I furrow my brow. “You’ve said that. What does it mean, exactly, to be fated mates? You said you could… smell it?”
He nods. “There are other signs, too. My physiology has changed.”
“Changed? How?”
Shathar keeps his eyes pinned on the road ahead of us, but I see his throat bob as he swallows. “It is… of a sexual nature. A natural response to finding one’s mate.”
Oh. Ohhhh.
“Wow, okay.” Now I badly want to know more, but I also don’t want to pry into something so sensitive. I don’t even know what he has under there—what either of them do. The Frahma claimed we were sexually compatible, but what does that mean, really? Amara has explained Roth’kar’s rather… unusual penis to me before. It works for them, but I know nothing about an Arshurian’s genital situation.
“We are not so different, humans and Arshurians,” Shathar says, jerking me out of my thoughts. “I have studied human anatomy, and I have much of what you expect, Fiona.”
I didn’t think he’d be quite so blunt. “Oh, okay,” I squeak out.
“There are some differences,” Shathar goes on, “but I think they will be pleasurable.”
I must be turning red all over. I’m not usually a prude, but now I’m imagining what he’s packing under there and we’ve just met.
Maybe it’s different for him culturally. Maybe on Arshur, they’re very open about sex.
“Okey dokey,” I say quickly, turning off the highway. “Hey, look at that. We’re almost there.”
When we pull into the parking lot, the sun is out and the temperature is perfect for being a winter day. I really couldn’t have asked for a better time to explore nature, though a weekday may have been less busy. There are some children running around, as popular as it is of a destination with families—what families there are, anyway. Shathar watches a pair of kids crisscross in front of him as we walk to the ticket booth. One pauses as they pass us and stares up at Shathar in wonder.
“Whoa. Alien.” He stands there for a beat longer, until his mother calls for him, and the two children go running again.
“I suppose that children are the same anywhere in the universe,” Shathar remarks, smiling at them. “I wonder how a human would be received on Arshur. The children there would certainly think it odd that you have no tail.”
I glance over my shoulder at my bare butt. Shathar laughs.
After we’ve gotten our tickets, we head down the sidewalk into the preserve. The trees are tall here, each of them labeled with the common name and species. Most of them are without leaves this time of year.
“There are so many,” Shathar says, gazing up with wonder. “I have never seen trees such as this. On our planet, they grow small and hardy in order to survive.”
“What is Arshur like?” I ask as we walk.
“It has a very different climate than your planet. The equatorial region is too hot to be habitable, so we live primarily in the far north and south. There is a lot of flat, dusty land where I come from, with some small trees and shrubs.”
“Hmm, sounds like our desert,” I say. “Your whole planet is like that?”
“Indeed. Unlike Earth, there are no large bodies of water.”
“Don’t you raise food? Where do you get water from?”
“We farm and raise livestock, much as your people do. We have plentiful underground water sources we use to irrigate across our farm and ranch land.”
I hum thoughtfully as we walk. A couple passes us the other way holding hands, and Shathar follows them with his eyes. They both gape at the alien in their midst.
“Is this common among humans?” he asks. “To hold hands?”
“Sure. When you’re a couple, people often hold hands.”
I’m surprised when Shathar scoops up my hand in his. But it’s awkward at first, as he’s not sure how to do it, clearly. I giggle and stop walking so I can show him how to twine our fingers together. He has claws, but he doesn’t scrape me with them.
“There we go, like that,” I say as we figure it out. Then we start walking again, our hands linked.
“I like this custom.” Shathar squeezes my hand briefly. “Your skin is so soft. I’m not yet used to human flesh.”
