She snorts, raising one eyebrow before examining the fish in my hand.

She does not contradict me, however, and for that alone, triumph fills me.

My wife is considering it—taking me fully as her husband. I cannot wait to complete our mating, even though a small part of me still hears my father’s voice in my head.

That I am not ready for the crown, ready for rule. That I am not enough for Sueva.

How can I be enough for this feisty human female, a leader amongst her people?

I give my head a little shake, as though that will shake loose the negative thoughts rooted deep in my brain.

I don’t want them there. I want her there, I want her to fill my thoughts, her light banishing the darkness threatening there. I want to lose myself in her completely.

She’s a dangerous thing, this human female.

“You’re looking at me strangely,” she says, her adorable nose wrinkled, her hair drying in golden waves across her shoulders.

“I want you,” I tell her simply. There’s no need to pretend otherwise. I’ve never had to work this hard for a female, and this one is already wed to me.

“Food,” she says, carefully enunciating the word. “Tell me how to eat this thing.”

“You’ve never had fish before? Do they not have fish on your planet?”

“I’ve had fish. Do you eat it whole? Raw?”

I squint at her. “Are you joking? Do humans eat it whole and raw?”

“Uh, sometimes we eat it raw. It’s called sushi.”

“If you would like to eat it raw, my flower, that is up to you. I would recommend using the fire to cook it, though.”

“Right.” She stares at the fish in my hands.

“Here, my prickly flower, sit and I will serve you.”

She grumbles something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like an insult, and I laugh softly, slicing a talon through the soft flesh of the fish. “It has been a long while since I cleaned a fish, but I have many fond memories of my father, the king, taking me out when I was young. Before my mother died.”

“Oh,” Gen’s face crumples, then smooths out. “I’m sorry to hear that, about your mother.”

“The same virus that kept our species from producing females also caused many of them to die. My mother was one of many to suffer from it.” It was awful at the end, watching her slowly waste away, in pain. It was nearly a relief when she finally succumbed to it. “I miss her every day,” I tell Gen.

“My parents were killed in the Roth invasion. Niki’s were too. Niki is our captain,” she says quietly. “Most of us were orphaned that day. Mine were civilians, though—a lot of the women in our crew grew up military.”

She goes silent, her eyes clouded with painful memories. I want to reach out and touch her, to offer her the small physical comfort, but since I’m currently eviscerating a fish, I refrain. I do not think she would like to be covered in fish muck.

“I am sorry for you, too. The Roth are a blight on the universe,” I say instead. “There are rumors that the Roth are to blame for the virus.”

“They killed hundreds of thousands of my people. They didn’t need a virus. Just their superior weapons.” She picks up a pebble from the floor, running her fingers over it. “I had to join up after what they did. Everything changed after that week.”

“Why did they leave Earth?” It’s a question we could never figure out; why the Roth would invade and then abandon such a primitive planet, ripe for the picking.

“We repelled them. Not at first, obviously, but we destroyed enough of their ships that they left.”

I frown, slicing the fish meat into bite size chunks. “That’s not like them.”

They should have sent more. It doesn’t add up.

“Why didn’t you help? If Sueva was concerned about the Roth, then why didn’t you step up?”

I blink at her, surprised at her line of questioning. “We are helping now,” I answer cautiously. “We are sending the interplanetary defense system your Federation asked for.”

“Did you know they would attack Earth?”

“We were busy defending settlements on other planets. They are a vicious species.” Memories churn through me, memories I’m certain she shares too. If not the exact same, then the same flavor of destruction, of blood and of pain.

“We have video of Suevans attacking Roth at your settlements. We had to reverse engineer their tech to get it, but their invasion advanced what we could do exponentially.”

“That is good, for a primitive species.”

She gawks at me for a minute. “Primitive? You’re the one gutting that fish with your bare hands.”

I hold the carcass out to her. “Would you prefer to do it?”

“With what?” She holds up her blunt fingers. “It’s just—we’re not… Okay. I guess we are—were—primitive.”

“My prickly flower, could it be that you are agreeing with me?”

“No.” She squints at me. “You really think we’re primitive?”

“Did you Federation tell you the true purpose of your mission here?” I still can’t quite wrap my head around their lies. “That you were to marry into our race for breeding purposes? You tell me that they did not allow you this choice, and in the next breath claim that your species is not the primitive one? We never imagined the females that came to us would not know the reason why.” Anger rises in me, and I stand abruptly, leaving the fileted fish on the smooth stone.

Her lips purse, and she throws the pebble into the pool beyond, where it splashes against the surface. “You have a point.”

“Ah, my sweet Gen, are you feeling feverish? You are agreeable. You must be famished indeed.”

“Shut up,” she grumbles, then snorts a tiny human laugh.

I smirk at her faux ire. The roots of the zitsu tree that’s claimed this temple sprout several branches, and I trek over to where they are, snapping them off cleanly while Gen glowers at me from her curled up position near the warmth of the ancient’s puzzle wall.

I may have oversold how easy it will be to solve the mystery of this place, but I am nothing if not confident in my ability to find this treasure. I must be, because only one who is worthy of the treasure will find it. Such is the way of the goddess.

The branches snap easily, and I send up a silent prayer of thanks as I walk back to my mate and our meal. Though I have never been truly religious, it seems best to err on the side of piety when searching for the goddess’ treasure.

I skewer the meat on the green boughs, then singe it over the flame in the wall.

“How long will it last?”

“I assume we will eat some now and fish again after resting. Are you not hungry?”

“No, I mean the fire.”

“It should burn for the next eight days or so, if I remember correctly, giving us enough time to find the treasure and find our way out of the maze.”

“It’s a maze?”

I sigh, handing her the first skewer full of meat. “It is like a puzzle box, this temple. There will be more traps and riddles, and likely dangers along the way.”

“Like dinosaurs and giant snakes? Or… like angry aliens who want to murder me because you want to knock me up?”

Aghast, I stare at her, my own skewer of fish meat burning where I hold it against the flame. “I would never hit you. Is this something men from your planet do? It is unthinkable to strike one’s mate.”

Her eyes go wide, and she shakes her head before laughing, the sound loud in the quiet of the temple, echoing off the hard surfaces. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. Although, that’s good, good. Yeah. No, it means to get pregnant.”

My cock grows immediately hard again, and I groan with the need to slake my lust. “Do not speak of it unless you are ready to take me.”

“Is it really that exciting for you? The thought of that?” Her brow quirks, and she bites into the meat. Her expression changes instantly as she chews, and the meat disappears into her pretty mouth. Satisfaction fills me. I did that. I provided for my female, and now she makes happy, contented noises as she chews.