Chapter 31
YIRI
“I’m taking the week off,” I said, bursting into Zacal’s study a week later.
He leaned back to gaze up at me, unimpressed. “Why is that?”
“My wife,” I snarled.
Zacal chuckled. “Keeping you on your toes, is she?”
“She needs my attention,” I said, forcing a deep breath into my lungs.
“Alright,” Zacal said, not hiding his amusement.
“She’s prancing around Eissoi with that musician of hers,” I said, “buying the sexiest clothing she can dream up, smoking all my good sellah, and falling asleep before I get home every night.”
“That sounds dreadful,” Zacal smiled.
“What are you so happy about?” I demanded. “You wanted me to make it clear she’s my Aneah. How can I do that if I’m never with her?”
“Take the week,” he shrugged. “I’m not stopping you.”
“Good!”
He cocked his head to the side, regarding me. “Are you sure it’s not you who needs your wife’s attention?”
I growled. “Of course I do!” I slashed a hand through the air, pacing the floor. “She’s my mate. My Aneah. I need her like my next breath!”
“Okay,” Zacal said. “Is there a reason you’re shouting at me about it instead of going to her?”
Pausing, I faced him, looking for the trick in his calm demeanor. “Why aren’t you fighting me on this? You didn’t even want to give me time off to pick her up from Muria.”
Zacal shifted, gesturing vaguely at the doorway. “Della likes her.”
“Of course she does. Cora is perfect.”
He gave a noncommittal hum. “Della certainly thinks she’s perfect for you, at least. Your aunt chastised me for nearly an hour last night for keeping you away from your mate too often.
I’m not an idiot, Yiri. I’ve already arranged for Evik to take over some of your responsibilities this week. I’ll send the rest to Nerus.”
“Well… Good.”
Zacal rolled his eyes. “Thank your aunt on your way out.”
My wife lounged on a couch in Esti’s parlor as she watched the male who had somehow become her closest friend try on Esti’s new designs. As I walked in, that happened to be a tailored Earth suit with no shirt under the jacket.
“See, it looks better this way,” he said, his fingertips caressing his own chest. “It’s too boring, all covered up. Plus, I can’t flash my piercing.”
He pulled the jacket aside to reveal the iridescent ring through his nipple.
“Sometimes less is more,” Cora said.
But Esti bit her lip, her eyes drawn to the flash of metal, one of many on the unusual Ibarutan male. Across the room, Zoddi’s eyes were on Esti’s mouth, and not on the door, protecting my wife.
“What do you think, Esti?” Qhev’in asked.
“Oh,” she breathed. “I think you look perfect. “But maybe… um… Let me get something to make it even better.” She spun for the door and stopped when she saw me. “Mr. Ahlon! Welcome! I’m so sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. Please, sit with your wife. Can I get you any refreshment?”
I shook my head and went to Cora, who immediately reached for me, although she was frowning.
“He meant to say, no thank you, Esti,” she said, arching a reproving brow my way.
“Trying to teach me manners, Aneah?” I asked, scooping her into my lap.
“I’ll get them to stick eventually,” she said, twisting to kiss me. “You already stopped threatening Qhev’s life. I’d say it’s working.”
I’d taken to holding her in my arms or, preferably, on my lap any time Qhev’in was around.
It settled me in a way I had never experienced before.
Most daernir females didn’t allow such familiar touch in front of others.
Cora didn’t just allow it; she didn’t expect me to ask first. She sank into my embrace every time, leaning against me and sometimes holding me right back, like there was no other place she’d rather be than my arms. When she gave me that, how could I be petty and complain about her friend?
“Here we are,” Esti said, returning with a long, thin chain draped between her hands. Approaching Qhev’in, the little female stepped onto a small platform to bridge some of the gap in height. “May I?” she asked, her cheeks tinged pink.
Qhev’in stepped closer to her with a sultry grin. “Please.”
Esti looped the chain around his neck, lifting and arranging the gathered length of his hair over one shoulder before taking a long, dangling end of the chain and…
Ibar. She attached it to his nipple piercing.
Zoddi shifted in the corner, his jaw flexing.
Qhev’in might be out of danger with me, but he couldn’t say the same for Zoddi.
The male had had his eye on Esti for a year or more.
He was probably regretting introducing her to Cora now.
“Oooooh, yeah,” Qhev’in said, a thread of his famous Ibarutan burr woven through his words. It wasn’t a bark, but it was enough to make Esti cover her face in a fit of giggles and Cora shift in my lap.
“Watch it, Kon,” I warned.
“Please forgive my indiscretion,” he said, not sounding sorry at all as he grinned down at Esti.
“No, no,” Esti said. “No apology necessary.”
“What just happened?” Cora asked me quietly.
I pressed my lips to her forehead. “I’ll tell you later. Are you almost done here? I’d like to take you somewhere today.”
Her face lit up. “You don’t have to work?”
“I do not.”
Cora clapped her hands excitedly. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Her bottom lip rolled into a pout, and I leaned in to grab it between my teeth. When I let her go, I hovered my lips next to her ear and whispered, “When you sulk, it makes me want to spank your bratty ass.”
She sucked in a little breath and her zibe nectar scent intensified. “We can go now. Qhev is in good hands with Esti.”
Ditching Zoddie and Xokat for the day, I took Cora to the market first. I bought fresh zibe and some spices, and several lengths of pink sellah silk that Cora liked.
Then we took the cruiser out to my private lagoon.
Cora sat in my lap again as we flew, and I showed her some of the controls, teaching her the first steps of operating the cruiser.
She was an eager student. If anyone was distracted, it was me.
She gasped, leaning forward to peer out at the pink sand bordering the lagoon as I landed in the shallow water.
“It’s so pretty here! I heard some of the beaches were pink, but this is… it’s… so pretty.”
“It’s ours,” I said, kissing the side of her head. “Before you arrived, I kept the cruiser here most nights.”
“How did you get back to the house?” she asked. “It’s a long way to walk.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “It was just me. I have everything I need on the cruiser. I rarely spent more than a few nights at a time at the house.”
Cora blinked. “That explains it then.”
“Explains what?”
She twisted to look back at me. “When you called me, you were always in the cruiser. When you showed me the house, I wondered why I’d never seen it before. But this is your house, isn’t it?”
“It was, I guess.”
“You miss it.” Her head tilted to the side, concern filling her winged eyes.
“I want to be where you are,” I said.
Standing, Cora sighed. “Okay, but I could be here?” She gestured at the stairs leading down into the cruiser. “I know there’s only one bedroom here, but I thought were were past that whole separate bed thing.”
“We are. But—”
“But nothing, husband,” she said. “I want to be where you are. Don’t get me wrong.
I’m glad you aren’t busy today. The market was great.
But I’d like to see you more every day. What am I going to do after Qhev’s Eissoi tour is over?
I’m gonna be so bored, Yiri. You said you’d teach me to fly this thing.
I want to do that. You take the cruiser everywhere, right?
You zip off in it every morning. If I were in bed down there, I’d be zipping along with you.
We could have lunch together. I could maybe see you before you come crawling home in the middle of the night covered in blood. ”
“Aneah—”
Not entertaining my interruption, she fisted her hands on her hips. “I could patch you up!” she said. “I could zap you with your little laser thing and kiss all your bumps and scrapes better. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Yes, Aneah. That would be nice.”
“Okay then.” She blew out a breath, frowning down the steps. “But we’re going to have to get rid of that awful couch. I hate it.”
I gave a single nod. “It will be gone by tomorrow. Yours should be here this week anyway.”
Her face lit up. “Really?”
“Yes,” I said, studying her beautiful features, so animated when she smiled. I needed to give her more reasons to do that. Like the silk in the market today, and now the promise of her belongings’ arrival. “There might be a surprise or two coming with the things you packed.”
“Surprises?” She fiddled with the hem of her dress as she failed to conceal her interest.
“You’ll have to be a good little wife if you want them,” I lied. She could be the brattiest mate imaginable, and I’d still spoil her rotten at the earliest opportunity. Ibar help me when she figured that out.
“I can do that,” she said sweetly, but then a wicked gleam flashed in her eyes. “If you’re a good Daddy.” She slipped down the stairs before I could grab her and haul her over my lap for the spanking that little taunt deserved.
I stifled a groan and put the cruiser to rest before following her down.