Resisting the Alien Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides, #3)

by Ursa Dax

“Why don’t you tell her that?” he said, his young voice scorched with longing that mirrored my own. “Tell her you made a mistake before!” “Because I’m not that blasted selfish!”

He was there that day I killed my father. He was in the very room when it happened! He refused to testify against me and we were both convicted.” I sighed, bitterness burning in my throat. “I failed him. I tried to protect him and I couldn’t. I’ve already taken his future from him. I cannot now take his bride.”

His burning eyes met mine. “What about you?” “I’ll survive.” I’d survived so much already. But the words felt like a lie anyway.

It was putting Killian back in his bedroll with Garrek. It was talking to Garrek late at night, seeing those eyes shift from purple to white and then back again. It was the rough char of his voice. The calloused touch of his hands. The way he’d had no idea what a hug was but then he’d gone and hugged me anyway.

“Give me your thumb.” “I can do it myself.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I did not ask if you could do it yourself. In fact, I did not ask you anything at all. I told you to give me your thumb.”

🫦

“There’s not going to be a wedding.” He went utterly still. The only thing that moved was his eyes, bright white and slicing up to mine.

I relaxed my fingers to let go of Garrek’s hand. His fingers clamped down on mine.

First, the rustle of his tail, coiling itself around my calf. Then, the heavy weight of his arm falling over me, wrapping tightly ’round my back, drawing me closer, his fingers finding the sensitive place at the base of my skull. He guided my head cautiously but purposefully against the warm hollow of his throat, a spot that seemed like it had been designed just so that I could bury my face there.

Now, I am betraying him in a more terrible way than I ever could have thought possible. And the worst part? I want you so much that I can’t even be decent enough to be sorry, as you are.”

“I’m not a good man, Magnolia.” Misery clawed at me. Arousal burned in me. Even now, I wanted her more than anything I’d ever known. “Oaken is good. You have no idea. You-” “I love you.”

“But you’re a good man too, Garrek. And you’re the one I fell in love with. You and Killian both. I look at you two, and I see my family. I see my future.”

yessssss!!!

“I love you,” she said again, as if to torture me. As if to save me.

His lips drew back from his lips in a genka-like hiss. He looked like he was about to tackle me right off Fiora’s back. Delightfully strange child.

“Whoa, now!” I exclaimed. When had he gotten so close to me? And why was his weird little rock knife pointed right at my face?

LMAO PLS poor oaken 😭

Because my cousin held this human woman like he never wished to let her go. Like she was as necessary to him as his own hands, his own heart. There was no doubt in my mind that she was his wife.

My tail unfurled. It slid along the ground and curled around a pebble the size of my eye. I hurled it at my cousin’s head.

He only gave me a single word in answer. “Ardu.” His voice was like that of a drowning man’s.

“Now, we ride like her life depends on it,” I told him, taking up my reins and turning Fiora ’round. “Because it does.”

I’d follow Oaken off the edge of a cliff for her if it would make any sort of difference.

I kicked it hard, boot colliding, and wood splintered as I forced it open. I heard Oaken swear as he got awkwardly down from his mount, then he muttered something like, “Blast it all, Garrek, I have a key!”

okay now i do feel a lil bad for oaken he’s so funny 💀

In the clutching haze of my fear, I was startled to see that Killian was helping him. He’d tossed his lean, blue-green arm around Oaken’s bare green waist, letting my cousin use his smaller body as a sort of crutch. I dimly remembered Oaken shouting a hurried explanation at Killian as we’d taken off. Killian must have known that, at least in this moment of disaster, Oaken was someone to trust.

“Please,” I begged. “Sweet thing, you have to do it.” “She has to,” Oaken reiterated gravely. In the corner of the room, Killian crouched, chewing viciously on a lock of his own hair. Something I had not seen him do in a long time.

“Repay me?” I asked, lifting my head to regard him with startled scepticism. “I ruined your life.” Oaken’s eyes flashed briefly white. A gentle smile pulled at his mouth. “I always thought that you had saved it.”

He gazed at me steadily. “I think it’s very likely I would have died that day if you had not intervened.” And all at once, I was a child again. A child coming home to find Oaken’s small body curled up on the floor while my father’s rage rained down upon him. And then I was hauling my father away, fighting back for my younger cousin the way I’d never fought back for myself.

“You saved me,” Oaken said again. Simply. Bluntly. As if it were a fact he’d known and accepted all his life and not something that should upend my entire reality. “And really, Garrek, do you not think that we are safer here, even among the dangers of this world? So much better off than we would have been in that house with him?”

oh ☹️

“But…” His face showed no evidence of anger or betrayal. Only bewilderment. “But you love her.” This was not a question. It was a statement. It struck me like a whip. Like my father’s belt on my back.

“She told me that I could have her shit in a bottle.” “Ship in a bottle, Killian,” I groaned. “Oh.” He looked slightly less enthusiastic now, but rallied admirably.

“If you try to take her from us,” Killian said, his eyes massive and murderous white, “I will kill you. And no one but Garrek will ever know because they’ll never find your body.” “It’s a little scary how much I actually believe that,” Oaken said, regarding Killian warily.

both endeared by and terrified of killian HAHA

“And does she love you?” “Yes.” There was no point in lying. In delaying the inevitable. “Don’t ask me why,” I added, and to my surprise, Oaken laughed.

“I’m glad you are not dead,” I said suddenly. I’d been so focused on Magnolia, on loving her, and then thinking I was losing her, that I had not had the chance to tell him. “The warden did not know if you were still alive. I’m happy that you are.”

A cynical sort of amusement glinted in Oaken’s eyes. “Really? You did not hope I was dead so that you would not have to give her up?” “I never wished for your death.” Then, a pause. “That was Killian.” Oaken laughed again, a hearty sound that boomed through the room.

Of course, she is beautiful. But I noticed it in such a distant sort of way. Because the only thing I could really think when I saw her was, ‘This is someone beloved by Garrek. This is someone precious to the only family I have left. This is the wife of the person who saved me.’ And I loved her then, instantly, as I would love your wife and nothing else. I do not think I am even capable of wanting her as my own wife, now. Because from the first moment that I saw her, I thought of her as yours.”

“You,” I choked out, not wanting to believe his words. I wanted punishment, pain, something. “You are too reasonable. Can’t you at least hit me or something?”

💀

“Hit you?” Oaken grinned. “You are older than me. I don’t want to fight an old man. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I have Killian on my side.” His grin widened, and he shook himself dramatically. “Alright. You win. I would not wish to cross that child even with both my feet working and a knife in each hand.” “Now that he knows you don’t plan to steal Magnolia away from him, he’ll love you,” I told him. “And he’s ferociously loyal to those he loves.” Oaken’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Sounds like somebody else I know.”

“Thank you.” I opened my arms to him, holding them awkwardly out at my sides. He gawked at me. “What the blazes are you doing?” “Don’t say blazes. And I am doing a human hug.” He reared back in alarm. “To me?” “Yes, to you. Who else?” Killian made a show of looking around the place. As if there were someone else waiting just behind him, ready to receive my hug in his stead.

“It was only a thought,” I said gruffly, lowering my arms. “Wait!” Killian sounded absolutely affronted. “You can’t take my hug back now!” “You never even let me give it to you,” I pointed out archly. He stormed over to me, eyes crackling. First, he grasped my right hand, then my left, lifting them back up into the air the way I’d been holding them before. Then he threw his arms around my waist and squeezed.

I lowered my arms around him, stiffly at first. But soon, I found natural places where my arms and hands seemed to fit perfectly around him. I rested my chin on the top of his head, returning his squeeze but with just a little less of that feral, bone-cracking force. I assumed that Killian would get sick of me and slither out of my arms immediately afterwards, but he didn’t. He pressed his face into my chest and stayed that way for a long, long time.

magnolia really healed them, i’m- 😭

When he finally did pull away, the room seemed darker than it should have been. Astounded, I suddenly realized why. Killian’s eyes were not bright white. For the very first time, I got to see their true colour, something inside him finally soothed enough to let it show.

“Empire! I’ve forgotten your water!” He picked up the cup again, sloshing a bit of it on the bedspread in his haste to get it to me. He used his tail to swipe the water off the bedspread before it fully absorbed, muttering curses as he did so.

i need this man to get /the best/ human girlie to marry bc he’s genuinely so sweet and funny

I’d only just met him, and Oaken was already giving off major good boy vibes.

Oaken’s mouth thinned. “He never told you he was protecting me?” “No. He didn’t.” Oaken huffed out a little laugh. “Typical.” We both said the word at the exact same time. Oaken’s face lit up with a grin that, even in my slightly pulverized state, I couldn’t help but return.

“How’s your foot?” Oaken’s expression brightened further, as if he were just pleased as punch that someone had thought to ask after him.

“I hope that once it is healed, I may try again for another bride.” My heart squeezed. “But next time,” he said with mock sternness, “I will make sure I am well enough to go and get her myself. So that some strapping, growling, blue-tailed rider does not woo her away from me before I even get the chance to meet her.”

He swallowed, thick throat bobbing. “I heard your voice. I ran.”

Oaken discreetly got up and moved away. Or, he would have been discreet if he hadn’t hopped and hobbled and nearly knocked over the chair, swearing under his breath the entire way.

LMAO

“I want to marry you,” he said. “I want to build a life with you. Family. With you and Killian both.” My battered heart took flight. “I’m not Oaken. I’m not the man you came here for. But I can be the man you need. And I’ll work every day to be the man who deserves you.” His jaw flexed. His eyes searched mine. “If… If you’ll have me.”

“So it really is a ship,” Killian said, his tone sour with disappointment. “Of course it’s a ship,” I said with a chuckle. “I told you it was a ship in a bottle. What else would it be?” “Don’t answer that,” came a stern voice. A voice like gravel and smoke. A voice I loved.

“What?” Garrek asked, looking astounded and angry and guilty all at once. “Why did you not call for me? I would have come running.”

“Come on,” I murmured. He took my hand before I could reach for his.