Shit! My eyes fly open again. “Yes!” I call out, the answer almost mumbled from around my fingers. I’m not done sucking them clean yet. “I’m fine!”

I glare at my reflection again, as if this was all his fault.

Just… be normal. For fuck’s sake!

After a shower of cool waters, I re-enter the bedchamber wearing my softest, sand-colored pants. I normally sleep naked, but I don’t think that would be wise in this ‘sleep-over’ situation my Niska is asking for. She smiles at me and pats the space beside her, inviting me to my own bed.

Never have I slid between my sheets with my heart pumping the way it is right now.

And now I lay here, on my back, staring straight up to my bedchamber ceiling like I have a million times before whenever we travel on this ship. Except this time, I am obsessively aware of the presence beside me.

Niska giggles, and I turn my head to look at her. “Are you holding your breath?”

“No.”

Was I?

Maybe.

The smile she has on her face could rival every sunset I have ever seen.

She’s laying on her side, her head propped on her hand, elbow bent and digging into the pillow - my pillow. The blankets covering her from chest to toe do nothing to hide the form of her. I can clearly see the valley of her waist and the crest of her hip. There’s just something about that shape that is so inviting. The Earth Goddesses knew what they were doing when they made human women this way.

“What do we do now?” I ask, prying my gaze away from the landscape of her body.

Niska laughs lightly again. “We can talk. What do you want to talk about, Prince Kiahn?”

I give her a look. She’d said my title correctly, but the tone had been teasing.

I let it slide, of course.

I think there are a lot of things that I would let slide for this female.

“What is… cuddle?”

Niska raises her brows at my question. I wet my lips before continuing.

“Before, you said that we could lay together, talk, and maybe cuddle. What is it?”

The grin she gives me is eclipsed by the way she scoots her body forward, pressing herself to my side. She then lifts my arm and settles it over her shoulder, molding herself to me. “This is a cuddle,” she explains, laying her head on my chest as one of her legs hooks over mine.

I am frozen to the spot, but I can feel my fangs start to slowly slide from my gums. “Oh.”

“Breathe, Kiahn,” Niska laughs, lightly tapping my chest. “It’s meant to be nice.”

“It is nice… It’s very nice… Really, really nice.”

“But your heart sounds like it’s trying to burst out of your chest right now,” she leans up to look down at me. “Are you sure you’re ok with this?”

I shake my head, my arm tightening on her in case she tries to move away. “It is just my first time participating in a cuddle. I’m sure I’ll calm down once the novelty wears off,” I lie through my fangs.

Niska chuckles, but lays her head back down on my chest, her hand coming up to draw nonsensical patterns on my pectoral with her fingertip. I’d never considered embracing someone in bed before. It’s thrilling, and yet cozy at the same time. I can feel every breath my little Niska is taking, her chest pressed into my side. How do humans do this and not immediately start mating with each other?

Then she says in a quiet voice, “tell me more about your family,” and suddenly all thoughts of mating flee my mind and my fangs practically disappear in their hasty retreat.

“My… family?”

“Yes,” she says, her finger making swirls on my chest. “I just want to talk to you like a normal person. Not two people with a contract. Not a prince and the human he bought-”

“Technically, my Aunt purchased you for me, so…”

She barks out a musical laugh and playfully slaps my chest. “So nothing. That’s still weird as hell!”

Right. It is, isn’t it?

I rub at my horn, staring at the ceiling while I let out a long breath. “My family? Well, there’s my brothers, Aunt and cousin, but you’re on your way to getting to know them pretty well so far.”

“I really like Vel,” she tells me, “her obsession with humans is sweet. She’s always asking us random questions. This morning she asked Jaya what the purpose of a rubber duck is.”

I chuckle along with Niska, though I do not quite understand what a ‘duck’ is or why its purpose would be baffling. “She is a good person, my cousin. But if her questions ever get too invasive or…” I wave my free hand around at the wrist as if that would pull the right words from my lips, “… weird, just let me know. She is a very intelligent Xaviann, but sometimes she can let her special interests run away into obsessions. She’s been trying to learn everything there is to know about your species since we were younglings. It is very strange.”

Niska lifts her head to peer down at me. She’s so close that I can see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. “Aren’t you glad of her ‘weird obsession’ now? Considering she knows how to take care of us so well?”

My gaze falls to her lips and I swallow. “Yes,” I reply, my voice a little hoarse. “But I would like to learn how to take care of you.”

Niska smirks. “Well, then, sounds like you could learn a lot from my girl and her ‘special interests’.”

I grunt in agreement as she settles back down on me, nestling her cheek into my chest as her hand goes back to tracing circles and loops on my skin. There is silence for a time. My chambers are dim with only minimal up-lighting at this hour, but my senses feel heightened somehow, with Niska performing a ‘cuddle’ on me. I love the sensation of her pressed to me, the warmth of her relaxed body, the scent of her surrounding me. I even find myself returning the gesture of Niska’s swirling finger patterns as I mirror her fingertip’s dance on her exposed hip.

I don’t know what it is that makes me say it, but the words, “my mother is dead,” ring out in the quiet room and for a beat or two, I don’t even realize I’d said them out loud.

I can feel Niska tense, but she is soon leaning up on her elbow to look down on me again, a concerned looking expression cresting her brow. “I’m so sorry, Kiahn. When did she pass?”

“When Zann was still very small - just a babe who had barely finished suckling.” I wet my lips as she continues to peer down at me. I don’t talk about this. Ever. But something about Niska - ‘cuddling’ with her, makes me want to spill a million thoughts to her all at once. I clear my throat and look away. Meeting her gaze is too much. “My father, I do think he had a lot of genuine affection for her. He sired us three on her when he should probably have been entertaining other contracts with brides from other principalities. I remember him visiting from the capital often to play duos, tiles, even northern spin ball with us - a game very unbecoming for a king.” I chuckle lightly, but there’s not much humor behind it. “He went above and beyond his duty to fulfill his end of the contract, and he wrote to her often, even when he was in the middle of other bridal contracts.”

I chance a glance at Niska, but look away again quickly. Her expression is so open, so encouraging, it almost scares me to think about what I might confess when she looks at me like that.

“He… when he sired my youngest brother, he bit my mother.” I hear Niska suck in a breath and hold onto it. “It was an accident. She bonded to him.”

I open my mouth to continue, but find the words behind my tongue all jumbled and unintelligible, so I promptly close it again, tensing my jaw. A small, soft hand cups my face and turns me to face her. “What happened to her?”

I take a deep breath. “She did not fare well under the one-sided bond. She… she stopped eating. When she wasn’t weeping or raging, she would stare off into the middle-distance lost in her own mind. She wasn’t herself. She filed her own horn off to scribe my fathers name on her bedchamber walls over and over again.”