Once we were in the hallway, she spun around to face me. Her hair had grown out in the months since I’d seen her, and now hung in a straight, dark sheet down to her shoulders. It swung out, floating for a moment when she turned, and I found myself longing to see it spread out beneath me on a sleeping platform—or floating loosely in zero gravity.
I wanted to see her wearing nothing, displayed before me.
The ache in my balls intensified, and it was all I could do to keep from picking her up and carrying her away to my quarters.
But I couldn’t. The law still required that we be matched through the Bride Games.
“Well?” she demanded.
I blinked, realizing I had lost track of the conversation. “I’m sorry, what was the question?”
“You arranged this. You and Vos Klavoii and whoever else wanted to teach me a lesson, keep me from ever going against the Bride Lottery again.”
“That’s not what happened at all.” At least, that wasn’t the reason I had arranged to manipulate Bride Lottery. She wasn’t wrong about it being arranged.
Infuriated by my answer, Deandra under let out a frustrated noise like a growl and, if possible, her body grew even tenser. If she had been a Khanavai warrior, I would have expected her to punch the nearest solid object.
As it was, her voice as tight as the rest of her body, she asked, “Where am I supposed to report in?”
“Deandra, please…” I began.
“My name is Dee.” Her words came out in a hiss. “Tell me where I need to go next.”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to think of something I could say, anything to convince her that my motives were not nefarious.
When I didn’t respond immediately, she spun away from me and began stalking down the hallway—in the wrong direction—muttering something about finding someone else to talk to.
“It’s this way,” I finally called out.
Deandra paused, blew out a long, slow breath, and turned around. “Lead the way.”
She maintained her silence all the way to the Brides’ Quarters. As I opened the door to her room and she slid past me, I tried to reach out to her, hoping if I couldn’t find the words, my touch would convince her my intentions were good.
As if she’d been expecting it, she ducked out of the way and put her back to the room, her stance defensive.
“Thanks for bringing me here. You can go now.”
I swallowed the words I’d been formulating.
This clearly wasn’t the right time.
Finally, I nodded. “I’ll see you later.”
I stepped back, and the door shut between us—but I stood there long enough to hear her mutter, “Not if I see you first.”
Vulking xelophian fladdergells.
This was going to be even more difficult than I had feared.
Chapter Eleven
Dee
An hour after they arrived at my door, the two aliens who had bustled in and introduced themselves as my assistants finally allowed me to see myself in the mirror.
I hadn’t spoken to them much during that time, only answering direct questions when asked. Not that I’d been rude, exactly—it wasn’t their fault I didn’t want to be here, after all. But I decided that if I had to go through the motions of participating in the Bride Lottery and Games, I would do so with the bare minimum of engagement.
Maybe I can get out of this without ending up married to some alien.
And to be honest, Wex meeting me in the transporter room had left me shaken.
You could choose him now, a tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered.
I ran my hand over my forehead, rubbing my fingers across my eyes just as Drindl flipped the switch to turn on the electronic mirror.
“Oh, no,” she exclaimed in that beautiful, bell-like voice of hers. “Do you not like it?”
“That’s not it,” I said, pulling my hand away from my face and blinking a couple of times to focus. “I just —”
My words died in my throat.
I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror.
I rarely wore makeup at all—occasionally lip gloss and maybe a little mascara if I had to dress up for anything.
Growing up with my father meant I was required to be something of a tomboy. My mother had died before I hit the age of makeup-wearing, and I never bothered to learn.
The same went for my hair—I always went for wash it, brush it, and leave it styles.
Add to that a serious lack of feminine curves, and I never even bothered to try glamming it up.
I had always considered myself plain, at best.
But the woman who stared back at me from the reflection was actually pretty. I reached up to touch my cheek, as if making sure that was really my own reflection I saw.
“Do you like it?” Plofnid, the Poltien, asked, its nose-braid quivering in anticipation.
They had chosen my clothing without much input from me. In the mirror, my emerald-green gown shimmered in the light, satin vines and leaves swirling up around my body over a layer of chiffon, with more satin beneath that. A belt of the same green satin around my waist highlighted curves I’d never known I had.
My dress matches Wex’s eyes.
Again, I pushed the thought out of my mind.
Unable to help myself, I spun around, watching in the mirror as the knee-length skirt flared out.
“I look like a fairy straight out of an Irish tale.” My voice echoed with a wonder I hadn’t realized I could feel about my own appearance.
Somehow, they had worked magic with makeup, turning my dark eyes luminous. My lips, stained with a dark red that somehow made me look luscious, rather than vampirically pale, looked like they came straight out of a fashion magazine.
They worked that same
