She started forward with a small cry, as if she meant to pull it back out of the flames.

“Silar! What are you doing! That was your-”

“It is nothing, Cherry.” I told her firmly. “There’s only one thing currently in this house that matters to me. And it’s not a cursed hat.”

Blast. This was not helping. The teerz were coming anyway. Sliding over her soft cheeks like rolling beads of dew.

I tried another tactic.

“I will buy you a new one. Or maybe make one,” I amended, remembering just how empty my credits account was after my most recent purchase. I hadn’t anticipated how expensive it would be to get something transported here from the far-flung human world of Terratribe II. Surprisingly, they hadn’t had what I’d been after on Elora Station, so I’d had to order from further afield. But it was no great matter. The account would be topped up after the next round of cattle grading and purchase. I’d never had much of a reason to use my credits before Cherry.

It was deeply satisfying in a way I could not have anticipated to have someone to spend them on now.

But that did not seem to make her happy, either, because she made a big, gulping sound and pressed her palms to her eyes.

“Sorry,” she gasped wetly, as if she were the one who’d done something wrong. “It’s just… been a tough day.” She wiped her face then gave me a weak smile. “Come on. Let’s get your tail dealt with.”

“My tail?”

She jutted her chin towards the floor, where a puddle of blood was forming behind me.

“Oh. Don’t trouble yourself over that,” I told her.

But she just gave me a look. And I knew. Knew that I would not be able to refuse her.

I hadn’t been able to refuse her anything from the moment that I’d met her.

She led me into our bedroom and pulled out her pretty scarf.

“Not that.”

“We are not having this argument again,” she said firmly as she also retrieved her bottle of antiseptic lotion. “This is way worse than your sunburned ears.”

Without speaking, I opened the second drawer and indicated the small pile of clean, white strips.

“Hold on… are those actual bandages?” Cherry asked, her slim eyebrows crawling nearly all the way up to her hairline.

“Sort of. They’re still made from my old shirts. But they’re more… bandage-shaped now.”

“I told you we’d need bandages so you didn’t have to keep using your shirts. And your solution to that was to just cut up your shirts instead?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me for so long I was certain she was angry. But then she laughed, a bright, beautiful sound.

“Oh, my God. You are impossible. Go sit on the bed, you- Oh. Hold on. The back of your pants are covered in dust and blood.” With the bandages in her right hand and the lotion in her left, she gave me an imperious look and simply said, “Off.”

“Off… what?”

“Your pants. Take them off.”

Oh.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t taken them off in the same room as her before. I took them off before bed each night.

When she was facing the wall with her eyes closed.

My heart practically vibrated as I reached for my belt, undid it, and removed my pants. I folded them and put them aside then stood to face my wife.

She inhaled softly through her nose, her nostrils flaring. Her cheeks grew very dark, and her lips parted in a way that instantly made blood rush to my cock.

Her gaze fell there. Fused there. The feel of her eyes alone was enough to bring me to full hardness. The hushed proximity of her body to mine in the room, her scent in the air, the memory of her body pressing up against mine before Fallon had interrupted.

“Sorry,” I grunted, falling heavily onto the bed, lamenting the lack of control I held over my own body. I wanted her more than was natural, more than was good, more than she’d ever forgive me for. And it was so plain to see.

“You don’t need to say sorry.” She smiled, her face so soft in the late-day sunlight that I almost let myself believe her.

“But first,” she said, “let’s deal with that tail of yours before we deal with…” Her cheeks got even more red. “Other things...”

She put down the bandages and ointment, then retreated into the kitchen. I used that moment alone to take deep, ragged breaths, trying very hard (and failing) to will my cock into a more appropriate state. When it did not work, and I heard Cherry returning already, I chose at the last moment to cover my lap with the bed’s blanket. It did little to hide anything, as my cock was now tenting the fabric, but I figured that it was better than nothing.

Cherry came back in, pushing her chair in front of her while carrying my one and only bowl. She cast a glance at my covered lap and raised a brow, but said nothing about it as she settled herself into the seat. She placed the bowl down on the floor beside her little foot, then dipped one of the bandages into the water it was filled with.

“I’ll try to be gentle,” she murmured, grasping my tail and drawing it into her soft lap.

My breathing grew uneven. I was astoundingly affected by this sight. The sight of my wife’s small, soft hands taking a part of me onto her thighs so that she could wipe my blood away. It felt good, but I did not want it to feel good. Because goodness had been gone from my life for so long and now that it was here, that she was here, how could I possibly hope to keep it?

I wanted to ask her if she would stay. Perhaps I had not impressed her, but I hoped I had at least not disappointed her too much.

The question was right there. Stuck at the back of my throat.

Will you stay with me, Cherry?

But Cherry broke the silence before I could ask it.

“Fallon said something about a genka breaking through the fence and starting the stampede.”

She did not look at me as she spoke, concentrating on the torn flesh of my tail, cleaning it with a tenderness that ripped me open far more than Fallon’s claws ever could have.

“Yes. It’s a predator. Nasty one, too. They’re very good at finding weak points in the fences.”

She dipped her chin a little, then quietly asked, “Is that why you wouldn’t let me near the fences?”

I blinked. Had that not been clear to her? I supposed I had not really explained.

“Yes.”

She dipped her chin again, dabbing at an especially deep, bloody spot.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever really seen you angry. When you told me that I wasn’t allowed to help with the fences.”

“Angry?” I asked, taken aback. I’d never been angry with Cherry. Not once.

“Your gaze got so white,” she said, her eyes, blue as purest summer sunlight, flicking to mine before returning to her work. “It was the only time I could tell which emotion you were actually feeling. It was pretty clear.”

“That was not anger,” I insisted, shocked that she had thought so and internally berating myself for the clumsiness of my communication. “That was…”

I paused, my brain and tongue tangling against each other. It was not easy for me to speak of things like this. It had not been since the trial. But Cherry thought that I was angry with her and that was unacceptable to me.

“I saw someone die that way. When I was young.”

Cherry’s head snapped up, her hands stilling.

It had been four or five cycles after I’d arrived on this world and I had been just beginning to approach young manhood. Garrek, Oaken, and I were some of the first child-convicts to be brought to this province. Back then, we’d all had our own individually-assigned wardens, as we were too young to live alone and needed to be taught how to survive and earn a living here.

“Was it…” Cherry hesitated, worrying her pretty lower lip between her blunt teeth. The rest of her question came out as a whisper. “Was it one of your parents?”

“No,” I said gruffly. “It was my… the old warden. Warden Veran. He was getting ready to repair a fallen post that had left a gap in the fence.”