Page 8 of Wanted by the Alien Warden (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #4)

8

TASHA

“ O h, you need not help with that!” Fallon plucked my dirty cup – the one I’d been trying to bring over to the sink – from my hands.

“Are you sure? You guys made such an amazing meal,” I said sincerely. My stomach was no longer miserably growling. No, now it was replete with the warm glow of delicious food.

“It’s fine,” Darcy assured me, tossing her wavy pink hair over her shoulder. “He doesn’t let me do many of the chores, either.”

I glanced at Fallon, whose bare, strong back was now bent over the sink as he happily scrubbed food from plates that Silar dutifully delivered to him.

It didn’t appear as if these two were doing this for show. It looked like they did this stuff for their wives every single day.

“Let’s give her the tour of the house,” Cherry said to Darcy. “Especially since it’s getting so late. Are you sleeping here?”

She asked that last question of me, and I found I had no answer. I glanced around, forcing myself to stop when I realized I was looking for Warden Tenn.

I didn’t need his permission to sleep anywhere.

And if I didn’t sleep here tonight, then where?

At the warden’s place?

Absolutely not.

“You can definitely sleep here,” Darcy said. “We have a spare bedroom. It’s where Magnolia stayed for a bit when we first got here. I’ll show you.”

Leaving the men to the dishes, Darcy brought Cherry and me into a comfortable room with a large bed and a beautiful, plush quilt on top.

“Fallon made that,” Darcy said when she noticed me drawing my fingers along the puffy top of the quilt, the surface comfortably fuzzy with age and use.

“Oh, God. Are you going to throw that over our heads again?” Cherry groaned, but there was a teasing glint in her eyes. “Because I truly don’t know if the three of us are going to fit.”

Darcy sent her a questioning look, but before Cherry could answer, I swallowed my embarrassment to explain.

“I may have been trying to create a sound barrier,” I said in a flustered rush. “I know these guys have good hearing.” I raised my hands helplessly then let them fall. “I just wanted Cherry to have a safe space. In case there was anything wrong.”

I sounded like an idiot. But, surprisingly, Darcy only nodded seriously.

“Good for you,” she said. “I wish someone had done that for me with my last fiancé.”

“I didn’t know you were engaged before this!” I exclaimed.

“I was,” she said, her beautiful green eyes flashing, “to an absolute shit stain named Massimo. He really was the worst. Because of him, I came here expecting Fallon to be… Well, kind of terrible. Especially after I learned about the whole murderer thing.”

Cherry winced and nodded.

“But…” She reached down to touch the quilt her husband had made. “But Fallon changed everything. My life. My heart. Me.” She shook her head and laughed. “I mean, look at how much of a sap I’ve become!”

“Truly, the sappiest of saps,” Cherry said with a dramatic sigh, clutching her hands together beneath her chin and batting her eyelashes. “Someone should write a book about it.”

Well, it certainly seemed like I didn’t need to drag Darcy under a blanket to interrogate her like I’d tried with Cherry.

It really did look like both of them were… happy.

Something in my chest squeezed. When was the last time I’d felt the way these two women looked? When was the last time I’d radiated that kind of joy? Maybe when I’d received the offer of my current position and was able to move to Elora Station.

But even the shine of my new career and living space had worn off since then. I didn’t have friends on Elora Station yet. And the job I’d been so excited about was currently my largest source of stress, considering the whole I-sent-women-off-to-marry-murderers-without-knowing thing.

If Darcy and Cherry were happier here, married to exiled criminals, than I was with the life I’d worked so hard for…

What did that say about me?

Was this it? Was this all I had to look forward to? A future of being nothing but a failed and friendless human-Zabrian liaison whose greatest achievement was fucking up an interplanetary marriage mission?

Holy hills of Terra. That was a very bleak thought.

And as I had absolutely no use for pity, least of all for myself, I sucked it up and changed the subject.

“I told Warden Tenn about the book idea,” I said. “I really am going to write one while I’m here. He’ll help.”

“Oh, yay!” Cherry replied. She flounced over to the bed and sat down, her eyes alight with mischief. “We’ll help, too. Considering that we’re experts on the Zabrian genitals situation.”

Darcy snorted. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Yes, it is,” Cherry replied with a prim nod. “And Tasha promised that it could be the title of the first chapter.”

“Well, before I do anything,” I said, “someone needs to tell me exactly what this genitals situation entails.”

“Entails!” Darcy echoed shrilly. She and Darcy looked at each other and promptly burst into laughter.

“Oh, God, sorry,” Cherry gasped, clutching at Darcy who by this time had collapsed on the bed, giggling uncontrollably. “It’s just… It’s just… you said en tails !”

“I… Yes? I did?” The two of them were positively rolling. Literally rolling on the surface of the bed, until they crashed chaotically and went boinging away from each other.

“Holy fuck. I think I’m going to pee myself.” Darcy choked out. “Or that my spleen is going to split. Is that a thing that can happen?”

“I feel fairly confident,” I said, “after all the research I did for the human anatomy portion of the book I wrote, that laughing isn’t going to do anything to your spleen. Your bladder, on the other hand…”

Darcy took a shuddering breath and then swiftly sat up to face me where I stood. She passed her palm in front of her face, as if to indicate that a curtain was dropping on the laughter from the moment before.

“OK. Sorry. It’s just the guys, they have this…”

She pursed her lips against what appeared to be another bout of laughter. Instead of trying to speak, she positioned her hand between her thighs, crooked her index finger, and then wiggled it wildly.

“They… They have a finger down there?”

Darcy shook her head frantically, her face scarlet. Was she holding her breath?

Luckily, Cherry seemed to still be capable of speech. Or, capable of a hysterical sort of howl, which she emitted now.

“THEY HAVE A COCK TAIL.”

“Alright. Um…” I slipped my comms tablet out of my pocket, ready to take notes. “A cock tail. And is this separate from the dicktacle?”

“NOT THE DICKTACLE!” Darcy screeched, kicking Cherry and then nearly falling off the bed. “I TOLD YOU TO NEVER CALL IT THAT AGAIN!”

“Oh my God,” Cherry choked out. “I feel drunk.”

“I feel confused,” I said.

“I don’t blame you,” Cherry replied after a few steadying breaths. “It’s very confusing. Very mysterious, the Zabrian cock tail. That wonderful worm of-”

“DON’T CALL IT A WORM!”

“OK. Fine. How about a snake? Since that’s what you first thought it was. A sweet, slithery little pet snakey snake that-”

“CHERRY!”

“I feel that we may be losing sight of the purpose of this conversation,” I cut in awkwardly. “And also that Darcy is in danger of having a…”

“A mental breakdown?” Cherry provided helpfully. She glanced at her red-faced friend and grinned. “Nah. She’ll be fine.”

“It’s impossible to talk about this shit seriously,” Darcy moaned. “You just have to see it to fully experience it.”

I had to see it.

There was only one unmarried Zabrian male in this house that I could ask to help me with that…

“I’ve got it,” Cherry said with a suddenly fearsome determination. “We’ll draw it.”

“That could work,” I said, nodding and trying very hard to ignore a fresh little twist of disappointment. Disappointment about not getting to ask the warden to drop his drawers in the pursuit of my (purely academic!) curiosity.

And it wasn’t even just a question of academics! Future human brides to Zabrian males would need this knowledge! It was practically a righteous cause. Who was I to deny them that?!

Cherry already had her comms tablet in one hand, her other hand gliding over its touchscreen, leaving black lines in her fingers’ wake.

“Make it gold,” Darcy suggested. “More authentic.”

“Shh,” Cherry hissed. “I’m concentrating.”

“Are you?” Darcy asked doubtfully after a moment. “Because that doesn’t really look…”

“Shut up, Darcy! I’m not an artist, OK?!”

“Oh, no,” Darcy said soothingly to her friend. “You are very talented. It’s just, your talents apparently lie less in drawing Zabrian dicks and more in drawing-”

She glanced down at Cherry’s screen.

“-a lopsided sausage with a bit of droopy spaghetti tacked on the end.”

“Shit. You are totally right.”

“I’ll do one, too,” Darcy said, pulling out her own comms tablet and beginning to sketch something on her screen. “There. How’s that?”

“That’s actually pretty good,” Cherry said, sounding impressed. “Although, a little meatier, maybe?”

“You think?” Darcy asked, regarding her work with a critical eye. “I think it’s pretty accurate. Maybe Silar and Fallon have different levels of… meatiness. Is Silar a girthy guy?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Cherry said with a shrug, “but all I have to compare him to is human men. I don’t know how he’d compare to another Zabrian.”

Warden Tenn looks like he’d be girthy.

Not that it was any of my business. Because I had all the information I needed about the Zabrian genitals situation from these strange, messy, and slightly disturbing drawings.

Seriously. What the fuck was I looking at?

I was getting the sausage and spaghetti comment now. Cherry had drawn a big tube with a dangly string hanging off the end of it. Darcy’s linework was a little cleaner, but her picture was just as confusing as Cherry’s.

“Which way am I supposed to be looking at this?” I asked, tilting my head this way and that. “Is that string bit meant to be, like, at the tip?”

“Oh, fuck me, I forgot the ball sack,” Darcy said, smacking her hand against her forehead. “Hold on.”

As I watched, she drew a big, swollen lump beneath her Zabrian dick diagram.

“This is underneath,” she said, pointing at the round bit she’d just drawn. “This is the shaft. And this-” Her finger landed heavily, nearly accusingly, on the dangly bit. “-is the cock tail.”

I stared in bewilderment at Darcy’s screen.

“It’s like an itty bitty lasso!” Cherry chimed in, as if that was supposed to make any sense at all.

“You guys,” I said, stopping to close my eyes and rub my temples. “Please. I am begging you. Be so real with me right now.” I opened my eyes to find Darcy and Cherry staring innocently back at me. “Are you fucking with me?”

Cherry dissolved into laughter once more, which, in my humble opinion, was rather a point for the yes-they-are-fucking-with-you side of things. But Darcy, when she shook her head, shaped her expression into something sober, nearly grave.

“Oh, how I wish we were, my sweet summer child.”

“Oh my God. I said that to Silar once,” Cherry panted. “Do you know what he said in response?”

“What?” Darcy and I asked in unison.

“He… He said… Like, completely seriously! He said, ‘But my birthday is in winter.’”

She laughed so hard that she collapsed onto her back on the bed, which sent Darcy tumbling into giggles after her.

And after that, I didn’t last long.

Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face. My ribs ached. My abs felt like I’d just tried and failed to copy Silar or Fallon’s workout routine.

I was laughing so hard I was legitimately in pain.

And it felt… good.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed like this.

“My stomach hurts. Oh God,” Darcy grunted, dragging herself up into a seated position on the bed.

Fallon’s voice suddenly boomed from the kitchen, making all three of us jump.

“Your stomach?” he called. Then, rapid footsteps and the flinging open of the bedroom door. His eyes were bright white as he entered the room. “What is wrong with your stomach? Do you require some tea? I will make it!”

“No, no. That’s alright,” Darcy said, but Fallon had already hightailed it out of the room, presumably to make the tea.

“I love how he and Silar were perfectly content to let us laugh ourselves silly over the… situation,” Cherry said, wiping her eyes, “but the second you said your stomach was hurting he came bursting in here like an alien superhero.”

“He loves making me tea. Ever since that first night I was here,” Darcy said. “When I ended up in that freezing creek. He made me drink the tea Magnolia gave him and now he thinks it’s like some magical, all-healing elixir.”

“That’s sweet.”

Cherry and Darcy both looked at me with their brows raised.

“Are you calling our homicidal husbands sweet?” Cherry asked with a grin.

“I… I really think I am.” I went to the doorway, watching as Fallon flitted about the kitchen, preparing tea while Silar wiped down the surface of the table. “I have to admit. This was not what I was expecting. At all.”

“They’re good men,” Cherry said softly. “The warden, too.”

“You like him?” I whirled around in surprise.

Cherry nodded. “I do. He’s done so much for Silar and me.” She paused. “You don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Like him.”

“I…”

I may have been imagining how girthy he was mere moments ago…

Cherry and Darcy didn’t need to know that.

“I don’t trust him,” is what I went with. “He wasn’t honest with me about the situation I was sending you two, and Magnolia, into.”

“But he didn’t know!” Darcy said, shaking her head rapidly. “It was the higher-ups in the empire who decided not to disclose that lovely little fact. It wasn’t until long after Cherry had arrived that Silar realized she didn’t know about his past. Then she told us.”

Cherry nodded.

“Alright. Fine. But Cherry arrived months ago,” I pointed out. “And I’m only finding this out now.”

“I was busy.”

“Holy-! When did you get here?” I gasped, my hand flying to my pounding chest as I turned to find Warden Tenn directly behind me.

“Just now. And I would have told you before you sent any new brides,” he added.

“Uh huh,” I said, trying to decide if he was telling the truth or not. “Where were you just now?”

“I was making contact with Warden Hallum so that he and his men will be ready to receive us.”

Oh. Well, that was good, I supposed, since I was the one who’d decided to make that trek out to his province. At least Warden Tenn was listening to me in some areas, even if he liked ignoring whatever statements I made about my own butt.

“I also sent him that document,” the warden suddenly added, holding up his tablet. “The one you wrote.”

“Hopefully he reads it,” I said.

Warden Tenn’s nostrils flared. A zip of white flashed in his eyes.

“The average human menstrual cycle lasts anywhere from twenty-seven to thirty-two days, though all manner of hormonal shifts, biological conditions, or even stress can effect it.”

“Uh. What?” Darcy said under her breath. Cherry shrugged.

Warden Tenn ignored them both.

“Some human women wear white gowns for their marriage ceremonies, but not all,” he went on, his shoulders set with determination. “In certain Old-Earth cultures, bright colours, like red, are associated with weddings. Some brides may wear a traditional lehenga or saree, hambok, kimono, or kente gown. Some brides may prefer a pantsuit. Wedding attire can be as diverse as the backgrounds of the brides, and what matters is that she feels comfortable, respected, and honoured, both in the ceremony and her future life with her partner.”

“You… You…”

“I read it.” He paused, then added, “Some of it. I had a look after sending it to Warden Hallum. It is very long.”

“Well, there’s a lot to know!”

The warden laughed. Like, actually laughed. A great big guffaw. I stared, slack-jawed, as he tipped his head back, his thick throat contracting with the sound.

“Indeed there is,” he rumbled, his gaze coasting from my eyes to my mouth. “And I plan to learn it all.”

“The tea is ready! Hello, Warden!” Fallon called jovially as he turned himself sideways and slipped into the room with a steaming hot cup for Darcy. As Darcy took a sip, she tossed Cherry a silent but very communicative look from above the cup. Her eyes were so big with whatever message she was trying to send Cherry she looked like they might be about to pop out of her head.

“What are you doing with your eyes?” Fallon asked loudly, bending down to closely examine his wife’s face.

No wonder the man didn’t get away with murder. Not a subtle bone in his big alien body.

“Nothing,” Darcy said, lowering her cup. “I was just trying to, er…”

“Figure out what Tasha will wear to sleep tonight!” Cherry finished.

That was absolutely not the silent conversation they’d been having a second ago, but it was nonetheless a subject that would need attention.

“I have a spare toothbrush, and you can obviously use all my soap and stuff,” Darcy said. “And I’d be happy to loan you a nightie or something, but…”

But my boobs and butt wouldn’t be able to squeeze themselves into anything of Darcy’s without some major blood flow issues.

“That’s alright,” I assured her. “I can handwash my clothes tonight and just sleep naked, I guess.”

Something croaked behind me. Like a very large animal getting choked.

Or unexpectedly punched in the face.

“What’s the matter, Warden?” Fallon asked with concern. He crossed to the warden and slapped him on the back. “Is there a bit of bracku bone caught in your throat? Here! Open your mouth and I will check!”

“What? When have I ever required one of you lot to look inside my mouth?” Warden Tenn rasped, glaring at Fallon. “And you,” he growled, aiming his tail accusingly at me. “Just… Keep your clothes on. I’ll be back.”

He turned on his booted heel and swept out of the room. Fallon remained, looking like he wanted desperately to stay and chat with us about whatever the hell had just happened.

But unfortunately for him, a purple tail snapped back into the room, seized sharply upon Fallon’s belt, and then proceeded to haul him out the door.