I put my hand out to touch his leg. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
Zont dropped back onto the bench with a huff of air, and I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or irritated.
“Then what are you trying to say?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I guess… I’m just trying to tell you that I’m scared of this. The idea of making the wrong decision terrifies me at the best of times. During med school, I froze more than any of my classmates. It was bad enough that my professors were afraid I would never actually become a doctor.” I paused. “But I got over it. And I learned that sometimes, when you’re faced with two equally bad options, you just have to choose one and deal with the outcome.”
“So mating with me is a bad option?”
My gaze flew to his face. I was worried I’d find anger there—the kind of anger I had seen all too often on my father’s face when he was speaking to my mother.
Instead, I saw the beginnings of a smile playing around his mouth. Not the kind of smile Vos had given me earlier, but something gleeful, relaxed, maybe even joyful.
And definitely amused.
“That’s not it.” I reached out and flicked my fingers against his thigh in a mock slap. “No. Everything I know about you tells me that you are good and kind, the kind of man that, if I were inclined to marry anyone, I would be searching for.” I paused again, my voice dropping. “But I am frightened out of my mind of making a commitment like that.”
He nodded, his expression growing thoughtful. “I have something to tell you, too.”
This time, he paused so long that I prodded him. “Yes? What is it?”
He was so serious that I feared he might be about to tell me something awful, like he already had three secret wives at home on Khanav Prime and couldn’t marry me, anyway.
That would be just my luck.
“First I need to explain something about Khanavai physiology. Have you ever heard of the mating cock?”
I blinked at him, taken aback by the question. “You mean a penis?”
He shrugged. “Sort of. It’s not quite like anything human males have.”
I blinked, thinking about our night together. “I didn’t notice anything particularly unusual. Unless you mean the ridges on your penis.” I retreated into the most technical terms I could find, taking comfort from slipping into my medical persona.
“That’s part of that,” he said. “The mating cock… appears…in the presence of our true mate.”
My eyes grew wide. “The Khanavai males have a second penis?” I tried to imagine where it might be stored.
Zont grinned, his cheeks turning an even darker pink. “Technically, yes. It’s considered very private, something we don’t discuss with others except in our original early sexuality coursework—and then, of course, with our mates.”
“So the fact that it didn’t—what was it you said? appear?—when we had sex, does that mean that we’re not true mates?”
If anything, his blush deepened.
“I don’t care about that,” I said, trying to comfort him. “If we can try to have a real relationship, one that’s based on trust and caring about each other, then I don’t need that part of it.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say at all,” he echoed my earlier words back to me. “It did appear.”
“It … oh.” I turned to face forward, leaning back against the bench. “You mean when we… ohhh,” I said, finally realizing what he meant. “So that second time, you didn’t simply recover quickly? It was actually a second…”
“Exactly.”
I turned the new information around in my mind. “So what does that mean? Are we already mated? Am I already bonded to you somehow?”
“Not exactly. As far as our scientists have been able to determine, human females react differently to a mating cock than a Khanavai female would. While being with me when I…use…my mating cock might make you more inclined to be my mate, it won’t bind you to me—it didn’t bind you to me—the way it would have a Khanavai female.”
I exhaled a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding, not sure if I was happy or sad to learn that. “Okay, then, so we’re not —” I stopped in the middle of my sentence and turned to face Zont again. “You said it doesn’t work that way for me. What about for you?”
Zont didn’t look me in the eye. He stared at the station floor for a long moment before he finally answered. “It bound me to you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that no matter what you choose, I am mated to you.”
“Can it be undone?”
He laughed, but all the joy I’d seen in his smile earlier was missing from the sound. “No.”
“So you’re stuck with me forever?”
“Or without you.” He shrugged one shoulder. “You can choose someone else. I cannot.”
“So if I decide to go through the Bride Games and choose someone else, what will happen to you?”
“My mate would leave with some other male. And I would go back to what I was before—except this time,” he said, his tone both matter-of-fact and a little sad, “I would no longer have the hope of someday finding a mate and having a family.”
“I see.” My voice had gotten very small as I added yet more information to my considerations.
Zont’s entire future depends on me.
For the first time since I heard my name called during the Bride Lottery drawing, I stopped to consider what all this might mean for someone else.
“Come with me,” I said, coming to a decision. “We need to go talk to Vos again.”
My heart started pounding hard as Anthony showed us into Vos’s office.
“So,” Vos said as we came to stand before his desk. “Have you come to a decision?”
I opened my mouth to answer, and the entire room tilted sideways.
For a second, I thought
