It was a more simplistic way of living, but much less frightening and violent, she thought. Back on Avria Pentaura with the Orniths, she hadn’t had to worry about being stalked by a sadistic male or getting married to another who she hardly knew! Her research had been going so well, too—she’d had copious notes. She hoped her friends had saved them, but even if they did, who knew if Bobbi would ever get to make use of them?
Who knew if she would ever see her friends or anyone she loved ever again?
“Bobbi?” a low concerned voice murmured in her ear. “Are you well?”
“What?” She was so lost in her own misery that for a moment she wasn’t sure what Dragon was asking.
“I said are you well? You’re, uh, shedding tears again,” he murmured.
“Sorry.” Lifting the richly embroidered golden napkin from her lap, Bobbi dabbed at her eyes. “I just…the egg reminded me so much of my friends on Avria Pentaura. My lost research and my home…” She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes some more. “I’m sorry—I can’t eat this,” she said, looking at the egg. “It would almost be like eating a friend. I just…can’t.”
She expected the big Kindred to get mad at her—clearly the Ornith eggs were a great delicacy. But he only looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before nodding.
“All right. If you’re not going to eat any, I won’t either.”
“Really?” Bobbi looked at him in surprise. “But I thought this was the main course. I mean, won’t your, uh, Sire get mad?”
“He may.” Dragon shrugged.
He was wearing the Saurian idea of evening clothes which was tight black trousers and a kind of evening jacket with a wide V neck that showed his broad, bare chest beneath it. The jacket had long sleeves that came down to his wrists, covering the tattoos on his muscular arms. Bobbi thought it made him look like a businessman who has gone rogue and decided to ditch his dress shirt and tie.
“You don’t have to abstain just because I am,” she pointed out. “The Orniths aren’t your friends. I just…” She sniffed. “I just miss them.”
“I’m sorry I had to take you away,” Dragon said unexpectedly. “But it was the only way to keep you safe.”
“And is marrying me supposed to keep me safe, too?” she demanded. “You know on my planet the guy has to ask the girl if she’d like to marry him—he doesn’t just assume that she wants to get married.”
“What I assumed was that you’d want to be kept safe,” Dragon growled, frowning. “If you’re my wife, Zerlix can never touch you under any circumstances. Even when he takes over as Komendant after our Sire steps down, he can’t have you. Wives are sacred.”
“Well I don’t—” Bobbi began, but just then a loud GOOOONNNNGGGG rang through the tiled room again, making her gasp and put a hand to her heart. “Oh my God, that’s so loud!” she muttered to Dragon. “Why do they have to keep on ringing it?”
“It’s the gong that signals the beginning of the end of the feast,” he explained. “Now is the time for speeches and toasts. Look—the panta’lion wine is being passed even now.”
Bobbi looked to where he was pointing and saw that Keelah was being handed carved glass goblets by a Saurian server who was standing by her side at the end of the table. As she was handed each glass, she poured it two-thirds full of a deep blue wine from a carved glass pitcher she held with both hands.
After filling each glass, she passed it to Zerlix, who passed it to the Saurian woman sitting to his left, who in turn passed it to her husband—or the male who owned her anyway, Bobbi thought—and he passed it on to the person beside him.
In this way, the wine cups were passed along the table from diner to diner until the first cup that Keelah had poured reached the other end of the long, U-shaped head table.
“Don’t drink until after the first speech,” Dragon murmured in her ear as Bobbi stopped passing glasses and finally held the one that was meant for her. “It’s considered very rude not to wait for the first speaker.”
“Oh, okay.” She put the carved glass goblet down beside her plate, looking more closely at the wine as she did so. The surface of the deep blue liquid seemed to be bubbling and fizzing a little—was it some kind of champagne? But as she watched, the bubbling stopped.
Must have been from the motion of being passed by so many people down the length of this huge table, Bobbi thought. She wasn’t much of a drinker at all, having never much cared for the taste of alcohol, so she didn’t know much about it. At any rate, she didn’t mind waiting to drink it—she doubted if she would like it very much.