My chest tightened and my cheeks warmed as butterflies erupted inside my stomach. The annoyingly persistent part of my consciousness that was worried about all sorts of dumb things tried to whisper that this was wrong, and that I should still be fighting and running. That no part of this was normal and I shouldn’t even be thinking about staying with Rathal and letting him have me. But, for once in my life, I fucking squashed that voice like a bug and raised up on my tiptoes to press my lips against Rathal's for a long, lingering kiss.
When I finally pulled away, Rathal was staring at me with a look of such tenderness that my throat tightened enough I had to clear it to speak.
“I think…I think I’m done overthinking.” I glared at him when he raised his eyebrow. “Not forever, and not over everything, but about this,” I said, gesturing between us. “About you. About us. You're still a crazy asshole for kidnapping me, but I can’t say I’m sorry that you did.”
Rathal’s hands rose to my shoulders and gripped me tightly. “Are you saying… yes?”
“Yes,” I answered, proud that my voice sounded so strong.
Rathal drew me up until I was damn near on my toes, his eyes fierce and his teeth flashed when he growled in a low, tight voice. “Yes—to staying with me or yes to marrying me?”
His grip was going to leave some bruises to join the others from earlier, but I didn’t care… the nanos in my blood would clear them up in a few minutes. I smiled softly at him.
“Yes… to both.”
Rathal sucked in a breath and then his whole body shuddered as he jerked me into him, wrapping me in a fierce hug that had me nearly groaning at the pressure. I swear my ribs creaked.
“Callie…” he growled, the sound starting low and then grew in bass and volume until I could feel it in my own chest like I was standing too close to a concert speaker.
I don’t know how best to describe how fast aliens can run. It's kind of like being caught in a wind tunnel that bounces you ever so slightly up and down. It confuses the heck out of your senses. It's probably the insane inertia. All I really knew was that I was in Rathal’s arms… and he was hauling ass.
twenty-two
Callie
Look,ifanyoneeverasked me how Rathal dressed me and himself, got me up like eight stories and in front of what passed as a wedding officiant on this station in what equated to a blink of an eye, I’d shrug my shoulders because I had no fucking clue know how he did it. One second we’d been post sex, naked and worn out and the next we were in a plushly appointed office of sorts with the fox-like matriarch from the Assembly looking us over with a knowing expression on her furry face.
Som’ae was even shorter than I realized now that she was standing in front of me, separated from us by a small desk built to fit her stature. Her long robes now the color of a pink washed sunset that contrasted beautifully with her maroon and black marbled fur. The little fox-like female had huge eyes with golden tri irises which were shimmering merrily as Rathal fidgeted at his spot next to me.
“Rathal, would you quit? You are making your bride nervous,” she scolded him, her four fluffy tails rising to fan behind her asshe shook out her hands over a stack of paper-thin holoscreens on her desk. Rathal stopped shifting from foot to foot, but the fingers of his left hand started tapping at his thigh.
He was kind of making me nervous, so I smiled at her. She bowed her head slightly in my direction before picking up the first holoscreen.
“Now, for the first part of the contract we will be going over the transfer of assets to one Callisto Maria Jamal Johnson Ramirez from Ra Rathal NulKal Som’Vel Ah’Roshal as part of the first portion of obligatory courting gifts and the penalty interest for the failure to supply said obligatory courting gifts before the agreed upon civil union. As such, the sum of 4,000 sels shall be transferred to the account of choice to Callisto Maria Jamal Johnson Ramirez by end of business rotation this Darking. Sign here and here.”
She held up the thin glass to Rathal, who bent to wave his wrist over its surface and then she shifted it to me.
“Please read over the itemized list and mark whether or not the courting gifts due to you are satisfactory. If they are not, arrangements will be made to supply you with additional gifts until you deem them fit.”
I lifted the tablet from her hands and scanned the glowing yellow lines of script. None of it was comprehensible to me. Oh, I could read the words, but I had no idea what ‘Sels’ were or what two thirds Args of Gresia were or any of the dozens of other items on the list.
I turned to Rathal and waved the tablet at him. “Uh, I have no idea what any of this stuff is.”
He opened his mouth and closed it a few times and then shook his head, reaching to pluck the tablet from my hands and sidled in closer to me. He pointed at the first line, the two third Args of Gresia.
“These are a rare mineral, used to bind nanoites to various materials. In Earth terms, I’ve given you the equivalent of say two hundred billion dollars… give or take.”
“What?” I squeaked, taking a step away from him.
Both he and Som’ae stared at me in confusion.
“Callie. To refuse this would be to say that you are not worth this gift,” Som’ae explained slowly.
“Which you most assuredly are,” Rathal declared, glaring at me as if to stop whatever argument I was going to try and start.
I closed my mouth and swallowed hard before passing my wrist over the tablet and watched as my name was etched into the appropriate sections that made me a multibillionaire in the blink of an eye and then passed the glass back to Som’ae before I put my foot in my mouth or passed out or both.
“So what was the rest of it?” I asked and then instantly regretted it. I really didn’t want to know what else I’d just been given. Lord have mercy. I was rich.
