Page 53 of The Marriage Bargain

It was, indeed, a big deal.

We turned the corner to the street leading to Caide’s apartment building—our apartment now, I supposed, and saw two transports parked on the end where Caide had described his apartment to be. I wouldn’t have thought much about it, except Caide said fiercely, “J’tet!”

“What is it?” I asked, turning to him. “Who is that?”

He didn’t merely look unhappy. He looked downright grim.

“I sense this is nothing good,” he said.

I felt worry spring up in the pit of my stomach. “Why, what’s going on?”

He didn’t answer, pulling the transport to a stop behind the other two. He pressed the button to open the hatch, but before he even unbuckled his seatbelt, he turned to me and said, “Delle, no matter what happens, I want you to know…”

He stopped.

“What? What do you think is about to happen? You’re scaring me,” I said quietly, my gaze seeking reassurance from his.

“Forgive me. I do not mean to frighten you, but I think what awaits us will be problematic. I want you to know, no matter that we entered this arrangement for utilitarian purposes, it was never merely to escape life on Asterion under my father’s rule that I chose you. I chose you because I wanted you. From the moment I met you, you intrigued me. You captivated me. You—”

“Caide?” A deep male voice spoke, cutting through the night, interrupting whatever he’d been planning to say. “Caide, is that you, my son?”

His hand tightened on mine. “J’tet!” he whispered again. “I cannot believe this.”

Tension raced through my body, firing every nerve. “Your father is here?”

“Apparently so,” he answered glumly, then, eyes shut, said, “Yes, Father. I am here.”

“I have waited an Earth hour for you,” the other man said. A face appeared in the open window of the transport. “Where have you been?”

Caide’s chest fell as he released a breath. Opening his eyes, he turned to face his father, and his voice was as icy as the winter night outside.

“I was at my wife’s house with my new family, Father,” he replied coldly. “I was living my life here on Earth as I came here to do. I don’t believe I answer to you any longer while I am a galaxy away.”

“We are not a galaxy apart anymore,” his fathered stated firmly. “J’tet, it is cold here. Your apartment is locked, else I would have entered. Now that you are here, I would speak with you, my son. Inside.”

I didn’t like the authoritative tone Caide’s father took, especially knowing a little of their family history and how his dad had all but abandoned him because he was illegitimate. Something that was his father’s fault, not Caide’s. I felt defensive over this man, human or not, that I had married.

“I never said you were welcome in my home, Father,” Caide objected, and I was proud of him for not wilting under the older Asterion’s presence.

“You would not permit your own father inside your home?”

“I recall very well when I, your own son, was not welcome inside yours.”

Burn, I thought, slanting Caide a proud glance. But he didn’t look proud of himself. He was staring straight ahead, not even looking at the male who had sired him—the older Asterion male who was very obviously ignoring me, as if I were beneath his contempt. He still gripped my hand, and I gripped it back, squeezing it, letting him know I was here and I was on his side.

A brief silence fell, broken by the soft shushing of the wind. Then his father said, in a much meeker tone of voice, “You are not wrong, Caide. I will not ask your forgiveness, but I will ask, humbly, that you allow us inside your home to discuss matters. And if not in your home, somewhere in this Citadel where we can talk. For the sake of all the galaxies, don’t make us linger in this infernal cold and snow.”

We? What did he mean, we?

I shifted, leaning past Caide to glance out the transport window. Another face came into view as a figure, very tall and very intimidating, materialized in the snow-swirled darkness behind Caide’s father.

My heart sank.

You have got to be kidding me.

It was Flight Commander Abidah.

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