Chapter 10
Kaiven
The legal office means nothing to my body.
That becomes clear the moment we leave it.
The papers are signed. The human officials named her wife and transferred her into my protection.
By every law that matters to cities, governments, and planets that need words written down before they believe anything is real, the matter is settled.
When I walk beside her through the corridor, every instinct in me says the work has not even begun.
Because now she is mine by law. But not yet in scent. Not yet in custom. Not yet in my camp, under my sky, inside the life that will actually hold her.
I keep my pace slow and even. That is the first discipline.
I could walk faster. I want to. I want her out of the building, out of the capital, out of reach of every other eye and scent in the place.
But she is smaller, and this world is too large around her.
If I move at my own stride, she will have to hurry to keep up, and I will not begin this marriage by making her chase me down a government hall like a servant.
So I shorten my pace. No one notices but me.
Keandra walks with her spine straight and her hands too tight around the tablet they gave her.
She looks like she is holding herself together by force.
Not weak. Not foolish. Just strained in the way of someone trying to absorb too much at once and refusing to let it show.
That effort catches my attention harder than open fear would.
I open the outer door before the attendant reaches it. Not because she needs the courtesy. Because I do not want another male stepping close to her if I can prevent it. That is the second discipline. Too much, too early, and she will feel the cage before she feels the shelter.
Tigris light hits us as we step into the open court. Heat rises off the stone. Wind moves the high banners. Somewhere deeper in the city, a horn sounds, low and distant. Keandra blinks once against the brightness, then follows Marat toward the waiting transport.
I stay close enough to catch her if she stumbles. Far enough that she does not have to flinch every second. That balance is harder than battle.
At the transport platform, my vehicle waits where it always waits when I come to the capital.
Long-bodied. Dark metal. Built low and wide for rough ground beyond city roads.
The wheel housings are heavy, made for stone and broken land.
Hide-wrapped supplies are strapped along one side, and the front grill bears the worked sign of Vek Talan in dark metal.
Two of my warriors stand nearby. Not in full horde gear, but mine by posture alone. Both straighten when they see me. Both let their attention go to Keandra for one brief moment.
That is enough.
I stop. Neither moves again. I do not raise my voice. Do not bare my teeth. Do not need to. One look tells them what matters. Not curiosity. Not now. Not at her.
Both lower their heads at once and look elsewhere.
Keandra notices. Of course she does. Her whole body has been alive with awareness since I entered the waiting chamber. I can see it in the way she goes still beside me, the way her breathing shifts, the way she does not look at me directly but knows exactly where I am at every moment.
Good. Let her know she is guarded. Not watched like prey. Guarded.
Marat turns to me. “Your route has been cleared. You should make the lower gate before traffic thickens.”
I give one nod.
His gaze shifts to Keandra. “Your travel bag has already been transferred.”
She looks immediately toward the transport, as if she had not realized until now that her things might be moved without her seeing it happen. Another small tightening. Another reminder of how much control she has handed over in the space of a single day.
I speak before the worry can grow. “Your belongings are safe.”
Her eyes come to me at once. I do not add more. The words are enough, or should be. Too many explanations from me this early will only sound strange, like I am trying too hard to make her trust what she has no reason yet to trust.
She gives a small nod.
Marat inclines his head to me. “Then my duty is complete.”
No. Not complete. But finished in the ways that matter to bureaucrats and match systems.
I say the formal thing required of me. He receives it without offense or warmth. Good. The male is useful because he does not need warmth.
Then he turns to Keandra. “You will be given further instruction in household and territorial customs once you reach Vek Talan.”
She nods again, like nodding is easier than speaking right now.
Marat leaves. Just like that, the last human structure around this process is gone.
No more officials. No more screens. No more offices with smooth tables and sealed records.
Only me. My transport. My warriors. And the female who now belongs to my household, whether she understands what that will mean or not.
The air changes. Keandra feels it. I see the awareness move through her.
I step to the transport door and open it myself.
This is not symbolic. Not performance. Not something I do for display.
I want control of every point of entry and exit around her.
I want to know the step is safe, the interior clear, the height manageable for her smaller body.
I want no one else reaching past her, guiding her hand, touching her arm, deciding where she puts her feet.
“Inside,” I say, keeping my voice low.
She obeys at once. That should ease something in me. It does not. It sharpens the hunger to close the distance completely.
The transport interior is larger than city vehicles, but even here she changes the scale of things. The seats are built for Tigris bodies. The ceiling height. The space between benches. The overhead storage. Everything is meant for people like me.
She stands just inside the doorway one second too long, taking it in, and I see the same thought pass through her that has been passing through her since she reached the capital. Too large. Too unfamiliar. Not made with her in mind.
I step in after her and point to the seat nearest the center brace, where the ride will be smoothest.
“There.”
She moves to it without argument and sits carefully, as if she half expects the seat itself to reject her. The thought is absurd enough to irritate me. Not at her. At the whole day. At the amount of strangeness pressing against her from every side.
One of my warriors loads the last secured case and shuts the rear hatch.
I take the seat opposite her. Not beside her.
That is another discipline. Beside her would be easier on my body.
Easier to scent her, watch her, feel every change in her breathing and tension as the transport moves.
Easier to put my own weight between her and the world outside.
Too much. So I face her instead, one stretch of floor and air between us, and tell myself that space is wisdom.
The engine hums alive beneath us. The transport pulls away from the platform with smooth force.
Keandra braces her hand against the seat frame immediately.
I notice everything. The way she keeps her knees together and her shoulders straight, as though posture might hold the rest of her together too.
The way her eyes track the passing capital through the side panel windows.
The way her fingers tighten every time the transport turns and loosen when the motion steadies.
The way she has not yet put down the contract tablet.
My wife.
That thought has changed since the office.
Before the signatures, it was true. Now it feels heavier.
My wife in a way the law will defend. My wife in a way that changes how every male in my territory must look at her.
My wife in a way that calms my body in one direction and drives it to rage in ten others.
I watch the city slide past behind her. The government quarter gives way to broader roads, open plazas, market terraces, and the thick-walled compounds of other powerful households.
Tigris Prime is not ground I prefer. Too many scents stacked on top of each other.
Too many polished males pretending civility while searching for weakness beneath it.
Too much stone and rule and distance from things that matter.
It is ordered ground. Ordered ground makes me more aware of how fragile Keandra will feel once the roads vanish and the real land begins.
She will have to learn fast. That thought does not harden me.
It sobers me. Because learning there is not a polite matter of embarrassment and etiquette.
In the Horde lands, not knowing can wound.
Not seeing danger can kill. A missed sign in the sky.
A wrong step near an animal track. A bad choice of shelter in harsh weather.
A female like her cannot survive by softness alone, no matter how much my body delights in the idea of her softness.
And my body does delight in it. That is the problem.
I have not touched her, yet I already know I am becoming obsessed.
With her size. With the shape of her face.
With the way the blue dress lies over her hips.
With the hollowness left by hunger where there should be more softness.
With the dark waves of her hair. With the full softness of her mouth that my eyes keep returning to no matter how often I drag them away.
And most dangerously, with the thought of touch itself. Her skin against my hand. The fine bones at her wrist. The back of her neck. The inside of her thigh.
I shift one hand against my leg and force my mind elsewhere. The route. The timing. The lower gate. How far until we reach the open road. Whether she has eaten enough. Whether the camp has been warned properly. Whether Oshara will keep both her mouth and her temper in line when we arrive.
That last thought almost cools me. Almost.
Keandra finally speaks. “How far is it?”