Page 21 of Mated to the Grumpy Alien

“Marks? What kind of marks?” I stand and cross to my backpack. I unzip it and start to dig. “Where’s my phone? I want to see these marks.” I pause, thinking. “No. Wait. My battery is probably dead by now.”

I’m muttering to myself again, so I’m a little surprised when Cyg replies.

“The technical device you call a phone has been charged and returned to your satchel.”

I still and look up at the ceiling. Wherever Cyg is, it’s not in the ceiling, but that’s sort of where his voice is coming from so that’s where I look. “What do you mean? You just happened to have a USB-C cord floating around in here?”

“Irick anticipated you’d want the device when you asked for it the first time you woke up. So he rigged a power source to charge it.”

“Oh.” I sink to the floor, holding my backpack on my lap. “I don’t know what to make of any of this. Is he trying to make me his sex slave? But he’s also thoughtfully charged my phone? What the hell?”

I keep digging until I find my phone. Sure enough, it turns on and the battery is at full. I feel a weird sense of relief to have it in my hand. No I can’t call anyone but if it’s charged that’s something right?

So all of that is good.

Assuming sex slaves are allowed to play Candy Crush.

I turn on the camera app and put it selfie mode. Twisting it this way and that to see …

Yep. I’ve been marked.

Sure, I’m a redhead, so I’ve always had freckles. But this is next level. I don’t just have freckles, I have a liberal sprinkling of leopard spots on either side of my neck.

“Great. I’m a fucking giraffe.”

“On Perse, the marks of mating are considered the greatest sign of beauty. Bonded pairs are rare. A gift to all who know them.”

“Yeah, but I’m not on Perse. And even if he finds my marks attractive, that still doesn’t mean I want to be his sex slave.”

“By all measures, Irick is good man,” Cyg says, as though my questions are an insult to him. “According to many cultures, he would be among the best. A leader, an innovator, a hero.”

His words simultaneously fill me with pride and shame. I should be proud of the man he is. Even if I don’t believe in soulmates, he does seem like an excellent choice for a life partner, even beyond my general lack of other options.

Yes, I’m a twenty-first century woman, but I don’t live in that world anymore. I live here where everything around us is primitive except the fortress Irick built. He made much of this before I got here so it’s not as if he created it for me, but there are touches all around that clearly reveal his undying faith and hope that the tides would bring him his fated mate.

“I have been exploring your culture more,” Cyg says.

“Um … excuse me? How? Do you have some sort of time-traveling verse of Google?”

“You had technical devices in your satchel that are encoded with information about the world you came from. I have accessed that data to increase the efficacy of your translation module.”

“Oh. I guess that’s why Irick needed to charge them.”

“Correct. Though I believe he also thought they would bring you comfort.” Cyg pauses before continuing, “I believe your use of the term sex slave is a misinterpretation. In Perse, be’lahshuk are both bonded to one another. Your people value love and romance when it comes to relationships.”

“Yes, we do. Though I can’t say we all agree on the definitions of those concepts.” Somehow talking makes the loss easier to bear, so I keep going. “To me, they are verbs. Active choices you make on a daily basis. I have never had the luxury to sit back and hope that fate or ocean tides or whatever, handle my romantic life.”

“They are the ocean tides of the moon of Nerida,” Cyg clarifies. “I want to ensure I am comprehending your meaning. Is it your culture, in general, that is leery of a fate-selected mate or is that a Cressida of Austin belief?”

I snort because even though I don’t think he–Cyg–it, whatever–is trying to be funny, his words are still amusing. “I can’t say I am the only one to believe such things. I think it’s quite common, actually, in most modern cultures, to believe in the notion of soulmates or ‘the one.’ Twin flames. Whatever you want to call it. It’s just not anything I’ve ever seen legitimate proof of. In my experience, the relationships that start out hot and fast burn out just as quickly, because they have no foundation. The ones who build on something together, from the ground up, have a great chance of endurance.”

“Your father,” Cyg says.

“Yes. My father left the moment my mother got sick. He didn’t have the commitment to deal with the toll MS took on her body. How the pain ate away at who she’d once been.”

“This distresses you. Angers you.”

“Of course. My father made vows to my mother. Forget the verbal promises he made to me. In the end, he wasn’t strong enough. Didn’t love us enough. If that’s a soulmate, I want no part of it.”