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 thatwould 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. “ButIwould 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 millionthoughts 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.”
“That’s awful,” Niska whispers, her eyes watery and her brows pinched.
“Aunt Zalora pleaded with my father to visit more often - to stay in our principality even, considering. But you could tell he was getting more and more horrified and saddened by mother’s condition each time he did visit, until he just stayed away. This obviously made her mental state worse.” I pause to swallow.“She caught an infection that her immune system wasn’t strong enough to fight. Aunt Zalora has never forgiven my father for what he did to her sister.”
Niska nods slowly. “And what about you?”
The snort I let loose is soft. “What about me? He is the king, it wouldn’t be wise to point fingers at him. Not when he can so easily cut off my principality and its people. Our lands need harmony, chaos will only bring ruin and suffering.”
On my more generous days, I imagine that my father stayed away due to the heavy weight of guilt at what he had done to my mother. I remember being there when Aunt Zalora had called him to deliver the news of her death, his projected image hovering over one of our palace conference room tables. His expression had crumpled, and he was that male I remember seeing when he would visit to play games with us again. I genuinely think he had loved her. He told me how sorry he was for what had happened. Both Zann and Az were still too young to hear it.
But then there was a knock at the door behind him. A servant called through the polished darkwood that his new contract bride was strapped to the breeding bench and ready for him. His expression had hardened, and I don’t think I’ve glimpsed the other version of my father since. I’ve heard whispers that he’s had my mother’s portrait commissioned over a dozen times since her death, but what good that does to ease his conscience, I don’t know.
Niska’s eyes shift between both of mine, and she looks as though she wishes to ask more about my feelings toward my father. And in the state I feel myself in? Warm, and participating in my very first ‘cuddle’ with my Niska? I think I would answer her.
Instead, she must read it clearly on my features that the topic is understandably a delicate one, and she shows mercy by layingher head back down on my chest and asking, “what was your mother like before all of that? What kind of person was she?”
