his ranch.

That was what happened to the last human who tried to take Silar’s wife from him.

Technically, Silar was the only one who’d killed someone outside of childhood, and on this very planet, no less.

Well… Tasha doesn’t need to know that.

“I speak only of the program in a broader, future sense,” I explained. “If the program ends now, your marriage will remain intact. But Oaken will not receive a bride. And the convicts in the other provinces, like our neighbours under Warden Hallum’s authority, will not get a chance to participate in the program, either.”

“And Zohro, too,” Cherry piped up. “Whatever he says about it, I’m convinced that he wants a bride.”

“Heneedsa bride,” I corrected her. I aimed my tail at Silar and poked him in the chest with it. “Youalldo. The more of you idiots that get married off, the less I have to worry about you doing something stupid. Or, when youdoinevitably do something stupid, at least there will be someone else with some brains around to scold you for it before I have to,” I added with asigh before wrapping my tail around the hook at the back of my belt.

“Thank you for acknowledging my brains, Warden Tenn!” Cherry replied with a grin and a tip of her hat towards me.

“You’re welcome,” I muttered absent-mindedly, my gaze going to the sky to seek out signs of Tasha’s shuttle. “I am nothing if not observant.”

Even someone who was not observant would find it hard to miss the fact that the human women were tougher than their small and fragile bodies made them at first appear. Cherry and the others had proven themselves to be clever, resourceful, and unafraid of the hard work this world (and their colossally clueless husbands) required. Before I got to know them, I had expected that at least one woman would balk and end her marriage after the thirty-day trial period.

None had.

Now I had to make sure Tasha did not balk either.

The far-off drone of engines told me that her shuttle was at last approaching. The metallic speck dove through the atmosphere in the distance, before flying at low altitudes towards my property where it finally landed in an empty field. The ground coughed up reddish-brown dust, appearing almost like smoke engulfing the human-designed shuttle.

When the dust settled, I saw the shuttle’s door was open.

And there she was.

I found myself standing taller, forcing my spine into a straightness I had not even known was possible before.

Then, I walked towards her.

Perhaps foolishly, my first thoughts as I approached were not thoughts of what I’d say to her. Nor were they thoughts of how I’d present my men so that she would forgive them for the rather egregious crime of being secret murderers who’d lured their human wives here under accidentally false pretences.

No, my first idiotic thoughts were an examination of the fact that the screen I’d seen Tasha on before had not done her justice.

Not even close.

Her face, which had been smooth and polished and pleasant in our virtual conversations, was so much more than that in person. No longer relegated to the realm of the two-dimensional, she took undeniably appealing shape before me. There was something so delectablysaturatedabout her now that she was here. The skin that looked so petal-soft it made my claws twitch, blooming with luscious pinkness at her cheeks. The tied-back hair with its pale, warm lustre, like the setting sun glancing off metal. The human eyes, with their oddly circular points in the centre, so dark and deep and assessing as they met mine. The small-by-Zabrian-standards but intriguingly rounded body, with the plushness at her chest, abdomen, and hips generously curved and accentuated by tight black trousers and a white top.

The dullness of the screens had been ripped away, like a cloud of dust dissipating, and Tasha stood before me with astonishingly vivid reality.

My first moments upon meeting someone who could very well become a powerful adversary to me, detrimental to my men and to my goals, and my immediate reaction was that she was beautiful.

Inconveniently so.

But I was not here to gawk like a fool who’d never seen a female in his adult life. I was not Silar or Oaken or Fallon. I was the warden, and I was going to get the first word in and steer this conversation somewhere that I –

“Hello, Warden Tenn.”