Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
ZAN
Ken is still looking at us expectantly.
“I am not entertained,” I tell him, nodding in agreement with my statement. None of this was very entertaining. My voice is calm, but inside I am seething with anger that my female has been put into danger by this psychotic artificial intelligence.
“I think you and I have a very different idea of entertaining,” I tell Ken, taking another step forward.
The image flickers, and the strange garments he’s wearing change, turning a brilliant shade of green and a deep brown.
“Please tell me there’s not a reason you’ve switched to camouflage from hot pink,” Lily says, making that long, deep, noisy exhalation she prefers to make when she’s extremely upset.
For this reason and this reason alone, I take a step back from the image of the artificial intelligence, grateful to have someone else be the reason she’s angry.
“Of course not,” Ken says, spreading his hands wide.
The large, feathered animal coos where she’s bathing in the grass, and all three of our gazes flicker to her momentarily.
“Is that thing going to attack us?” Lily asks, sounding perturbed.
“Of course not,” Ken tells her, shaking his head.
“Hens are the submissive creatures, this one more so than most. She is part of your reward for defeating today’s challenge, as is…
” He gestures to the table and the strange baskets sitting before us.
“…the rest of this. A feast, if you can make it happen.”
Lily rolls her eyes, shifting on her feet. I cannot help but grin as I watch her.
I like that she does not care about hiding her thoughts.
“Don’t forget, contestants, you’re being watched by our live audience,” Ken continues, turning to address something standing in front of the chicken.
“I’m grateful to announce it is growing daily thanks to our sponsors, the Roth and the Draegon planets.
And for those watching at home, you can buy your own prize package simply by going to the Mated and Afraid website.
” Ken gestures grandly. “There you can enter your—"
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Lily interrupts.
Ken’s gaze darts back to her, and I take a step closer to her, wanting to protect her from what’s sure to be his fury.
“Now you’re plugging merch?” she asks. “Unbelievable. What is wrong with you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Ken tells her glibly. “I’m not the one who programmed myself. You put the artificial in front of my intelligence.” He encompasses us both meaningfully in that ‘you’. Though thinking machines have long been banned from my planet, Lily’s planet I’m not so sure about.
“We didn’t have anything to do with you,” Lily spits at him, almost hissing mad like an animal I once saved from the quicksand on the riverbed near the village where I was raised. Lily fights nearly as fiercely as that animal.
“Thank you for the gifts,” I tell Ken swiftly, trying to appease the indeed psychotic AI. “I’m sure everyone at home who is watching will be grateful to learn they can buy whatever it is you’re selling.”
Appearing slightly mollified, Ken pats the collar of his oversized fur coat and jerks his chin at the bird’s corpse behind us.
“The meat from that bird is your reward, and within the baskets you will find everything you need to prepare a meal worthy of your adventure. Though I’m sure our viewers would appreciate it if you didn’t scare the next challenge to death.
But hey, I suppose that’s the reason they call them chickens. ”
Laughter echoes in from all sides, and Lily and I take a moment to look at each other, completely perplexed at where the sound is coming from.
“A freaking laugh track,” she says, throwing her hands in the air. “This is absurd.”
“Well, absurd is getting us viewers,” Ken says, winking at something I still cannot see in front of the dead animal.
I sigh and rub my eyebrows with both hands, shaking my wings slightly to try and settle myself.
“Well, right on, Ken,” Lily says, her voice dripping with sarcasm that I’ve come to know all too well. Strangely, I find hearing it directed at Ken to be a complete relief, it means Lily is functioning and that she’s more annoyed with Ken than she has been with me. Delightful.
“And on that note, we’ll leave you two to it." He winks at… nothing.
Lily throws up her arms in pure frustration as Ken ignores her.
"Don’t worry, there will be more challenges to come.”
“And how the hell do the challenges work, Ken? How do they work? How do we win? You are the actual worst game show host of all time!” She’s screaming now, a vein ticking in her forehead.
“You survive them and then get to live to see the next one.”
With that, he winks again at nothing, and then the hologram disappears, Lily still staring at the spot where Ken winked.
When I finally turn my attention back to her—
“What the fuck?” she says, dropping her hands and stomping over to the dead rooster, as she called it. Cock, according to my translator.
Probably the biggest tragedy of all my life was that mistranslation.
“We’re just supposed to eat it? Now? How? Look at how many feathers are on here.”
She starts to aim a kick at the dead animal, but then she ducks, screeching as the feathers explode off of the carcass in an explosion of whistling horns, blinding lights, and incredibly strange noises.
“What the actual shitballs? I mean seriously, have you ever seen anything like this?” Lily says, but some of the bravado has leaked from her voice, her hands shaking slightly.
My poor human mate.
“I do not know the actual fuck,” I tell her seriously, attempting a soothing voice. The feathers disintegrate before they hit the ground, sparkling slightly. “It appears this place has physics different than any other I have ever visited.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” she says, eyeing the feather that’s landed near her foot before it disintegrates into sparkles.
“My name is Zan-De’Eer,” I remind her. “Not Sherlock.” But I’m not angry. I know she has just been through a lot, what with the exploding chicken, and perhaps the fall from the snare has addled her memory.
“Oh, shit,” she says, leaning forward, eyes narrowed, so full, so focused on the sight before her.
“Well, at least we don’t have to butcher that thing.
I wouldn’t even have an idea of where to start.
I might know how to take apart discovery for a trial, but I’ve never taken apart a chicken. Get it?”
She grins at me, and I’m so caught up in the transformation of the smile and the fact that it’s aimed at me that I don’t bother telling her I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“We can cook it like this.”
“Yes, exactly, Zan,” she says, some of the grin disappearing from her face, but she lights back up as she approaches the platters of meat that have replaced the animal lying on the ground. “Right, I’m starving. Do you know how to barbecue?”
“I could learn to barr-be-cute for you,” I tell her, trying out the strange word. She has not spoken to me this much in days.
A good sign.
An excellent sign.
“Right.” A deep sigh makes her chest move in interesting ways.
“Okay, well, I do, so let’s figure out what is in those totes.
” She marches over to the pans laden with white and pink meat and picks one up.
The muscles in her arms flex as she carries it over and sets it on the picnic table.
She points an elegant finger at the metal contraption. “That’s a grill.”
“I don’t know if you—we cook meat where I come from too,” I tell her gently.
“Oh,” she says. “Of course you do. I didn’t mean to…”
I smile at her slowly. I haven’t seen her flustered before.
“I didn’t mean to imply that you ate food raw,” she finally finishes, rubbing the back of her neck. Her gaze meets mine for a brief second, and I can hardly breathe for the openness in her eyes, for once.
“You came back for me,” she says, then purses her lips as if regretting letting the words out at all.
“Of course I did,” I say, shrugging. I want so badly to draw her close to me, to tell her that I would never abandon her and that she can count on me and that I will always kill cock for her, but I don’t.
At this point I know better than to presume that she wants me to do anything. I’d hoped to wear her down by annoying her until the heat was too much, but at this point I’ll settle for her grudging alliance.
But I hate that she’s in pain and suffering, that is what the Draegon heat does to a female.
“You should eat,” I say. “Sit down and I will cook for you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she tells me, stubborn set to her eyes and mouth that I’ve come to know better than the shape of the talons on my own hand.
“I know I don’t have to,” I tell her, confused. “I want to do it. You’re tired. You’ve been hanging by your foot for hours because I left you, and I have the means to make you food, to create a meal for you while you rest.”
Her eyes narrow further, creases in her brow showing up alongside new freckles that I swear were not there merely days ago.
“Why do you fight me on this?” I ask her, genuinely intrigued. “Does it mean something in your culture for a male to cook for his female?”
She opens her mouth, and I can tell that I’ve misspoken, so I hold a hand up. “A female,” I say. “I’m not claiming you as my own. I know that you do not like that.”
It is a lie, and a bad one a that.
I am absolutely claiming her as my own. But it’s a lot easier to claim her if she’s not arguing with me about every single time I slip up and make it clear that I think of her as mine already.
She throws up her hands, sighing, exasperated, before nodding in agreement.
“Fine,” she says. “If you don’t want me to help cook, I will sit here and let you do it all.”
“Good,” I tell her, nodding in agreement. “I am happy to serve you this meal.”
She gives me a long look, then bends over and begins sorting through the nearest tub.