Ocean's Breath Plateau Buried alive inside my dreams, but it was all a fake-out

She let out a breath as Chakliux voiced the source of her own hesitation, the reason she had nearly discarded the notion of a future with him altogether. Third. Not first. Marina had never imagined herself as anyone's third wife, nor even a second. Always she had thought that she would be the only one when the time came; she'd never known another way. And it was not jealousy which made her hesitate, but something else;

And what would that mean, being third? Would that mean that I, or that any future children of ours, would be a lower priority to you than Tullik, or Nasamik if she comes back? There, the root of her concern; that if he was forced to make a choice then he would choose those who had come before her. Even then it was not so much this hypothetical that scared her as the idea that this choice was predetermined, that he would make it without difficulty. What Marina needed was to know that her place in his life would not be less, that she would not be worth less to him than the others he called wife. The rest didn't matter as much. She'd never been a possessive or demanding lover; truth be told she'd hardly been a lover at all to anyone before Chakliux.

And now she knew that his desires mirrored her own. All that stood between them now was this lingering fear, and her heart thrummed with it as she waited to hear it confirmed or denied.