“I know what you are,” I say softly.
“You rejected me once, or twice. I understand why. You have needs. Emotional needs.”
He says the word emotional as if it is a physically painful thing to pronounce. I feel my heart swell with love for this great blue beast. He is trying.
“I told Rath I was sorry,” he says. “I used the actual word, sorry.”
“That must have been terrible for you,” I giggle. Poor Tusk, he is so unaccustomed to being in any way socialized.
“It was awful,” he agrees, wrapping a massive, muscular blue arm around me and pulling me close in my blanket cocoon. “But I would do it again, for you. I would go on an apology tour of the entire city, if that was what it took.”
“I don’t think we need to go that far,” I smile. “I really thought you’d never come back for me. When I first returned to the palace, I was afraid you’d come. Then I was afraid you wouldn’t, then…”
“I knew I was going to,” he sighs. “I was always going to do whatever you asked of me.”
“Hey!” I nudge him. “What's the sigh for?”
“You have changed me, Margaret. You have forced me to be soft and tender, and…”
I’m not sure which one of us currently feels more nauseous, him or me.
“Okay, that is enough, you really don’t have to keep proving it to me. I believe you. You’ve never lied to me.”
“I am not letting you go,” he growls in my ear. “You're my mate. If I fail you, you may tell me, but you may not choose absence. It is too painful. I felt the entire time as though my insides were being pricked with a thousand hot needles, and as though my heart were going to stop forever. I have grieved three wives. I do not want to grieve you before our time.”
That is Tusk all over. Even when he is sweet, he is dark.
“Can it be this simple? You apologize, I accept the apology, and we end up happily ever after?”
“Yes,” he says. “This is the way of relationships. They are all apologies and forgiveness. When the apologies stop and the forgiveness dries up, that’s when it is truly over. We are not over, Margaret.”
Eighteen
Margaret
“Must we invite him?”
Tusk asks the question while hovering at the edge of the kitchen I have all but banished him from. A massive, growling alien is useful for many things, but he gets in the way when you have several batches of cookie dough on the go.
“Yes, Tusk. He is your son, and the only member of your family still in Megaris,” I answer him while checking the oven.
"I don't think you understand how much shame he brought upon our house when he allowed the previous king to be slain by the very female he chooses to consort with. It was an unforgivable error in judgement."
“And yet, you have forgiven him. And made amends. Remember?”
“I remember,” he snarls softly. I have wondered from time to time if Tusk meant a single one of the amends he made, or if he only made them to get me back. I have also decided that I don’t care. I asked a lot from Tusk. I asked more than he thought he was capable of giving. I have to be patient with him.
"You might have been genuinely angry at him once, Tusk. I am sure you were. But now you’re just practicing being furious with none of the emotion. I know when you’re angry. The entire city of Megaris knows when you're angry. You're not angry.”
"I do not think you know the contents of my emotions, Margaret.”
“I think I do. I think every time you look at a little korabi, you see your son. I think you're a father who wants his boy home."
“You are full of sentimental nonsense, human," he growls.
I dab a spoon which still has the remnants of icing on his big, blue, angry nose.
“I am. And that is why your boy is coming to dinner with Lyric.”
Tusk forgets he is banished, leans against the counter and attacks from another angle. "You don’t like Lyric,” he says. "Why do you want to share a meal with her?"
“Who says I don’t like Lyric?”
“The way your skin wrinkles ever so slightly above your mouth, and the way your nose flares whenever she speaks.”
“She may not be my choice of personal companion, true, but she is your son's mate, and we need to respect that. There will come a time when the dye fades, and age finally manages to catch you, and you will be glad to have a son here. We are family. That family is growing.”
He snarls and steals one of the cupcakes I have been making. "You are wise beyond your limited years, Margaret.”
“I don’t think so. I just come from a simpler time. I know what matters.”