Page 45 of Fathom

I absorbed that for a moment, putting the pieces together. Did he have to marry me so I could stay?

I was an illegal alien.

Was that the only reason he was marrying me? That thought felt sad, weighed down compared to the eagerness I had felt just a short while before. I didn't want him to marry me because he felt like he had to.

I wanted him to marry me because he loved me, because he was mine, and I was his.

"Won't the police help me go home?" I asked.

"No," Eun shook his head. "Police are predators."

He lifted one finger and pushed back his lip, exposing the sharp point of his teeth.

"The police are a danger without papers," he said. "Because you're prey."

I stared at him, my heart racing for more than one reason. I didn't doubt him. I had seen that woman strung up in the warehouse when I first arrived, being cut up like a slab of meat. I had seen the gruesome scenes on television, the warnings about aliens being labeled as prey getting involved with the ones labeled as predators.

I put my finger to my lips and mimicked his gesture, exposing my small canine teeth. "I'm a predator, though."

Eun gave me a small smile and a laugh, the kind he made when I said something funny, like I was making a joke.

I touched Eun’s hand, pulling it away from the page. I rotated my hand so that our palms pressed together, and I interlaced my fingers with his.

“This is to make us a couple?” I asked him.

Eun nodded.

“Yes, couple,” he replied. “Paperwork will make us a couple. If we are married, you are not a....”

There was that unfamiliar word again. I put my own word in its place for the moment. I was an alien on this planet, and I didn't have the right papers. I was an undocumented alien.

My heart fell a little.

“Why the bed?” I asked.

I knew what the bed was for, but he had pulled away from me so many times that I wanted him to say it.

“It's for fucking,” he said, a low growl to his voice as he looked at me with a gaze that told me he hadn't gotten enough of me. "Proof that we can mate."

I was sore between my legs, utterly satiated, yet at the same time, there was a twinge in me, a need to have him inside me again and again. I wasn't excited about the idea that marriagewas restricted to those who could mate with each other, but none of this was the way I wanted it. I wasn't going to say no to it, though. Just because he wanted to marry me to protect me instead of because he loved me wasn't enough for me to turn away from what would keep me safe.

But there was one more concern I needed answered.

“I want to go home,” I told him. “This marriage contract, can I still go home?”

I wanted to make sure it wouldn't turn me into property, so I couldn't leave the planet because I was married to him.

“Yes,” he said. “We will find your home. I will send you home.”

Send, that word hit me hard as the distance grew between us. He would send me home.

He wasn't planning on coming with me.

"Take off your clothes," I told him.

SIXTEEN

EUN