After Rasulus’ coup, I walk around the chambers we share a thousand times, perhaps ten thousand times. I listen eagerly for more sounds of battle, or for news of a disaster. Two days later, when my only contact with the outside world has been a servant who brings me food and does not stay to talk, Rasulus returns.

“Are you all right? What happened to you?”

He takes me in his arms, kissing me as if I am an oasis in the desert.

“It is finished. I have won, and you are mine.”

I turn the lock. The click echoes through the room and gives Rasulus all the invitation he needs to invade my privacy.

He offers no warning before lunging forward to scoop me up in his arms. I don’t fight him. I don’t protest. My body is vulnerable to him, and his dominance weakens me.

Rasulus carries me to his bed, dropping me down and practically leaping on top of me. He traps me with his body, his arms strong against mine. I’d laugh at him if I weren’t so aroused by his presence. He thinks he is keeping me from running from him, when in fact his entrance has awakened me, turning my doubts into desire.

It’s hard for me to breathe as he presses his weight onto me, pushing me into the mattress, his hips tight against mine. His massive cock grinds against me through our clothes, taunting and teasing me. I watch his face, and I can feel myself falling deeper in love with him. He wants to claim me as his own, for me to become his queen and bear his children. In the heat of the moment, I can feel my concerns melting away. He has protected me from every problem until now. Why would he suddenly stop?

I close my eyes, ready to allow him to ravish me. His hands make quick work of the clothing covering me, and I hear the delicate material rip as he tears it from my body. He pulls my bra from me and throws it aside. His mouth replaces it, tongue flat against the sensitive skin of my breasts. He leans back to soak in the tautness of my nipples, the heightened rise and fall of my chest with each ragged breath I take, and the way my long slender fingers glide over the sides of my breasts, pushing them together for his pleasure. He keeps his distance for a moment before consuming them again. I feel the sensation jolt through me when he grazes the tip of my nipple with his teeth. He bites at my tender skin and moans as my body spasms from his touch.

My breathing is harder now as his hands work down my stomach. His touch is rough, and he firmly moves closer to the valley between my legs. He is forceful and demanding as if reclaiming something that is his. I spread my legs, giving him approval and access.

His fingers know how to treat me when they arrive, doing what he knows drives me insane, delving into the valleys and sliding up to the top of my clit. And the circles, the slow circles that send electricity through my entire body, the ones that overlap and tighten around me, tying me to him and his cock, the way he destroys my doubts and my barriers. He is aggressive as his fingers dance around my most private areas.

He lifts himself off me long enough to shed his clothes while his eyes bore into me. He is hungry, and I am his feast. My body trembles and my breathing is ragged until he covers me again, his cock pressing hard against my opening. I silently wish for him to penetrate me, but he doesn’t. He opens me with his large thick bulb but stops and withdraws, causing me to whimper in distress, building the heat that aches deep inside me.

“Rasulus.” I can hardly speak, but I am thirsty for him. “Why are you stopping?”

He grunts with desire. It is as difficult for him to hold himself from me as it is for me to be apart from his cock.

“Each time I leave, I fear you will be gone when I return. How can I know you won’t vanish? That someone will not steal you away? That you will not tire of my absence.”

I press my hands into his chest until he leans to the side, freeing me from his grasp. My eyes lock onto his, and I lower myself, kissing his chest and stomach, my fingertips gliding along his thighs until they touch his cock. It lurches for me, and I accept it into my mouth, my tongue twirling around him. The mix of his fluids and my juices penetrates me to the core, and I suck him in until his moans fill the chamber. Pulling him out, I take a breath and return for more, this time concentrating on keeping my throat open. I stroke him with my lips and slide him deeper until he is fucking the walls of my throat.

The noises he creates are nothing I have ever heard before, and it ignites a desire inside me to pleasure him even more. I release him to catch my breath, licking the length of him as my fingertip toys with the ridge on his head, keeping him headed toward climax. When I slide him back in, I suck faster, wanting more, hungry to make him cum, but he pulls himself free and pushes me onto my back.

He grunts as he climbs on top of me and devours my mouth with his. He lifts his upper body and looks down at me. His eyes are curious, hungry, and searching my face for something.

“Rasulus. I promise you with every fiber of my being, I am yours.” I look into his eyes to see if he believes me, but I see nothing. “I burn for you from the inside. If I don’t have you, I might burn to death.”

“Are you sure?”

“Rasulus, I am one with you. I need you.”

His eyes change at my words. The uncertainty fades and is replaced with desire. “Tell me again.”

“I need you,” I whisper.

A smile kisses his lips. “Again,” he growls.

“I need—”

He thrusts fully into me, forcing me open and filling me completely. His buttocks tighten, and he freezes as if a winter ice has pinned him in place. I feel my pussy pulsate against him.

He quivers against me, and it is delicious. I smile when he begins to move inside me, pulling himself free only to fill me again. He rocks patiently as if he is calculating every move, and it only increases my arousal. I kiss him everywhere I can reach; on his mouth, along his neck when he buries his face in my hair, on his shoulders as he pulls my ass off the bed. My kisses grow rougher, my hands pull at him harder, my pelvis pushes against him deeper.

“Rasulus.” My voice shudders through the syllables of his name.

He responds with his tongue, thrusting it into my mouth and pinning my hands underneath me. He pushes hard into me, grunting each time he fills me, his voice gravelly and rough. I feel his perspiration as he rubs against me, and I want to drink from him.

He fucks me with an ever-intensifying rhythm, and my thoughts begin to blur. I can only beg for release, for the delicious orgasm only he can give me. I rock in unison with him until I cannot keep up any longer. He has my butt up off the bed as his groin pounds into mine, his thighs slapping against my buttocks, the sound like a whip cracking into the air over and over again.

I pant heavily, my arousal peaking and threatening to overpower me and crash down on me. I shut my eyes tightly, allowing my other senses to take over. I feel my insides swell with anticipation, knowing that with a little more pressure and a few more seconds I will explode, flooding me with pain, pleasure, and the ecstasy I crave.

I cry out as he plunges into me one last time, my body pulsating and quaking as an overbearing wave of sensation seizes me and floods me with intense joy.

I hear a guttural moan begin deep down in his throat as he holds his cock deep inside me. It pulses within my walls and thrusts a little deeper, a little harder, a little more aggressively. His body shakes and tenses, his fingers digging into the meat of my thighs as his desire fills me.

When he lets go, it’s a complete release, allowing his body to crash into the bed beside me. I roll toward him, watching his chest rise and fall with each heavy breath he forces in and out of his lungs.

My fingertips trace the muscles of his arm, and he kisses me tenderly. Contentment and exhaustion overwhelm me, and I feel my eyes drift close.

“I mean what I say, Rasulus.” I feel my body soften and lift from reality as I settle into the crook of his body. “I am yours. I promise you, from this moment on until my dying hour.”

“I love you,” he says. I feel his arms tighten around me, and I finally allow myself to relax. When I fall asleep in his arms, I have never felt as safe and happy.

I wake up the next morning and find my bed cold and empty. My husband is gone again.

I know it is a sensitive time for him. There are many things he needs to tend to, but two days stretch into three and then four. He comes once when I am asleep. I awaken to his mouth on mine and his hand sliding down my body. It is savage and intense and exactly what I have needed, but he is gone again in the morning, and I feel a new and creeping despair seep into me.

The next day I decide I can wait no longer. I summon the girls who have dressed me before and ask them to make me presentable. Once I am decently dressed, I walk out into the greater palace, feeling like a rabbit coming out of her burrow.

I walk as if I know where I am going, and I intend to find my husband. I do not know how to feel when no one questions me. They step aside and bow when I pass. The attention feels strange now, when before I was ignored or abused.

Before I find Rasulus, I come across a trio of women eating in a small garden off one of the smaller halls. The Arietan beauties are tall and elegant. They are beautifully fitted in gold and gleaming gems. After a few moments, I realize with some shock that they are speaking about me.

“He is finally king. How long do you think he will keep the Earth woman?”

“Not long, I should say. Will he simply take over his brother’s harem or start from scratch and build his own?”

I freeze, the words making my skin both hot and cold. I can feel every insecurity I have ever had rising to whisper to me again. I wrap my arms around myself tightly. I no longer feel like a queen. In truth, I never did. Right now, I feel like a lost little girl again, too strange and odd to fit in, and all alone in the world.

“I wonder if he’ll take a new queen.”

“Not from us. He’ll be a proper king, and that means he needs a wife of noble birth. Perhaps one of the Savi hellions. He’s not like Crucis. He won’t do it for pleasure or passion. He needs a political alliance.”

The insinuation hurts me worse than anything else that came before. When it comes to passion, I affect Rasulus as much as he affects me. We could set the sky on fire with our kisses and desire. However, there is something brutally truthful in the way the women in the courtyard speak.

They don’t comment on my beauty or my charms. They only spoke with cold common sense. I came to Arietus to be a bride. I knew I could be a wife for Rasulus. I would defend his heart as if it were my own. I would care for him, love him, and protect him. But I cannot do one thing—I cannot be an Arietan-born queen. The last few weeks have shown that I am unsuited to Arietan politics and the cutthroat nature of the way this alien world runs. I already love the planet, with its wide skies, gorgeous plains and deserts, and the secret moon Rasulus revealed to me. But in the end, I am not of this world.

Before I fall on my knees in despair, I run away from the women who have crushed my soul. A critical part inside me is broken, but in a strange way, I wonder if I should thank them. When they spoke, they revealed something important. I know Rasulus would never tell me things so clearly. It might have taken months before I learned the truth myself.

When I return to the chambers we share, I surprise myself by not crying. I know what I need to do. I will not change my mind.

I pack my things calmly, choosing more sensible clothes than the silks worn in the palace. I can get rations from the kitchen, and the Savi kashak I rode to the capital is still in the stables. If I take the kashak, no one will have to ship him back home.

I look around the room with a swelling of sorrow inside me, but I sternly forbid myself from giving in to the tears that threaten to spill down my face. If I break down now, if I let Rasulus find me and comfort me, it will stretch out the terrible ordeal.

A deep and searing pain tears through my heart when I reach for the necklace. I like wearing it even when I stay in the room. It feels like a connection to Rasulus when he is not here, and a connection to his past as well.

I take it off and lay it on the pillow. After I write him a note, there is no reason for me to stay any longer.

The journey to Savi lands takes less time than I remembered. When I appear, Miruska and Casca greet me with open arms. They had heard terrible rumors about the things that happened in the palace. They are aware Rasulus is now the king, but that’s all they know. Miruska has things she needs to know right away. She wants to understand how her brother has been avenged. Casca takes a close look at me and shoos her daughter away.

“You are Rasulus’ wife. You will always be our kin and our family. If you’re not ready to tell us what happened, we’re not in a hurry. Take all the time you need. I will have a word with Miruska. Someday, the Savi lands will be hers. She will have to learn restraint and discretion eventually.”

Casca is so kind and sweet that my mask fades away, and I break down crying in her arms. She comforts me until I am ready to stand on my own two feet. To my eternal gratitude, she immediately puts me to work.

One of the most terrible things about the palace is boredom. Without Rasulus there, I’d felt as if I were going insane in his chamber. Waiting for word, waiting for news, waiting for anything. On the Savi lands, there is plenty of time for fun, but there is work that must be done as well. I follow Casca around as she tends to the house. When I need to be out under the wide Arietan sky, I go with Miruska, who looks after the kashaks.

I surprise myself by enjoying my time with the dangerous birds and learning their signals and habits. Casca teaches me to manage the household, while Miruska drags me out into the open plains. Something in me begins to smooth over and to heal as I work. I become myself again, and though the excruciating pain from losing the man who was matched to me, my soulmate, is ever-present, I start to heal.

It is not until Rasulus appears at the gate of the Savi keep that I realize that I have been fooling myself.