“I do.” His throat bobbed with a swallow. His voice sounded rougher than usual. “I fly over their school to and from work, even though it’s not on the way. It takes me an extra hour each day, but I often catch a glimpse of them doing their exercise in the morning or playing in the evening.”
“When is your next visit with them?”
“This weekend.” He cleared his throat, his tone lifting. “Five days from now.”
I thought back to when he’d told me their full names.
“Olvar Shula Kyradus and Zun Shula Kyradus.”
Both had Shula in them.
“Is it customary to have the mother’s name as a child’s middle name in Voran?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Is Shula, the Governor’s wife, the mother of your children, then?”
There could very well be more than one Shula in the City of Voran, but somehow, I already knew that it was her.
“Yes.”
On the way back from the Governor’s Palace, the Colonel had asked me what Shula and I had been talking about at the ball, and I’d given him a very general reply.
I believed he’d heard me lying about our non-existent sex life to her, and I was afraid he’d bring it up if I told him about Shula’s comments. Frankly, I also felt embarrassed for her, and had no desire to repeat her words to him or anyone else.
Now, everything had come together.
“Let me guess.” I drew in a long breath. “Your sons were not conceived by artificial insemination?”
“No. Shula and I used to be lovers.”
My heart squeezed with a sudden ache. Why would the Colonel’s history with another woman bother me? None of it was my business. It did not concern me at all.
“Was she the Governor’s wife already?” I couldn’t stop myself, needing to know more. All of it. “When you...”
“Of course not,” he glared at me, indignantly. “Drustan has been my friend since the academy. I would’ve never had sex with Shula had she been his wife already. In fact, I met her first.”
“You did?”
His chest rose as he inhaled deeply. “I was the one who introduced her to him.”
“So, the Governor ended up stealing your woman?” I blurted out.
Having met Shula, I wondered if the Colonel actually got lucky by dodging that bullet. But if he was still hurting over her... Compassion for him stirred inside me.
“There was no stealing.” The Colonel shook his head. “Drustan went about it in a fair, honest way—that’s why we’re still friends. He proposed to Shula the same year I did. She chose him.”
“Why?”
I found Governor Drustan pleasant enough, but I remembered how Shula had gazed at the Colonel at the ball, with longing and maybe even some regret.
“It was nearly six years ago, Daisy. I was an Army Captain, about to be shipped off to a war I might not return from. Drustan was a rising-star politician, with brilliant career prospects ahead of him. Shula made her choice.”
“I bet she’s regretting it, now that you’re still very much alive and the Colonel of the Army to boot,” I said, not without a hint of schadenfreude.
“Shula is happy with Drustan,” he replied firmly. “As his wife, she is the highest-placed woman in Voran. He has given her everything she’s ever wanted and more.”
“If you say so.”
Why would she eye someone else’s husband with so much longing, then? If she got everything she’d ever wanted from her own?
I didn’t tell that to him, of course. Instead, I searched for something else to say to him, something that would preferably make him forget all about that woman. Only, there was no forgetting her. She was the mother of his children, who had refused to be his wife.
“I’m sorry, Colonel.”
“Don’t be. It’s absolutely normal in Voran,” he said calmly. “Shula got eleven marriage proposals that year, including Drustan’s and mine. No matter whom she chose, ten men had to be rejected. An average Voranian man proposes many times during his lifetime and is still likely to remain single at the end.”
“How many times have you proposed?”
He glanced out the window again.
“Once was enough for me.”
Not sure what else to say to cheer him up at this point, I silently reached over and took his hand in mine. His holding my hand earlier had been nice and comforting. I hoped he’d feel my support for him now, too.
THE COMMITTEE MEETING turned out to be more boring and less stressful than I’d anticipated.
The Colonel held my hand as a doting husband would. I batted my eyelashes at him, convincing both humans and Voranians that we had been getting along splendidly.
I tried not to overdo it, though, since merely three weeks from now, the Colonel and I would be coming to the very same building to petition the same group of people to dissolve our marriage and take me back to Earth. With the Colonel’s support, however, I believed it would be possible to make it happen.
The rest of the week went fairly smoothly. The Colonel and I had fallen into a routine that seemed to work for both of us. He left for work while I was still in bed. I spent the day exploring Omni’s entertainment library—updated and much expanded through the efforts of Lievoa, who’d send me copious amounts of interesting pictures, fun shows, and useful documentaries on Voranian life. I also learned from Omni the Aldraian technique of taking care of plants. The dwellers of the nearby planet, Aldrai, were considered the top experts in horticulture in this part of the Galaxy. I’d learned that Aldraians literally lived in their gardens—they built no houses.
Whenever I could, I also continued experimenting with baking in the kitchen. The Colonel was still refusing to let me leave the house on my own, which irked me immensely. I couldn’t order all the ingredients through Omni. It was impossible to determine what I needed without me being able to touch, taste, and smell things to figure out what I could substitute with them in my recipes.
He stubbornly refused to understand that, which resulted in a few more blow-outs between us. This man could get my blood boiling by hardly saying anything at all.
Thankfully, he had been making visible efforts to control his temper, which I appreciated, and I tried to watch my own moods in return. That had made our arguments shorter, less explosive, and less upsetting for both of us.
The upcoming weekend, the Colonel was going to be off work, so he arranged to spend one entire day at the Military Academy with the twins.
The day before that, the two of us had dinner in his gorgeous dining room.
“What is this?” I stared at the deep bowl Omni had placed in front of me as soon as I’d taken my seat.
About a dozen gray leech-like worms swarmed in the black water inside the bowl, making my stomach roil.
“They are called recols, Madam Kyradus.”
“I felt like celebrating tonight,” the Colonel smiled brightly across the table, an identical bowl stood in front of him.
“Celebrating? With these?” I tried hard not to look at the slimy things stretching and coiling in my bowl. “How? What do you do with them?”
Flush them down the toilet, what I would do.
“You eat them.” The Colonel’s smile grew wider.
“Recols are a rare delicacy from the underwater caves of Aldrai,” Omni declared. I could have sworn I heard a note of delight in his mechanical voice, too. “Extremely difficult to catch and astronomically expensive.”
“The expense is worth it.” The Colonel appeared to be in an exceptionally good mood tonight, and I believed it had everything to do with him looking forward to seeing his kids tomorrow.
I understood his desire to celebrate that. But worms?
Why worms?
“Enjoy.” He fished one out of the bowl with his fingers. The thing stretched and curled its soft body around one of the Colonel’s claws as he lifted it to his mouth.
“Oh God...” I stared at him in shock. “You’re not g
oing to...”
My stomach lurched as he put the pale leech-thing into his mouth. Shoving the chair away from the table, I dashed for the closest washroom.
“Daisy?” The Colonel’s hooves thundered against the tiled floor as he rushed after me.
I managed to shut the bathroom door in his face, dropping to my knees in front of the toilet before my stomach emptied itself into it.
“God, this was nasty,” I groaned, trying to get the image of the worm wiggling in the Colonel’s fingers out of my head.
“Daisy!” He slammed something heavy against the bathroom door—his fist or possibly his hoof, maybe both.
“Just...give me a minute.” I rinsed my mouth then washed my face.
“Are you okay?” he called from behind the door. “Tell me or I’m breaking in!”
“Fine. I’m fine.” I drank some water from the tap then opened the door, finally feeling ready to face him again.
“Daisy.” He grabbed me by my upper arms, staring at my face intently. “What happened? Are you ill?” He slid his hands up, cupping my face. “You look more colorless than usual.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at the way he put it.
The fur on the back of his hands softly tickled the base of my neck as he inspected my face. The concern in his eyes was genuine, and I liked that way too much—he truly cared. “I’m good, now, I promise.”
My smile eased the worry on his face.
“Was something wrong with the recols?” he asked.
Was anything right about those things? Even their name reminded me of the word “recoil.” How fitting.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to spoil your celebration, but I don’t think I can ever eat those... I would prefer not to watch you eat them, either.” A shudder ran through my entire body. “Please?”
He dropped his hands from my face to my shoulders but didn’t remove them from me, and I liked that more than I should have. I loved the feel of his warm, large hands on me.
“Earthlings don’t have foods like that?” he asked.
“Oh God, no!” I shook my head quickly, then thought about it more carefully. “Well, there are fried crickets, but they would be already dead when you eat them. Lobsters are boiled alive, which is kind of icky when you think about it. Oh, and raw oysters. Some find those really gross... They’re alive when you eat them, but they don’t wiggle.”
“So, the recols’ moving was what upset you?”
I touched his hand on my shoulder, stroking his short fur on it the way I used to pet my cat. It felt similarly comforting.
“I think it’s the whole package, to be honest—their shape, their color, and yes, their wiggling too.”
“I didn’t order the recols to upset you,” he explained, and I believed him. “I didn’t expect you to react this way.”
“I understand. Promise not to hold it against you.” I smiled again.
I wasn’t upset with him, not at all, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near those things again.
He stared at me for a brief moment, his intense gaze lingering on my smiling lips.
“Come, we’ll eat something else.” Finally taking his hands off me, he stepped back, and I leaned after him involuntarily, as if drawn by some gravitational field toward him. “I want us to have dinner together.”
“Sure. As long as it’s something less wiggly, please.” I followed him back to the dining room.
The bowls with the slimy creatures had been thankfully removed from the table. The usual checkered trays stood in their place.
“I’m sorry. You said those things were expensive,” I said. “I hope they don’t go to waste.”
He huffed a laugh. “Don’t worry. I’ll have a most decadent lunch at work, next week. The entire office will be drooling.”
“Are they really such a delicacy?”
He lifted an eyebrow, giving me a lop-sided grin. “Insanely self-indulgent.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t appreciate that.”
“Stop apologizing.” He shrugged, tossing a piece of meat into his mouth. “I’m sure there would be more than one thing I’d find repulsive about Earth, too.”
“Well, all those human toes, for one!” I laughed and he joined me.
“Toes aren’t that bad.” He shook his head. “I could absolutely get used to seeing them.”
I crossed my feet in pale-pink ballet flats under the table.
“Does it mean I can start running barefoot around here?” I teased.
“Um.” His beard hid his smile, but I noticed the merry glimmer in his eyes. “Let’s just start with sandals first.”
“I have some peep-toe pumps in the closet.” I giggled. “I can start by displaying one toe at a time.”
Despite its rough beginning, this dinner turned out to be the best I’d had in the Colonel’s house so far. It was most likely because of his better mood due to the upcoming visit with his children.
“Colonel, would it be okay if I came to see the boys with you, tomorrow?” I asked before giving myself any time to think it through.
The path of my words from first occurring in my brain to leaving my mouth had always been exceptionally short, which had cost me some rather embarrassing moments in the past. I had no right to demand to meet his family—I was leaving him in a couple of weeks. But he seemed relaxed tonight and more approachable than ever before, and I couldn’t help it.
“You want to meet my sons?” he asked, his expression turning serious.
“Yes,” I replied earnestly. “I’d love to. If you don’t mind.”
The twins were a big part of my reasons for coming to Neron. It would be incredibly sad to leave here without meeting them at all.
He seemed to consider it for a moment.
“We’ll have them for about seven hours,” he said, “from after breakfast until before dinner.”
“So, I can come?” I perked up, my chest quickly filling with excitement ready to burst out.
“If it’ll make you happy—”
“Oh, it will!” I jumped out of my chair and rushed to his side of the table. “Thank you!” I threw my arms around his neck impulsively.
With the Colonel sitting down, his head ended up pressed to my chest when I hugged him—his horns rising right in front of my face, his cheek squished into my breasts.
The strained sound of him clearing his throat brought me back to my senses, and I quickly released him from my hug.
“Um...” I scratched my ear, awkwardly retreating to my seat.
The lingering sensation of his beard stuffed into my cleavage rippled with awareness along my skin. I rubbed my chest, and he followed my gesture with his vivid red eyes.
What was it that we had been talking about? I had a hard time collecting my thoughts.
Of course, his children, for goodness sake!
“So, um... Will we be allowed to take the boys off the school property?”
He blinked, raising a hand to his cheek, the one that had just been shoved between my breasts. He then jerked his hand back quickly. “Yes. Where would you like to go?”
I thought back to my babysitting days. This time of the year, kids loved to play in the snow, and we had plenty of it in Voran after the recent snowfall. I wondered if Voranians built snowmen, or knew how to make snow angels.
“Do the boys have warm clothes, to go outside?” I asked.
“Why?”
“I thought we could take them to an outdoor park somewhere. Do you have outdoor places, where children can run and play freely? We all could play in the snow for a little bit. Or do Voranians never go outside of their glass domes?”
“We do. We go outside in the summer, all the time,” the Colonel assured me.
“How about in the winter?”
“Only if we have to. The Military Academy has outdoor training on the curriculum. I’ve gone through many outdoor survival courses, in all conditions—”
“Oh, but the outdoors can be enjoyed, not just survived.” I clutched my hands at
my chest. “Even if you don’t do any winter sports, snow can be so much fun.”
He stared at me for a moment, with a hint of a smile hiding in the depths of his beard.
“Fine,” he repeated my favorite word. “Let’s go outside.”
Chapter 11
I BOUNCED ON THE HEELS of my fur-trimmed boots, standing on the grass-covered roof of the main building of The Military Academy. It was warm here, under the giant dome, but a fluffy winter coat was waiting for me in the Colonel’s aircraft, along with a scruffy fur coat for him and the kids’ winter clothes.
“Where are they?” I muttered impatiently. “How much longer?”
As a part of the large group of parents—mostly dads—the Colonel and I lined up along the entire circumference of the roof area, waiting for the children to be released to us.
“What’s taking them so long?” I asked impatiently, doing my best to ignore the stares of the fathers and the staff alike.
As one of a handful of women under the dome and the only human, I attracted a lot of attention. The ogling would make me uncomfortable had it not been for the anticipation of meeting the two little guys soon. It kept my focus off the crowd and their scrutiny.
“Soon.” The Colonel patted my arm in a calming gesture. “They have a number of protocols to follow before the children can be released.” He shifted his weight to his other hoof. “May I request something from you?”
“Sure. What is it?” I glanced at him.
His expression, even more serious than usual, made me pause.
“I prefer not to introduce you to my children as my wife,” he said. “I don’t want them to know that we’re married.”
I had no plans to tell them that anyway, of course, but something inside me deflated at his request. As if a piece of my excitement had chipped away with this reminder of how things really were between us.
“But wouldn’t the children know that already?” The entire country knew.
“According to the rules of The Ministry of Children’s Education and Wellbeing, all family news is to be delivered to students by close family members, unless instructed otherwise.”
“And you have never told them?” It’d been months since he’d learned about me.
Married to Krampus (My Holiday Tails) Page 10
