Page 4 of The Marriage Bargain

CHAPTER 4

CAIDE

I knew something was wrong the moment I entered my friend’s home. Even as his younglings came rushing at him, a woman in a coat and hood, dressed to leave, stopped in her tracks and stood there, lips parted, gazing at me. Light danced off the corner of her glasses, but that didn’t hide the shocked sweep of her amazing green eyes. She wasn’t particularly tall, and the bulkiness of her coat couldn’t completely hide the shape of her body—round, full, luscious curves that caught my attention immediately.

This isn’t Zyn’s wife, is it?

That was my first thought.

Don’t let her be his wife.

An instant later, the knowledge registered that, of course, this couldn’t be his wife. His wife was large with child, and this woman clearly was not. Relief swept through me.

I was relieved she wasn’t married. I was relieved she wasn’t carrying another man’s child. I was relieved she wasn’t my human friend’s wife.

She must be the sister-in-law Zyn had casually mentioned more than once. What was her name? I was so taken with her that I couldn’t remember, not until Zyn gestured for me to close the door—which I did—and then said, somewhat sheepishly, “Delle, this is my boss, Caide. Caide, this is my wife’s sister, Delle.”

I knew from the past several years of living on Earth that the human custom for people who’d just met was to step forward and shake hands. So I started to follow the custom, to step forward and lift my arm, oddly gripped with the desire to touch this woman.

The angry flash of her verdant eyes froze me in place. She had no interest in shaking my hand, in touching me in any way. Pure wrath emanated from her face, and her posture, as she rounded on my friend.

“What’s going on, Zyn? Tarra’s been puking her guts up all day, the kids have been wild, cooped up inside because of the cold and snow, I have to leave for work, and you bring home your buddy? To what, go off and play pool in the basement while Tarra throws up? She needs help. She can’t handle the girls alone right now. Not to mention, she needs her medicine. I’m worried about her being dehydrated. Did you pick up her nausea medication?”

I had never seen Zyn confrontational. Rather, he was the sort of human to go out of his way to avoid conflict. He didn’t engage with his wife’s sister now either, running his fingers through his hair, wincing.

“I, uh, I forgot, Delle. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“You forgot?” I was the outsider, hovering in the background, but even I could see the female before me was furious. I didn’t blame Zyn for blinking nervously as he waited for the firestorm about to fall on his head. “How could you forget?” she practically hissed. “She’s your wife, Zyn. Pregnant with your baby. Puking up her guts because of you. How could you—”

“Zyn?”

Mercifully for Zyn, his sister-in-law’s tirade was cut short by a weak voice from the other room.

“Yes, here, hon!” Quickly, my friend set down his young daughters and dashed out of the room, around the hall, saying as he went, “You okay, Tarra? Do you—”

The sound of a closing door.

Zyn’s sister-in-law, Delle, and I were now alone except for the children.

I felt uneasy, as if she might spew the fury she’d been hurling at my friend directly at me. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect of her. Asterion females were not like this. When angry, they were quiet, calm, and cut you to pieces with daggers in their gaze and icy, stinging words. Sometimes they didn’t even need to speak. An Asterion female could slice a male with her gaze alone. Delle’s eyes, on the other hand, were sparking behind her glasses. Her fury made them sparkle like the emerald gemstones the Coalition had mined from this planet. There had been nothing calm or icy about her speech to my friend. It was all fire and lava, like a volcano erupting in the Undulu mountains on my home planet. I felt scorched, and she hadn’t even been angry with me.

“May I ask what you’re doing here?” she inquired. Her tone was slightly cooler. As if she knew better than to anger an Overlord, but couldn’t quite bring herself into proper subservience, either.

Strangely, I admired that.

“Zyn invited me to visit his home for the evening,” I answered, outwardly maintaining my frigid composure, the composure any Asterion nobleman held, although I was merely a bastard and not a true nobleman. Still, I felt the training in maintaining my equanimity was needful here.

“Why would he do that?”

Why? Had it never crossed her mind that her brother-in-law might have a friendship with one of us?

“He said—”

My explanation was interrupted by the ringing of a phone. The human female, Delle, glanced away from me as she stuck her hand in her pocket to pull it out. Turning her back—something an Earthling was not supposed to do to an Overlord—she brought the device to her ear.

“Hello? Yes, you did?” She glanced out the window. Sighed. “I’m not surprised. This weather is horrible. Thanks for letting me know. Call me when you re-open.”

She lowered the device with another sigh, this one more of irritation, punching the button with her thumb to end the conversation.

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