Page 30 of The Marriage Bargain

Perhaps it is possible, I thought.

We reached the bottom of the trail. The rough patch over, I released her fingers and she allowed them to slide out of my hand.

Instantly, I missed their warmth. Missed the feel of her skin against mine.

“So, I guess I’ll go home and clean up, and—and prep Zyn and Tarra with the news, then…meet you over at your office?” Delle said. “So we can get this thing taken care of.”

Get this thing taken care of.

This. Thing. Taken care of.

This thing. Our wedding.

“Meet me in the parking lot outside the Officials’ wing of the Castle,” I suggested instead, proceeding to offer her directions. “I will go to the Citadel and make arrangements for someone to perform the ceremony right away.”

Despite the darkness, I thought I saw her face blanche, but she didn’t run or flee or change her mind.

“Would you rather I go with you to break the news to your sister and Zyn?” I offered. I could not imagine that would be an easy conversation.

Delle considered it briefly, then shook her head. “No. No, I’m a big girl. I can do it. They’re going to be shocked, but I doubt they’ll flip out or anything. After all, Zyn likes you and Tarra—well, Tarra will want me to do what’s best for me.”

“If you are certain…” I said, and left the matter at that.

With nothing further to be said, we parted ways there in the small parking lot at the base of the waterfall trail we’d descended. She went to her truck and I to my transporter. All the way back to the Citadel I kept playing and re-playing the conversation, the situation, in my mind. Was I making the right decision? I didn’t see any other choice, either for Delle or for me, given the circumstances. I should have been afraid, or at least apprehensive, to take her as my wife. Strangely, I was not. Not in the least. Intermixed with the concern over making a mistake, was a strange sort of excitement. My life was about to change. Irrevocably change. I would be free to remain on Earth. In fact, I had little to no choice except to remain on Earth after I married Delle. But I felt no concern over that. Yes, I would be able to visit my home planet, if I desired, but there would be no returning to establish a life there.

My life was here now, on a planet populated by humans, lightyears away from where I’d been born. Because of a human woman and a marriage bargain.

I had never foreseen this coming.

I passed through the gates of the Citadel with no issue, returned to my housing where I parked the transporter and got out. Housing for mid-ranking Overlords like me was rows of apartments, as the Earthlings called them—simple houses stacked one on top another. A far cry from my father’s marble palace on Asterion, but that was his and this was mine. I’d earned it by my own labor and willingness to work.

Father would never approve, I thought with a smile as I went inside to change my clothing and clean up.

He had been aghast a decade ago when, at a mere sixteen years of age, I had left the pretentious boarding school he so grudgingly paid for to apprentice myself to my maternal uncle, a master builder leading a busy construction crew. My mother, who had once cleaned Father’s palace, then shared his bed as his mistress, had suggested the idea, realizing and accepting that a scholar’s life did not suit me. Her oldest brother, my uncle, had worked his way into a prime position as a builder—what if I were to pursue a career with him?

Leaving school, choosing an apprenticeship, had angered my father, more because of the embarrassment than that he truly cared what I did with my life. Frankly? As a rebellious youth, eager to earn his notice at any cost, that had been part of the appeal. These days, a decade later, I gave no thought to Father’s opinion. My own hard work and my uncle’s guidance had seen me rise to the top of my profession. And when there came an opening three years ago for my uncle’s job, but on our colony planet, Earth, I had leapt at the chance. My uncle’s reputation and his endorsement were enough to send me sailing among the stars, headed for a new home.

The loss of my mother, two years earlier, had left me with the realization that Asterion held nothing for me anymore.

Earth?

I considered my life here, and the human female I intended to marry as I glanced around my assigned house. Earth might give me everything I had ever dreamt of—minus my father’s approval. But I’d long ago made peace with lacking that.

Studying my home, I wondered what Delle would think of it. Too late to make any changes tonight. It was plain and simple, the colors of the furniture dark and the walls a quiet cream. Nothing pretentious or ostentatious. That had never been my taste. When I stepped into my bedroom for a change of clothing, my attention fell on my bed. It was large enough for two, and I hadn’t made it this morning. The sheets and blankets were rumpled. Instantly, into my mind’s eye flashed images of that same bed with rumpled bedding, and Delle and I lying in it naked and intertwined.

I groaned and turned away, grabbing onto the doorframe and breathing down the fierce flash of desire that consumed my body.

Stop this, I told myself. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won’t. Probably not, at least for a time. You can’t frighten her. You cannot push her too hard.

In my mind, I was suddenly pushing very hard and in a very different way, but, again, I shoved those images aside and forced my brain to become blank.

Only if she desires it too, I reminded myself. Maybe she will. Maybe she will not. It’s her choice.

It was definitely her choice, but, the mere idea of having her here under my roof, potentially in my bed, certainly made me hope she would make a choice that would be beneficial to us both.

At least as far as quieting my raging desires went.

CHAPTER 18

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