Chapter 16
Amina
Waking up alone in bed didn’t make Amina happy, but finding an information square blinking for attention staved off her annoyance. Picking up the square she found a note from Myrum.
My most darling human,
I’ve gone to talk to the station leadership about releasing our ship immediately instead of continuing the charade of an inspection for the rest of the rotation. I’ll bring food from the pleasure ship back with me. Don’t worry about Ruby, she’s with me.
Your devoted Talin,
Myrum
Her heart did something fluttery at the words on the square. Dropping the device onto the messy bed, she got up to take a leisurely shower in the cleansing unit. Her body felt deliciously sore from their activities last night—both the fight and the athletic sex afterward.
There were even a few bruises she knew Myrum gave her. Memories flooded her, tempting her to reach her fingers between her legs and get herself off while thinking of all the things she wanted him to do to her again.
And some new things.
She wished she’d brought a few of the toys into the cleansing room with her. She was debating about grabbing some and restarting her shower when she heard a commotion.
This couldn’t be good.
She rushed to finish, dry off, and throw on some fresh clothes. The voices got much louder when the door to the bedroom slid open to reveal the crew facing off with several unfamiliar Ossisos. Everyone was talking at once, and there was no Myrum or food.
“Hey!” she shouted. No one heard her, so she resorted to the whistle her father taught her. Putting her fingers in her mouth, she let out a sound so shrill both the Ugarians and Ossisos in the room flinched and covered their ears.
“Amina, how many times do I have to tell you never to do that!” Helmen said.
Amina ignored her captain and addressed the room in general. “What’s going on here?”
“They’re trying to give us a slave,” Teshor said.
“Not a slave,” Nirot said. “We wish to gift you with his labor. He will be free to come back here once you're done with him. That’s not even the main reason for my visit. I’m here to tell you the inspection is done and you’re free to leave.”
Desur ignored that information, still focused on the gift of labor. “What if we’re never done with this guy? What if we want to keep him forever? What if we want to beat him? What if we don’t feed him? Do you even care what happens to this individual?”
“Desur, I need you to calm yourself,” Helmen said, then let out a long breath and faced Nicot. “We appreciate your offer, but we aren’t able to accommodate any more personnel on our ship.”
“Nonsense,” Nicot said. “We know your ship’s environmental systems could handle up to ten more individuals, so that’s not the issue. He can sleep on the floor anywhere you assign him, and we will send boxes of nutrient pellets for him.”
The other Ossiso with Nirot spoke up, directing his comments to Desur.
“If you decide to keep him, we only ask that his body be returned for the proper ceremonies when his life expires. We hope you decide not to abuse him, but we believe that anything that befalls us was decided before we were ever born. Every pain he experiences was meant to happen.”
Desur made an angry sound, but a look from Helmen kept him quiet. Amina took hold of Desur’s arm and pulled the Ugarian back. She took his place next to Helmen.
“Have you asked this Ossiso if he wants to go with us?” she asked.
“It was his suggestion,” Nicot said. “He pointed out that if we really wanted to please Lorse, we wouldn’t let you leave without an Ossiso guide.”
She felt the tension from the Ugarians around her lesson.
“Oh, well if he wants to join us, then that’s fine,” Helmen said. “But make sure you allow him to pack his personal belongings.”
Desur spoke up behind Amina. “He’ll need appropriate reconsitutor packs, not nutrient pellets.”
Both Ossisos looked relieved as Nicot spoke. “Excellent, I’ll arrange it.”
As if they practiced it, the Ossisos turned at once and filed out of the room.
The moment the door shut, the crew turned on Amina.
She stepped back, holding up her hands. “What? I didn’t ask for a gift of labor!”
“We know that,” Helmen said.
“What happened last night?” Desur asked.
Did they know about the fight? Who told them? Gis said no one would find out. Helmen and the crew were already overprotective of her. They were going to be insufferable now.
“It wasn’t a big deal.” Amina tried to retreat back to her room. “I need to comb out my hair or it’ll tangle.”
“Not a big deal?” Helmen repeated, advancing on Amina with the rest of the crew close behind.
Except for Teshor, who cut off her retreat. “You slept with a Talin, someone significantly bigger than you, without any of us there? How could you do something that dangerous?”
Desur looked scared for her. “What if he’d gone into rut? You could have been hurt or even killed. You should’ve at least waited until we were back here.”
Oh, so they didn’t know about the fight, which was a relief, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still in big trouble with her cousins.
“No need to worry about that; Talins don’t go into rut,” Amina said.
“Don’t act as if that’s the only concern,” Jossulum said.
“Did he do this?” Teshor asked, grabbing her arm and holding it up to show off a bruise on her wrist she hadn’t noticed.
“There are more bruises on her neck,” Desur said.
Everyone growled at Desur’s words.
She pulled her arm out of Teshor’s loose grip. “First, everything that happened was consensual. Second, that’s all I’m willing to say about my sex life to my cousins.”
That’s when Myrum walked in the room, his arms full of food containers. He was wearing his scarf with Ruby’s head poking out.
“I’ve brought enough food from the pleasure ship for everyone,” he said.
Four sets of angry Ugarian eyes turned to glare at him.
Before they could go after him, Amina jumped between her cousins and Myrum. “I’ve made my choice. Everything was fun. Myrum was wonderful. No one is allowed to be mean to him.”
Desur’s ears went up in surprise. “Amina, are you in love with this Talin? Are you finally thinking about marriage?”
Ugarians were all about marriage and family. She was the only member of the crew that wasn’t married. At her age, it was considered unusual and a little worrisome to her Ugarian relatives.
The moment Desur asked the question, everyone jumped on the marriage bandwagon.
“Do you want me to start the paperwork?” Teshor asked. “If we send it using the station's comms relay, it should reach an Ugarian outpost. It might not be fully approved by the time we get back, but at least it’ll be filed and allow Myrum temporary entry.”
“I’m going to send a message to the matriarchs,” Helmen said. “They’re going to want to do a full ceremony. Everyone's been waiting for this for a long time.”
“If we get back before the final harvest, we could do the mutual agreement part of the ceremony in a blooming field of filk,” Jossulum said. “I did that when I married into the Palsor family. It was beautiful. I have the image captures of it if you want to see.”
Amina turned around and drew Myrum further into the room. “I’m sorry, everyone figured out we slept together last night, and they’re jumping to conclusions.”
Myrum blinked, looking a little stunned as her cousins kept talking and planning around them. It was funny that Ruby looked a little dazed as well.
“Are they talking about the two of us getting married?” he asked.
Embarrassment, and maybe a little longing, made Amina’s face turn red. “Yes, but like I said, they’re all thinking that because we had sex that we’re getting married. Just ignore them.”
He sounded a questioning rumble. “Ignore them?”
She drew him a little further away as Desur and Teshor started arguing if traditional Ugarian wedding robes would work for them.
Jossulum and Helmen were working out the logistics of where they would live until they could build a domicile of their own since all the family domiciles were full at the moment.
“Yes, ignore them,” she said. “If they think we’re getting married, then they won’t pick on you for sleeping with me. When this is all over and you leave, they won’t be able to do anything to you.”
Why did that thought make her feel so sad?
“You don’t want to marry me?” he asked. That wasn’t a question she expected.
“Uh, well, we haven’t known each other that long,” she said, feeling flustered. “Sex doesn’t mean commitment or anything, you know? I mean, I like you, but I don’t want you to feel obligated or anything.”
“That’s reasonable," he said.
Reasonable? What did that even mean? Suddenly she wanted to ask him why he didn’t want to marry her.
She dropped her face into her hands. Why was she thinking crazy like this?
“Are you well?” Myrum asked, his voice finally showing emotion. “Do you need medical care? Is it your head?”
Looking up, she shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong except maybe my sanity."
“What does that mean?”
She let out a chuckle. “It’s a human joke. Sorry, it doesn’t translate. Anyway, I guess we can share a cabin for the rest of the trip without getting in trouble with my cousins.”
“Does that mean we need to pretend we will be getting married?” he asked.
Hadn’t she already said that? “Well, yes.”
“And if we’re getting married, I need to learn all the things an Ugarian male would do to make his female happy?” he pressed.
Was that a smirk on Ruby's little lizard face? No, that wasn’t possible. Lizards didn’t smirk.
“I guess so,” she answered, unsure what point he was trying to make.
“I can do that,” he agreed. “I can learn to be a good male to you on this trip. I’ll impress you and your cousins.”
“That’s sweet,” she said. “But you don’t have to do anything extra or—”
Desur was suddenly there. “Myrum, are you already married or do you have a contract of understanding? We can make arrangements to bring another Talin into the marriage, but if it’s female, we’ll need to find another male to balance the marriage.”