Chapter 7

Iwatch the priests leave, marking the exit of the last cloaked figure high above, the door to the winding stairway thudding closed behind him.

Beside me, Piper has gone tense, her heartbeat speeding up in her chest.

My female. My wife. My queen.

My mate.

“You did well,” I tell her, turning back to her. What I see stamped across her face saps all the heat from my blood.

Regret.

I reel back, loosening my grip on her, beside myself. She stares at me, a confused look on her face. The corners of the mouth I kissed are turned down in a frown. She’s so beautiful, her gaze so utterly lost it makes my heart ache.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, unsure. “Did I hurt you? It was too much.”

“No, no, it was… it was incredible.” A smile softens the sadness on her face, her strange blue eyes brightening.

“You are upset that we are mated?” I guess, shame filling me.

“No, not at all.” A quiet sigh flutters from her mouth. “I just… I don’t know.”

“Tell me.” It’s a plea. I want her to be honest with me. I want her to share all of her, not just her body because that is the way of my species, of our traditions.

I care for her.The thought surprises me. I brush it away, but it buzzes around in my head like an insect, ever-present. It doesn’t matter how I feel about her right now.

“I don’t think you know who I really am,” she says cautiously, the regret turning guarded, something shuttering behind her eyes. Her gaze drops to her fingers, which trail through the soft fur beneath us. It shimmers slightly where her body paint has rubbed off on it, and the mere thought of her body makes me hard again.

“I do not know you well at all,” I confess, my eyes narrowed as I try to make sense of her words. “But what I’ve seen, I like. You are brave, and honest, and you are kind.”

“What if I’m not?” she asks, still not looking at me. “What if I am none of those things?”

I tilt my head, hair falling over my brow as I consider her, consider the question.

Her naked body swirls with my marks, and I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. I would take her again right now, were she not so… sad.

“Then I would discover who you really are and find out how to love her, too,” I finally answer. “But you are those things. You are brave, because you faced this marriage with no qualms. And this ceremony.” I wave a hand at the door the priests retreated through up above. “You are honest, because you did not lie to me in bed. You told me what you wanted, and you were not shy about your demands.”

I don’t tell her how fucking much I liked that, too. The corner of her mouth lifts, just slightly, for an instant.

I saw it, though. I saw her smile.

My words made her smile.

It’s almost better than the way she screamed my name when her cunt fluttered around my cock during her climax. Almost.

“And as for kindness… I think it a kindness that you would do what my traditions demand. That you did it without complaint and for the good of all.”

Her smile fades completely. “What if I’m not who you think I am?”

“Then you have the rest of our lives to show me who you think you are,” I tell her, and I mean it.

She fascinates me. Her soft, long human body with its strange pink and white skin. Her yellow-gold hair and wet cunt.

But her words, too.

This Piper of mine, this queen I’ve wed, is like a puzzle I want to solve. I want to find every edge of her and work out how they all fit together.

She moves, and I realize with a start she’s getting off the dais.

What did I say wrong? Did I offend her? I don’t know much about her, and that’s my own fault—at least, I thought it was.

Until she told me she isn’t who I think she is.

Displeasure turns my mouth down, a million conspiracy theories racing through my mind.

“Tell me who you are, then.” I can’t help pushing her.

Her robe slides over her body in a silken rush, and she stretches both hands out in front of her, inspecting the ash marks of our mating. The smile she turns on me is as brittle as it is sharp.

“I’m the human queen of the Roth.” The garment closes over her body, hiding it from view, and when she bends to pick up the sash on the ground, my eyes widen in disbelief.

She wears more than our mating marks on her skin.

Her ankle is god-marked.

She pauses as she notices where my attention’s gone.

“I heard something in the, uh, ceremonial pool.” Piper’s voice is quiet, steady but resigned. “It pulled me underwater and gave me this.” She gestures to the band around her ankle. “I don’t know what that means either. I thought I was going to drown.”

Her yellow-gold hair falls around her face as she stands.

“All I know is I don’t want to drown ever again.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

As she throws her shoulders back, her blue eyes icy cold, I don’t think she’s talking about drowning at all.