Havik gave her a severe look. “I love you too much to ever let you go.”
Lightness filled her. He loved her. He had made promises of devotion to her but that was the first time he said the L-word.
She leaned into him, not wanting to make a big deal about it. She’d tease him about most anything and everything in the universe, but love had been off-limits.
“You did, though, when I joined Smuggler Sue’s crew. I came back,” she said.
“I stole you back,” he clarified. He leaned down, a heated look on his face. “And then you marked me with the blood of your enemies,” he purred.
Aliens are so weird.
The timer on her comm unit chimed. “Time to go inside. I got my daily maximum dose of Vitamin Radiation. You can stay if you want.”
“Unnecessary.” He glanced once back to the sands but then scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder. His arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her in place as he jogged toward the ship. Thalia laughed, tugging on his braid and shouting, “Giddy up!”
Chapter 20
Thalia
The morning sun turned the ocean water a liquid gold. The wind was cool by Rolusdreus standards but still comfortable. Anything slightly less than boiling was considered cold, she soon learned. Bundled up in her armor, Thalia was insulated from the nip in the morning air. Well, and the radiation. Can’t forget that.
“How can you stand this?” Havik shivered next to her. He wore nothing but a pair of those tight pants she loved on him so much.
“You might not be so cold if you wore a shirt.”
“But then I could not do this.” He flexed his arms and pecs. Suddenly her mouth watered like freaking Niagara Falls.
“I’ll allow it,” she said, subtly wiping the corners of her mouth for humorous effect, despite wearing a helmet.
Havik grinned, all teeth and tusks, and turned his gaze back to the sunrise.
Thalia leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder and appreciated the solid weight of her husband. The words felt so strange to her. She rolled them around in her head. She never had a boyfriend or a serious relationship, but she jumped straight to marriage with the biggest, baddest red alien warrior around.
Regrets: zero.
The morning after he left his mark on her shoulder, they registered in a tiny office. If the clerk seemed surprised at Havik bringing in a new wife who was unlisted in the databank, no one said a word. A quick swab test determined their compatibility to be 99%, but Thalia didn’t care if it had been zero. Havik was her.
The future was nebulous, always shifting. Havik had his place in a new clan and informed her he wanted a dozen sons. She wasn’t against the idea of kids, but she wanted some time to get to know herself, maybe go to school and be a student. Kids could wait a few years. So much of her life had been about survival that it felt like pure decadence to do nothing more serious than sit on the beach and watch the sunrise.
She had never been to the ocean before, any ocean, and found herself enchanted by the sound of the waves and the play of light on the water. She was sure it smelled amazing, like salt and—okay, her creativity failed her. Fish? The river back in the city she grew up in had a fishy smell, so she just imagined that, multiplied by a ton. The armor filtered the air so the only thing she smelled inside the suit was her soap.
The ship needed a do-dad. Havik rattled off a very technical-sounding name while Thalia nodded. “Do what you gotta do,” she said, being a supportive-as-fuck wife. The technical what’s-it meant they had to stay on Rolusdreus while he hunted the part in a scrap yard and did the repair. Havik seemed to have enough mechanical knowhow to do the work with only the occasional call to Ren.
Basically, they were stuck on the hot, radioactive planet for a week. Havik rented a cottage in a settlement on the northern coast, which meant they had a beach honeymoon. The settlement was enclosed in a dome. To exit or enter the dome, a person had to pass through an energy barrier that cleansed them of radiation particles. Thalia was curious about the specifics, like how did the dome filter the air, but she was more interested in walks on the beach.
For the first time, she was on an alien planet. So far, her adventures in space had been ships, stations, more ships, and more stations. Boring. Well, except for when she got snookered by smugglers and put up for auction.
She loved discovering the subtle differences and the surprising similarities. Like gravity. Almost the same, believe it or not. The sky was a soft, hazy pink. The sun was yellow. The plants were green. Just when she forgot about being on another planet, she’d look up at the sky and her breath caught in her throat.
None of it compared to watching the morning sun rise over the water. She wished she could bury her feet in the sand but did not fancy getting radiation sickness. One day, she and Havik could go to a beach on a planet with a human-friendly environment. Maybe that planet could be Earth.
Thalia had been slowly warming up to the idea of returning to Earth. Not to stay. Hell no. But to visit. She never put flowers on the graves of her mother or Doc, but the idea now filled her with warmth.
“I require your assistance,” Havik said.
“Yeah? As much as I love being held captive in your bed, I need food. Breakfast before ravaging.” And she really, really enjoyed being his captive in bed, but woman could not live on love alone. At some point, she required coffee.
“Sustenance now, then you will accompany me to an appointment.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “Sounds mysterious. I’m
