As we rounded another corner, a yellow Khanavai male practically barreled into us as he rushed down the path.
“Watch where you’re going—” he began, then stuttered to a stop when he saw Cav.
“Hello, Tiziani,” Cav greeted the other male pleasantly.
The yellow male snarled, but he managed to reply, “Hello.” Still, he bowed up, his chest expanding, and his muscles clenching.
“Don’t even think about it,” Cav said. “It was part of the Bride Games, and those are over. You lost.”
Tiziani growled deep in his throat, but he stepped aside to let us pass.
I glanced between him and Cav, then said to Tiziani as we walked by, “Smart move, brother.”
The yellow Khanavai glared after us until we rounded the next corner.
“Rival during your Games?” I asked.
“Only in theory,” Cav replied. “He never had a chance.”
We walked silently for a while before I turned back to our previous conversation. “You’re right. I need to tell Amelia what happened.”
“And all the repercussions of it,” Cav said.
I sighed. “There aren’t any repercussions for her,” I pointed out.
“But it’s not fair to her if you don’t tell her what the repercussions will be for you.” Cav paused. “Before she makes her final decision.”
He was right, of course, but it also didn’t seem fair to tell her that if she chose someone else, I would spend the rest of my life mateless and alone. “Seems like a lot of pressure to put on her.”
“Maybe,” Cav acknowledged. “But I still think she deserves to know.”
“Yeah.” I stopped and turned around in a circle, realizing that I had been so caught up in our conversation, so engrossed in my own anxiety, that I had lost track of where we were.
Some Special Ops officer I had turned out to be.
“Can you get us out of here? I think I have something I need to go tell my mate.”
“Of course,” Cav said, smiling.
The closer we got to returning to the main part of the station, the more I knew Cav was absolutely correct. Amelia might not choose me. I knew that, and if it happened, I could come to accept it, eventually. But I had to give her all the information I could so that she would be able to make a completely informed choice.
No matter how much it terrified me.
Chapter Seventeen
Amelia
Zont was nowhere to be found when we began looking for him. Cav either, for that matter. Natalie and I made a loop around all the public areas of the station, then circled back around to where we started, just in time to see both Khanavai warrior males exiting the garden.
When she saw them, Natalie cracked up laughing. “Of course you would bring him here,” she said to Cav. “This is where I brought Amelia to think, too.”
Cav wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead. “It’s pretty much my favorite place in the station. Other than our quarters, of course.”
She thumped him on the chest. “Behave. And, since you mentioned it, take me back to those quarters. These two have something to discuss, I think.”
As they walked away, Natalie gave me an encouraging wave, and I was pretty sure I heard Cav mutter, “Oh, you have no idea how much they have to talk about.”
I turned away from watching them to find Zont staring at me intently.
We both spoke at the same time.
“I need to tell you something.”
“I want to talk about this.”
We both stopped speaking, and then we both laughed.
“I really want to say this first, before you say anything,” I told him.
“Let’s sit on the bench,” he said, gesturing for me to lead the way back to where I’d talked to Natalie.
“The thing is,” I said, twisting and hooking one leg up onto the seat in front of me so I was turned completely sideways to face him, “my parents had a miserable marriage.”
Zont frowned. “They were unhappy in their mating?”
I laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. Yes. They were very unhappy.”
“That doesn’t happen among the Khanavai,” Zont said. “There’s a reason for it, too.”
I put my finger up and held it against his lips. “Let me finish, okay?”
He nodded, and I continued.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I come from a very wealthy family.”
He nodded. “It was in the report I read about you.”
Well, that was one good thing about this Bride Lottery thing. It wasn’t like any Khanavai would be trying to marry me for my family money.
“She stayed married to him because divorce wasn’t something that happened in our family.” I paused and swallowed. I’d finished my tea some time ago, but now I wished I had kept some for this conversation. “I spent my entire childhood wishing that my parents would get divorced because I was convinced they would be happier with other people.”
Zont frowned and leaned toward me, focusing intently on my words.
“And I know that your people don’t do divorce, either.”
He opened his mouth to say something, and I held my hand up again.
“It has always been important to me that I not end up like them. So much so that I had no intention of marrying anyone ever.”
This time, he leaned back, and I thought perhaps I detected hurt in his eyes. But I forged ahead, anyway. “That’s why I ran. I never wanted to get married at all. And in my experience, marrying for the wrong reasons—whether they were political, or because of wealth, or even because someone is lonely and wants someone else around? It’s a terrible idea.” I paused, trying to think what else to say.
Zont nodded slowly. “I think I understand,” he said.
“You do? Really?” I sighed in relief.
“Yes. You don’t want to risk an unhappy marriage for any of those reasons, so you’re going to go through the Bride Games to find the best possible match for you.” He didn’t
