The castle turned out to be empty.  Not finding corpses was a relief.  The best thing Jenna and Sardius found was a supply of food supplements.  It was just pills and water, but Sardius assured Jenna that was the normal thing people ate in space.  Hauling fresh food was just too much of a pain.

Jenna took the pills and swallowed the water.

It was then that Jenna thought Sardius would go back to the control panel and start working on contacting someone.  He did no such thing.

“Jenna,” he said, taking the empty water glass from her hand.  “Can I escort you to bed?”

She was tired.  She felt helpless.  They were on a moon and the gravity was light, but it gave Jenna a feeling of weightlessness like she was dead rather than making her feel carefree.  

“We’re not going to die?” she asked him softly and a little like nothing could ever matter.

He shook his head that no, they were not going to die.  “But if we were,” Sardius said persuasively, “I wouldn’t want to die without making love to you.”

He scooped her off the floor and carried her like a princess to the largest bedroom.  If that bedroom belonged to the owner of the house, if it was a special place, Sardius clearly did not care.  He set her down on the bedspread and helped her remove her shoes.  He dropped them by the side of the bed with a clunk.  

She perked up when he started taking off his suit coat.

Jenna’s wedding night was taking place in a place she never imagined she’d go.  It was especially crazy because she was already in a place she thought she’d never go when she was living on Octavia Prime.  Now she was on a moon she’d never heard of in the Xypher Zone, under the Crying Sun.  It was a place where a human wasn’t supposed to survive.  And this was the place where she and Sardius could finally be together.  

There was no orbital security team that could possibly leak footage.  There was no camera pointed at her bed or personal assistant in her ear.  

In a place like the Xypher Zone, she and Sardius could finally have the privacy they needed.

He started undoing the buttons on his shirt and Jenna saw her first glimpse of the scars that were there.  They looked like bruises in lines like purple gashes down the lengths of his torso.  

“Are you going to tell me how that happened?” she asked, getting on her knees on the bed and inching toward him.

“I would tell you if I could remember exactly, but a lot happened at once when I was dropped off on Don Leo’s ship.  It may have even been something simple like the strap they used to hold me down while they cut off my leg.”  He finished undoing the last button and dropped his shirt like a dirty tissue he no longer needed to concern himself with.  He looked into her eyes with his blue ones and then he said softly, “Is this the kind of lover you are?  The kind who wants to hear about my pain and troubles before we can make love, so you can make all that disappear?”

Jenna shrugged.  “I don’t have to be that kind of woman if you want something different.  I’ve never done this before.  I’m just trying to learn who you are under everything and what you want.”

“Hmm,” he hummed.  “Today might be a good day to play the sympathetic nurse.  I know I won’t always appreciate it, but I know I will in about thirty seconds.”

When he took off his boots, it was a sight Jenna might not have handled so well if he hadn’t warmed her up with the sympathetic nurse comment.  Her lips parted in sympathy as she saw all he was missing.  He still had ankles and heels, but most of the rest of his feet were gone.  

“Why didn’t you get new feet when you got a new leg?” Jenna asked him.  

“I don’t need them.  I lost my feet one time when I was alone being a little arsonist.  I had set a bomb and I got my feet caught in the heavy metal automatic doors meant to protect me.  I was lucky not to lose my ankles, but I was alone and I worked it out.  I made my first set of utility boots myself, alone on a ship.  After I made a few models, I actually found that it was more practical not to have feet.  I’m not as ashamed of this abnormality as I was of my face.  If I had been truly ashamed, I would have had the cosmetic surgeon who did my face work on my feet too, but I didn’t want it.  I have had a lot of opportunities to have them fixed and I have always refused.  Does it bother you to see them?” he asked cautiously.

She shook her head.  “No.  I just feel like I have no wild stories to offer you in exchange.  I didn’t do anything reckless, or brave, or anything to warrant how much attention I’m given universe-wide.”

He chuckled.  “You didn’t do anything?  I keep telling you that you told two hundred and twelve loser men who hit on you to get lost.  It’s very impressive.  It’s really wonderful to know that no matter what happens, you won’t give in just because someone puts a little pressure on you.  And I’m glad that we didn’t have mirror-image experiences.  I want the kind of girly glitz you toss on things,” he put his head in her lap.  “The whole world you live in is much less stressful than the one I left.  Even right now.  It is unbelievable that we ended up here for our first night.”

“I know, but it’s sort of wonderful too, isn’t it?” she asked playfully, scrunching her nose and stroking the side of his face.

He looked up at her, his blue eyes darker and deeper than before.  His mouth was relaxed.  The knot in his throat bobbed and Jenna felt a thrill of excitement course through her.

It was interesting that he had been curious about what kind of lover Jenna would be.  She wasn’t curious about him.  She knew exactly how he would treat her.  He would handle her exactly the way his tone of voice suggested.

She slid the pads of her fingers against his collarbone.  “If you’re so turned on by bones grinding against each other, I’m surprised you find me sexy at all.  Aren’t I too soft for you?”

He swallowed.  His mouth seemed dry.  “I… I have something I should confess to you.”

“Oh?”

“I lied.”

“I suspected as much,” she quipped.  

He chuckled and continued, “I lied when I said I couldn’t see you very well when you were undressing when I first started working for you and you thought I was a tiny octopus in your ear.  I was watching your security feed the first time you undressed.  I could not believe there wasn’t a filter or something to protect you from my view.  If there had been anyone other than Octavians managing your feed, they would have fixed it for you.  Hell, even I could have fixed something up for you to hide that sort of thing.”

“But you didn’t,” Jenna pointed out.

“No.  I didn’t.  And I built up this elaborate lie saying I couldn’t see you well and that I didn’t view you in a sexy way when you undressed.  I hope you can understand. I was in prison and it was the absolute happiest thing that happened to me while I was there—the icing on the toadstool, if you will.  I couldn’t let you issue a command for me to make a program that would blur you for any security personnel who were watching you.  Favel merely asked me if I had secured the feed.  So, I told him I had because it was true.  No one was going to get footage of you changing… Except me.  You were such a good sport about it too when you found out I was a man instead of an octopus.”

Jenna sighed.  “So you got all hot and bothered watching me change?”

“Your body is what Bonemen women want to look like.  Women bonemen don’t really have breasts the way you do.  They try to make it look like they do with surgery or stuffing, but our women have hard bodies.”

Jenna knew what he was talking about.  He had an eight-pack without clenching.  That was just the way his bones were arranged.  It was interesting that their attraction worked both ways.

“So, Jenna, it’s not just that bones grinding on bones turns me on.  It’s also because it’s your bones.  Your bones that aren’t on the surface, but deep inside you, like your heart.  It’s your softness and your hardness, like a diamond you can embrace.”

Jenna felt warm under his praise.  

“You’re not mad?” he tried to reaffirm.

She chuckled.  “That you lied?  No.  I didn’t really believe you at the time.  At least, I could do that one thing.  Whipping my dress over my head is easy.  Right now, I’m silently lamenting that I’m so new at this.  I feel so much pressure to be a good lover when I’m so clueless.  I don’t even know how to touch you or how to get things started.  I can tell I’m making you work too hard to help me relax, besides all the work you did to figure out my force field, but this is really my first time at any of this.”

“Okay.  I understand,” he said gently.  “I can make this easy for you.”

“How can you do that?”

“I’ll blindfold you.”

“You have something like that on you?”

“Anyone can make a blindfold out of anything.”  His head swiveled as he looked around the room.  “There’s a thing I can use right there.”

Jenna looked where he pointed and saw a thick fabric tie that was used to hold the curtains back.  He retrieved it and went to tie it over her eyes.

“You’re not going to tie my hands, are you?” she asked in alarm.

“No, but I imagine you’ll want to keep your hands down this first time.  Just think you’re getting a massage and it’ll all work out.”

“You’re that good at this?” she asked with a snide expression.

“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to please you.  Trust me.”  The look in his eyes should have been muddy, the hazel eyes she was familiar with, but instead, they were clear blue.  Instead of stars that shone through guck, she felt like she could see his thoughts.  And if she couldn’t trust Sardius, she couldn’t trust anyone.

She let him tie the blindfold around her eyes.

Then the fun began.