Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Fiona
Shathar is just so charming, I couldn’t say no.
He had looked so downtrodden when Khesan paid for his own clothes, and I tried to cheer him up by asking what he’d like to do with the rest of his day.
“I’d like to go see your world,” he had said. “I want you to show me what you love about Earth.”
A girl can’t say no to that. I did tell them I would start dividing my time between them to minimize conflict, and this afternoon sounds like a perfect time to start.
Khesan did not look pleased, but he took it better than I expected. He promises to stay out of trouble while we’re gone, and I have the fire alarm hooked up to my phone so I know if anything goes wrong.
My husbands part ways to hang up their new shirts, and then we’ll have them fitted for custom pants. Their leggings hook over their tails with a strap and a button, and I hope it won’t be too costly to have something like that made for them here.
Not that it’s a problem—I have my small inheritance from Mom, too—but I don’t want to dip into it. I’ve always been very frugal, which I got from her, even if I have a decent job that pays well now.
Khesan stays up in his room, and I quickly change into some more comfortable jeans and a t-shirt, meeting Shathar in the kitchen. I’m getting used to how his smile exposes all of his sharp teeth.
“You look lovely,” he says, his gaze dipping down to my shoes and then back up to my eyes. “I’m a lucky male.”
I must be blushing all over. “Thank you. I am a lucky woman. I think you looked very good in the shirts you tried on today.”
It’s true. Both of them are fit, Shathar and Khesan, in different ways. Khesan has clearly worked out, training his body to be big and bulky. Shathar, on the other hand, has a natural strength to him, a grace that seems to come with his greater age.
The fans on the side of Shathar’s head rise. “Thank you as well, Fiona. I am excited to see this nature preserve.”
“It’s a bit of a drive, but I think you’ll like it.”
It will be a good chance for us to get to know each other better.
Once we’re both in the car, I navigate to the highway.
“Tell me about your life, Shathar,” I say. “Why did you decide to give up your grocery business and come to Earth?”
He sighs. “What good is a business, a whole life, if there is no one to share it with? It is hard on our world now to find a mate. The odds became smaller as I grew older and met no new females. I decided I would rather be happy with a mate than keep running my store and watching the world go past me.”
“That was a big gamble.” I worry about it now, how I’ll have to say goodbye to one of them at the end of all this, after they both sacrificed something to come here.
But Shathar only shrugs. “It was worthwhile to meet you at the space station. I know we are meant to be, and so I have no doubts in my mind it was the right choice to leave Arshur.”
I furrow my brow. “You’ve said that. What does it mean, exactly, to be fated mates? You said you could… smell it?”
He nods. “There are other signs, too. My physiology has changed.”
“Changed? How?”
Shathar keeps his eyes pinned on the road ahead of us, but I see his throat bob as he swallows. “It is… of a sexual nature. A natural response to finding one’s mate.”
Oh. Ohhhh.
“Wow, okay.” Now I badly want to know more, but I also don’t want to pry into something so sensitive.
I don’t even know what he has under there—what either of them do.
The Frahma claimed we were sexually compatible, but what does that mean, really?
Amara has explained Roth’kar’s rather… unusual penis to me before.
It works for them, but I know nothing about an Arshurian’s genital situation.
“We are not so different, humans and Arshurians,” Shathar says, jerking me out of my thoughts. “I have studied human anatomy, and I have much of what you expect, Fiona.”
I didn’t think he’d be quite so blunt. “Oh, okay,” I squeak out.
“There are some differences,” Shathar goes on, “but I think they will be pleasurable.”
I must be turning red all over. I’m not usually a prude, but now I’m imagining what he’s packing under there and we’ve just met.
Maybe it’s different for him culturally. Maybe on Arshur, they’re very open about sex.
“Okey dokey,” I say quickly, turning off the highway. “Hey, look at that. We’re almost there.”
When we pull into the parking lot, the sun is out and the temperature is perfect for being a winter day.
I really couldn’t have asked for a better time to explore nature, though a weekday may have been less busy.
There are some children running around, as popular as it is of a destination with families—what families there are, anyway.
Shathar watches a pair of kids crisscross in front of him as we walk to the ticket booth.
One pauses as they pass us and stares up at Shathar in wonder.
“Whoa. Alien.” He stands there for a beat longer, until his mother calls for him, and the two children go running again.
“I suppose that children are the same anywhere in the universe,” Shathar remarks, smiling at them. “I wonder how a human would be received on Arshur. The children there would certainly think it odd that you have no tail.”
I glance over my shoulder at my bare butt. Shathar laughs.
After we’ve gotten our tickets, we head down the sidewalk into the preserve. The trees are tall here, each of them labeled with the common name and species. Most of them are without leaves this time of year.
“There are so many,” Shathar says, gazing up with wonder. “I have never seen trees such as this. On our planet, they grow small and hardy in order to survive.”
“What is Arshur like?” I ask as we walk.
“It has a very different climate than your planet. The equatorial region is too hot to be habitable, so we live primarily in the far north and south. There is a lot of flat, dusty land where I come from, with some small trees and shrubs.”
“Hmm, sounds like our desert,” I say. “Your whole planet is like that?”
“Indeed. Unlike Earth, there are no large bodies of water.”
“Don’t you raise food? Where do you get water from?”
“We farm and raise livestock, much as your people do. We have plentiful underground water sources we use to irrigate across our farm and ranch land.”
I hum thoughtfully as we walk. A couple passes us the other way holding hands, and Shathar follows them with his eyes. They both gape at the alien in their midst.
“Is this common among humans?” he asks. “To hold hands?”
“Sure. When you’re a couple, people often hold hands.”
I’m surprised when Shathar scoops up my hand in his. But it’s awkward at first, as he’s not sure how to do it, clearly. I giggle and stop walking so I can show him how to twine our fingers together. He has claws, but he doesn’t scrape me with them.
“There we go, like that,” I say as we figure it out. Then we start walking again, our hands linked.
“I like this custom.” Shathar squeezes my hand briefly. “Your skin is so soft. I’m not yet used to human flesh.”
The way he says it makes me giggle. “Don’t get a taste for me now,” I joke.
“I would love to know your flavor.”
Shathar appears to be completely serious as his reptilian, yellow eyes focus on me. It’s hard not to stare back into them as his hand squeezes mine. They’re so intense, so focused on me and only me, that I get warm all over.
“Maybe one step at a time?” I hedge.
Shathar simply nods. “I will wait as long as I need to. I am in no rush. I know humans do not have fated mates, as we Arshurians do, and that courting may take some time.”
Courting? Is that what he’s doing?
“But if humans don’t have fated mates, then how could I be yours?” I ask.
Shathar shrugs. “I do not have the answer to that question, but I know the truth without a doubt. The mating bond is never wrong.”
I’m unsettled by this answer. Never wrong? But how could it “never be wrong” when both Khesan and Shathar are claiming the same thing? Surely it must be wrong sometimes.
We head to the butterfly pavilion next, where we have to wait in line before we’re escorted inside.
It’s suddenly very warm and humid, and the pavilion is filled with flowering vines trailing all over trellises, and a variety of plants in bright and enticing colors.
Butterflies flit from one flower to the next.
Shathar’s eyes are huge and wide. “The air is wet,” he says with awe.
He comes from a desert world, so this shouldn’t surprise me, but the way he says it is so funny that I laugh.
“That’s what the butterflies like, I think. A lot of them are tropical.”
His brow furrows. “Tropical?”
“They come from a part of the world where it rains a lot.”
Shathar follows the trajectories of the butterflies with wide eyes. “I have never seen such a delicate creature. Very lovely.” Then his gaze travels to mine and he smiles a genuine smile that makes my knees weak.
I don’t know if he means the butterfly.
We exit the pavilion and head back a different way so we can look at things we missed, still holding hands. It’s comforting, something I haven’t done in years—just walking along, hand-in-hand. Shathar is enamored with all the plants, reminding me a little of Roth’kar when he first got to Earth.
By the time we’re finished with the preserve, the sun is going down and I’m starting to feel guilty about leaving Khesan at home alone for so long.
“I suppose it’s time to go make dinner,” I say to Shathar as we exit the way we came in, heading for my car. “I’m sure Khesan is hungry.”
He releases my hand when we reach it. “Khesan will be fine. Arshurians are built to withstand long periods of time without food or water.”
I chuckle uneasily. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”