Chapter 19 Rivven
RIVVEN
Iwatched Shiloh sleep for a long, long time. Riding me the way she had seemed to have exhausted her. Sated her too, I was sure. She’d taken great pleasure from my mouth, my cock.
And tomorrow, she would be my wife.
She had chosen me.
I should have been the happiest man on Zabria Prinar One.
Unable to sleep, I pulled on my pants and left her safe and cozy in the bed. Unsure what else to do, I exited the room, heading down the stairs. Halfway down, I realized that someone was in the kitchen.
It was Warden Tenn.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I’d never found the warden in my kitchen before.
“Eating leftovers. Couldn’t stop thinking about that dinner you made,” he said, lifting a now-empty plate into my line of vision as I reached the bottom stair and then stepped into the kitchen. “Did you come for a second round as well?”
“No. Couldn’t sleep.”
“Didn’t want to sit there and just stare at her?”
“Already did that. For a long time.”
The warden made a sound of understanding. He put down his plate with a quiet clink on the counter.
“Sometimes, I think I’d never like to close my eyes again,” he said. “Just so long as I could keep on looking at her.”
By her, I knew he must mean Tasha.
This was a man who understood, on the deepest and most intimate level, exactly how I felt.
Perhaps he could advise me.
“I do not…I do not think that Shiloh feels as I feel.”
Warden Tenn crossed his arms over his thick chest. His head cocked to one side as he regarded me. “Explain.”
“She did not come here for marriage. She chose me, yes. But I was merely the man she’d grown closest to when the time came. I worry…I worry that one day, she will not be happy. She will resent the life she built with me.”
I pulled at the tap, running cold water into the sink. I splashed it onto my face, mopping with my palm before continuing. “She is so talented, Warden. Brilliant. She deserves a life that gives her everything she wants.”
“And you think the life you’re offering wouldn’t?”
“Not the way she deserves, no.”
Warden Tenn sighed.
“Here is the thing, Rivven. The women who come here and participate in this program? None of them choose Zabria Prinar One because their lives are brimming with opportunity and they have plenty of options. Well, maybe Magnolia is the exception. She really did choose to come here just because she wanted to marry one of you fools. But the rest of them?”
“No?”
“No. Cherry was on the run from a violent debt collector. Darcy had been cut off financially from her family. So had Jolene – and she was pregnant at the time. Jaya crash landed here and only married Oaken so that I wouldn’t make her leave without her ship.”
This was not making me feel better.
“But you know what?” Warden Tenn’s eyes burned briefly white.
It was the first time I’d seen that kind of emotion in him when it wasn’t directed at his own wife.
“Every single one of those women are happy now, Rivven. They all love their husbands. And more than one of them could have had a change in circumstances. More than one of them had options that could have let them leave this place. Jaya could have repaired her ship and disappeared. Darcy could have made amends with her family. Jolene could have had her baby on Elora Station instead. But they’re all still here.
And frankly, I don’t think it’s just their men who are the better for it.
I think the women are better for it, too. ”
A change in circumstances…
The words had caught on some jagged edge of my brain. For some reason, I could not let them go.
“I have no doubt that Shiloh already cares for you. She’s obviously very enthusiastic about physical relations with you, if all that racket today was anything to go by.
” He gave my shoulder a firm pat. “Trust that, when she chose you, she was choosing this life as well. Trust that she knows what she is doing. Trust her, Rivven. Because that woman will be your wife in the morning. And if there’s one bit of advice I can give you, it’s that. ”