“Can we build snowmen every week?” Olvar asked.
“Well, as long as there is snow, I guess.” I spread my hands aside.
“Yes!” They both leaped at me at once, pushing me back into the snow.
They giggled, making me laugh as I rolled in the snow with them.
The Colonel was right. It was definitely worth it.
Chapter 12
“WHERE IS THAT FUCKING thing!” the Colonel’s deep voice boomed from downstairs. The sound of his stomping hooves echoed through the entire cluster of domes of his place.
With a last glance at my reflection in the mirror, I smoothed the flared skirt of my powder-blue dress, shoved my feet into a pair of cream-colored pumps and ran out of the bedroom.
It’d been over a week since our play day in the snow. My parenting course at The Ministry of Children’s Education and Wellbeing had started yesterday. The Colonel was about to drop me off for my second class on his way to work.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, running down the stairs into the main room.
“My fucking personal tablet,” he growled, shoving aside the flower garlands to search behind the pots by the wall. “I always put it right here!” He slammed his fist into one of the planters. “Every fucking morning. And now I’m going to be late for work!”
“Oh, you won’t.” I waved him off. “You’re always a year early everywhere, anyway. Omni,” I asked, turning to the frame on the stick quietly humming nearby. “Do you know where the Colonel’s tablet went?”
“Unfortunately, that unit is not connected to my system. I am unable to locate it,” the AI sounded crestfallen.
I knew the robot had no emotions, he simply mirrored the intonations of people, but I still felt sorry for him.
“Colonel Kyradus did not notify me of the tablet’s location when he misplaced it,” Omni added, apologetically.
“If I knew of its location to notify you then it wouldn’t be misplaced in the first place,” the Colonel raged. “Would it?”
“Didn’t you go to the bathroom, after breakfast?” I dashed to the main floor bathroom.
Sure enough, the tablet was lying right there, behind the oblong flower pot next to the hand dryer by the sink.
Back in the main room, I shoved it into the Colonel’s hands.
“Here. Stop stomping around and yelling at the poor robot. And don’t forget to charge it in the aircraft on your way to work.”
He grunted, staring at the tablet in his hands then moved his eyes to me.
“Why do I let you get away with chastising me as if I were a child, in front of my household AI nevertheless?”
I propped my hands on my hips.
“Because I’m pretty much the only person on this planet who is not afraid to tell you things the way they are.”
There was no need for me to be afraid of him, I trusted the Colonel would never hurt me. I also sensed he appreciated hearing the truth from me.
I grabbed the bag with my own tablet and some writing materials off the hook by the door.
“Oh, and because you like me, of course,” I teased, wishing to disperse the tension that was still hanging over him like a storm cloud.
His stare lingered on me, growing more intense. The tension in the air didn’t dissipate but its nature seemed to shift somehow, chasing my smile away.
“Um, we should go,” I said quietly, twisting the handle of my bag in my hands. “Now, you’re actually risking being late.”
He didn’t move from his spot, however, continuing to stare at me.
“How are you feeling about the class today, Daisy?” he asked.
Yesterday, before it started, I’d felt sick with nerves.
I’d learned that at least half of the students in my class would be women. My encounter with Voranian women at the Governor’s Ball hadn’t gone that well, because of Shula, of course. She had given me a glimpse into how Earth females might be perceived in Voran, and I had not been looking forward to hearing more insults from anyone.
Thankfully, my worst fears hadn’t been realized. Yesterday had gone pretty well. Sure, there had been stares and even a few whispers behind my back, but no one had dared insult me to my face. Most had actually made a visible effort to be nice to me.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to have a talk with the instructor?” The Colonel glared from under his bushy eyebrows. “I can find some time to visit the classroom this morning. No one would dare to even think about treating you badly after I’m done with them.”
“Oh, I know they wouldn’t.” I snorted a laugh when I imagined showing up to class on the arm of the big, mean Colonel. “Most would probably pee their pants at the sight of you.” I wasn’t even kidding about that one. The Colonel in a fit of rage was terrifying. I knew that for a fact.
“Everyone who disrespects you is disrespecting me,” he snarled.
“Calm down.” I patted his hand that was still holding the freaking tablet. “No one is disrespecting me. Everybody was courteous and polite. Oh, and one woman, her name is Diecrie, but the instructor was calling her Madam Judge Cistridus, she even told me how glad she was that the Voranian government moved ahead with the Liaison Program. Her father recently passed away. He was alone and lonely. She is hoping her three brothers will eventually earn the honor of having human wives to love and grow old with.”
The Colonel took a step closer to me.
“You see, this here,” he waved his hand between us, “it’s bigger than you and me. It’s a hope for many men in my country.” He placed his hand on my shoulder then slid it down to circle my bare upper arm.
The warmth in his eyes heated slowly as he drew little circles on my skin with his thumb.
My arm tingled where his hand touched it, the sensation rippling downwards. The tension in the air now crackled with heat I had no idea what to do with. I felt like either running away from him or throwing myself at him and kissing the living hell out of him.
Neither scenario would be appropriate for what we now were—a boss and an employee. I had hoped that having clear roles would simplify our relationship. On the contrary, it’d only gotten more complicated.
An employer shouldn’t be caressing his nanny’s arms, and she shouldn’t be enjoying every little physical contact with him as much as I was.
So, I dealt with the situation the only way I knew how, by making a stupid joke.
“Well, if Voranian men hope to get human wives, they’d better start getting used to the sight of human feet. The sooner they accept the fact that our women have toes, the less chance of them freaking out the way you did.”
“Hey,” his expression eased into a smile as he chuckled. “I don’t mind your toes. You know I wouldn’t say a word if you were to run around completely barefoot.”
“You wouldn’t? But that would deprive me of the chance to tease you. Besides, all the shoes you got for me are too cute to walk barefoot. Ooops...” I glanced at Omni’s screen nearby, “now, we really need to hurry.” I grabbed him under his arm, tugging him toward the parking platform. “Or we both will be late.”
Once inside the aircraft, I decided he was in a decent enough mood this morning to bring up another subject. Again.
“Colonel, you must have noticed, I’ve been trying to make something in the kitchen,” I started, carefully.
“Yes. What are you trying to do?” He connected his tablet to the control panel for re-charging.
“Baking. I want to figure out how to bake my recipes from home, using Voranians ingredients.”
“Why? You don’t like our desserts?”
That wasn’t the point, but he had been so stubborn about this entire thing from the beginning.
“No, everything I’ve eaten in Voran so far has been tasty. Except for the recols, of course. Since my class ends at noon, I have an entire afternoon with nothing to do.”
“You like to bake that much?” He glanced at me with curiosity.
No temper flare-ups, I noted,
so far so good.
“It relaxes me,” I explained. “Baking is something I’ve done since I was a little girl. My grandmother taught me how to bake, and it makes me happy. I love the creativity that goes into the decorating, too. I worked in a bakery for years before it closed for good. I’ve even dreamed of opening my own bakery one day, except that my salary never allowed for saving much to start my own business. Anyway, it was fun.”
“Well, you know you have my permission to use anything in the house. Bake whatever you like. Tell Omni to get what you need.”
And there it was again. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, as long as I remained under the dome of his home, like a fly trapped under a glass.
“See, that’s where the problem lies. I can’t order what I don’t know. I need to speak with someone who bakes in Voran, who sells the ingredients so they would point me in the right direction.”
“You want to go to the spice market, then?”
That sounded promising.
“Is there such a thing?”
“Yes, in the mall. But I can’t take you there, possibly until the end of the next week.”
“Can’t I go on my own?” I smiled as sweetly as I could, batting my lashes at him innocently.
Instead of replying, he opened a compartment under the control panel of the aircraft and took out a small container.
“What’s this?” I asked when he offered it to me.
Lifting the lid, I found two round Voranian pastries I often had for breakfast. Their texture still reminded me of clay. However, the mildly sweet taste had been growing on me.
“You haven’t eaten much for breakfast this morning,” the Colonel said at my questioning stare. “You tend to get irritated faster when you’re hungry.”
“Are you about to irritate me, then?” I took out one of the two disks.
He was right, in the rush of this morning, I’d left most of my breakfast untouched. However, I hadn’t expected him to notice or, even less so, to pack a snack for me.
“Thanks.” I took a big bite off the pastry. “So, can I go shopping?”
“On your own? Under no circumstances.”
As he had predicted, irritation stirred in me. I took it out on the pastry in my hand, chomping off another huge chunk of it before replying.
“Why not? It’s not dangerous. It’s not like we’re in a war zone or something. Voran is a civilized city.”
“Except that you’d stand out from the crowd wherever you go.” His expression turned to stone, unyielding.
I knew I’d attract a lot of attention, but that didn’t mean I’d be attacked or whatever it was that the Colonel was afraid of.
From everything I’d learned about Voran, it was a peaceful place. Its people didn’t get into fights for no reason, and I certainly wasn’t planning to give anyone any reason to attack me.
“I’m used to the unwanted attention, by now,” I assured him. “Stares and whispers don’t bother me much.”
“I’m afraid someone may do something more than that,” he replied grimly.
“Like what? Kidnap me for ransom?”
“Maybe.”
“Does it happen often in this city?”
“No.”
“Well, then how likely is that to happen to me?”
“I don’t know!” He raised his voice, after all. “But I don’t want to take chances to find out. Besides, you don’t know the city that well, or the mall layout.”
“Really?” I groaned, unable to hold the frustration at bay any longer. “Come on, I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way around a mall. Besides, I would like to see more of Voran. Part of the reason why I came to Neron was to learn a new culture, and I can’t learn much about the city just by flying over it.”
He drew in some air, and I braced myself for another argument.
“Fine,” he conceded, so suddenly, I thought I hadn’t heard him right. “Let me think about it. I may come up with something.”
Well, it went better than I’d expected, this time. Deprived of a reason to argue, I silently ate my pastry.
Maybe it was possible for us to find some middle ground on other things, too? Eventually?
Chapter 13
THE DAY AFTER MY FIRST full week of classes, the Colonel happened to have a morning off. An early meeting of his had been cancelled, and he wasn’t going to work until later.
We had breakfast together. Then he went downstairs to the exercising room for a workout, and I decided to help Omni plant the gray-blue flowers, lilcae, that the Colonel wanted in the dining room.
“These are rather modest, compared to the others you have in here.” I set the tray with the dirt pellets containing the delicate plants on the dining table that Omni had covered with a sheet of plastic. “Why would Colonel order them?”
“He hasn’t shared the reason.”
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me. He doesn’t explain his actions very often, does he?” Climbing on the table, I lifted a pellet to place it into the cluster of tubular planters that were a part of the chandelier.
One of Omni’s drones hovered over my shoulder. “Make sure you cover the tip of the bottom leaf with dirt, too. It’ll sprout roots and will make for a more sophisticated root system.” The AI was a huge stickler for rules, following the gardening processes from the planet Aldrai to a T.
I did as instructed, carefully tucking the tip of the pale-green leaf into the dirt.
“Interesting,” Omni’s voice sounded from his frame by the table, this time.
I glanced that way. The image of my face, with the freshly planted flower next to it, appeared on the screen. Two circles zoomed in, one on my eye, the other one on the little flower of the plant.
“The color of lilcae flowers is nearly identical to the color of your eyes. I wonder if that was why the Colonel wanted them here.”
I snorted a laugh, gently patting the dirt around the pellet with the seedling I’d just inserted into the planter.
“That’s definitely not the reason why he ordered them. The Colonel doesn’t give a shit about my eyes.”
“Madam Kyradus, such language is unbecoming of a lady,” Omni scolded.
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not a lady, then,” I laughed.
“You are the wife of one of the top officials in the country—”
“The top official also swears like a blacksmith, in case you haven’t noticed. And don’t you tell me it’s fine because he is a male.”
“There certainly is a clear divide between gender expectations for men and women in Voran—”
“Okay, okay.” I waved him. “I’m not going to argue with you about the socially acceptable gender roles around here. I’m not defying Voranian culture. I didn’t come here to start a cultural revolution. But if I let one or two naughty words slip in private, no one is going to be worse off because of it, are they? The Colonel doesn’t mind it anymore.” He’d stopped commenting on my occasional swearing long ago. “And you wouldn’t tell anyone anyway, would you?” I wiggled my eyebrows at the frame.
The image on his screen scrambled, then a beeping sound came.
“What’s that? Omni, are you okay?”
“Incoming aircraft,” he informed me.
“Where?” I hopped off the table. “Why?”
During the weeks I’d spent in the Colonel’s house, we hadn’t had any visitors.
“What do they want?” I brushed dirt off my hands.
“The reason for the visit has not been shared with me.”
“What has been shared? Did the Colonel say anything? Is he expecting someone?”
“There are no visitors on his schedule for today.”
“What should I do?” I took off the frilly bib apron I wore to keep dirt off my yellow dress with a poofy skirt trimmed with white lace. “Do I just let them in? Play hostess?” What if they were high officials to see the Colonel? I’d surely mess up some protocol while receiving them. “I should get the Colonel.”
&n
bsp; I dashed toward the side stairs leading down to the exercise room on the lower level.
“Who could they be?” I muttered under my breath on the way to the stairs.
“The cousin of Colonel Kyradus,” Omni suddenly informed me. “Madam Lievoa Kyradus.”
As an unmarried woman, Lievoa still went by her first name and the last name of her father, the brother of the Colonel’s dad.
“Omni!” I stopped in my tracks before reaching the stairs. “Why didn’t you say that right away?”
“You haven’t asked until now.”
I huffed a frustrated breath, turning to go to the parking platform.
“With all the technology you’re packing in that frame of yours, one would think you should be able to announce the visitors by name before I completely lose my mind here.”
“Daisy!” Lievoa jumped out of her small, metallic-pink aircraft and ran to me as I entered the parking platform.
“Hi Lievoa.” I smiled, bracing myself for her greeting and already feeling sorry for my ears.
She grabbed on to them, pulling me in for a smooch.
“So nice to see you again! Ready to go?”
“Go? Where?” I stared at her in confusion.
Letting go of my ears, Levoa straightened her pink dress printed with purple flower garlands. Her horns, hooves, and the tip of her tail were painted with thin, silver spirals.
“To the mall. Grevar said you wanted to go shopping.” She chatted so energetically, the strings of multicolored beads and painted shells that were draped over her chest rattled. “We can spend the whole day together, have lunch at the mall, too. I’ll just need to stop at my dress shop for a little while, and I have a polishing appointment this afternoon.”
“What? Hold on.” I waved both hands at her, feeling rather confused. “When did he speak with you? He hasn’t said anything to me. It’s the spice market I wanted to go to. Omni?” I called back into the main room. “Did the Colonel add any appointments to the schedule for me today.”
“No. Madam Kyradus,” came the calm voice of the AI.
“The spice market is adjacent to the Central Mall,” Lievoa spoke a little slower, probably to give me some time to catch up. “Grevar called me a couple of days ago, asking me to take you shopping because he didn’t want you to go alone. I said I’d have to look at my schedule, my days are pretty busy, you know.”
Married to Krampus (My Holiday Tails) Page 12