Chapter 7
Imogen walked out of her cottage the following morning to a very strange sight. She rubbed her eyes, not quite sure she believed what she saw. Even Shadow tilted his head this way and that, whining in question.
Out in her meadow, gathered under the saturated morning sunlight, sat five manticores.
Which, she was sure, was four more than she’d had yesterday.
Before she could shut the door, get back in bed, and try waking up again to a different scene, Balar hustled away from the others to greet her.
“Good morning, ul-lu! How are you today?”
Flushing, Imogen nodded over his broad shoulder at the others. “And they are?”
“My nosy brothers, of course.” Grinning sheepishly, he ran a big paw over his whiskers. “They were eager to meet you, and, while I did my best to lose them on the way here, they were persistent. I’ve trained them too well, you see. We’re all excellent trackers.”
“Uh huh.” Peering around him to peek at the brothers, she flushed again when one of them waved a big paw at her. “And you’re all here because…?”
“For the courting. I’m told it takes at least several days, yes? As for that lot—” he raised his voice to carry “—if they insist on staying, they’ll be put to work.”
Groans and laughs followed his words, and Balar rolled his eyes.
Imogen wiped her sweaty palms on her pantlegs, unsure what to say other than, “You really don’t have to. Any of you.”
“I want to,” he insisted. “I can tell that you are a discerning woman and will need to be convinced. So I’ll prove my usefulness—and that my brothers can be more than a nuisance sometimes.”
“Who are you calling a nuisance?” one of them called.
Insides squirming, Imogen searched frantically for something to say.
There were plenty of larger projects that needed doing, sure, but she couldn’t let them reinforce the pen or chop firewood for winter or turn over her mulch pile.
Letting them do the work implied she’d also let this courting nonsense go on.
“Balar…” she cleared her throat. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding…”
A cautious frown overshadowed his face. “About?”
“I don’t think I can be your kigara.”
His nostrils flared and he planted his fists on his hips. “Is there another?”
“Another what?”
“Another person who holds your affections?”
“No,” she snorted. “Never.” That last bit came out unintentionally, and she stared wide-eyed at his chest, hoping he hadn’t heard.
“Good,” he rumbled, sounding pleased again. “Then there is no barrier or reason you cannot be kigara.”
Her mouth opened and closed, and she couldn’t help feeling like a wriggling fish on a hook. Fates, this had gotten away from her.
His frown deepened, and, leaning down to put their faces close, he asked softly, “Is it that you dislike me? Or that you cannot bear that I’m not human?”
Imogen spluttered. “It doesn’t matter what you are!” She certainly would never be one to judge another by how they looked. “And I suppose…I don’t know you enough to like or dislike you.”
Balar nodded, as though he’d decided something. “Indeed. We shall rectify that then, with the courting.” Straightening, he regained his beaming smile, the one that showed off the full length of his fangs. “Put me to work, kigara. Let me prove what a man I can be to you.”
She chewed her cheek. She really shouldn’t. She had no intention of letting this go on—she liked her life how it was.
But the pen did need reinforcing…and all the manticores looked strapping…
Imogen didn’t feel any better about it as the morning eased into afternoon—but at least she had a pristine animal pen.
Four pairs of able hands and four strong backs made for quick work, even when one brother or another stopped every few moments to throw her enigmatic smiles or Balar a ribald joke.
At least, she assumed they were jokes, since they were in their manticore language and always had him pinning his ears back.
There were so many faces to put names to, Imogen had a hard time keeping all the golden faces and feathers straight.
The easy one was Kiriken, the youngest. A youth and not fully grown, he amiably followed Imogen around the property all morning, chattering away when he wasn’t playing fetch with Shadow.
“Shouldn’t a child your age be in school?
” Imogen asked from where she knelt in the garden, trying to keep the irritation from her voice.
Kiriken had just asked her for a third time why she lived alone in the forest—apparently unsatisfied with her answers of because I want to and because it’s quiet.
He smiled sheepishly, an expression very similar to one she’d seen on his eldest brother. Running his claws through the thick tuft of tawny hair atop his head—his full mane not having grown in yet, although it would soon, he assured her—he laughed off her question.
“Yes, but I had to come today. To see you.”
Ducking her head to hide her flush, Imogen chewed her cheek. Sorry to disappoint.
Shadow came running back with their chosen stick, the bark already broken and soaked in slobber.
Kiriken didn’t seem to care, wrestling with Shadow and adding his own growls as they tugged back and forth for a while.
She was almost jealous how quickly the two had taken to each other; usually Shadow was reserved with new people.
Well, new humans, apparently. Didn’t seem to care one whit about manticores.
It gave Imogen a little time to compose her thoughts as she gathered the decimated weeds into a basket. Midday mealtime was approaching, and she’d been wrestling over how to tell Balar that she didn’t have enough to feed him and his brothers and keep her stores full.
Her mother hadn’t raised her to be impolite, so Imogen had circumvented all that by moving to where she never had guests. Neomi had visited maybe twice in the years since Imogen began living in her cottage. Honestly, the one who’d come by most was Dermott, and he was hardly a guest.
The thought left a sad little niggle of…something in her belly. Something she didn’t want to examine too closely.
She was adding the weeds to the mulch pile on the far side of the meadow when Balar approached her—and solved the issue without even knowing of it.
“We’ve finished the pen and decided to break for noonday meal. Will you join us?”
Imogen looked at the big paw he extended her, up to his open, gentle face, and over his shoulder at where the other four had gathered in a loose circle, a meal spread out before them with open canteens and waterskins.
They brought their own food.
She flushed again. Fates, she was doing that a lot today and didn’t care for it.
Ducking her head, she managed a nod before walking stiffly over to the circle. Before she could dart into the house to prepare her own meal, a gentle hand at her shoulder guided her to an open patch of grass.
Utterly bemused, Imogen sank down onto her backside, legs crossed in front of her.
Easy as could be, an open-faced sandwich was placed in her hand with a napkin, and a cup of what smelled like sweet cider placed in front of her.
Balar eased down beside her, and Shadow came to sit on her other side, sniffing loudly at her sandwich.
It all happened so quickly, so easily, that Imogen sat there in a stupor for an embarrassingly long time.
They talked around her, Balar keeping the conversation light with much help from Kiriken. The others seemed to accept this, although Imogen felt their curious looks.
They’re assessing me. That’s what they’d come here to do today, really. Judge the woman their brother had claimed was his long-awaited fated mate.
It was clear, even through the teasing, that they all deeply respected Balar.
When he spoke, he was listened to. He didn’t have to raise his voice to issue an order.
All the brothers, even the big, broody one—Soren—looked to Balar for instruction and leadership.
They were a tight unit, a close family, and Imogen almost felt as though she intruded upon their intimate family meal.
Which was ridiculous. They were on her land. Uninvited.
Filling her mouth with a big hunk of meat, cheese, bread, and fig jam, Imogen chewed moodily. They could look all they liked—she hadn’t asked them here. She hadn’t asked for any of this.
She’d moved away from her family’s farm to avoid being looked at. She’d had enough of human stares—lion-men’s were no better. Especially not when she could read a thousand different meanings in the subtle dilation of their slitted pupils or minute twitches of their leonine ears.
She made the mistake of locking eyes with the one across from her. The jokester—Akila, she thought. One side of his mouth lifted, whiskers twitching, and he winked.
Ducking so her hair fell over her face, Imogen took another big, unladylike bite.
Around her, the conversation flowed freely, although it often came back to the village of otherlies where they lived. It seemed village politics were much the same everywhere with everyone. She was surprised to glean that Balar was some sort of mayor there. At least, for now.
“There’s talk of another vote,” said Soren gravely, “since you’ve been away so much.”
Balar shrugged. “It may be for the best. I’m needed elsewhere.” His gaze slid to the side to find Imogen, and he winked.
Nearly choking, Imogen coughed, “You shouldn’t shirk your duties.”
“We did work awfully hard to get you elected,” said Diar before shoving a piece of bread the size of his fist into his mouth.
Balar scoffed in disgust. “Did a boar raise you? Chew first at least.”
“Not a boar, but close enough,” Diar quipped before winking at Imogen.
Had they all gotten straw in their eyes? Fates, they were worse than tomcats.
Balar made another noise of disgust while the brothers laughed.
It was he who got the last laugh, though, and Imogen thought his smile was a little evil when, once their meals were finished, he asked, “What shall you have us do next, ul-lu?”
The brothers groaned at the idea of more work.
“Yes, ul-lir, give us your orders,” teased Akila.
Fast as a whip, Balar turned a warning glare onto his jokester brother, a rumbling growl just teasing at his throat.
The mood shifted immediately, all of them, even Akila, turning their faces slightly to the side and down, giving him their cheeks.
Akila’s ears went back to lay flat against his head, and his wings drooped.
The show of dominance was small but total, and Imogen witnessed it all breathlessly, not sure if she should look away, too. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and when Balar turned to her, she couldn’t help ducking away.
“No, urisá,” he said in a wholly different rumble. “Never you.” A warm paw touched her chin with aching gentleness, lifting her face.
Imogen gritted her back teeth, heart fluttering wildly in her chest. His gaze bore down on her with all the heat and intensity of the sun, but rather than turn to it like a flower to warmth, Imogen wanted to shudder away.
Like so many bugs revealed from under a rock, scurrying away to somewhere darker and safer, it was too much.
She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. All she managed was, “The mulch.”
Balar blinked, perhaps not having heard her.
“She said earlier that the mulch pile needs turning,” Kiriken said, his voice carrying a forced cheer.
The other brothers all moaned and groaned dramatically, making overblown sounds of disgust, and just like that, the mood shifted back to a friendlier tone.
Despite Akila and Diar’s loud protests, they still went with Balar and Soren to find the spades Imogen pointed them to. As his brothers collected their tools, Balar found Imogen’s gaze and sent her a little knowing grin.
Using his wings, he hustled the brothers along to the mulch pile while the animals watched on from the far side of the pen.
Left even more bemused than before, Imogen fed Shadow the remaining corners of her lunch.
Kiriken chuckled, whispering conspiratorially, “Now none of them will want to come back, for fear of being put to work again.”
Her brows arched in surprise, but before she could think to ask, he jumped up to begin putting away the dishes and throwing away the crusts—into Shadow’s eager maw. When Imogen tried to help, he waved her off. “No, no, that is for bintur to do.”
“What is bintur?” she asked.
“Something like ‘the youngest.’ I am the youngest brother, so I do the clearing up.”
“Is that a rule from your people or from your brothers?” She didn’t like the idea of Kiriken being singled out just for being the youngest.
Smiling sunnily, he replied, “That is the way with most mantii, miss. Bintur take the easy work until they are big and strong enough to work alongside their brothers.”
It was hard to argue with his easy nature and happy grin.
With luncheon over, Imogen meant to take Chestnut and the goats some midday feed, but when Kiriken begged her to let him do it, eyes gone round and pleading, she was instead left to wander her own land.
There were chores in the house to occupy her, but she didn’t want to let the big manticores out of her sight—or let them think they could follow her in.
She could just hear their friendly banter while they worked on the mulch. As with the pen, they sometimes broke out into a song in their own language, their tune keeping time to great shovels of fragrant mulch.
Although she no longer sat surrounded by them, they were ever present.
Her heart hadn’t slowed since she walked out her door to find them all there early that morning, and it was beginning to fray her nerves.
Imogen hadn’t felt this overwhelmed in a long time, an uncomfortable itch beneath her skin, and she didn’t like it.
The only thing she could do was hope that, when they left and her meadow returned to peace and quiet, the sensation would go with them.
When she was by herself, she didn’t have to worry about her birthmark or her manners. Alone, her shabby old clothes and unfashionable fringe didn’t matter. Her cottage and meadow were meant to be a safe place, away from all the eyes that couldn’t help but look at her.
In her mother’s final weeks, she’d worried over Imogen’s tendency to isolate herself. Her mother insisted there would be times that attention was good, that there would be some who looked at her in fondness, even love.
With her parents gone, Imogen had never experienced such attention. Any attention seemed too much to bear, and so she retreated from it. Others may find the woods frightful, but to her, it offered escape. Sanctuary.
Here, all that mattered was the strength of her back and convictions.
But under someone else’s gaze, Imogen acutely felt all her shortcomings. Beneath the friendly banter and winking grins, the manticores had come here today to look at her. Assess her.
She didn’t know exactly what the test was, hadn’t asked for it at all, but couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever it was, she’d failed.