Right now, in the temple of the many-faced-goddess, she has said she is mine.

And I will do with my mate as I please.

Starting with making her scream with pleasure, yet again.

“It seems to me that I did not keep my promise to you last night.”

Gen stares up at me from heavy-lidded eyes. “What promise?”

“That I would make you come as many times as you could handle.”

She squeals as I hoist her up, and I raise her high enough that I can capture the pink tip of her enticing breast. “I will never get enough of these. Of you, my golden flower.” I stare at her, and she throws her arms around my neck, kissing the column of my throat. I do not have much feeling there, as my scales protect my neck, but I learned last night that she likes to be kissed there very much, so I do the same to her.

A sigh wends out of her, and she goes soft against me, her legs circling my waist. Her hands cup my face, and my heart aches at the beautiful trust etched on her face. My prickly princess has come so far.

And it only took days of terrible ordeals to get her to trust me. I sigh wearily.

“I have not pampered you as I should have,” I tell her.

“Please. I’m a military officer in the Earth Federation. Or—” she pauses, looking slightly lost. “I was. Regardless, I don’t need to be pampered.”

“It is not about need. It is about what you deserve.” I kiss her cheek bone, where it pinkens under the slight pressure from my lips, then the tip of her nose, then the other cheek, and finally her mouth. “I want to take you again, Gen, but I think for now? I will simply pamper you as you deserve before we move on.”

“Oh, is that right, Tarzan? And what are you planning on pampering me with around here?” A lyrical laugh trickles out of her. “Lemme guess: mud baths. Clay masks. Salt scrub. Hot stone massage.”

I shake my head, not understanding her strange string of words. “Are these things humans do? Does Indiana Jones do a hot stone massage?”

She laughs again, the sound vibrating through her chest into mine. I hold her more closely, enjoying being near her. Her happiness is like bathing in the sunlight.

I step back, still clutching her tight against me. A burbling stream runs through the overgrown courtyard here, and I walk along the bank, holding my Gen all the while. She smiles at me, looking around curiously with her big blue eyes.

“What is this place?”

“I do not know, not exactly, but I assume it is one of the places where they would worship the goddess, a long time ago.”

“Are there many places like this on Sueva? This is so magical.”

It hits me then, that she does not know anything about our planet. Our people. Not really. We’ve been surviving in the jungle for two weeks now, and she has seen nothing of Sueva save for the small village we had her crew debark at for counter intelligence’s sake.

“This temple is very, very old, but if you mean to ask whether there are places where nature and people live in harmony, then the answer is yes. We respect the goddess, who is everywhere in Sueva. The city of Edrobaz, where our First Warlord Draz rules, is full of myza.”

“Myza?”

“Houses in trees,” I clarify. “Edrobaz is one of a kind, a city in the clouds at the top of a mountain.”

“Oh, wow,” she breathes, her eyes round and focused on me. “That sounds really cool.”

“The temperature is steady, thanks to an atmospheric dome.”

She grins, and I realize I’ve misunderstood the human slang word.

“Don’t pout,” she says, clucking her tongue and poking my bottom lip. “It’s cute when you don’t get it right away.”

“I am a prince! I am not cute.” I spit the last word, my mock rage making her laugh.

“Princes have to be cute. It’s in the job description.”

“And princesses must be beautiful warriors, so it looks like I chose perfectly.” My tone is smug, and her grin widens.

“You know,” she says, her fingers dancing along my shoulder. “I haven’t liked to be called beautiful lately. It’s been a long time since I liked hearing that. A very long time.”

“Why is that?” I ask, stepping carefully around a weathered statue. I think I know the answer, but maybe it will help her to speak her truth. And what better place to speak truths than in the temple of the many-faced-goddess?

Her sigh is long, and she’s silent for long enough while I walk that I think she will not answer.

“After the Roth came, everything changed. There wasn’t room for being pretty. I didn’t want to be pretty. Even trying made me feel silly and young and naïve. I saw firsthand what happened to the people they murdered, and there just wasn’t a point to it after that.” She lapses into silence, her expression contemplative, her fingers tapping a staccato beat against my scales.

I let the silence grow, my heart breaking for her all over again. This woman, she has been through so much. She had to grow a thick skin to hide her softness from the world. She had to be tough.

And now she opens up to me, just like the golden flower greets the morning sun, showing off the true treasure inside.

“It’s nice,” she says, her voice so quiet I have to strain to hear her. “It’s nice to feel like maybe, with you, I can be both parts of me. I can let myself have pretty things, if we get to Edro—” She stumbles over the word.

“Edrobaz,” I finish for her.

“If we get there, I can be both. I can be the Genevieve I used to be, and I can still be the new me. I can let myself enjoy things.”

“It makes me sad to hear that you have not enjoyed things since the Roth invaded.”

She makes clicking sounds with her tongue, her mouth pulling to the side as she stares at a patch of clouds beyond my head. “No, I did enjoy things. Just different things.” She shrugs one shoulder, drawing my eye to the fetching way her breast moves. “I put aside things that weren’t necessary. I enjoyed my work. I enjoyed learning to protect people. Protect myself.”

“That is very honorable. You will be a wonderful princess.”

Her legs clench around me, then loosen again. I narrow my eyes at her, pushing a branch of a tree out of our way.

“What? Do you not want to be a princess?”

“I mean, I already am, right?”

“That is not an answer.” The mud squelching between my toes turns to stone, and I glance down in surprise. Ahead, the thick underbrush butting up against the stream fades away into a stone courtyard. A fountain lies in the center, a worn statue of the goddess in the middle, one palm raised toward the Suevan sky, water running from her other hand. It’s so old that the likeness is barely recognizable, all features battered away by the constant exposure.

The fountain water runs clear and clean, however, a testament to the knowledge and prowess of the Suevan ancestors.

“Here we are, my Gen,” I tell her. “Now I can pamper you thoroughly.”

“I do love to bathe,” she says, her white teeth flashing in a smile. “That was something I never quite managed to give up.”

“Here,” I say, placing her on the edge. She immediately steps into the water, mud and dirt flaking away. She cups her hands, placing them under the spout and drinking deeply.

I step in beside her, kneeling at her feet and scrubbing gently at the mud that cakes her. There are cuts and bruises all over her skin.

“You are in bad shape, my love. Your poor fragile skin is battered.”

She freezes, staring down at me. Surprise is written over every inch of her face. “What?”

“You are covered in cuts. Are you in pain?”

“N-no.” Her lovely eyes are still wide, her brow pinched together. She stares at me as though I am a puzzle in need of solving.

“It does not hurt at all?” I ask, touching the wound from the zeloth.

She winces slightly. “No, it does hurt. Just not enough to complain about.”

I tilt my head, looking around at the vegetation as though for the first time. “This was once a garden,” I say slowly, realization dawning. “The priestesses that tutored me when I was young, they had a garden they kept as well. They taught me about the properties of many of our native plants. Ancestral healing plants.”