She had almost called him an “evil one” she realized. She must be more careful, lest he guess her true purpose here.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Brand remarked neutrally. “Oh look—I think Kat is calling us over to cut the cake.”
Taking her hand again, he led her over to the round table in the center of the room where a towering white structure had been set up. It appeared to be made of round, thick circles, stacked on top of each other, each one smaller than the last. Down the side was a gorgeous cascade of pink flowers with curling green stems.
“Here you go—I hope you like it.” Lauren was suddenly by her side, pressing a metal instrument with a handle attached to a triangular end into Allara’s hand.
Allara looked at it.
“It is a beautiful structure but what am I supposed to do with this?” She gestured with the metal instrument.
“Why, you have to cut the cake, sweetie.” Lauran looked surprised that she didn’t know. “Both of you together, actually.”
“Here,” Brand rumbled. “Let me help.”
Leaning over Allara in a way that made her feel very small indeed, he placed his own much larger hand on hers and lifted the instrument.
“What do you think?” he rumbled. “Should we go for the bottom layer first?”
“I…suppose so?” Looming over her, as he was, Allara was close enough to smell that warm, spicy scent of his again. It made her hand tremble inside his.
If Brand felt her trembling, he didn’t say anything about it. He simply lifted her hand and the instrument she was holding and sliced it down into the bottom circular layer of the structure.
“Oh!” Allara exclaimed, surprised. She had thought the structure was solid—some kind of statue or edifice to commemorate their wedding. But the metal instrument sliced easily into it, revealing a dark red layer with a white stripe running through it.
“Mmm, red velvet,” Brand rumbled. “My favorite. I hope you’ll like it, too,” he added, looking down at Allara as they finished slicing a wedge out of the towering structure. “I asked Lauren to make it one of the layers.”
He transferred the slice of red and white to a small plate and then looked down at Allara.
“Are you ready for this?”
“Ready for what?” Allara shook her head, mystified.
“We have to feed it to each other,” he explained. “Just a little piece—it’s an Earth custom I saw at another Joining ceremony. I really liked it, so I asked Kat to put it in. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Well, no—I suppose not.” It still seemed strange to Allara. Among her people, men and women did not eat in the same room, let alone feed each other food. But she was only here for a short time—there was no point in causing offense by refusing to participate in the local customs.
“You go first,” Brand urged her. “Just pick up a piece and feed it to me.”
Allara dutifully picked up a piece of the red and white “cake” which was much softer in her hand than she would have believed. But when she reached up, it was very difficult to get to her new husband’s mouth.
Seeing her difficulty, Brand dropped down to one knee again.
“This is better,” he murmured, smiling at her. “Now we can reach each other.”
Having him so close made Allara feel flustered. She had to remind herself again that he was an evil one with bad intentions. But that was hard to remember while she was popping the piece of cake into Brand’s mouth. Especially when he caught her wrist in his big hand and licked the last traces of the white stuff off her fingertips.
Allara bit her lip. Again, he was putting his mouth on her! Not to mention debasing himself by coming down to her level.
And yet, somehow, it didn’t seem like debasement. None of the men around him jeered or gave him cold looks of silent disapproval. Instead, the people around them laughed and clapped their hands together again, as though they liked what they saw.
Brand chewed and swallowed and smiled at her.
“Mmm—delicious. Are you ready for your bite?”
“All right.” Allara opened her mouth, wondering what the “cake” would taste like. She found out when he popped a bit of it in her mouth.
“Oh!” Her eyes flew open wide. “It’s so sweet!”
“Cake is supposed to be sweet,” Brand murmured, smiling. He seemed delighted by her reaction. “Do you like it?”
“I…I do,” Allara said, nodding. “It isn’t just sweet—there is another flavor—dark and rich…I cannot explain it.”
“That’s probably chocolate,” Brand remarked. “It’s a flavor from Earth, though the Twin Kindred have something a little like it, too. Most human females love it.”
“I would like some more of it, please,” Allara said. Normally as a woman, she would not ask a man to give her food, since among the Q’ess, they didn’t eat together. But it seemed to her that if it was permissible for a woman to play an instrument here, it was probably permissible for her to ask her new husband for more cake.
“You can have as much as you want, baby, but first we have to do the wedding toast,” Brand told her.
“Wedding toast?” Allara asked but before the words were out of her mouth, Kat was coming forward with two tall delicate-looking glasses filled with some kind of bubbling, fizzing blue drink.
“This is woo from Tranq Prime,” Brand explained as he took one of the offered glasses and handed one to Allara. “It’s kind of strong so go easy on it.”
Allara started to bring the drink to her lips but he stopped her.
“No, like this. We have to entwine our arms.”
He showed her by looping his long, muscular arm through hers so that the glass he was holding was closest to Allara’s mouth and her own glass was closest to his.
“Now we have to drink at the same time,” he instructed. “But try to do it without spilling, okay?”
It wasn’t easy and Allara couldn’t help thinking that they must look foolish, but no one seemed to care. In fact, there was more laughter and clapping when they successfully sipped from each other’s glasses. The blue woo was sweet and tart and it left a warm trail down Allara’s throat which she quite liked.
During all of this, she was acutely aware of the string quartet playing again in the background. It was indescribably beautiful but there were so many other new sensations going on—from the sweet cake melting on her tongue to the burn of the fizzing woo, to her new husband’s scent invading her senses, that Allara felt she couldn’t pay attention to the music properly. She began to feel a bit overwhelmed and was glad when Brand led her back to the table with a slice of the cake and gave her an eating instrument called a “fork” to consume it with.
In another moment, Lauren had cut many more slices and everyone in the room was having some. Allara noticed that the different “layers” were different colors and so, presumably, different flavors. She wondered what they tasted like and then decided to find out.
“Husband,” she said to Brand. “I would like to taste the other cake layers. They all look very interesting.”
He gave her an easy smile, his golden eyes gleaming.