Page 46 of You're Not My King!

And, seriously, when the hell had gaining the approval of my jailors become a bigger priority than going home?

The Stockholm be Stockholming.

Doc had been called away on an errand to another clan, so I was tasked to keep an eye on her hut. There was nothing really for me to do, just stop Ok’tna from raiding her herb stocks—he liked to make tea with them, apparently—and give out potions if they were asked for, but she’d doubted they would be. She’d labeled them all, just in case, and left out her trusty healer bible for me to refer to if I was stuck. I’d begged her to choose someone else to take charge, someone with a lick of intelligence about them. I was afraid I’d do some dumb shit like give out laxatives instead of the alien equivalent of Pepto-Bismol, but she’d said she had faith in me.

Poor woman.

It had only been two days since she’d left, and no one had dropped by yet, thank fuck. I’d asked to go with her, just to scope out more of the planet, but since it wasn’t a quick jaunt, Vo’ak had refused to be separated from me that long. Apparently, his instincts would’ve demanded he hunt me down, make sure I was safe, and mount me in the middle of the forest, so that was that.

Low-key filing that away for future reference,though.

The doc had said she’d convince him to let me go to a neighboring clan with her next week, so I wasn’t too annoyed about holding the fort. Besides, I’d brought my crocheting with me to keep my fingers and mind occupied. It was colder outside, so my hats and mittens were getting popular, and the trade orders were keeping me busy.

Of course, Vo’ak, the horny bastard, had seen my watch duties as the perfect opportunity to try and entice me into bookshelf sex, workbench sex, and just… sex everywhere in the hut. He was like a typical dude with a new toy, but in this case, it was a new place to fuck. I’d refused, obviously. I couldn’t disrespect Fiona’s place of work like that. I had some class.

He ate my ass as I was bent over her bathtub instead.

That was another development in the last month. I’d gotten bored with restraining myself when it came to my hunk of an alien husband, and just decided to take my pleasure while I could. Sounded heartless when I thought about it, but it wasn’t as if I was using him any more than he was using me. I was his mail-order mate, so, come on. I refused to feel guilty about it. I was here, he wanted me, I wanted him, we had wild and mind-blowing sex, and it was all consensual. It was fine. If I ever actually managed to escape, I could let myself feel bad about it then, but for now, there was as much chance of me leaving here as me winning the Nobel Prize, so I may as well just stick it out.

We all had to make sacrifices. I was a saint, really.

“Roo-bin.”

I looked up from the scarf I was crocheting to see Puka’s tutor standing in the doorway. I floundered, trying to recall her name. “Ma’lor…?”

“Na-lor.” She corrected me in a stern yet patient tone. “Need tonic. For pain in fang.”

Toothache, right.

I could handle that.

I set down my yarn and hook and shot to my feet, going over to the first bookcase to search. There were bottles and bowls filling the shelves. Stuff for migraines, nausea, toe-claw fungus—I threw up in my mouth a little. It must’ve taken Fiona ages to label them all with their names and uses for me, she was an angel, but even after scouring each row, twice, I couldn’t spot anything that could be used for toothache.

Fuck my life.

“Um…” I was starting to sweat a bit. “I can’t see anything that might help you.” I picked up a few bottles, shaking them as if it would somehow magically turn into what I needed. There was a frickin’ tongue ointment and a tail balm, but nothing for fangs. Wouldn’t that be an obvious one to have? Unless fang pain wasn’t that common, or Fiona didn’t deal with dental issues. I had no clue.

I wasn’t cut out for this shit.

Clutching at straws, I asked, “Has Fiona given you anything for your teeth—fangs—before?”

“No,” she said firmly. Giving me nothing else.

“Right.” Typical that this had to happen the one time I was in charge. My life was a comedy show, I swore. “Well, I have nothing to give you. Can you wait until the healer returns? She’ll be?—”

Na’lor shook her head. “Pain bad. Cannot sleep.”

Well, shit.

I mean, I sympathized. Toothache was a bitch, and I knew Ly’zrd as a species were hard as nails—and proud, to boot—so it had probably taken a lot for her to come to me.

Didn’t mean I was any less fucked, though.

“Okay, um, come back after moonsfall,” I offered, glancing at Fiona’s healer journal, blindly hoping there was some kind of remedy in there. Don’t let me down, doc. “I’ll have a tonic made for you.”

She stared at me a moment before nodding and heading out of the tent. I let a huge breath blow past my lips, my whole top half sagging onto the table. Relief was premature, I knew, but sending her away gave me a few hours to figure out a solution. Whether I found a cure to her issue, or a way to tide her over until Fiona’s return tomorrow, I didn’t care. At this point, I just needed something.

Straightening up, I sighed and tugged the thick leather-bound book toward me to begin flipping through the pages. It was chock full of pencil drawings of different herbs, flowers, and plants. There were even some dried samples, with detailed descriptions, explanations of their uses, and methods for making various potions. There were some ingredients that had no known usage, and others with an underlined POISONOUS beside them. No pressure.

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