I say the only thing that matters.
Proceed now.
I will not leave her standing in public spaces a moment longer than necessary. I will not drag this through ceremony and delay and city courtesy while every male eye in the capital has time to find her.
She is my wife by law within the hour.
After that, I take her home.
Home.
That word lands differently now too. Not my camp as it stood yesterday. Not my king’s tent, my warriors, my routes, my ground.
Home with her in it.
I look at her again and see too much at once. The effort she is making not to appear overwhelmed. The travel strain at the edges of her face. Hunger still too close to her bones. The uncertainty. The fear. And under it, something harder.
Courage.
Not loud. Not proud. Just there. Enough to leave one world for another. Enough to stand in front of a male like me and keep her spine straight.
My respect for her comes hard and immediate. So does something worse than respect. Need.
Not the careless need of rut or convenience. Need to hear her say my name without fear in it. Need to put flesh back on her body. Need to see her warm in my furs instead of under city lights. Need to scent her skin with my own until no other male in any room could mistake her. Need to put a child in her when she is ready and watch my hard world soften around what we made.
That last thought is so strong I nearly speak aloud.
I close my mouth harder.
Too soon.
Everything is too soon, and my body does not care.
This is the danger in her. Not that she is weak. Not that she is human. Not even that she is beautiful in a way that keeps dragging my gaze back to her mouth, her eyes, her soft face.
The danger is that she makes me want before I have earned the right to want. Makes me possessive before she has spoken ten words to me. Makes me think of softness, children, bed, scent, protection, forever, all at once, while standing in a government chamber like some untried young male with no control.
I have control.
I have to.
Because one wrong move and she will only see what she has every reason to see. A huge alien king staring too hard and standing too close in a place where she is already overwhelmed and out of her depth.
So I do the hardest thing. I stay where I am. I keep my hands at my sides and my voice low. I keep the snarl behind my teeth and the hunger out of my face as much as I can. I let Marat finish what must be finished. Let the room stay orderly even while nothing inside me is orderly now.
Keandra.
I say her name once more inside my own head, testing the shape of it against the bond already tightening through me.
When she looks at me again, something in her expression shifts. Not trust. Not acceptance. Just a tiny crack where reality has finally reached her. She understands now that her future is not a contract on a screen. It is flesh. Height. Eyes. Teeth. Hands. A male.
Good.
I would rather she fear something real than trust something false. I can work with fear. I can feed it, contain it, prove myself against it.
What I cannot work with is distance. Delay. Other hands between us. Other roofs over her head.
By the time Marat speaks again, I have already decided the rest. The legal union is completed at once. There is no extended city stay. No court waiting. No unnecessary introductions. No public display beyond what the law requires. I take her out of the capital as soon as the contract is sealed. I get her into open air. Into my transport. Under my protection. Away from the eyes and smells and noise of a city already too close around her.
