Chapter 14 - Bea #2
I look at his hand. This is a fairly common occurrence with the Trixikka.
Somewhere along the way one of the humans has told them about handshakes but they haven’t quite grasped how they’re really performed.
They just know that hands touch and there’s shaking involved.
I usually don’t bother to correct them, I just go along with it - they’re trying - and honestly, handshakes are stupid anyway.
And with these Trixikka guys, as soon as they touch you, they’re instantly looking to check whether that little handshake was enough to ignite their heartstars.
But I don’t want to go along with this one. Something about this guy rubs me the wrong way. And it’s probably to do with how Tyll is still desperate for any kind of interaction with his dad.
So, instead of indulging him in an awkward handshake, I just look at his open palm until his smile fades and he retracts the greeting.
“You’re Tyll’s father?” I ask, and it’s honestly the first time I see Zuul look down at the boy.
Tyll’s little skin-stars start zooming all over the place with excitement under this new slither of attention.
“Yes,” he says, turning back to me again. “I am a most fertile male.”
My mind stutters to a stop because… what the hell do you say to that? Wow? Congratulations?
“I had not had the chance to introduce myself before now,” he continues, apparently unaware of my discomfort.
“I am often on patrol, keeping you females safe,” he says, puffing up his chest and widening his wings a little.
“And I had not approached you when I am at the village because I had hoped to ignite my heart-stars with of one of the other females.”
“O…kay?” Where is he going with this?
“But I see now, that it was a mistake to gift all my attention and seed offerings to the females who are more attractive. I should have noticed your skill with the younglings. You would care for the sons and daughters I sire with you very well, I am sure.”
My mouth hangs open.
Did he just-
“What did you just say?” The words are growled in such a low tone, I can almost feel them vibrate in my chest, like each syllable tickles my ribs.
It sounds so unlike Zyntarr in a way, but somehow unmistakably him at the same time.
I don’t need to look behind me to confirm it, I can feel his presence like a comforting blanket. Well, comforting to me, at least.
Zuul’s eyes flick up to above my head, and suddenly that easy smile of his slides right off his face. “I-” he gulps as his gaze drops a little, and I know exactly what it is he’s looking for on Zyntarr.
He doesn’t find them.
And, just like that, Zuul seems to think an absence of heart-stars gives him license to just say whatever the hell he likes.
“I am one of the most skilled with a spear, I am strong, and I have already sired many younglings,” he says, swishing his tail around to the front to show off his golden daughter bands.
“So naturally, the Goddesses will be giving me a mate to sire more on. I have tried to ignite my stars with the others, but I think it was a mistake to overlook this one-”
Zuuls words peter off into a strangled gurgle when there’s suddenly a large hand cuffed around his throat, lifting him off the ground.
Zyntarr had gently stepped around me, though he’d done it so quickly, I’d hardly noticed the movement.
“You do not say these words to a female,” he snarls in the other male’s face. “Especially not my-”
“Father! Zyntarr! No!”
It all comes suddenly rushing back to me where we are and who we’re surrounded by. Little Tyll is standing there with wide, frightened eyes, watching his dad being assaulted by a much larger male. And, as much as I wanted Zuul to be brought down a peg or two, this isn’t the way to do it.
“Zyntarr!” I say to him, putting my hands on him - on his shoulder, on his bicep, brushing down his side, trying to calm him as best I can.
“He didn’t mean any harm, he-” Zyntarr’s head whips my way, that beautiful blue eye glaring at me.
“Zyntarr,” I try again, my voice lower as I glance at the male currently trying to claw his way out of Zyn’s iron grasp, “the children are watching.”
“Good, then they shall see what happens when a male disrespects-” he grits out the words but halts when his uncovered eye makes a sweep of the little boys watching him, his gaze landing on one little boy in particular - the little boy whose watching him almost strangle the life out of his father.
He drops Zuul. The male manages to stagger and not fall, though he’s rubbing at his own throat and looking at Zyntarr like he’d lost his damn mind. Maybe he has, but it doesn’t stop him from leaning in and hissing, “what makes you so sure, of all of our brothers, you will be blessed with a mate?”
Zuul’s brows knit together and with the hand not currently massaging his neck, he gestures up and down his body like that is any kind of response - like it should just be evident by looking at him that he deserves a female of his own.
My nose scrunches at the gesture. Confidence is attractive. Arrogance is not.
But when I tear my eyes away from the male to look up at Zyntarr, he seems to have deflated somehow.
His big frame is still rising and falling from his steady breaths - steady, but heavy from the short burst of adrenaline and anger.
And… well, he’s surveying the other male like he’s doing so for the very first time and I can’t quite tell what it is he sees.
Zyntarr maps out Zuul’s frame before glancing around again and grunting before he turns to me. “Come, you must be hungry, let me feed you,” he says, his jaw tight and his tone off.
He can’t seem to look me in the eye.
We join the small group of Carers and Elders, all standing around three different cookfires.
Two with pots of some kind of vegetable stew, and one with one of those frizikki animals on a spit, slowly being turned over the flames.
Zyntarr grabs a dish made from fired clay from the mudbank and starts picking at the fruits, vegetables and cured meats.
Next, he grabs a small pot and fills it with some of the stew.
He doesn’t say a single word, instead opting to herd me in the direction of his hut with a single outstretched wing behind my back once he’s ready for us to return there. And, granted, Zyntarr isn’t a man of many words, but I can’t quite tell what the energy vibrating off of him means.
I’m quiet as I allow him to walk us back to the hut. I’m quiet when he urges me to sit on the nest. I’m quiet when he opens the pouch he keeps slung low around his hips and adds two pinches of the spices inside.
But then I can’t stand it any longer. “What was that all about?” I finally ask.
Zyntarr’s big hand pauses mid-pinch, his thick fingers still digging into the contents ofa different pot of spice from his stores. “It is the spice you likened to your… sim-ma-mom. You like it on fruit.”
My brows furrow, and it takes me a moment to realize what he’s talking about - the sweet spice blend he made especially for me because when I tried it, I said it tastes kind of similar to cinnamon sugar.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Not the spices, or the food. What was all that about with Zuul back there?”
Zyntarr averts the gaze of his one good eye and grunts as he continues to sprinkle the fruit with the alien style cinnamon sugar. “He disrespected you.”
He doesn’t say any more, though I think there’s more to it. That look he gave the other male spoke volumes without uttering a single word.
With that, Zyntarr sits and offers me the spread of food - made exactly how I like it. He’d even gathered some of the foods that I know he doesn’t particularly like. “Here,” he says, his hand outstretched, offering me a melon-chunk-type of morsel.
My gaze flits from the offered food, to his beautiful blue eye, and then to his lap, where I had sat while he had fed me before. Doesn’t he want me to sit there now? It was so intimate and… obviously led to even more intimate events this morning. I had been bold then. I’d like to be bold again.
So, instead of taking the offered fruit, I stand.
Zyntarr’s arm remains outstretched toward me, but his eye is firmly on my face as I pick my heart up from the bottom of my stomach and seat myself on one of Zyn’s strong thighs.
His arm holding the food falls back to his side and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his gaze having never left mine.
“Is this alright?” I ask in a scratchy voice.
Zyntarr clears his throat. “It is more than ‘alright’,” he answers, the hoarseness of his voice matching mine.
His arm raises again to offer me the food, but I catch him by the wrist and push it away. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
For a time - a moment that seems to stretch on longer than it should - Zyntarr’s sky-blue eye just stares into mine, flitting from one to the other, until his chest expands with a large inhale of breath.
“Zuul was right,” he says. “He is a capable male with keen skills as a Protector, and the sight of both eyes.” His head drops a little, now looking lower, at my mouth as he says, “he is deserving of a female like you.”
“I’m not interested in Zuul.”
Zyn blinks at me, his tongue rolling out to wet his lips before he says, “he, or a male like him could protect you… properly.”
My heart splits for him as I lean closer. “I feel the safest, and most protected when I’m with you, Zyntarr.”
He says nothing like he needs time to mull that over in his head. And, while we’re being so intimate right now, I take the moment to voice the question that I’ve always wanted to; “how did it happen?” I ask, softly tracing the shape of the worn leather eye patch with a gentle fingertip.