Married to the Alien Cowboy (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides, #1)

by Ursa Dax

“I know they’re small,” Zohro scoffed. “Weak. Prone to injury and illness.” That… did not sound good.

As for me, I cared little if she were ugly or pretty, tall or short, bald or hairy. I was still stuck on the fact she’d have no tail. Hard to do all that needed to be done out here with no tail…

I could not remember the last time my heart had pounded so hard. It was unlikely my eyes would return to their normal colour for the next two days at this rate.

In all honesty, I was an unworthy male, and I still was not sure I could provide for her. Her bedroom was not even ready, after all. But I did have a blasted wagon, at least, and curse me to Zabria and back for not bringing it with me now!

My gaze roved over her face as she spoke. She seemed to have endless things to say, which I supposed was just as well, because I had very few. I wondered if she really was pretty, or if it had simply been so long since I’d seen a female that, starved of beauty, I had no real standards left to speak of.

She was here, for some unknown reason she was willing to have me, and she was the strangest, prettiest thing I could ever recall having seen.

“What’s ‘kiss?’” my new husband asked.

“Silar. Step up and do the human kiss thing.”

“I also have a wagon,” he added in a sudden rush. “Just… So you know.” “Oh! Well… Good! I love wagons!” I’d never been on a wagon in my entire fucking life.

“Upset him? Silar? Empire, no,” the warden said, looking both surprised and amused. “You just knocked that boy’s boots off, is all. He’s likely gone to sort himself out before the ride home.”

But whatever the reason, for better or worse, I could not rip my gaze from my wife’s rump.

I tugged gently on the scarf before tying it in a bow beneath his chin. Satisfied with my handiwork and trying to ignore how hilariously cute he looked with the scarf arranged along his hard jaw the way an old lady would wear one, I nodded once. He stared back at me in white-eyed silence.

I wondered if humans only ever did the kiss ritual at weddings. I did not see how we could have another wedding so that I could repeat the experience. But maybe they also did the kiss thing at other important ceremonies, like funerals. I found myself rather foolishly hoping that someone might die soon so that I could find out. Maybe Zohro. No one would miss him. It would be worth it. I

“Yes, you. This is a good life you’re offering me, Silar. And I know we just met, but I feel like I can already tell that it’s better because you’re in it.”

I watched her face, illuminated with the silver-white glow of my eyes. I did not dare to blink. That new, tender pain got suddenly sharper. Like a beautiful blade, sliding from my throat to chest. Cutting me open and claiming everything.

“If we don’t act quickly,” I explained, thinking perhaps she did not know very much about this frostbite phenomenon, “then the tips of your udders will die and fall off.”

“Oh. I was just… I was just thinking that…” The whiteness in Fallon’s eyes shone brighter. “I was just thinking that if my bride is half as pretty as you, then I am a luckier male than I’d ever dared to dream.”

I needed him gone. Now. So I could be alone with Cherry and maybe do that hug thing again. Uninterrupted this time.

“Take your filthy hands off of my wife.”

The image of Silar bending, then crouching, silently gazing upon his new little sapling of a cherry tree.

“All I care about is that, if you are running, I’m the one you run to.”