Page 3 of Bound By the Alien King

She pulled her wrist back. “That doesn’t make any sense. How could it be better for me not to know something that is particularly relevant to my current situation?”

“Because it is also relevant to mine, and if, when you return to your island, you tell your council my Night-given name, it’s likely my brothers will have to light my pyre. It is not better for you if you don’t know it. It’s better for me.”

“Oh.” He meant to return her to the colony. Dread seeped through her at the thought of standing before her father and confessing everything: Slipping a powder into her mother’s tea. Tricking her nightmaid. Stealing the boat. Acting so recklessly that her ribbons were untied.

She swallowed. She was ruined no matter what. Not a single face on the council would believe that this Nightborn hadn’t touched her. No man would take such a wife. She would be locked away in the nunnery, become a sad family secret, a cautionary tale told to other girls.

“Please don’t take me back, sir.”

“Sir?” For the first time, the voice held a hint of humor. “I did not know humans held such respect for my kind.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to call you, if you won’t give me your name?”

“More often we are called monsters.” He was making fun of her still.

“Shall I call you that, then?” She issued the question like a challenge, and then quailed at her own audacity. Just because she couldn’t see his teeth in the dark didn’t mean they weren’t there. And just because he planned to return her to the colony didn’t mean he wouldn’t bite her first.

She shivered, but it wasn’t entirely out of fear.

“You can call me whatever you like.” His voice was half an octave lower, and she felt his breath rush out against her face. At first it sounded like an invitation, a shocking proposition that heated her core as she imagined closing the gap between them, pressing her mouth to his fanged one.

“Monster, then,” she whispered. She shifted closer and felt something hot and hard against her thigh. She could guess what it was, even though she couldn’t see in the dark. She bit her lip to hold back the moan that threatened to give her away.

Why was she harboring these absurd, dangerous thoughts? Released from her ribbons, she was as wanton as she had always been warned. Rather than feeling shamed by it, she only heated further, desire licking between her legs like invisible flames.

He doused it in an instant. “It doesn’t matter to me what tales a half-drowned human tells about the vicious beast who clawed off her clothes.” His tone was jagged and cold and cut her more deeply than it should have.

“I won’t tell any such tales. Why would I? All I have to reveal is that I’m ruined.”

“You seem perfectly fine to me.” She felt the fingers on her back contract slightly, as though he’d started a caress and then stopped himself.

“Fine?” She scoffed. “You’ve seen my ribbons! You untied them yourself. You know their knots!”

“So?” Was he being purposely obtuse? Or did he really not know?

“So you’re not my father nor my husband, the only two males allowed to see their color and pattern. They will believe you claimed me if you know what no man should.” Her voice rose as she finished. She had never seen him in the light, but still she could picture his deep blue Nightborn fingers, tipped with sharp, black claws, tracing the crisscrossing blue-and-silver lines over her skin before he untied them.

She should have been horrified by the image of his alien hands on her most intimate places, but part of her wished she could’ve watched it, like it was a real betrothal night. Something she would never have now. No one would want her.

“What about a healer?” he asked.

“I could probably use one,” she admitted, testing her side. It hurt, but she couldn’t feel any breaks. Cracked, maybe.

“I mean your ribbons.” He said the word like it puzzled him. “Surely a healer has seen them when you received treatment.”

He really didn’t know anything.

“Women don’t see healers. We mark our nightmaids and send them as our proxy.” Her own nightmaid, Mithri, had recently made trips to and fro from the healer’s shop to secure powders for cramps, her pale-blue stomach dotted with seaberry-ink Xs to show the places Aster had pangs.

“Our females show their bodies in your stead?” He sounded shocked.

“Yes, of course. They can’t be compromised in the same way we can. Except during the Revel,” she quickly amended, “but we wouldn’t send them then.”

The Revel, marked by the conjunction of Manna and Corek, was the time when the nightmaids went into their yearly heat. Their wombs were sealed off except during those few days when the Nightborn males were allowed to cross the tide-exposed sand bridge to visit them in the colony.

Under the cover of darkness, the streets filled with rutting blue bodies while the humans stayed safely locked away. The couplings Aster had observed when she peeked through the crack in her shutters while she was supposed to be sleeping hadn’t looked so terrible. She couldn’t help wondering if this Nightborn male had been one of those she’d seen, and the folds between her legs gave a pointed pulse.

“No, not during the Revel,” he echoed bitterly. “Well, I won’t tell them if you won’t. Problem solved. You’re no longer ruined.” In a rush of movement, he sat up and moved away from her, and she caught a quiet grunt of pain.