Married to Krampus - Marina Simcoe Page 0,22

and I, or at least for some kind of understanding.

I hadn’t expected this to end this badly.

“Could you draw me a bath, please?” I asked Omni, heading to the closet to get rid of my dress.

“Certainly,” the robot replied, rolling with me to the closet and from there to the adjacent bathroom.

Preoccupied with my gloomy thoughts, I began undressing in the robot’s presence. It was just a machine, after all.

The clear, round tub stood in the middle of the bathroom. A blown glass chandelier hung over it, dripping with vines and flowers. The tub had no faucet. The water simply rose from the bottom, filling the entire tub within seconds. A pleasant fragrance drifted through the room with the steam.

“Oh, it looks fantastic. Thank you, Omni.” After taking off my bra and underwear, I raised a leg over the edge of the tub to climb in when Omni’s screen lit up brightly.

“Colonel Kyradus is on the line for you,” Omni informed me.

The Colonel’s grumpy face suddenly filled the screen.

“I don’t want to talk to him.” I climbed into the tub and stood inside it, waiting for my feet to adjust to the temperature of the water. Omni had made it just a bit too hot.

The Colonel’s jaw dropped, he blinked, staring straight at me. I realized belatedly that he must be able to see me, as well.

“Oh no!” I hugged my bare breasts with both arms and plopped into the tub with a huge splash. “Stop showing me to him! I said I don’t want to talk to him.”

Thankfully, Omni’s screen immediately went black.

“The Colonel expressed concern that you’re hungry,” Omni stated calmly. “He is requesting your presence at dinner.”

Concern, requesting. I doubted the Colonel had used these actual words. Most likely, he’d yelled, stomped his hooves, and broke a few more things. That seemed to be his only way of “expressing” himself. I didn’t think he even had any nice words in his vocabulary, which was filled mostly with growls and grunts.

“I’m not hungry,” I replied sulkily, sinking into the fragrant water up to my chin. “Tell him to have dinner without me.”

“Would you allow the Colonel to send some food up here for you?”

Would I allow?

Was he actually asking for my permission? Now?

It was probably just Omni’s program, dressing up the Colonel’s “requests” into more socially appropriate form.

“No. He can eat it all himself.”

I sank even deeper into the water, until it touched my lips. The warmth finally started to relax me a little.

A few minutes later, Omni’s voice came up again, “Colonel Kyradus would like to know if you would at least have the dessert.”

Dessert? I didn’t get any last night, either.

“What’s for dessert?” I asked, tentatively.

“Phesoth mousse with chesu berries and whipped aicea. It’s a delicacy in Voran.”

Maybe I was just a little bit hungry, after all.

“Fine. He can send it by drone,” I conceded.

It hadn’t escaped me that the Colonel was doing the entire negotiation in his own name. He could’ve just sent the food up here through Omni, without saying it was from him.

“Thanks,” I said, accepting a small crystal dish from a drone. If Omni felt like forwarding my thanks to the Colonel, it was his business.

Soaking in the luxurious bath, the crystal dish with something heavenly delicious in my hand, I finally was able to completely relax for the time being.

That was my spark of sunny pink in this utterly blue situation.

Chapter 7

“COLONEL KYRADUS IS requesting a meeting with you.” Omni’s voice woke me up.

The sky above glowed faintly with the sunrise. The bed’s canopy also lit up slowly, aiding the pale light from the outside in illuminating the bedroom.

“A meeting?” I sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

For the past two days, the Colonel and I had been effectively avoiding each other. It hadn’t been difficult as he left for work before I woke. He also ate the dinner elsewhere, coming home only after I had gone to bed.

“Why?” I asked Omni. “What time is it?”

“Six thirty,” came the deep voice of the Colonel from the door.

I jumped up at the sound of his voice. Any remnants of sleep now gone, I yanked the covers up to my chin.

“I’ll be leaving for work shortly.” Fully dressed in his uniform, his horns polished to a shine, and his fur smoothed down, he appeared collected and refreshed—more civilized than I had ever seen him. “I need to talk to you before I go.”

“What is it?” I shifted under the covers uneasily.

“The