That does not stop the fear from rising.
He knows my file. He knows my body on paper. Paper is not this.
I hear footsteps in the hall before I see anyone. Not quick. Not rushed. Slow. Heavy. Controlled. The sound alone changes the air. I straighten without meaning to. My fingers curl into the side seam of my dress.
Marat appears in the doorway first.
Then the male behind him has to dip his head slightly beneath the arch.
Everything inside me goes still.
King. Now I understand why that word was never enough.
He is enormous. Not just tall. Large in a way that makes the room look built for him and everyone else feel temporary inside it. Broad shoulders. Heavy chest. Thick arms under dark fitted layers that sit close over muscle and old power. His skin is warm dark copper, richer than any tone I saw on Mars. Markings run along one side of his neck and disappear beneath his collar. His hair is black and pulled back from his face, showing the hard shape of him.
The lines of his face are not human. Heavier brow. Harsher jaw. Cheekbones cut hard. Nose stronger through the bridge. Mouth stern and unsmiling.
And his eyes.
Amber. Bright, impossible amber with a slit through the center that should make me step back.
I don’t. Only because I forget how to move.
He looks like violence held on a leash. He looks like the wild land Marat described on the shuttle found bones and skin and stood up in front of me.
He looks at me once, and the room becomes too small.
I cannot breathe. Not because he touches me. Not because he speaks. Because every quiet idea I built around this marriage collapses the second he becomes real. He is not a file. Not a title. Not a clause about lifetime union and children. He is a living male standing a few strides away, powerful enough that my body understands before my mind does that he could break things without effort. Me. Doors. Men. Rules.
His gaze moves over me. Not lazily. Not carelessly. Completely. My face. My hair. My shoulders. Down the line of my body. Back to my face. The weight of it lands like a hand. I fight the urge to step back.
Marat says something formal in Tigris. I catch only one word clearly. Kai. King.
The male answers without looking away from me. His voice is so deep I feel it in my chest before I really hear it. The language is rougher than Marat’s. Harder consonants. Shorter cuts of sound. It should sound ugly. It doesn’t.
Marat finally turns slightly toward me. “Keandra. This is King Kaiven of Vek Talan.”
Kaiven.
The name fits him too well. I turned it over in my mind on the shuttle like it was something abstract. Now it lands with the full weight of the male standing in front of me.
I make myself speak. “Your Majesty.”
Wrong.
I know it the second it leaves my mouth. Not because anyone says so. Because one of Marat’s brows shifts and something unreadable flashes through Kaiven’s eyes. Not anger. Not amusement. Something sharper.
Then Kaiven speaks in careful English. “I am Kaiven,” he says.
His voice is rougher in my language. Lower. Like the words fit badly around his mouth. “You are Keandra.”
Not a question.
“Yes.”
That is all I can manage.
He takes one step into the room.
