His eyes, though.
Gold like the sun. A beard made his face seem long, contrasting the large horns that came out of his head. His hair parted around the horns, falling almost in chaos compared to the horns that curled around the side and back of his head, with branching off pieces. They weren’t tight against his head, more like a kind of antlers from an animal.
And were they more prominent than they had been?
She brushed off the thought because that just seemed silly. They wouldn't grow. And if they did, why would they?
Seemed a strange thing that they would shift and change.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him, though. Dressed in what she assumed to be formal clothing, the long coat had adornments and stitching that created an embroidered pattern.
She had an impulse to run her finger along the pattern and follow the lines to see how they were intertwined.
"I shall care for you," he said, his voice low.
"I..." She wasn’t sure what to say. This was so far distant from the idea that she had expected. No one in their right mind would pick her. She really was there for filler, someone to plump the numbers. She didn’t expect any of this.
Roemary glared at her like she had somehow manipulated this.
Which was further from the truth.
Had she ignored him?
Sure.
Not because she was trying to manipulate anything, but because she genuinely didn’t think it mattered if she listened. He was talking to the others. Not to her.
She wasn’t going to be chosen for a mate.
That’s what she had expected.
She did this for the warm bed and the food for a while.
Get away from Trinity Omega Prime and the corruption and her status. She was who she was – a Less.
Considered by many to be less than worthy of living.
Janae was just there to survive.
He tipped his head to the side and studied her. “Are you well?”
“Taken by shock, is all,” she said.
“Why?”
She saw all the eyes on her and waved her hand. “We can discuss that in private.” And allow him to walk away if need be.
“As you like.” He stood straighter and raised his voice. "We shall enter Courtship now."
She remembered what the information had said about how they mated. Courtship was dating of a sort, but it was done wrong. After the commitment was made.
She didn't understand. Why did he so readily make that promise?
He was an alien, though, and who knew what that meant to him.
She nodded. She felt strange. Everything whirled around her, and she stood in the center of a storm. Chaotic, and yet she remained still at the same time.
Then it seemed to dawn on her exactly what she was doing, and everything crashed into her.
