CHAPTER 4
“Hold out your index finger—with more confidence than that,” my mate coaches, “and tell him to step up.”
Numbly, I do. “Step up,” I parrot. Then I pause. It seems there is some opportunity here to make a pun…
The bird leans forward and grabs my finger in its strong beak. Immediately he adds force, pinching me smartly.
“Mick, be NICE...” my mate coaches in such a dominant, dangerous tone that I nearly tumble backward.
Mick giggles like he’s learned to mimic the playful sound from a human female.
Disturbingly, I suspect he’s imitating my human female’s giggle. Which implies that he’s heard her laugh a great enough number of times that now he can impersonate her. Has he been the one to make her laugh? I have read that females love males who make them laugh. I narrow my gaze on Mick.
He stares at me with his dark, too-aware eyes. Raising his crest, he gaily steps onto my knuckle while still pinching my digit between his upper and lower mandibles.
“You are so naughty,” my mate whispers to the animal.
“Heh heh heh,” Mick replies in his falsetto voice. When Hannah reaches for him, he finally releases my finger before he flips his head at yet another unhealthy-looking ninety-degree angle and shrieks, “I love you!” And then he screams.
He screams loudly enough that I may incur hearing damage.
My mate winces, but is otherwise unfazed by the eardrum shattering explosions of shrill sound as she shares, “I love you too, Mick.”
My hearts plummet like I’ve been pushed off a cliff with bound wings.
“Now quit being a boob,” she is saying. “I need to help Jonoh get an application filled out.” She raises him to the level of her collar bone.
Stepping off her hand, he clamps his formidable-looking claws around her shoulder, using her as his perch. Then he turns and looks me right in the eye, challenge in his gaze. His posture is challenging too, including his crest which has shot straight up. My ears are still ringing from his scream so I could be mistaken, but I am certain I can almost hear him taunting me. Did you hear that? She loves ME.
My wings punch at my cloak, both frustratingly—yet fortunately—hampered from displaying a mate threat warning. In case this creature possesses telepathy, I think very loudly, Hannah is MINE, you domesticated biting chicken.
No, wait—a cassowary. Cassowary are said to be Earth’s most dangerous birds.
Mick chuckles to Hannah and begins to preen her hair with his wickedly curved black beak. “Gosh,” he swallows, his mandibles clicking with the effort to speak human words, although he’s doing a frightfully decent job, “you’re pretty.”
“Thank you, Mick.” My mate laughs. “You’re very handsome.” Hannah is so sufficiently distracted by Mick’s mate stealing theatrics that she has to shake herself when she turns back to me. “Follow me.” She reaches up above her shoulder and uses the back of her hand to pet Mick. He puffs his feathers, increasing in size, clearly filling with thrilled conceit. He arches into her touch and makes scabrous noises of pleasure before he shoots a look back at me and chuckles darkly.
I’m taken aback. Because just like the smile I thought I saw earlier, Mick’s beak shouldn’t be capable of forming a smirk on his smug parrot face.
Yet he’s managing it. Perfectly.
I suppose he has reason to gloat. Inside of a few Earthen minutes, this male has managed to wrangle my mate into admitting that she loves him and that she finds him attractive. If I possessed an ego, it would be threatened. However, I have no ego, and therefore I’m instead quite cowed.
Unfortunately, the intimidating—if diminutive—cassowary the color of hoarfrost knows it.
Following after Hannah as she unwittingly bid, I stare at him, at his appealingcolor. Where my wings are the color of sunny gemstones, in the right light Mick is nearly the exact same color as a heart, if a heart were made of chilling white rime ice and pink-hued vengeance.
Propitiously for Mick, a fair percentage of females are attracted to exactly this shade of heinous pink. It’s blinding enough that many would be willing to overlook the fact that he is otherwise a monopolizing, hateful arctic grapefruit-colored lammergeier.
Or a seagull. A mate-stealing seagull. If my memory serves, these gull birds are a type of kleptoparasitic Earthen fowl that loiter in mobs around highly trafficked human areas, cannily seeking opportunities to steal food.
Or in this case, a mate.
Though technically Mick didn’t steal Hannah from me. Truthfully, he found her first.
I grimace at the uncharitableness of my inner thoughts. Feeling threatened by the male that my mate has chosen for herself is not ideal. I’m not a Rakhii, with instincts so uncontrolled that I force my female to pairbond with me alone.
I’m startled out of my musings when Hannah stops at a ware checkout counter and sends me an excited look. “Thanks for being willing to brave this bird here and apply. You’re a hero.” She starts shuffling through papers, unaware of my reaction to her declaration.
My chest seizes. Then it bows out as I inhale the world.
I’M MY MATE’S HERO?
I have to catch myself before I raise my fists in stunned victory. I’m not certain I’ve ever managed to be a hero before. It makes my chest feel as if it could puff up by an increment. “Ah, I…,” I manage. “Thank you.”
Mick scoffs in derision.
My wings hunch, disquieted and distressed at his scorn.
His tiny lips tipped up in a smirk again, Mick begins combing the feathers of his back with his horn-like beak. And bending one of the longest feathers of his tail up, he flashes it at me like humans display their middle fingers to degrade an opponent.
Unaware of the intimidation, Hannah tilts her head, her smile soft. “Would you like to—”
A bell rings through the air, high and clear.
Hannah winces. “Customer. Gotta go.” She gestures around the shop. “While I”m gone, wander around, get a feel for the place. I might be a little busy but holler if you need anything.”
Forced to begin wandering and getting a feel for the store as she directed me to, I call back an underwhelming, “Thank you!”
My stomach plummets as Mick stands tall atop Hannah’s shoulder and makes his crest bounce victoriously at me as he emits the most villainous laughter I’ve ever heard. “HA. HA. HAAAA.”