Chapter 29 - Zyntarr
I hear her voice. Her voice calling my name. But she sounds as though she is deep within the Mother Caves and I am standing at the mouth, straining my ear for the echoes of her voice.
Then there is her touch. It brings me back to myself, like breaking through the surface of riverwaters after being dragged under.
She is here. Her hands are on me - tugging at my arm.
“Zyntarr! Let go! Stop!”
My eye drifts back to the male I am atop.
He is not dead.
Not yet, at least.
I give his throat one last squeeze before releasing and standing up, looming over his limp body, contemplating how I shall finish the task.
“Zyntarr!”
My Bea is still trying to tug me away.
Does she not want me to kill this male? Why?
I curse myself for looking for his heart-stars. Then thank the Goddesses that there are none.
Bea calls my name again, and this time I go with her when she pulls me away.
Bea is here. She is here when she is not meant to be. She is meant to have stayed safe in my hut, to sleep soundly in my nest.
“You nearly killed him!” she says, her voice breathy and her pretty eyes making a map of my face. “He nearly killed you,” she amends. Her little human hands are on me then, flitting like a moonfly’s wings over my bruises and swollen lip.
I grunt and spit some blood off to the side. “He tried.”
That earns me a shove in my chest, right over my healed scars. I rub at the area, not truly hurt, but a little surprised at the reaction.
“Don’t you ever do that again!” Bea snaps.
Do what? I’m about to ask. The fault is hardly mine for the way the male lured me out here and hit me over the head. And he touched her - she can hardly expect me not to-
“You left me!”
Ah.
My hand falls away from my chest and my wings sag. “Bea…” I sigh.
“No!” she shoves an angry finger at me. “Don’t you ‘Bea’ me, mister! You can’t just up and leave me. We’re adults. If you genuinely think we weren’t meant for each other, we talk about it and make a decision together!”
I clench my jaw as I watch her, blinking as I take her in. She has come all this way to chastise me, it seems.
So why the fuck is my cock swelling behind my loincloth?
I take a steadying breath. “The Goddesses said-”
“The Goddesses don’t know shit, Zyntarr.”
I-
My twitching tail freezes, but I can feel my skin-stars pulsing all over.
“You cannot mean that.”
“I do,” she says. “If they told you that we’re not mates, then I absolutely do.”
My pulse is rushing in my ears as I stare at the fierce little female my Bea has become. “I can never have heart-stars for you.” The words are nothing but truth, though they feel like spearheads in my heart.
Stepping closer, she takes my hand in both of hers.
“I know… All this time I was hoping to see them because it took the pressure off me. Because if didn’t have a choice, I couldn’t make the wrong one.
But, Zyn-” her little hands squeeze mine, “-it was never a choice anyway. Not loving you would be like the suns not coming up or the river not flowing. It’s just the way it is.
It’s just the way we are. I was pretending the heart-stars were choosing for me, but they never had to. ”
I swallow thickly, wondering if perhaps that blow to the head has done more damage than I thought.
“You…” my words are thin on my tongue. I find my one good eye has a hard time looking directly into hers, so I focus on where our hands are embracing each other, and brush the back of her knuckles with my thumb.
“You would… choose me?” My voice cracks like splintering mountain ice.
When I finally look to her face again, she is smiling, though her eyes shine with water. “Yes, Zyntarr. I choose you. And I will choose you in front of both tribes. I will choose you in front of any temple, in my dreams and in all our lifetimes to come.”
I… do not have the right words. “That is a lot of choosing, little Bea. You had better be sure to be right.”
She shoves me again, softer this time, her wet eyes full of laughter.
“Of course I’m right,” she chuckles, leaning close, rising up on the tip of her toes to try and reach me.
I cannot help but duck down to meet her half way, giving her my bruised and swollen lips.
“I’m always right when it comes to you,” she says, keesing me tenderly as her hand strokes my starless chest.