Page 24 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

You produce. I provide. You are tended. That is enough.

It was the most offensive thing I'd ever heard. Reducing me to a function, a purpose, a body that made things for his benefit. I'd spent nine years proving I could survive on my own, that I didn't need anyone, that I was more than what I could produce.

And yet.

There was a part of me – a small, exhausted, worn-out part I didn't like to acknowledge – that heard those words and thought: Yes. That sounds right. That sounds like rest.

I'd been running on fumes and stubbornness for so long. Always working. Always providing for myself. Always cold, always hungry, always one crisis from falling apart. And here was someone saying: Stop. Let me carry it. You don't have to do anything but exist.

It was seductive and it was terrifying, and I hated how much of me wanted to say yes.

"I need–" I stood, the chair scraping against the floor. "I need a minute."

He let me go. Didn't follow. Just watched with those dark eyes as I crossed the room on unsteady legs.

I went to the nest.

I knew I was doing it. Knew what it meant, that I was gravitating towards the space he'd made for me. But the main room was too big, the furniture still too tall, everything still built for someone who wasn't me. And the nest was warm, and it smelled like him, and it was the only place in this entire dwelling that was mine.

I climbed in. Pulled the furs up around me. Curled on my side, my aching breasts pressed against the soft fabric, and closed my eyes.

Behind me, I heard his tail brush the floor once, unhurried, and I didn't need to look to know he was pleased.

I didn't look back.

I knew what I'd see on his face: that quiet delight, that satisfaction at watching me settle into the space he'd built. At watching me accept, even a little, that I might belong here.

I wasn't ready to see that yet.

But I stayed in the nest anyway.

CHAPTER 8

AN INTERESTING ACQUISITION

I was still learning my way around the dwelling when Keth went still.

He'd been showing me the back rooms – storage spaces and a small workshop and something that might have been a communications hub, all of it built to his scale, all of it requiring me to crane my neck and climb onto things. I'd been making mental notes about which surfaces I could use as steps and which drawers were low enough to reach, when his head turned towards the front of the dwelling and his tail stopped moving entirely.

I'd seen that stillness before. In the cargo bay, right before he took me. The absolute cessation of motion that meant he was listening to something I couldn't hear.

"What is it?"

"Someone is coming." His voice was flat. Careful. "Stay behind me."

"Who– "

The knock came before I could finish the question. Three heavy strikes against the front door, loud enough that I felt them through the floor.

Keth moved, unhurried and purposeful, positioning himself between me and the entrance. His hand found my shoulder, guiding me back until I was half-hidden behind his bulk.

"Stay," he said quietly. "Don't speak unless spoken to. Don't meet his eyes."

"Whose eyes? Keth, what's– "

He opened the door.

The Khorreth on the threshold was bigger than Keth.