CHAPTER 27
Cyden invited Julie to dinner in his apartment, and when she agreed to go with him, he told her to pack a bag. She did, and then Julie and Cyden left us with nary a backward glance.
Hannah had been dumbstruck.
I took the opportunity to tell Hannah that ships were returning to Earth, and that Dohrein had suggested that I board one if I wanted to return home.
“I won’t go if you want to stay here,” I tell her. “Please think on it. You have some time to decide.”
“To decide if I want to move to an entirely different planet?” Hannah said faintly.
“Precisely,” I confirmed.
And then I took her to bed.
Today is Monday. Today, I officially start my new job with Hannah. I quit my job with Julie.
Working with Hannah is wonderful. Even Mick can’t burst the loveliness it is to be with my mate all day.
But Julie isn’t at the rookery when we return. She doesn’t return to the rookery that night. Nor does she return Tuesday morning, or Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, our day off from the pet store and fabric shop, Hannah sends her a concerned text message.
HANNAH:“Are you still alive?”
JULIE:“I’m fine, but I’m moving out of the apartment.”
HANNAH: “What?!”
JULIE: “It’s a long story.”
JULIE:“And don’t worry about the rent. I’ll keep covering my half. Can you feed my fish?”
HANNAH:“I’ve been feeding your fish. And no, don’t worry about rent here. You should keep whatever you make for whatever you’re doing. Jonoh is making almost what I do, so we’ll be able to make the payment. But what the heck is happening?”
JULIE:“Like I said, long story.”
HANNAH:“Tell me the short version?”
JULIE:“Pretty much goes like this. Cyden said he wouldn’t fuck me until I claimed him.”
HANNAH: “Claimed him, huh. Yeah, Jonoh wanted me to say the same—”
JULIE:“No, Hannah, not ‘say.’ He wanted more than ‘say.’ We got married.”
Hannah calls her. She puts her on speakerphone. When Julie answers, Hannah shouts, “You WHAT?”
I’m cleaning Saphkarra’s litterbox in the cleansing unit, but my hearing is excellent, and even if it wasn’t, when Julie answers Hannah, I can’t possibly miss the volume with which she responds to her former roommate. “I know!!! I shit you not.”
“Are you in Vegas?!” Hannah cries.
“No, we’re not in Vegas. But we went through an alien-human marriage ceremony Cyden is taking real seriously.”
Hannah is gaping. “You got married so that you could get banged?”
“He was very persuasive.”
“Am I talking to the real Julie? What happened to ‘whim marriages are always a bad idea?!’ Have you been body snatched?” Hannah asks in high-pitched disbelief.
Done with litterwork, I rise and carefully turn to the hand washing basin, mostly adept at not knocking items off walls and shelves of the cleansing unit now. I wash my hands.
“You are talking to a married woman who gets to bang Cyden for eternity because these aliens are all about forever. Which, now that the ink is dry, is fine with me because, helllo hotness.”
“You have a point there,” Hannah acknowledges thoughtfully.
Growling, I exit the cleansing unit in a rush, making Hannah’s eyes jump to me. Whatever she sees in my posture—or perhaps it is my growling—makes her pupils dilate.
Then she shakes herself. “Sorry,” she mouths. But then she frowns down at her device, her attention caught on something Julie said. “You said now that the ink was dry, you’re fine with this. Why does that sound like before the ink was dry, you were not so fine with this?”
Julie laughs. “Because Cyden sort of abducted me. He’s got a bit of a dark side.” She sighs… dreamily. “Hannah, he went full Beauty and the Beast mode.”
I suck in a breath, outraged on her behalf.
Hannah pats my chest. “Calm down, hon. I know you can’t tell, but this means Julie is happy with this development.” To Julie, she asks, “What about your job?”
“Umm, I quit.”
Hannah’s eyes are wide. “How are you going to pay rent at your new place?”
“Cyden is loaded.”
“He is?”
“Oh yeah. So he”s got that covered. And seriously, if you need money, just say so. We”ll get you the money before rent is due.”
Hannah looks at such a loss. “Okay… wow. Congrats?”
“Congrats are definitely in order. I”m happy, Hannah.”
“I”m glad for you,” Hannah says, heartfelt.
“Thanks. And I need you to know that Cyden asked me to go home with him. And I said yes.”
Hannah stills. “You mean home home, don’t you?”
“I mean I’m leaving this planet when Cyden’s people get here. I bet Jonoh will ask you the same thing. Your family is basically nonexistent, same as mine. But we’d kind of have each other. Think about it.”
She hangs up.
***
I fold my hands. “How does this make you feel?”
Hannah gives a disbelieving laugh. And then—then she begins to cry.
“Come here,” I tell her, gathering her into my arms to hug her.
She threads her arms around my midsection and cries harder. “I’m sorry!” she sobs. “I don’t know why I’m being a baby about this. I’m happy for Julie, I really—”
“I know,” I assure her. I take her up in my arms. Petting her back, I tell her mane, “We are orphans, you and I. It is painful to step back from the loved ones we have left, even when it is the right thing to do.”
She makes a pitiful sniffling noise into my neck. “Yeah.”
I hug her closer and sigh. “There is a grieving process. But we must undergo it. It is, as a wise Rakhii I know is fond of saying, a new season of life.”
Hannah’s elbows tighten around my shoulder and neck, and if she were stronger, this level of squeezing with which she holds me would be strangling.
She is not that strong, and I love that she’s holding onto me tightly. I tighten my hold around her too. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry you’re sad.”
“It’s okay,” she tells me, but my rapidly soaking shirt tells me she’s still experiencing emotional pain.
We stay like that for a time, until Hannah floors me with her next words.
“I’ve wanted to ask you to marry me,” she declares, and inches down until her cheek is pressed over my hearts.
I freeze. Surely she can hear every one of my hearts momentarily cease their functioning.
She hugs me more tightly. “I didn’t because I knew I’d catch so much shit from Julie.” She pulls back enough that she can look up at me. Her hands slide down to clutch my back beside my wings. “Rightfully too, right?” She searches my gaze, her green eyes shiny and crystalline, her lashes glimmering with teardrops. “Julie is the rational one, so if she thinks something is crazy, it probably is, and I was sure that asking you to marry me so soon after we had met must be crazy. My desire to ask you anyway just meant that I was too caught up in you and how amazing you are and I wasn’t thinking rationally.”
One corner of my mouth has lifted higher with every word that proceeds out of her mouth. I run my hand down her slightly mangled mane. “But now that Julie has married Cyden after knowing him for mere hours…”
Hannah lifts one of her hands away from my back to gesture at Julie and Cyden’s actions. “Right, exactly! But it’s more than that.” Her lips press together. Her expression grows adamant, displaying her resolve. “I shouldn’t be looking at Julie to help me discern what my gut is telling me. I need to learn to do this—discern good from bad or crazy—for me. Julie is great for advice, but I need to be in the driver’s seat of my life, making decisions.” She looks down, laughing a little deprecatingly. “And I need to start fast. My training wheels for figuring out life just got married.” She looks up at me again. “Jonoh? Do you want to get married?”
“I would love to make a public declaration of our love in front of your people,” I tell her. I gently set her down, move so that I”m standing beside the bed, and drop to one knee.
Taking a knee is a staple for the romantic movies Hannah has loved to watch with me. So is taking the heroine’s hand, so I take one of Hannah’s. I bring it to my mouth, hovering my lips over her knuckles. I keep my eyes trained on hers as I press a whisper of a kiss over her silken skin.
Her free hand flutters to her mouth. “My gosh, you’re straight out of a dream.”
“Hannah,” I say, sitting up, “my one true mate, will you do me the honor of binding yourself to me in a ceremony of marriage that we will honor for the rest of our lifespans?”
“Yes!” she cries, and leaps into my arms.