Page 21 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

And I didn't quite admit to myself that I'd stayed on purpose.

CHAPTER 7

FURNITURE AS A LOVE LANGUAGE

The doorknob was at my eye level.

I stood in the corridor outside the main room – if you could call it a corridor; it was wider than my entire quarters back on the relay station – and stared at the round metal handle positioned precisely where a Khorreth's hand would naturally fall. Which was almost as tall as me.

"Brilliant," I said to nobody. "This is fine. This is completely fine."

I jumped.

My fingers brushed the bottom of the knob, failed to grip, and I landed hard on my heels. The door stayed closed. Above me, the handle gleamed with what I chose to read as malicious indifference.

I jumped again. This time I got a grip, managed to turn it halfway, and lost my hold when gravity reasserted itself. The knob spun back to where it had started. The door stayed shut.

"You absolute–"

The door swung inward.

Keth stood on the other side, filling the frame, his tail doing that slow sweep that meant he was amused and trying not to show it.

"The doors can be voice-activated," he said. "I should have told you."

"Voice-activated." I looked at the doorknob. Looked at him. Looked at the doorknob again. "And you didn't mention this because...?"

"I wanted to see how you would solve the problem."

"By jumping at it like an idiot, apparently."

"You were very determined."

I pushed past him into the room beyond, which turned out to be some kind of storage space. Shelves lined the walls, reaching up towards a ceiling I couldn't have touched with a ladder. The lowest shelf was at my shoulder height. Everything on it was incomprehensible – containers of various sizes, tools I couldn't identify, what might have been dried food stores or might have been building materials.

"This is going to be a theme, isn't it," I said. "Everything in this dwelling is built for someone three feet taller than me."

"Yes."

"The furniture. The doors. The–" I gestured vaguely at the shelves. "Storage systems."

"Yes."

"And you didn't think to mention this before we arrived?"

He tilted his head, the gesture I was learning meant he was choosing his words. "I did not expect it to be a problem. Among the Khorreth, omegas are tended. They do not need to reach high shelves. Their needs are provided."

"Their needs are provided," I repeated flatly. "So what you're saying is, I'm supposed to just... ask you for things? Every time I want something off a shelf, or need to open a door, or want to sit in a chair without my feet dangling?"

"Yes."

I stared at him.

He stared back, apparently genuinely confused by my reaction.

"Right," I said. "Okay. Let's–let's see the rest of it."

The dwelling was larger than I'd realised.