Wed to the Alien Prince by C.V. Walter
Chapter 6
"Oh," Serogero said, at a loss. "And that's important. Obviously, it's important, if what I witnessed earlier is an indication of it working well."
"It works fine when I respect my physical limitations," she told him. "I'll just have to learn your language the old-fashioned way. Unless you don't want to teach me. Which is fine, I guess. I'll have Molly translate for me while I'm on the ship."
"I will translate for you," he said, tilting her chin so he could meet her eyes. "If we can't make the translator work for you, I will be your translator."
"Don't you have other duties?" she asked. "Do you really have the time to follow me around the whole time?"
"There is nothing I have to do that is more important than making sure you are comfortable and your every need is seen to."
"That's sweet," she told him. "But I would hate to interrupt your work. I realize I'm on vacation and using the opportunity to run away with a strange man but we're going back to your job. I don't want to be in the way."
"You could never be in the way," he told her.
"You say that now," she said with a tired smile.
"I'll say it always," he said.
Her eyes closed and one hand slid under her cheek. The other found his chest and rested against his heart. It ached to see her like this. He brought his hand up to stroke gently at the shorter strands of her hair. It was soft and he thought he could touch it all night and never tire of the feel of it.
"What if there was a way to make it so you didn't need the seizure implant anymore," he asked her. "Do you think you'd be able to use the translator?"
"Roger," she said, her voice tired. "I already told you I don't want to change any of that."
"But surely it must be worth considering," he said. "You put in an implant to control your seizures already. This would just be the next step."
"I'm willing to talk about it with your doctor if he can tell me exactly what it's going to do but I don't think it will work out the way you think it will."
"But you're willing to consider it?"
"I'll consider it once I have more information," she told him. "All of the information. And I'm not agreeing to anything before that."
"Of course not," he nodded.
She took a few more deep breaths then her breathing evened out until he could tell she was asleep.
He was completely out of his depth with her. Everything about her made him ache to hold her, including the matter-of-fact way she spoke about her dating history and her illness. Was it an illness? She'd called it a genetic disorder so that might mean something else.
Her birthmark, he thought that's what she'd called it, was striking. It was a dark purple and ran from her hairline to her upper lip, with a distinct line across her cheek that separated the purple from the light beige that was the color of the rest of her flesh. She had a scar across her upper lip that he wanted to ask her about and one behind her ear that he assumed was from the implant to control her seizures.
The skin on her cheek was so soft and he wanted to run his fingers and his lips over it. He wanted to taste her lips and was bending his face to do so when the puff of her breath against his cheek reminded him that she was asleep.
He couldn't wake her up and he knew the first few days of recognition were the most intense. If he touched her, she'd react before she was even awake but it would be her body's reaction to his touch that would wake her up. There wasn't anybody who had experienced recognition who would blame him for touching her while she slept and it was normal for the first few days to be a whirlwind of emotion, sensation and sleep deprivation.
It was that last that stayed his hand. She needed the sleep and he knew how people reacted when they didn't get enough sleep at the best of times. In a new, stressful situation, it would be too much like torture to make him feel comfortable. Instead, he eased himself down the bed and wrapped his arm around her while he eased the other under her head to pull her closer. Maybe he would manage some sleep, as well.
Except, everything they'd talked about kept running through his mind.
He didn't want to fix her. She was perfect exactly as she was. But he couldn't help but think he could make her life better, easier to live, with some of the technology his people had developed. Why she wouldn't want him to was beyond his understanding.
Maybe it was just a lack of familiarity with how it all worked. His grandmother had been similarly reluctant to accept everything his grandfather offered and at least part of that was because she didn't know everything that went with it.
With a sigh, he realized that she was probably right to be wary. The bloodshed that had been caused by his grandfather's pursuit was second only to that caused by his father's desire to make that kind of pursuit unnecessary ever again.
And then there was his mother and his grandmother. Proof that, while recognition was important, it couldn't fix clashing personalities or repair things broken by social stigma. His half-brother should have put paid to any interest in ignoring recognition but instead his very existence was hailed as a victory of rational, science-based thought over dangerous superstition.
Serogero wanted to be better. There were reasons his people believed the way they did. Not just generations of beliefs but stronger families that were built by those beliefs, better systems and better people. When your mate could come from anywhere, it created an incentive to be nicer to people who weren't exactly like you, and fostered an understanding attitude between groups.
When their people had been mobile, moving all over the planet and between planets and systems, recognition hadn't been a weak thrill in the palm of the hand. The full-body, all at once, and everyday for the rest of their lives pulse of desire hadn't been the thing of legend but a regular occurrence.
He felt that with Kaelin and was ready to fall in love with her. If he was honest with himself, he was half in love with her already, and wanted desperately for her to feel the same. There were indications that she did, that she was willing to feel for him the same way he felt for her, but he couldn't be sure.
One thing he did know though was that he wasn't going to let her go. Not now that he had found her. She was his mate and he would do whatever he had to in order to keep her.
He looked down at her face again and took a deep breath. This beautiful woman was worth fighting for. She was worth cutting a bloody furrow across an entire continent if he had to but right then, she was resting in his arms, and he wanted to make sure she stayed that way.
Kaelin stirred and rolled over. She wrapped an arm around him and buried her face against his chest. She murmured at him and he couldn't hear what she said but he could tell she wasn't awake. One of her legs came up to wrap around his and his breath caught in his throat. His free hand flattened against her back and held her against him, rubbing up and down her spine slowly when she murmured sleepily against his chest.
Unable to resist, he bent and kissed the top of her head.
He would do anything to sleep like this every night for the rest of his life.
Well, maybe not just like this. There were a few things he'd like to be doing in addition to holding her and he couldn't do them until she had gotten more sleep, at least. He really hoped she wouldn't try to keep him at arm’s length.
The longer he lay there, the more he thought about what he would need to do to keep her by his side. She would need the bio-nanos first, he knew, and they would take long enough to work that he thought he could get Mintonar to keep them from affecting the birthmark on her face. Because she was right, it was very much a part of her and he couldn't imagine her without it.
Once the bio-nanos started to work, she'd need to have the implant removed because she wouldn't need it and it could be replaced with the translator. Then they would be able to start teaching her to speak his language. Not just because she wanted to learn but it would go a long way to helping his people accept her as a princess.
And she would be a princess. He might not be able to make her an empress of his people but she would be his acknowledged mate and his partner on this journey going forward. He already knew that she had the heart for it. The small conversation they'd had told him that she would be able to learn the necessary skills for it, too.
It was just a shame they were going to take so long to get her started on the necessary changes to support her in that role. He went back and forth in his mind about all the reasons she'd given him that she didn't want to change. He, mostly, agreed with all of them. Everything about how she looked drew him to her. Her personality, which had been formed by living with such a heavy burden, was fascinating and wonderful.
So much of her life had been hard, he knew. Even if she lived in luxury, he knew there were challenges that most people would never face. He could make it easier. He wanted to make it easier. The first thing to do, then, would be to get her bio-nanos taken care of soonest.
The longer he held her, the more he was convinced it was the right thing to do. Before he could talk himself out of it, he slipped out of the bed and retrieved his jacket. Her pajamas were lovely and amazing but he didn't want anybody else to see her like that. Carefully, he pulled her toward him and wrapped her in his jacket.
When he lifted her, he could hardly believe how light she felt, and how easy it was to hold her. He knew the feeling was at least partially from the recognition but he wasn't going to fight it. This was the thing he'd been searching for most of his life and if he did anything but embrace it he was a fool.