Gemma laughed, husky and soft, at something Yeeda said. I didn’t care much for steam cakes. I thought the sweetness was sickening, but I had forced one down my throat when my wife had handed me one, watching her smile widen as I did.

Since when did it please me to see her pleased?

I frowned, my hand tightening on Gemma’s arm. She cast me a long look, and Yeeda’s words finally tapered off.

“Forgive us, kya,” I murmured to Yeeda. I watched a pleasurable flush darken her cheeks black at the word. A word of respect for a female acquaintance, considered formal but proper. Yeeda shot Ludayn a pleased look, a secretive smile aimed at her daughter that seemed to embarrass Ludayn. I gave the elder female a smile to soften my interruption. “We must make our rounds.”

“Of course, Kyzaire,” Yeeda breathed. Her face had a streak of powdered yellow grain from her baking. She wiped her hands on the cloth tucked into the waist of her pants. “Forgive me for keeping you. My Ludayn says I can keep myself company by how much I talk.”

Even though it was early, there was a line outside Yeeda’s door. A line that had parted me—for us—as Gemma and I had drawn near. Whispers and stares and excited smiles at seeing the new Kylaira of Laras first. Envious stares too, especially from some of the daughters of noble houses, females I’d recognized from the harvest balls and the dinners my mother had often hosted at the keep.

I’d recognized the bulging eyes of realization as we’d walked through the village too. The knowledge that I was in the grip of the blood madness. That my wife was my kyrana. They’d likely assumed that that was why I’d married her—this unknown human female who had seemed to fall out of the sky. It made sense to them now as expressions of knowing, of understanding passed us by.

The line behind us had seemed pleased enough to wait. To eavesdrop on Gemma and Yeeda’s conversation. They would report to their friends and family that the Kylaira had a quiet laugh, that she loved steam cakes, and that the Kyzaire was feeding from her regularly and wasn’t healing the marks he left behind. I would likely find baskets full of steam cakes placed as gifts at our gates come morning. Zaale would grumble as he brought them inside, his distaste at the clutter left at the gates evident. Yeeda would be busy with all the orders from the noble families, all clamoring to meet the new Kylaira, the blood mate to the heir of the Kaalium, to get in her good graces and gain favor among the House.

“Don’t you like them?” Gemma asked as I pulled her from Yeeda’s shop. Ludayn fell back into step behind us, though a respectable distance away so that she couldn’t hear our quiet conversation. I watched as my wife licked her fingers, her pink tongue flicking out to catch a stray crumb from the pillowy cake in her hand, as my cock tightened in my pants.

“No,” I replied. “I hate steam cakes. I have since I was a child.”

Gemma blinked and then laughed. Louder than I’d ever heard her laugh before, stopping nearby Kylorr in their path.

“Then why did you eat one in the shop?” she asked, her smile wide. Wide enough that I rubbed at my chest, feeling a strange flicker there underneath the bone.

Because you wanted me to, I thought.

“I didn’t want to offend Yeeda, now did I?” I grumbled instead.

“Oh, I don’t think you could have,” she murmured. “You were perfectly charming. She nearly swooned at your feet.” She lifted her nose into the air, catching a scent on the breeze. And here, I’d thought that humans had terribly dull senses. “What’s that?”

I smirked. “Blood cake skewers. Mixed with meat and innards.”

She wrinkled her nose, but I was already dragging her to the stall. Smaller than Yeeda’s shop, it was a tiny little cart perched on the corner of a busy road, though it was still early. The vendor—a Bartu male, not a Kylorr, with a long beak-like mouth—gaped at me.

“Kyzaire. Kylaira. It is the highest of honors to feed you from my humble cart,” the Bartu said, his voice accented with the universal tongue, dragging out the z and the s within the words.

“Whatever it is you’re making has proven irresistible to my wife here,” I informed the male, tossing him a smile. “Two skewers, if you will. She cannot wait to try them.”

Gemma jabbed her elbow in my side, but she smiled brightly at the Bartu all the same. Yeeda’s steam cake still hung between her fingertips, and she gulped when she saw the blackened mash, roasted on the sticks, as he presented them with a flourish.

When I tried to pay, the Bartu waved me off, the scales around his neck ruffling, and I decided not to press, in case he found it offensive.

“Thank you very much. They look delicious,” Gemma said, waving back at him as we left. I smirked. Shortly after, I saw a flock of Kylorr flood the poor Bartu’s cart, each clamoring for a skewer of their own.

“You’ll pay for that,” my wife grumbled, though her spirits seemed high enough and she looked to be fighting a smile.

“How?” I pressed. “Will you force feed me the last of your steam cake as punishment?”

She peered down at it, seemed to deliberate doing just that, before she popped it into her own mouth. Around the sticky sweet mess, she said, “No. Wouldn’t want to waste it on you.”

I chuckled. “Eat your skewer, wife.”

She threw me a dark look, but I was surprised when she plucked off the first misshapen blackened ball and popped it into her mouth.

“Oh…” she murmured, the word muffled as she chewed. She held my eyes, defiant and stubborn even now, and I found myself stopping in the middle of the road to watch her. She swallowed. “That’s, um, grainy.”

My lips twitched.

“But good,” she said, her tone triumphant, her eyes shining in the morning sun. Her gloating expression made my cock pulse.

“You like that?” I rumbled.

Her smile slowly died, suddenly realizing how near I’d drawn to her, the way my wings flared subtly behind me.

“Yes,” she answered quietly, tilting her chin up to meet my gaze. Awareness passed between us. I could smell her. Even if she did smell like steam cakes, my venom flooded over my tongue, hungering for her.

“Mmm.”

Over her shoulder, I caught heads poking out of windows and people lingering on the streets to watch us. Now was not the time to get entranced by my wife. Too many eyes were on us.

Gemma seemed to realize this, too, because she took a step back. “Can we go see the lore fields?”

“It’s a long distance out from the main center here. Most fly,” I answered. The purpose was to be seen. To show the Kylaira to the villagers in Laras before the harvest ball so hopefully the worst of the gossip would be behind us then. “But there is a good vantage point from the shrines.”

“The shrines?” she asked frowning.

“I’ll show you,” I told her, though I didn’t know if I would show her our shrine. Showing her somehow felt like a betrayal to Aina, whose own beacon was still lit every single night by myself or Kalia. The ever-present knot in my chest tightened. “Come.”

I ate my skewer with lightning-fast speed, though it did nothing to diminish my hunger, and guided her through the streets, taking the longest possible path. One that led down the Row, as we called it. The noble houses. Descendants of the great families that had worked closely with my own ancestors to create the Kaalium. Families that had stakes in the lore yields as payment for their services and their loyalties.

I took Gemma down the busiest stretch of the village too, a street with shops on both sides, bustling with activity, though most of it stopped at the mere sight of us.

We encountered Kalia there, speaking with a female I knew was decorating the keep for the ball. Neela, her name was, a friend of Kalia’s. She was human with warm golden skin and soft, wavy hair. She’d come to the Kaalium originally as a blood giver, seeking refuge from a nearby colony. Now she helped with the harvest festival and all the other festivals in between and after.