Cherry popped another bite of food into her mouth – bracku meat this time. The anger on her face melted away.

“Wow. Alright. I see why that’s a delicacy. That’s fantastic,” she said, chewing slowly, savouring it. “I’ve never had Old-Earth style beef. I wonder if this is what it was like.”

“That is not even the highest grade,” I informed her. “The bracku meat I smoke usually comes from older beasts that the Empire is unwilling to buy.”

She shook her head again, up and down this time, and ate another piece.

It was strange to converse so much and for so long with someone like this. To stand together, eating with such familiarity.

I was surprised that I did not dislike it. It wasn’t exactly easy to talk to her, but it wasn’t as torturous as I’d feared. Cherry seemed so sincere in her curiosity about this place. And about me. Though I could not fathom why.

But then again, I also could not fathom why she’d wanted to marry me at all.

Yet here she was.

“Well, I don’t care what the folks back home say, Silar. I’m glad to be here.” She met my gaze steadily. “It might be hard work but I’m used to that from the factory. And you’ve got all these lovely animals! Only animals I got to contend with back home were factory rats. Not to mention the amazing fruit and the plants and…”

“And?”

She hesitated. Her eyes took on a peculiar quality. A sort of glow that was not a glow. Not in the way my eyes glowed at least.

“And you.”

“Me,” I repeated hollowly.

She made a dainty sound in her throat and looked down at her plate.

“Yes, you. This is a good life you’re offering me, Silar. And I know we just met, but I feel like I can already tell that it’s better because you’re in it.”

She seemed rather shy as she said it, fiddling with a bit of ardu egg on her plate but not actually picking it up and eating it.

I wanted to hold her.

And not in the perverse way that I’d wanted to put my tongue in her mouth before.

Just hold her.

Just to see what it felt like. What she felt like.

Was that normal? Would she welcome it?

Or would she take back every single word she’d just said?

Perhaps it was not normal. I’d never seen my own father do such a thing, at least not that I could remember. And my father had been a paragon of Zabrian excellence.

He was the one who’d turned me in, after all.

Cherry seemed content to focus on eating now. Following her lead, I did the same. When we’d finished, I grasped both the plates, taking them to the sink to wash them.

“Oh! I can do that,” Cherry said hurriedly.

“Why?” I asked with a frown. I’d washed these plates several times a day, every day, for cycles. “I don’t expect you to.”

“Is there anything… You know… You do expect?”

“No.”

She looked vaguely surprised by that. I could not blame her. I still was not entirely sure why I’d voted yes to the bridal program.

“Alright. Well. I guess I’ll get ready for bed, then.” She hesitated, biting her lip in a distracting way.

It took me far too long to realize that she was waiting for me to reply that I would do the same.

Normally, I would be getting ready for bed around this time. I rose early for chores and did not have anything specific to keep me awake or occupied in the evenings, other than trying to read that book from the human-Zabrian liaison.

It had been a long day. I really should be getting to bed…

With my wife.

I inhaled sharply, my tail going tight ’round its hook. “I… have more work to do.”

“Alright!” Cherry answered, her voice sounding higher than usual. “Goodnight, Silar!”

I left the house and let the door swing shut between us.

13CHERRY

Iwashed my face and under my arms with frigid water in the kitchen, then cleaned my teeth and changed into a simple pyjama set that Tasha had provided. The PJs were soft and comfy, and in normal circumstances I’d consider them pretty darn cozy.

Except these weren’t normal circumstances.

Nope. These circumstances were fucking freezing.

I tossed and turned in the empty bed, trying every which way to get warm. None of them worked. Silar only had one thin blanket on the bed and it was doing absolutely zilch in the keep-Cherry-warm department. It got to the point that I was shivering so hard it physically hurt. Like my bones were trying to rattle themselves right out of my body.

I’d been a bit relieved when Silar had said he wasn’t coming to bed just yet. But now I was just lying here, miserably chilly, hoping he’d show up and share some goddamn body heat with his wife.

Eventually, when it felt like my teeth might crack from the force of all the chattering, I gave up on trying to sleep and sat up. I swung my legs around the side of the bed and slipped my feet into the boots I’d left beside it on the floor. I went out into the kitchen with the bed’s blanket wrapped around my shoulders. When I saw my scarf on the counter, I wrapped that around me, too, figuring the more layers, the better. I wonder when he took this off, I thought as I put it on. I hadn’t noticed earlier.

But even with the blanket, scarf, and movement now that I was walking, it wasn’t enough. My breath fogged, ghostly in the dark kitchen. I was used to the cold. Terratribe I was a frigid fucking ice-ball of a planet. But at least my apartment, as crappy as it was, had heat.

I couldn’t find anything that resembled a heating system in this house. There was the wood-burning oven, of course, but after trying and failing to figure out how to actually light a fire with the materials provided, I gave up on that idea pretty quick. A search around the place also didn’t turn up any extra blankets.

It didn’t turn up my husband, either.

Where the hell is he?

I’d lain in bed for at least an hour, maybe two. What could he possibly have been working on after working all afternoon already?

There was nothing for it. I’d just have to track him down and beg him to find me an extra blanket or something.

Decision made, I went out the back door.

I didn’t see Silar out there but I heard him. At least, I thought I did. The methodical sound of hammering had to be coming from someone human or, er, Zabrian.

It was coming from the direction of the barn.

I passed around the edges of the gardens, walking under the fruit trees Silar had told me about earlier. The hammering sound got louder. It rang out from a smaller structure built onto the side of the barn. I circled the entire thing to find Silar in a sort of open-air workshop. He had something wooden up on a workbench and was pounding away at it, his muscled back to me.

He sure isn’t bothered by the cold, I thought somewhat bitterly, noting his eternal lack of shirt. Or maybe it was just that his activity was keeping him warm. He seemed to be working hard on building something.

He stopped hammering then bent slightly, examining his work. But he didn’t maintain that posture for long. Half a second later he stiffened, straightened up, and turned around.

I was at least five, maybe even seven or eight metres from him. And I hadn’t said a word.

“How did you know I was there?” I asked, startled.

“Heard your breathing.” He hefted the tool in his hand before setting it down. “Hammering must have covered the sound of your footsteps.”

“My breathing? Jeez. You weren’t kidding about the good hearing,” I said, drawing my blanket/scarf combo tighter around myself as I walked closer.

For such a rural landscape, it was surprisingly bright out here. Three moons and infinite stars sent silvery light pouring down. Silar’s little workshop area was lit with a large candle.

“What are you working on?” I asked, my words puffing up in front of me like smoke. Once I was beside him, I took a look at the pieces of wood he’d been fitting together on the workbench.