"I am thirty-six, and I have four boys."
"So? Don't you realize what a treasure you are to immortal males? Kids are not considered a liability here. If anything, the fact that you are a package deal makes you more desirable, not less."
Kyra was making a lot of sense, but Arezoo doubted her mother and aunts were actually listening to what she was saying. They were too busy thinking about all the reasons why she was wrong and they were right.
As Angelica resumed work on her face, Arezoo let the conversation flow around her. The tiny brush moved along her eyebrows, and she held still, watching her aunts in the mirror, and let the chatter wash over her. She didn't contribute to it because it was futile. Her mother and aunts would decide when they were ready to move on, and no one could convince them to move a moment earlier.
"Close your eyes," Angelica said. "And don't open them until I tell you."
Arezoo closed her eyes, and her mind drifted to Ruvon.
To their wedding night.
She had been thinking about it for weeks and thinking about it in cycles of confidence and panic.
Ruvon had told her that they did not have to do anything tonight, handing her the decision and stepping back from it. He had said that he would not be disappointed. That the wedding night was a tradition with a great deal of pressure attached to it, and that he didn't want her to feel pressured.
She had nodded, smiled, kissed him, and said she appreciated how patient he was, and that she loved him.
Arezoo wasn't going to make him wait any longer. She was ready and she'd been ready for a long time now. It had been Ruvon's patience that had made it possible for her to get to the point where she was not only ready but was looking forward to her wedding night.
10
RUVON
Ruvon had checked the time on his watch, although there was no logical reason to do so. The ceremony was still three hours away.
Why was he so nervous?
He wasn't some young human, but he almost felt like one.
Almost.
He was one hundred thirty-seven years old, and the first half of that had been brutal. He didn't like thinking of his life before Kalugal had orchestrated their platoon's escape from the Brotherhood.
He didn't want to remember the things he had done.
Now, he was a different male. No longer a soldier, but a tech expert, and he'd taught himself everything he knew. That other male, the one who used to be a soldier, was gone. Gone but not forgotten. It was impossible to forget that part of his life no matter how hard he tried. The best he could do was to relegate his past to a compartment in his mind that he didn't visit often.
Walking over to the full-length mirror hanging on his closet door, he checked his bow tie, straightened the lapels of his tuxedo, and adjusted the platinum cufflinks that were a gift from Kalugal.
He looked good, or as good as possible for a lanky nothing-special guy, but it was enough because Arezoo loved him just the way he was. She looked at him with adoration in her eyes that he felt he did not deserve, but drank up nonetheless.
Shifting to look at his profile, he arched a brow and struck a pose. "The name's Bond, James Bond."
Ruvon chuckled.
He looked nothing like any of the actors that had played the famous secret agent over the years, but he was wearing a tux and a bow tie, and his shoes were polished to a mirror shine.
As the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of his groomsmen, he walked out to the living room and pulled the door open.
Rufsur stood on the threshold with a wide grin and a large box, flanked by Hivak and Dammal, who were also carrying additional boxes. Others were coming up the path behind them.
"What do you have there?" Ruvon stepped aside.
"Provisions." Rufsur entered, and the others filed in behind him.
Hivak, Dammal, Dandor, Welgost, Boleck, Shamash, with Atzil closing the processions while balancing two large platters covered with cling wrap.
