“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you will always know where I am with this as long as I’m still in most known areas of the galaxy.” Kol sat on the edge of the bed. “You know we are breaking the law if we do this. That I most likely will be kicked out of my House once Doctor James releases you and we can formally be together. In the meantime, it will mean more to us than anyone else as you are still a prisoner.”
“You’ll register it with the High Council though?”
“Of course,” Kol replied slightly offended but then quickly reminding himself of her vulnerable state. “I just want to make it clear what we are choosing.”
“I feel like I’m asking you to jump off a cliff for me and now I’m feeling guilty about it for the first time,” Jesse admitted.
“I want this. I’ve wanted you for a long time and not just because of your shenanigans,” Kol said sincerely. “I’m ready to leave the Empire for you and with you.”
“But your life and your crew?”
Kol waved his hand in dismissal, “They knew when they saw me look at you earlier today what my choice was. It’s not as if I chose this life I have. I was born into it. And maybe my destiny lies outside of it, to make my own choices, as scary as that sounds, I know with you by my side, I’ll have the courage to live a life without a House and without a future lined up for me.”
“Where could we go?” Jesse asked.
“I thought you wanted to go home, that’s what you always threatened me with anyway, abducting me and taking me back to Earth.”
“Not anymore. Things have changed. I’m not ready to talk about it just yet, but trust me, can you?”
“You’ve never given me a reason not to,” Kol said and then added, “Not really, when I weigh it against how I feel for you.”
“Thank you,” Jesse said. “Is there somewhere people who marry outside classes go? Or do they just live a vagabond lifestyle on their ships?” Jesse didn’t think she could be contained on a ship.
“Most Outcasts move to Reima Two if they can afford it. My House nor my family will be pleased, and it would be nothing short of a miracle if they sent us on our way with enough UCs to be able to afford Reima Two. However, there are other options. Further afield, towards Earth, there’s Hogo.”
“Who lives there?”
Kol smiled, “All the humans who didn’t agree with the human government mixed in with the odd person from a different civilization or two.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Never,” Kol replied. “It’s poor. There’s quite a bit of criminal activity, but there are families that live there too, or so I hear.”
“Not related to crime?” she asked with a smile. Jesse knew that Alliance people had an exceptionally low tolerance for crime as the Empire had almost none. When he didn’t answer she asked, “And what kind of crime? Murders or what?”
“Not murders in the population, I think more tax evasion from the GC.”
Jesse laughed so hard she almost fell off the bed.
“I’m not sure why that is funny?”
“You’re worried about living with poor humans that don’t pay their taxes to the GC? I don’t consider that a crime, really. I’ve never paid a tax in my life.”
Kol looked at her and said, “I have, and I do consider it to be a galactic crime.”
Jesse got off the bed and stood in front of Kol. She took his hands and he rose too. She looked up into his grey eyes and she asked, “Kol of Imperial House Zu, my lover and alien abductor, will you marry me? I promise to always be yours and no one else’s and to never give up on you, even if you lose faith in me. What do you say?”
Kol looked down into Jesse’s green eyes, so openly honest now. It was one thing when he was being forced back to Earth with her as a hostage as he had made her his hostage last year when he abducted her and she had promised to do the same to him. Everyone could understand that Jesse was strong and if she had forced him, he wouldn’t have been forced out of his House. However, to choose to marry her would make them both Outcasts once they could live together. She was asking him to voluntarily give up everything but her. It scared him and even more to move to Hogo and becoming a minority. To lose his status. He would be alone. Or rather they would be alone. He looked into her eyes and wondered if he was strong enough and if they would survive. But then he thought of the alternatives and they were grimmer. Kol knew he couldn’t live without her, without really having her as his legal wife. He took one of the marriage bracelets and put it on Jesse’s wrist and said, “Jesse, my human who I stole and delivered to House Vo under false pretenses, I will be your husband. Throughout the galaxy and the Empire, people will know I belong to you. I will never stray nor be tempted by another. I will be your other half on every voyage away and every journey home.”
Jesse felt elated when he slipped the bracelet over her wrist. Then she took his and put it on his wrist, “Is there something more I need to say?” She knew that they needed to be activated somehow.
He looked down at her and instructed her sweetly, “You need to promise to welcome me into your life and body. To know that without a word I am returning always to you and for you.”
Jesse looked up, “Kol, I promise to always not only welcome you, but to entice you to my life with my one friend, the kitten Salem, and into my body. I hope we have children as kind as you are,” she left out saying ‘and completely normal without any telepathy or supernatural powers.’ “I want to start our lives over again on this mystery planet Hogo where they don’t pay GC taxes and I want you to be my husband from today until forever.”
“I agree,” Kol replied and the bracelets tightened with a prick to the skin and a kind of electrical pulse.
“We are married now?” Jesse asked looking at her wrist.
“Yes.”
“No silly tradition of witnesses or sex?”
“No, middling class people really don’t have time for all of that. We are more practical people who would never marry unless we meant it, so there’s no reason for witnesses.”
Jesse smiled, “Good, I’m not much of an exhibitionist.”
Kol picked her up, put her on the bed and then moved Salem to the floor. “Really? I would have never guessed,” he said ironically before beginning to remove her clothing. They didn’t need to have sex now, but he wanted to have sex with her, to calm his nerves about the gigantic leap he just took in his life. He was happy she couldn’t’ read his thoughts then because between the sex, he kept reminding himself, I have a few days maybe even a week to prepare before she is released, and we are let go into the galaxy without statuses to protect us. Kol was thinking that it would be nothing for both Mir and Jesse to bring Jane back, just a matter of them both being in the same room with her and their will. So, he would be lucky if he had a full week to plan their future outside the Empire.
Kol wasn’t allowed to escort Jesse further than the gates of House Vo’s compound. The guards were under strict orders not to allow him in.
“I could force them,” Jesse said. “Just take off your dampening necklace.”