“I was just trying this on,” I explained, shaking my head. “I had no intentions to...”
A dark shadow moved over his face as he came closer, hovering over me.
“You are my wife. There can never be another man,” he growled.
“There isn’t...” I blinked, lost for words.
What “man” was he talking about? Why?
“Ever!” he shouted, punching his fist into the mirror behind me.
It shattered, shards raining from the dresser to the floor.
I cried out in shock. And he stepped away from me, finally allowing me to draw in some air not saturated with his scent and his heat.
He slid his stare from my face down the entire length of my body. His gaze felt smooth and hot against my skin, like the lick of a tongue. I exhaled a shuddering breath, immediately realizing that it made my breasts heave in some probably enticing fashion. I quickly crossed both arms over my chest.
“You’re a young, hot-blooded woman,” he gritted through his teeth, staring straight into my eyes, now. “Sooner or later you will want a man to fuck you. Then you’ll beg me for it.”
He spun on his hooves and headed for the door.
“And it can only be me!” he roared over his shoulder, slamming his fist against the door on his way out.
Then, I was left alone, hot and trembling.
Chapter 5
I ALLOWED AWARENESS to return fully before opening my eyes the next morning. I lay in the huge, comfy bed in the middle of the fairy-tale bedroom. The bright morning sun flooded the entire room, leaving me in lacy shade from the flowery canopy.
“Such a beautiful place,” I mumbled, stretching to shake the remnants of sleep off. “Too bad it belongs to such a...” I searched my brain for a word that would best describe the Colonel. My gaze fell on my purse with the Christmas ornament. It’d been left on the night table by Omni last night. “Krampus!” I found the perfect word for that man. “He is a freaking embodiment of Krampus. And it’s not just his looks.”
It was a good thing Omni hadn’t put the purse on the dresser last night or it would’ve been destroyed along with the mirror. I grabbed the purse and opened it to make sure the ornament had survived.
The familiar golden designs on the delicate, red-glass sphere glistened in the sunlight. The sight of them brought so many happy memories of our family celebrations. Lately, they always came with a hint of sadness since Grandma was gone. Christmas wasn’t the same without her.
Grandma was the one who had told me about Krampus long ago. She hadn’t been trying to scare me. She told me the Krampus story as a part of all the different ways that Christmas had been celebrated by people around the world.
Never, in a million years would I have thought I’d get a chance to spend Christmas with a typical Krampus one year. It was still over two months before Christmas, however, and there was no way I could stay here another night after what had happened.
I didn’t feel safe in this house. After the Colonel had barged into my room last night, I could hardly sleep. I was too flustered and agitated to even cry myself to sleep. The look on his face as he lunged for me from the door still sent a rush of goosebumps down my arms.
I glanced at the side table I’d moved in front of the doors last night. Barricading them didn’t do much since they were sliding doors, but it had calmed me down enough for the sleep to finally claim me. The night table was still there, as was the dresser next to it, littered with mirror shards.
“Omni...” I called hesitantly, afraid to make any sound that might send the Colonel my way again.
The frame on a stick rolled out of the closet.
“Good morning, Madam Kyradus.”
I winced at his name again. That had to be fixed as soon as possible.
The doors slid open, and I leaped up in bed. Grabbing the bed sheet, I quickly covered myself up to my chin, even though I’d slept in my own nightshirt not that diaphanous excuse for a cloth.
To my relief, instead of the Colonel, a chubby drone flew in. It then started promptly cleaning up the shards of glass from the dresser and around it.
“I’m sorry for the mess.” I felt the need to apologize, though it was hardly my fault the mirror was broken.
“This is nothing to worry about,” Omni assured me in a cheerful voice. “Your breakfast,” he announced as another drone, with a tray on top of it flew in.
Breakfast in bed was a great idea. The later I had to face the Colonel, the better.
“Where is...he?” I asked.
“I assume you mean the Colonel Kyradus, Madam?”
I nodded, taking a cup of warm, bitter-sweet tea from the tray that had been placed in my lap. I had hardly eaten anything for dinner. The ravenous hunger had returned at the sight of the food on the tray, and I quickly stuffed my face with the small, round pastries that tasted like sweetened packs of clay.
“The Colonel Kyradus has left for work already,” Omni informed me. “He wakes up at six. His work hours start at eight.”
“Oh, he is gone. Good.” Tension drained out of me at the news, my shoulders dropped with relief. I picked up a piece of fruit from the tray, it was the same size and shape as the pastries but purple in color with blue and pink swirls through it. “Did he, um, say anything?” I bit into the fruit, the thick sweet-and-sour juice coating my tongue.
“Yes, the Colonel said you’re free to explore the house as you please. He will see you at dinner.”
I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him at all. But dinner still seemed far away. I had a whole day to myself, enough time to figure out what to do about this situation that I’d found myself in.
First, I had to call Nancy from the Liaison Committee. I couldn’t wait a week until my scheduled meeting while staying here, in his house where apparently no room was safe from a late-night invasion.
More drones flew in. A few of them moved the night stand back in its place. The others disappeared behind the latticed planter to the left of the bed. When they flew out, they were carrying hangers with gray army coats and white shirts.
“What are those?” I watched the drones on their way out of the room.
“Colonel Kyradus’s clothes,” Omni explained. “He left the instructions for me to move them to the spare bedroom upstairs.”
“What are his clothes doing in my bedroom?”
“This is the Colonel’s bedroom, too. It has always been.”
I set the half-eaten fruit down on the plate.
“You showed this room to me as mine last night.”
“As the Colonel’s wife, you are to share your husband’s bed. From the information we’ve received about Earth and your country, this is the tradition in your culture, also.”
“Yes, but...”
I thought back to the Colonel coming in here last night. He’d appeared calm when he’d first entered. A moment later, he’d caught the sight of my practically naked body and...well, all hell broke loose.
If this was his bedroom, the Colonel hadn’t barged in with the intention to assault me. He simply was coming to bed last night. Then, he found his new “wife” dressed in hardly anything, twirling in front of the mirror...
I rubbed my face.
To the Colonel, it must’ve looked like I’d been waiting for him in his bedroom. I’d even changed into something sexy, as if just for him. He didn’t know that for me, sex couldn’t happen without forming a true connection first.
“Oh God,” I groaned.
That had been the most awkward misunderstanding. Of course, the Colonel’s tendency of acting without clarifying things first didn’t help, but he wasn’t a predator as I’d feared he was.
“You should’ve told me it was his bedroom, too,” I reprimanded Omni. “Where did he end up sleeping, then? In the spare bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to put him out.” Setting the tray aside, I jumped out of bed. “I should be the one taking the spare bedroom.”
“Th
e Colonel’s instructions were to let you keep this one.”
“And his orders override mine?” I asked.
“Yes.”
That didn’t surprise me.
“Fine.”
I moved to the closet, thinking about what to do next. I’d promised to call Nancy this morning, and I needed to tell her that all was well, for now anyway.
Now, that I no longer felt in immediate danger, I’d decided not to speak to the Committee about last night, for the time being. At least not until I’d spoken to the Colonel first.
He and I needed to have a frank discussion. I wanted him to explain his expectations of me. And I needed him to listen to what I hoped to have in a marriage. I didn’t want to give up on my dream of building a happy life in Voran after less than a day spent in the house of my “potential spouse.” However, I didn’t know how long I should be trying to pursue this dream if the reality was so very different from that.
So far, the Colonel in person had proven to be even more terrifying than his picture, and it had more to do with his attitude than his looks.
What if getting to know him better only made it worse?
I would’ve liked to chat about everything with my mom or my sister, but they were far away. I could only write to them once a week, and a lot could change in seven days.
“Can I make a call?”
“Interplanetary calls to your family are only possible from the headquarters of the Liaison Committee,” Omni reminded.
“Yes, I know. But I’m supposed to call someone from the Committee.” Nancy was largely still a stranger to me. However, since I’d promised to call, I should at least let her know that I was doing fine. I’d told her I would be, after all. “Or did the Colonel forbid me any calls at all?”
“No, you can call the Committee any time you wish. Would you like me to connect you?”
“Just, wait a moment. I’ll make myself decent first.”
I took a few seconds to browse the collection of the dresses in my closet. With tailored bodices and flared skirts, they all were my preferred style and cut. Judging by the pictures I’d seen, all of them were done in the latest fashion of Voran. Their pretty trim, gorgeous prints, and cheerful colors made me smile. The section of floor-length evening gowns was especially glamourous.
In the end, I chose to wear one of my own dresses. The familiar feel of its cut and the red-and-white checkered fabric made me feel comfortable, which was important as I was certainly out of my element in the Colonel’s house.
After the quick call with Nancy to assure her I was alive and well, I came downstairs.
My thoughts rushed to last night’s dinner and to what happened afterwards. Then I remembered what Omni said about the purpose of my rich wardrobe and that I would be required to accompany the Colonel to “high-profile public events.”
If what the Colonel really wanted from a wife was just a glorified escort to take to balls and galas then fucking her against a dresser afterwards, then maybe we should just talk about dissolving our contract sooner rather than later. This wouldn’t be the life I’d hoped for or wished to have.
Sadness filled me at the thought of going back to Earth with nothing but another failure under my belt.
I wandered through his grand, beautiful home. Its cheerful and elegant atmosphere clashed with what I’d learned about its owner so far.
“What’s there?” I asked Omni, pointing at the smaller staircase that led down from the main floor.
“On the lower level, the Colonel Kyradus has his exercise room.”
“Does it take up the entire floor?”
“Most of it. There are also bathrooms and changing areas.”
I quickly ran downstairs, just to see it for myself. Instead of the gym I’d expected to find, the lower floor was a large, empty space. It had lovely wooden floors, the ceiling of average height, and walls made entirely of glass. The bright sunshine flooded a good half of the room.
“How does he exercise in here?” I asked Omni. His frame remained upstairs, but one of his drones flew down with me. “There’s no equipment.”
“The Colonel prefers sparring,” Omni’s voice came through the drone.
“With whom?”
“A number of my units have combat programs. Stay on the stairs, please. I’ll show you.”
The floor suddenly broke into large rectangles. Flipping over to their other side, they instantly turned the entire floor into a gym mat made of padded, dark purple leather.
“That’s neat.” I clicked my tongue in appreciation.
A whirring sound came from behind the stairs, then two weirdly shaped robots rolled into view. One appeared closer to a humanoid, with a pair of horns on its head, another looked very much like a large bean bag.
“They can fight each other,” Omni said.
The next moment, the bean bag rolled to the horned one. Thin wires sprang out of the bean bag, forcing the humanoid robot to block their lashing.
“Or they could serve as sparring partners to someone else.”
“Like the Colonel?” I watched the two robots go at each other. Their punches packed some real power and their aim was impeccable. Personally, I wouldn’t want to fight one of them. They might have different settings, but I doubted the Colonel trained with them in “gentle mode,” even if there was one.
Out of the entire house, this room suited the owner’s personality the best—masculine and minimalistic, with a sense of barely concealed danger.
The brutal kind of energy that the Colonel radiated scared me. Even if there was no need for me to barricade my door from him every night, I felt unsettled and flustered just thinking about being in his company.
“There can never be another man.”
I scoffed at his words from the previous night.
Who did he think I was that I needed that type of warning? Like I’d get so horny, I’d run searching for a random guy, one day?
“Then you’ll beg me for it.”
Really? Obviously, I could control my urges much better than he could.
The memory of the storm of lust in his otherworldly eyes rushed over me. The skin on my arms puckered with goosebumps again, only I wasn’t sure whether those were from fear or from...something else, this time.
I rubbed my bare arms, chasing away the phantom sensation of the soft caress of his fur against my naked skin.
“We shall go back.” I turned up the stairs.
When I wandered into the Colonel’s spacious kitchen, an itching desire to use it took over.
My Grandma had taught me to “look for pink when things were blue.” She believed there was always a spark of sunny pink in any situation, no matter how grim. Just because my hopes and dreams didn’t come true on Neron, it didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy at least some of what the City of Voran had to offer.
“Can I go to a store or a market, to buy a few things?” I asked Omni, sliding my hand along a glass counter top on one side of the kitchen.
“No. The Colonel did not allow for travel outside of his dwelling for you.”
“Of course he didn’t...” I huffed, forcing a spark of irritation down. “Well, then maybe you could help me get the ingredients? I’d love to bake something.”
“Bake? I have access to over a thousand recipes. If you tell me what you want, I’ll make it for you in minutes.”
“Oh, but what’s the fun in that?” I waved him off, moving to the mint-green, round stove in the middle of the kitchen. Two segments of glass countertop flanked it on both sides. “I’d love to make something myself.”
“All right. How would you like me to assist you?”
“Can you teach me how this works?” I pointed at the stove with what appeared to be a large oven compartment underneath. “But before that, we’ll need to go through whatever the Colonel has in his pantry and figure out what I can use for the ingredients.”
“What are you planning to make?”
“Cupcakes.” I raised my chin with a smile.
“With pink frosting.”
Chapter 6
FINDING THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS for my cupcakes hadn’t proven easy. Omni and I started the process before lunch. It was late afternoon already, and we were still sorting through the contents of the Colonel’s pantry, which occupied a spacious room just off the kitchen.
I had rows upon rows of cups filled with different powders lined up on the kitchen counter. My notebook in my lap, I was perched on a barstool, writing down English ingredients with the corresponding Voranian substitutes.
The huge bronze-colored metal sink was filled with dirty dishes from my experiments to determine the qualities and the necessary quantities of each powder. Omni’s frame was hovering nearby, displaying pictures and Voranian names of the different flours and spices.
“Well, I think I could try again, using this one here as the rising agent and this one instead of vanilla...” I mumbled to myself, making notes in my book.
Absorbed in my work, I didn’t hear the sound of the hooves hitting the tiled floor of the main room right away. When it registered, alarm spiked through my chest.
“The Colonel is home?” I jumped off my seat by the counter.
I knew I needed to talk to him. At the same time, I desperately wanted to avoid facing him.
The sky beyond the dome above us had changed into sunset colors already. Omni must have increased the lighting in the kitchen gradually without me noticing that the day had been slipping by. I had lost track of time and felt flustered and unprepared for the upcoming conversation.
Maybe, the Colonel would just go straight to the dining room, like he did last night? Then I could sneak upstairs quietly and pretend I went to bed early?
No such luck.
“What is all this?” The Colonel suddenly stood in the entrance of the kitchen, surveying the mess I’d made of his property.
“I—I was just trying to make some cupcakes,” I replied sheepishly, realizing I’d spent the entire day on something that would normally take me an hour or less, and I had not a single cupcake to show for it. Not to mention that no one had asked me to bake anything in the first place. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up right away...”
Married to Krampus (My Holiday Tails) Page 5
