“Friend, not servant.”
“You’re welcome in my house for as long as you want to stay,” Osric tells her. “Both of you have my word. I’ll sort out the help as soon as I can.”
“Good,” Darina says. “Now eat. All of this isn’t going to disappear on its own.”
Osric takes her at her word. I finish my food, watch him empty a third plate, and decide I’ve been patient long enough. I get up, round the table, and climb straight into his lap. He grunts, adjusts, wraps one arm around my waist, and keeps eating over my shoulder without missing a bite, reaching past me for the bread.
“Really?” I ask him.
“I’m starving,” he says again, mouth full, entirely unashamed.
Darina laughs so hard she has to put her cup down. I laugh with her, settled against the warm shell of my mate’s chest, with his heartbeat under my ear. Nim is weaving between the chair legs below us.
I think that of everyone who has ever stood on that auction stage in Concord, I must be the luckiest.
Epilogue
Osric
My locker in the guard hall still has my name written on it from before. I hang my harness on its hook, fold my uniform onto the shelf, and pull on my pants and boots while the shift bell rings out in the yard. Two guards from the night rotation nod at me on their way in. One of them asks if I’ll trade patrols with him, and I tell him to ask the captain, which is the same answer I gave him last time.
Zen undresses at the bench beside mine. His shell is green, darker across the shoulders, and his light brown hair curls around his pointed ears no matter how short he cuts it. He’s younger than me and carries most things lightly, but he folds his uniform slowly and keeps his eyes on his hands.
“My father wrote again,” he says. “He wants to know if I’ve been to a shaman. My mother wants to know why every male in our line found his mate early and I can’t manage it.”
“You can’t rush it,” I say. “It happens when it happens.”
“Easy words from a mated male.” He pulls a shirt over his head. “I’m not clicking at empty air yet, but people look at me differently. They know how old I am, and they know I’m alone. Lately, they stop talking when I pass.”
“They’ll find something else to whisper about.”
“Will they?” He shrugs and reaches for his boots. “My parents were mated young. Their parents as well. Everyone at home talks about it as if I’m failing on purpose. I don’t even mind the whispering. I mind the waiting. I want what you have. Is that a foolish thing to say out loud?”
“It’s not foolish.” I close my locker. “Now hurry up. My wife doesn’t like it when I’m late, and she likes it even less when I’m late for dinner.”
That gets a laugh out of him, and the laugh does him good.
“Thank you for the invitation. I’ve been low lately, and I didn’t want to admit it until you asked me over. I want to see this new place of yours, and I want to meet this lovely wife the whole city keeps talking about.”
“She’s excited to meet you too,” I say.
I don’t mention Darina. Esme built this dinner the way she builds all her plans, with total confidence and no subtlety, and my only job is to deliver Zen to the table and stay out of the way. If he suspects nothing by the time we reach the house, the plan has already worked better than I expected it to.
We drive out of the lower city and along the desert road while Zen talks about his patrol, and I answer in the right places until the house comes into view against the cliff. I park by the terrace, and I let him walk in ahead of me.
Esme waits in the entry with Nim tucked against her chest. The sight of my wife holding the half-wild animal is one of my favorite things. Darina comes through from the dining room with a folded cloth in her hands, saying something about the table settings.
Darina stops mid-sentence, and Zen stops too, two steps inside the door.
Nobody speaks, and the entry hall goes so silent that I can hear Nim purring in Esme’s arms. Darina looks at Zen with the cloth hanging from her hands. Zen looks at Darina and doesn’t finish his greeting. I stand there with no idea what a host is supposed to do in this situation, which is fine, because this part was never my job.
Darina recovers first. Her eyes move from Zen to Esme and narrow. She drives her elbow into Esme’s side. Esme chuckles and steps forward to welcome our guest as if nothing were planned at all.
Zen turns his head and gives me the look he uses in the guard yard when someone’s story doesn’t hold together. I give him nothing back.
“You must be Zen,” Esme says. “Welcome. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“It’s an honor.” He bows his head to her, but he hasn’t fully turned away from Darina. “Thank you for having me.”
