It takes my mind a little while to unlock the fond memories, but I tell her everything I can, and ask about her family, too.
24
Chapter 24 - Niska
When I wake, I feel like I’m surrounded by warmth. It feels so nice. I can’t remember the last time I felt so comfortable - the kind of comfortable where you don’t want to wake up. You don’t want to move, you don’t want to think, you don’t even want to breathe wrong in case something shifts, and that perfect level of comfort is disrupted and you can’t get it back again.
So when my eyes flutter open, I stay still for a moment or two while the rest of my mind catches up. Reluctantly, I shift a little, trying to stretch, but my blanket tightens around my middle.
Which is an odd thing for a blanket to do.
It’s then that I feel it; the steady rhythm of breathing at my back, the heat of another body molded to mine, the way they’re nuzzling into the back of my neck sending goosebumps all over my body. It wasn’t blankets at all.
Kiahn’s strong arm is banded around my waist. I reach down and touch it, stroking the skin there, smiling when I hear himmurmur unintelligible words into my hair at the base of my skull.
And then I remember how long we’d talked for last night. We’d talked and talked until my mouth felt dry, my brain felt fuzzy, and my body was ready for sleep. I’d told him all about my family, but mainly my best friend, Polly. About how she had been the only one who truly felt like family all along. Sure, my mom and dad did their best. But being one of nine children all vying for attention can make you feel a little lost and overlooked as a kid. It had taken Kiahn a while to get used to having me in his bed while I’d rambled and snuggled closer. I could hear the way his heart just would not settle.
But he seems to have come around to the idea just fine if the way he’s clinging onto me like a giant, gray, horned barnacle is to go by.
I wiggle a little more, which only makes him whine into my hair and squeeze me in his big arms.
“Kiahn?” I whisper, his name morphing into a giggle. “I don’t know what the time is, but we should probably get up. Don’t we arrive at your planet today?”
Kiahn pulls in a large lungful of air through his nose before his head pops up to look down on me. Finally, I can turn a little to face him to find his gaze bouncing all over my features. “You slept in my bed with me.”
“Well, yeah. I thought we were having a sleepover? Should I have left?”
Suddenly, his arms are steel around me again. “No. I-” Kiahn shakes his head, his hair all rumpled beside his left horn. “I just did not expect it. I… liked it very much.”
Laughing again, I shift my butt, feeling the sizable bulge pressed up against me. “I can tell,” I tease, grinning up at him.
Kiahn groans and a hand comes to clamp firmly over my squirming hip. “You need to stop that, woman,” he growls.
And, because I’m feeling more myself than I have for a while, I retort with a, “or what?” accompanied by a raised brow.
Kiahn’s tongue comes out to wet his bottom lip as he assesses me, his pretty green eyes taking in every detail on my face until they slowly drift lower to my throat, and that’s where they stay. He swallows before opening his mouth to speak, but instead of words, I watch as his sharp fangs elongate.
“Shit!” Kiahn curses, covering his mouth. Immediately, he leaves the cozy little bubble of his bed and leaps out, taking a few steps back like he’s suddenly realized I’m made of fire or something. “Uh, yeah. We should-… we should dress and break our fasts.” He hurries away into his huge closet space, and I can hear him rummaging while he continues to talk. “We… uh… we will be arriving on Xaavia in a matter of hours… and, uh, you should be fed, groomed and properly dressed before you meet my people as my breeding bride.”
Oh, shit. I hadn’t even thought about that.
* * *
My stomach is doing flips as the Xaviaan Royal Cruiser comes gliding into the palace dock.
“You ok?” Lois quietly asks as she sits beside me in one of the ship’s lounge areas while we wait to land.
No, I’m not ok.
I feel like I’m about to meet the parents of a man I’m in a serious relationship with - or… maybe that’s not quite right, considering the circumstances. Perhaps it’s more like meeting the parents of a man you accidentally married in Vegas but decided to give it a shot?
I once dated a guy who was great, right up until he took me home to meet his mother. It was clear from the moment Istepped over her threshold that she wasn’t going to like any girl who played a big part in her precious boy’s life and she was determined to put me down at every given opportunity. His dad just sat there, ignoring his wife’s snide remarks, and her son -my boyfriend- followed suit. The whole thing was fucked up, because I swear she just wanted him all to herself and saw me as a threat.
What if this is like that?
What happens if his people don’t like me?
What if they think it’s too weird that I’m a human and he’s a Xaviann?
