“Well, I don’t.” Allara rose from the couch, a troubled look on her face.
“Hey, where are you going?” Brand asked, honestly mystified as to why she was so upset. “What’s wrong, baby?”
But Allara wouldn’t answer him. She claimed she had a headache and wanted to go to bed early.
“All right, that’s fine with me.” Brand shut off the vid. “I don’t mind going to bed early.”
But she shook her head, her face pale.
“Please, husband, I would like to be alone, if it would not offend you.”
“Of course not, baby.” He shrugged again. “I’ll stay here and watch something else. You take some time for yourself.”
“Thank you, husband.” And she had fled, looking more troubled than Brand could remember since their wedding night, when she’d offered to let him “take her” no matter how much it hurt.
He meant to give her privacy—he honestly did. But after shifting on the couch for several long, unhappy minutes, he heard the sound of her sobbing in the bedroom.
At that point, Brand couldn’t stay away from his new bride anymore. He went to the bedroom and saw her curled into a ball on the bed, crying as though her heart would break. The sight reminded him of their first night together when she’d been so frightened of him. But Allara wasn’t afraid anymore—what could be troubling her now?
“Baby?” he murmured, coming to sit beside her on the bed. “Allara? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
But she had only shaken her head and cried harder. Concerned, Brand tried to put an arm around her. Allara shrank away from him, curling into an even tighter ball, her arms wrapped protectively around her shaking shoulders.
Brand didn’t try to force her to come to him. Instead, he began humming softly—an old lullaby his mother had sung to him when he was little.
As she always did, Allara responded to music. Rolling over, she looked up at him with wet eyes.
“Husband, what is that tune?” she asked, the sound of tears still thick in her voice.
“It’s a song my mother sang to me, when I was very young and afraid there might be monsters under the bed,” Brand told her. “She sang it to calm me down—it always helped me feel safe and protected.” He brushed a strand of silky, indigo hair out of her eyes. “The way I want you to feel around me, baby,” he added softly.
Allara looked down at her hands.
“Your Song tonight…it feels so soft, like the warm blanket you put around me on our first night together. Or when you take me in your lap and ‘cuddle’ me.”
“I’d like to cuddle you now, if you’ll let me,” Brand said softly.
“What if…what if I do not deserve cuddles?” Allara asked, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. “What if I am a terrible wife who should never be cuddled again?”
“Baby, what would give you that idea?” he asked but she only shook her head, a look of mute misery on her lovely face.
Brand was disturbed by the self-loathing he saw in her indigo eyes. What could possibly be going on with her?
She’s probably feeling guilty for the way she’s been breaking her people’s rules about a woman touching musical instruments or something like that, he thought. Well, he needed to let her know that was nothing to be ashamed of right now.
“You do deserve cuddles. Come here,” he said firmly, beckoning to her.
He had noticed that when he gave her a direct order—even if he only meant it as a suggestion—she obeyed him at once. Speculating that it was another Q’ess rule—probably something about a wife obeying her husband—he tried not to speak in such absolute terms too often. But at the moment, he felt it was justified.
As he had thought, Allara came to him at once. Brand gathered her into his arms, just as he had on their first night together, and cradled her close to his chest.
“It’s okay, baby,” he murmured in her ear. “Whatever you’re thinking you’ve done wrong, forget about it. Nothing else matters now except that we’re together.”
Then he had begun to hum again, the same soft lullaby he’d been singing earlier. With a trembling sigh, Allara had relaxed against his chest. He could feel her small body shaking as he caressed her back in long, soothing strokes and did his best to comfort her. At last she looked up at him, her big indigo eyes fringed thickly with wet lashes.
“Thank you, husband,” she said in a small voice. “For giving me cuddles, even though I do not deserve them.”
“I’ll always give you cuddles whenever you need them,” Brand told her. Leaning down, he kissed her gently on the forehead. “And you’ll always deserve them, baby,” he murmured.
Allara didn’t look convinced about that, but she sighed deeply and seemed to melt against him in complete and utter trust that squeezed his heart like a fist.
Brand held her close, wishing it was their Bathing Week already. He would have liked to give her a soothing bath to help her relax and then a massage. He loved the idea of taking care of her and making her feel safe and protected. But at the moment, all he was allowed to do was hold her close and stroke her small, trembling body through her clothes.
It seemed to be enough for Allara. After they both got ready for bed, she curled up as close to him as she could get and fell into an exhausted sleep with her head pillowed on his chest.
Brand put his arm around her, a powerful feeling of love and protectiveness sweeping through him for the small female snuggled close against his side. Gods, he had never imagined feeling this level of emotion for anyone—let alone a female he had only met a week ago!
He had known from the dreams he’d had of Allara—shadowed and brief though they had been—that he could learn to love and care for the little female. But he’d had no idea it would happen so quickly or that she would take his heart so completely in her soft little hands and make him want nothing more in the universe than to make her feel happy and safe and protected for the rest of her life.
Twenty-Two
Allara had never had a week like the first week of her marriage to the big Kindred. It was filled with so many new things—so much excitement and pleasure—more, it seemed, than she’d had in her entire life among the Q’ess.
And yet, it was also filled with guilt and shame. A war had begun inside her—the tug of two different worlds demanding that she act in two very different ways.
When she had first come to the Kindred Mother Ship, everything had seemed so simple. She would allow the evil one to take her and then kill him by driving her skora into his heart. After that, she would sing her lament, press the transmitter to let her people know the deed was done and the Blood Feud satisfied, and take the poison pill to end her own existence, hopefully before the Kindred could torture her to death instead.
But now…now everything was all mixed up and complicated!
Allara still heard that little voice in her head—the one that sounded like her aunt—shaming her for not doing her duty, for allowing herself to have feelings for the big Kindred, and for touching instruments as a woman must never do. But she also heard another voice—a voice that had been muted all her life and was only now ringing clear—a voice that sounded more like her own.