Chapter 13 #2
“Who think?! Open for better friend than Dace!” Rek bellowed belligerently from the other side of the door.
Buu grinned and threw the door open. “Rek come for Buu?” Buu looked pleased by this development.
Rek stepped in and lifted his head for a sniff. “Why smell funny?” Rek grumbled.
“Popped corned,” Buu said quickly.
Dace had a set of panels she set over her little chittery friends, cleverly camouflaging them. Buu had helped her make it and kept her secret for her.
When one began to chirp a little too loudly at being shoved into darkness, Dace shouted, “Karaoke time!” and just burst into song.
My jaw about hit the floor as she belted out “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” like she was practicing for cover artist of the year.
Rek glanced from me, to Buu, then back to Dace sharply.
“Crazy face… crazy,” Rek grumbled, yet allowed Buu to lead him out the front door.
“Buu come back for popped corn. Dace make for my Joalee and mates too?” Buu called out.
“I’ll bring as many kernels as I can come by!” Dace promised.
“Buu watch cluked headed clumbers aliums moodvie,” I heard Buu telling Rek.
“Rek not say no watch that one?!” Rek sounded like an incensed old woman.
Buu didn’t seem to care. “Buu like. Not scare Buu,” I heard him telling Rek.
“Why not scared?” Rek asked quietly, curiously, like he too would like to learn this trick.
I listened in until their voices faded into the distance.
Dace had already locked the door and was starting to take the covers off the cages when there was yet another knock at the door.
“Maybe Buu forgot something,” I muttered and started looking around for forgotten items.
Dace walked to the door. “Who is it?” she called out.
There was a pause and then, “Kehlor.”
“Oh.” Dace spun on her heel. “It’s for you,” she whispered. Glancing from me to the door when I hesitated, she mouthed, “Should I say you’re sleeping?”
Shaking my head, I stood and walked to the door. My nerves got the better of me as I unlocked the door and slipped outside.
Kehlor stood waiting for me, hovering close by.
Every single time was the same. The second he got close the scent of him filled my nose and my body went haywire.
All I wanted to do was climb him like a tree and ride him until he promised to never ever leave me or was too tired to even think to try.
Shoving my hands behind my back to keep from tempting myself in doing just that, I met his gaze evenly. “I assume this is because Daisy’s tail was dragging?”
Kehlor frowned down at me, his brow beetling in a way that told me he didn’t understand. “Daidzee not have tail to drag,” he rumbled out in utter befuddlement.
“What do you want?” Changing tact, I already felt a headache coming on.
My fuse was getting shorter and shorter of late. It was worrying and made me feel like a beast.
“Daidzee try help Purr-roo.” Kehlor was trying to grumble at me sternly but he looked so confused when I growled angrily and bared my teeth at him, he kept forgetting to act mad.
“You think you can bully me and I’ll do as you want, too?
Is that it? You, Daisy, none of you get to tell me what I am or am not going to do, who I’m going to do it with or won’t, where I’m going to live!
Not my mate? I’m not your problem! Next time you want to send someone out to do your dirty work because you’re too cowardly to do it yourself, to be alone with me for more than two seconds, do me a favor, take that thought, write it on a piece of paper, fold it up as small as you can, and shove it up your butt!
” I was yelling, flinging my arms about.
Every step I took towards him, he took one back.
Noting this, I took two hurried steps towards him and he nearly tripped trying to scramble away from me.
I kept coming, dropping down to crawl up him when he finally did tumble to his ass.
“I miss you. I need you.” My voice choked into a croak. “You need me too. Can’t you see that?”
Kehl’s hands gripped my forearms but I’d already leaned forward to press my lips to his.
Kehl growled as our mouths met and I growled back. We both shivered in response.
“No!” Kehl rolled, sending me tumbling to the ground. Shooting up, he took off like a shot, leaving me gaping after him.
With a snarl, I smacked the snow packed ground. Flopping backwards, I laid out in the snow and stared at the sky, tears leaking down the sides of my face, until I heard the door slowly creak open.
“I just need another minute,” I muttered and closed my eyes.
The door creaked louder and boots crunched in the snow.
“Me, too.”
My eye cracked open when I felt a woosh of air.
Dace laid out beside me, staring up at the sky.
She didn’t say a word, just sprawled out beside me.
“I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing. I feel like I’m going crazy,” I whispered.
“I kissed Berkr, even though he hates me and wishes I was stuck back on Earth to grow old and die,” Dace whispered.
“Maybe this is it. This is all there is now.” I was talking to myself but speaking aloud.
“God… I hope not,” Dace muttered.
We laid there for a few more minutes before Dace rolled to her side and got to her feet. Holding out her hand, she waited.
Waving her hand off, knowing I’d just yank her down with me, I stood and followed her inside.
“I don’t like Daisy,” I admitted. “She rubs me wrong.”
“Daisy doesn’t like me at all. I don’t really talk to her. I heard her call me a total airhead once when she thought I wasn’t there.” Dace was fighting a frown and losing.
“Fuck her,” I growled.
“I am kind of an airhead sometimes,” Dace admitted. Fidgeting, Dace mumbled softly, “Don’t- Don’t hate her for me.”
“I’m not,” I grumbled flatly. “She thinks she knows best. It’s infuriating. She talked to me like I was an idiot.”
Dace’s face pinched into a grimace. “I could probably take her.” Putting up her hands, she took on a boxer’s stance. “Her friend Red will probably kill me but want me to boop her cute little button nose at least once before I’m squished like a pancake by her experienced, big boned bestie?”
That did the trick. Shaking my head, I laughed at her antics. She was full of shit but it was sweet the fact she tried.
Pausing at the door, I thought I spied movement out of the corner of my eye, a shadow in the distance, but I walked in and closed the door on it.
Kehlor didn’t show up at Dace’s door again. A full week passed with zero contact from the male.
By the end of the second week— I was totally counting— I felt like there was something bubbling inside of me and if I didn’t do something about it I would explode.
Carrie joined in teaching me things along with Dace. Carrie was just as sweet as Dace. They were two mousy women from the same pod. Adding to that my alien origins, that’s how they came up with the joke, pod sisters. They were my pod sisters.
Orrellie was the sweetest little baby, a chub monster with a megawatt little grin.
I held her every chance I got. Carrie’s mates Doogie and Elle were hilarious when they got going ragging on each other.
I had a small but growing group of friends that got me, accepted me for me, and we all helped each other any way we could.
Doogie made a spare key for us for Dace’s door.
Dace squealed with excitement, to the detriment of poor Doogie’s ears, when he presented her with a spare pink key, at Carrie’s suggestion.
Taking over the original hut key was just fine with me.
Carrie was packing up the bread I’d made and hadn’t burned as a light rat-a-tat-tap issued at her door.
“Elle get!” Elle called out.
“Not if Doogie get to door first!” Doogie called out from somewhere else in the house.
The sound of thundering feet had Carrie calling out, “No running in the house!”
“We not running! We walk very fast!” Doogie called out.
Elle just laughed. Then there was a heavy thunk and a masculine yelp. “Where that comes from?” Doogie grumbled.
Peeking from the kitchen into the living room, I muffled a laugh as I watched Doogie pick up a chair set out in the middle of the hall he’d tripped on.
A loud grunt that was the equivalent of a huh rent the air. “You,” Elle muttered. She sounded less than happy to see their visitor. “What Cottonsnail want my Carrie? Cottonsnail no like my Carrie.”
“I never said that,” a painfully familiar voice chirped.
“Lie,” Elle rumbled. She went to shut the door but a small hand shot out.
“Please!” Daisy pleaded. “I’m desperate! Have mercy!”
Elle let out a loud huff but waited.
Daisy spoke softly, quietly, quickly. It sounded like she was tripping over herself trying to spit it all out.
Slipping back into the kitchen, I tried not to listen in.
I couldn’t explain it but I felt like I was becoming a curmudgeonly grump.
The days felt longer as they dragged on.
Struggling to go through the motions, this weird ache that started up in my chest and refused to ease up, worsening at the worst possible times, keeping me awake at night, it was like the blues were a physical being trapped in my chest, clawing its way outward.
Depressed didn’t even begin to describe it.
Along with all of that, my tolerance for anyone or anything outside of my circle was dwindling. Daisy was so far deep outside of that circle, I felt a growl in my chest just hearing her chirpy voice.
“I’ll just be going,” I said quickly to Carrie as I thought I heard my name chirped. “Thanks for all your help.”
“Anytime. Keep practicing, you’ll be a bread master in no time,” Carrie enthused.
Slipping out the back, I peered around the corner, sighed in relief, thought I’d made it free and clear until a beastman popped into view and growled something that had another beastman rushing up to him. Eyeing me, the males looked like they might intend to try and block me.
Crouching down, a growl built in my throat. I was running on instinct, a crap ton of instantly-irked, and my gut was telling me these fuzzed up fools meant to try and corral me.