Chapter 6
Kam scratched his ear as he eyed the female settled into the wooden chair across from their cell, her arm propped on the table beside her as she appeared to be engrossed in reading the various sheets she steadily flipped through.
She was a creature of habit and routine, that much he could clearly see. She had given them a meal the night before without comment, and then returned dressed in the same black leather and cotton as she brought them even more meat before attacking a pile of papers stacked on the table next to her. She worked through them at a steady pace, only occasionally glancing their way as she maintained an even rhythm. The light rasp of the paper turning at measure had almost become relaxing to him in the short time since she had entered the room. Even foul-tempered Vrin had taken to watching her when his attempts to frighten her by ripping the meat aggressively with his teeth failed to disturb her.
As for the meals themselves... Kam hated to admit it, but although the meat was more plentiful than he ever had the opportunity to enjoy, he was becoming heartily sick of eating such a boring diet when he was accustomed to digging for tuber roots and mushrooms, or eating berries when they came in season. Or even dragging fat fish from the streams.
Then again, he was caged. He supposed that he should not expect his diet to be any more interesting than the day passing with nothing to occupy his time. For a male who was regularly very active patrolling his territory, the boredom was far worse.
Sighing heavily, he leaned against the bars and frowned when they groaned with his weight. What a pitiful cage. It was nothing like what the huntsmen had used when capturing his kind. He peered up at the anchoring of the bars above and was scrutinizing the weak construction when he felt eyes boring into him. He could have turned his head just enough to allow his secondary peripheral eyes to seek out the source, but he merely lowered his head and met Captain’s stare head on.
“What’s with you?” she demanded as she lowered the collection of pages and set them on the table beside her.
Kam’s ear twitched as an electric awareness ran up his spine, but he merely responded with a lazy smile. “Your cage is terrible,” he answered honestly as he gestured upward to where the bars were anchored into the stone. “I am trying not to break it.”
Her brow lowered as her lips downturned in a frown, but she glanced up to where he pointed. Her expression did not lighten but she did not respond in the flustered matter he expected from a human. Instead, she startled him by shrugging and picking up another enclosed collection of pages and began to flip through them once more.
“I appreciate your self-restraint,” she replied offhandedly without looking up.
Kam’s mouth parted in a grin. It seemed that the human was more amusing than he had anticipated after all.
“You should,” he countered, ignoring the flat look Vrin was giving him. Let the male dwell helplessly within his own thoughts. Kam was not about to turn down the opportunity to get some small amount of enjoyment out of their situation. “You should also be thankful that it is not Vrin over there who decided to lean against them. Not only does my brother lack self-restraint but he is heavier too and probably would not have noticed the problem until he fell through.”
Her eyes narrowed on him before flicking to Vrin and back again. “Noted.”
That was it? He frowned in disappointment, his ears tipping back when she failed to participate in his little game. He shifted his weight against the bars and poked his muzzle through the gap between them so that he could rest his brow upon the metal and stare at her. She responded by clearing her throat and turning sideways in her chair so that she was no longer directly facing him. The corners of his mouth hitched. That was more like it. She was not as unaffected as she wanted to pretend.
“Kam, what are you doing?” Laro asked in ragii from the same corner he had selected to prop him up since their arrival.
His lead was clearly exasperated, but Kam was not bothered by it. It was normal for the male to sound that way whenever he felt the least bit playful. Whereas Vrin had a bit of sadistic sense of humor, their lead seemed to lack it altogether.
Vrin rolled all four of his eyes and grunted with a wicked grin directed at Kam. “Can you not tell? He is flirting,” he pointed out dryly in the same language.
Laro grimaced. “That is flirting? It is painful to watch.”
“That hurts,” Kam protested, biting back a laugh. “You want to speak of something painful to watch? I have been forced to observe your attempts to draw in females quicker than Vrin can frighten them away. And considering that he is the more attractive one between us, that says a lot.”
“Attractive?” Laro gave him an incredulous look before squinting over at Vrin. “How...?”
“I hate to interrupt,” Captain said coolly from so close behind Kam that he barely restrained the instinctive urge to spin around and strike from surprise.
How had none of them notice that she was approaching the cage? He gave his triad an accusing, look but both males slowly flicked their ears and gave a small shake of their heads. They had not noticed either. Fascinating. Fastening a smile on his face, he turned slowly to peer down at the female, his nostrils flaring as he drew in her scent. She was so close that she might have grazed his fur if not for the bars between them.
She was very interesting indeed.
His gaze raked over her appreciatively. Tall and lean with muscle, he had noticed right away how she stood out among the other guards. And yet she was still so small compared to a Ragoru’s greater size.
“If you are here plotting my death or a jailbreak, you don’t need to bother using a covert language,” she continued. “Most likely, however, you are gossiping and don’t believe anyone here is smart enough to catch onto that fact. So I would ask that if you have something to say, you say it to my face and get it over with.”
Though he attempted to adopt a guileless expression, he blinked down at her in surprise. She was also very direct. It was nice. With how straightforward Ragoru were, he found the little courting games humans played to be frustrating and ambiguous at best.
“We are planning nothing of the sort,” Vrin snorted. Kam refused to let his smile widen and give anything away. Vrin sounded especially annoyed, and he only sounded that way when he was amused. “We were critiquing Kam’s pathetic attempts at flirting.”
Captain’s eyebrows shot up, and Kam grinned down at her. Although Ragoru brows were structured similarly, the thin strips of hair were somehow even more expressive and all the more adorable for it.
“Who is flirting with whom... and who is Kam?” she demanded as she peered between them suspiciously.
A bark of laughter burst from Kam, and he gave her an embarrassed smile when she jerked back as her gaze flew back to him.
“That idiot right there in front of you is Kam,” Vrin replied as he casually swept one of his lower hands in Kam’s direction. “As for who he is flirting with...”
“Perhaps we should not seek to offend Captain... or embarrass Kam too much,” Laro interrupted with a sympathetic look in Kam’s direction.
Kam flicked an ear casually toward him. He was not concerned, not when Captain was looking at him that way—as if she were more aware of him than ever. Names were funny like that. They formed a connection and closeness. He basked in her dark gaze until it suddenly abandoned him to squint over at Laro.
“What did you call me?”
Laro’s ears turned out to the sides in confusion, and Kam echoed it. Even Vrin was staring at her watchfully.
Perhaps there were naming rules that they were not yet aware of. He tried to think back to the females that they had met and the names that they had infrequently shared with them. Come to think of it, he did not recall them offering their names all that often. Strange. He had not even noticed before.
“Captain,” Laro slowly repeated. “We heard other females call you this and understood that it is your name. Assuming it is okay for us to use it.”
“Terrible name,” Vrin grunted as he once again looked away.
“It is not terrible,” Kam defended. “It is.... powerful?” he finished, ending a note that sounded more like a question as he peered over at the human.
He was startled, however, to see the female’s lips twitch and gradually split in smile as she chuckled quietly to herself. Kam eyed her curiously. He did not understand what was so funny, but her laughter was intoxicating so he did not mind.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes bright with her laughter. “No, no,” she protested around another burst of laughter. “Captain is not my name. It is my title. I’m in charge of the guardswomen of the lower district—the charming part of the citadel where you found yourselves—because of that, I’m the captain in charge. Captain Uma Stacy.”
“Uma,” Kam repeated slowly, enjoying the way that sound of it rolled off his tongue. It was as pleasing as the female in front of them. Like her it was powerful, magical, and....
“An improvement at least,” Vrin rumbled, breaking his train of thought in the most insulting way possible. Kam gave him an annoyed look, but it was wasted on the male since he did not even bother to look in his direction.
“Right,” Uma replied as she turned away from their cage and headed back to her chair and picked up her papers. “I think it’s time for a break. You boys enjoy your company for a while, and try not to damage my cell,” she ordered as she walked at a fast clip toward the doorway.
Kam stared after her in disappointment, his muzzle hanging between the bars dejectedly. So much for enjoying a pleasant exchange with their guard. He cast an annoyed look toward Vrin with his secondary eyes. “It would not have killed you to at least pretend to be pleasant.”
Laro chuffed quietly and rested his head back against the wall again. “If he could not manage to be pleasant to the females we were trying to attract for a mate, there is no hope for him now. Just pray to the Fathers that he does not go out of his way to insult her and make our lives even more difficult.”
Kam winced as Vrin released a deep bark of laughter. That was not encouraging in the least.