Page 25 of Gyft
I giggle. “Pretty sure. You’ll know the next morning when you get presents. We’ll have to decorate a tree!”
“A tree?” My guard asks. I really should ask his name, but that’s probably something we should do in private, not with the little nosy ones listening. Probably going to run all the gossip to their parents.
I nod. “A small one. We chop it down, put the trunk in water, prop it up and make decorations.”
He grunts. “Grekl and I will find a suitable one in the morning.”
I clap my hands. “In the meantime, since we’re all up, we’ll make the decorations!”
“Yay!” the children say simultaneously. Then, like the spontaneous outburst connects them in a soothing way, then reach out and clasp their hands.
Sneaking into the kitchen, we find the equivalent of alien popcorn. It’s not actually food but a packing material, so we dye the littleodd shapes of fluff by boiling a red vegetable and letting them soak in the deep maroon brine. While they soak up color, we use toilet paper to make paper snowflakes to string on the tree.
In the meantime, the guard and Brisa start to work on their own project. They make tiny pinholes into a few dozen itty bitty eggs, blow out the innards, and boil the shells in the same red liquid we used earlier. When they dry, they paint green designs on each egg and string them together using the pinholes. They look like decorated eggs on a string.
I don’t have the heart to tell them those decorations are for a different kind of holiday.
We finally head to bed for a few hours of sleep after tucking the twins in.
This time when we get into bed, it’s almost normal. Like there’s no hesitancy over my guard jumping into bed with me. Instead, he wraps me in his arms. I settle in and sink my head to his shoulder.
“It’s so weird that we can actually talk. I haven’t asked you your name,” I whisper shyly.
He freezes.
I turn my head up to see him staring down at me in horror. “I thought—you mentioned my name. I thought you knew. I’m Gyft. Your... husband.”
Relief washes through me. “Oh, God. You’re Gyft? I thought you were telling me that Gyft sent you for me. That you were my guard.”
“You slept with me,” he says flatly.
“I was really torn up about it. I wanted to go to Hellaya to live and see if you could come. If maybe we could explain to Gyft about our feelings for each other.”
He growls. “Nice to know you would have fallen for anyone who rescued you from the woods.”
“You’re kind of blaming me because you’re hot,” I point out reasonably. “A girl gets kind of swoony over that, you know.”
I settle my head back onto his shoulder. And hear a vague thumping.
His right shoulder.
“Oh! There it is!”
“There is what?” he rumbles, his voice deep.
“Your heartbeat. It’s on the other side of your body.”
“There’s a lot to learn about each other.” His arms tighten around me. “I look forward to exploring you. I can’t wait for our lives to merge together. To make memories and new traditions as a family unit.”
That makes me giddy inside.
And finally, I grow sleepy. It’s in the warmth of his strong, solid chest. The intimacy we shared. The way his gaze grows hooded when he looks at me with his strange alien eyes.
“What’s your hair called?” I ask suddenly.
“Freelig.” He winds a lock of mine around his finger. “Yours is so soft. Does it harden?”
“No,” I whisper. “Yours?”
