CHAPTER 14
Hannah’s place of employment is on the route to Julie’s place of employment, and thus I have the intense pleasure of walking Hannah to work.
Adjusting my stride to keep pace at her side, I desire to hold her hand but I’m quite terrified of smothering her in the fashion Rakhii are initially in danger of doing to their mates. Don’t overwhelm her, I chant to myself.
Confusingly, I also hear, Stop hesitating: LEAP ON HER.
I dismiss the rogue impulse. Even I can discern that this voice is based on misguided instinct.
Completely unaware of the thoughts I’m attempting not to entertain, Hannah sends a trusting smile up at me. The curve and shine of her lips and the color of her liquid eyes make my entire body tense.
Driven by a need to get closer to her in some way—any way—my fingers itch and I stretch them out, visualizing how I might be bold enough to make contact with her hand.
But I don’t.
Disappointed in my lack of courage, I inhale despondently—
And her scent fills my lungs. She is the definition of enticing, and I take in another deep breath, tasting. My eyes nearly cross in bliss. I can easily detect that even her mane smells sweet. Her skirt is perfumed, and I know this because it kicks up a floral scent as it swishes against my leg every few strides and teases me to the point that I’m tempted to grip a fistful of it and catch her around the hips so I can drag her skirt up and—
“How did we end up leaving the courtway early?” Julie is saying.
“No idea,” Hannah replies, sending me another smile, this one like a kick in my hearts. “But it’s nice not to be in a rush for once.”
As I imagine reaching out and assertively lacing my fingers between Hannah’s lovely fingers, I’m primarily staring at her hand that is nearest to me while trying not to be distracted by the way her bustline makes my mouth water, but peripherally I am also aware that we are passing a wire-fenced corral with miniature agility or perhaps training equipment, and the boisterous sounds of human children can be heard even over the bustling nearby traffic.
I come to an abrupt halt.
Noticing that I’ve stopped walking, Hannah halts too. “Jonoh?”
But I can’t give her my attention. I have to pull my attention off my enchanting mate to stare fully at the human offspring corral. Where, crouched in plain sight, I see a Rakhii—no, I see two.
My eyes go wide. Because now that I’m looking, I see three, four, five Rakhii.
All of them are collected around the youngling’s corral we’re passing.
Julie notices that her entourage has paused. She stalks back to us, glancing between Hannah—who is watching me worriedly—and me—who is glaring at the Rakhii—before she frowns at me, demanding, “What’s the holdup, Jonoh?”
I raise a hand to stall her, not taking my gaze from the scene. Julie follows my stare, and out of the corner of my eye, I watch as her expression goes eerily blank. “Are those more of the mate-seeking aliens you came with?” she asks in such a perfectly level, preternaturally composed, rational voice, she’d do credit to any Gryfala.
“Yes,” I whisper. “And I have a terrible premonition that they’re hunting.”
“Children?” Hannah asks, grabbing my arm, distantly causing a shock to my preoccupied system. Her voice is just as hushed as mine—although her tone is not as resigned.
I cover her hand on my arm with one of mine. “If I’m not mistaken, the children are their bait,” I murmur, eyes grimly locked on the purplish crimson-scaled Rakhii closest to our position, who is crouched, tail waving slowly back and forth in front of himself, using its hypnotic movement to draw a curious child into his attack radius.
Too inquisitive for caution, the young human approaches him with the abandon of someone who has never heard of a Rakhii’s propensity to attempt pup theft. If this child were a Rakhii, her sire and dam would be hovering too close for this male to manage an abduction, but since this pup is an unsuspecting human youngling, she blithely steps close enough for the Rakhii to snatch her in a gentle but unbreakable hug. It’s horrifying to watch.
But even more horrifying is the dam’s scream.
The Rakhii’s spines rise, betraying his ultra-keen interest.
The dam drops the communication device that had held her attention. It’s incredible that the slim unit practically every human female carries was the cause of her distraction that allowed for her wing-bereft fledgling to be captured in the first place. One has to wonder how many Rakhii are appreciating how absorbed their prey can become when gazing at those small screens. But this particular female isn’t gazing at hers anymore. She rushes headlong for the Rakhii. Heedless of the danger he poses, she bares her useless fingers like claws and leaps at the male in an obvious effort to free her offspring.
Instead of her heroic action resulting in success, the Rakhii catches her just as easily as he’s captured her offspring. Holding both mother and child in his arms, he stands with a triumphant grin. He aims it at the other Rakhii crouched nearby. “I told you this would be easy. I have a mate and a pup,” he dares to boast. “We are headed to the ship.”
And with that he attempts to leave the human offspring corral.
“Xoknith, STOP!” I thunder, rushing up to them. When I reach them, I stare at him and his stolen people in utter incredulity. It’s appalling what a Rakhii will do when they are allowed a horrifying lack of supervision. “I must report this.”
The Rakhii, Xoknith, looks at Hannah, scans her, visibly dismisses her—then his attention lands on Julie, and he nods at what he sees. “Order him not to report this. Please.”
Julie tips her head at Xoknith. “Why do you think you can turn to me for help kidnapping women and children?”
Xoknith—who, it is pertinent to mention, is the amaranth-eyed littermate of a male Rakhii on our homeworld named Bash, who stole my friend Isla for his mate and set a dangerous precedent of stealing human mates and being rewarded with their love and not punishment—exhales smoke and looks at the struggling woman in his arms, then the now-frightened youngling. “Because I don’t want to stress my mate and pup worse.”
Julie’s browfurs nearly rise off of her forehead. “That’s your wife and kid now? The ones you just abducted off the street?”
The Rakhii’s tail begins to twitch in agitation. “I didn’t seize them from the transportation tarmac. This is a pup paddock.”
“Oh, well, as long as you capture women and children from a pup paddock, that makes it all right,” Julie says, voice deceptively mild.
Either not able to recognize her sarcasm or willfully choosing to ignore it, the Rakhii nods.
I’ve had enough. I hold up my Comm for him to review:
The Rakhii Rules for finding a mate are as follows:
Please Note: Whenever possible, please also avoid consuming domestic pets.
If one judges by the sobbing woman and child fighting to be free of his hold, he’s failed on the first count. By the crowd of humans raising their cell phone units to electronically capture the situation means he’s failed the second edict just as spectacularly.
I don’t even want to consider how strictly he’s followed the third rule let alone the third and a half rule.
Yet the Rakhii barely gives my Comm screen’s rules more than a cursory glance before he rolls his eyes in their sockets like a human and groans. “Shut your yammerer cannon, Jonoh. This is not what it looks like.”
I stare from his frightened mate”s smooth human face to his scaly, ruthless face. “It looks like you’re abducting them.”
He shrugs his quills. “Then I suppose this is what it looks like.”
His human mate screams and he murmurs something soothing to her. As I rapidly tap out a message on my screen, he attempts the Rakhii version of a hob’s purr for his abductee. Rakhii don’t seem to realize it, but humans who are unused to Rakhii unilaterally find their aggressive, rattling vocalization quite alarming, not soothing.
As predicted, his female shudders in fear—but because she falls quiet, Xoknith is oblivious of his true effect on her and appears quite pleased.
Shaking my head, I proceed to tap out the rest of my message with haste.
Xoknith”s ears sling forward, trained on me. On my swiftly moving fingers. He gives me a hard look. He opens his mouth and smoke curls over his lips.
“Don’t threaten Jonoh!” Hannah growls, stepping forward and shocking us all.
Staring at her in wonder, I take her hand.
Xoknith sighs and in deference to Hannah, gives me a less confrontational stare. “Don’t report this and I’ll owe you a debt.”
I snort. “I have nothing you could possibly… You’d owe me a debt for anything?” I ask suddenly.
“Name it,” he enunciates. His stare is steady.
In the act of filling out the Rakhii Violation Form with my hand that is not wrapped around Hannah’s, I note there are already at least a dozen names entered on this sheet, with infractions ranging from a successful attempt at eating a human all the way to stealing a family of otters from an alien zoo. Ah! Otters, like Hannah’s delightfully shaped soap? If so, I can see why the Rakhii had the impulse to abscond with them. “If I asked you to grill an Earthen avian—”
“Yes,” the Rakhii agrees, without even being briefed on the specifics.
Hannah gasps.
“You have a bargain,” I say, and return my Comm to my pocket, report unsent. I squeeze Hannah’s hand apologetically. “I’m sorry, Hannah.” I wonder how many other Rakhii have avoided having their names on the violation form because they have offered such spectacular bribes.
“Jonoh, you can’t hurt Mick!” Hannah exclaims, aghast.
My teeth click and I close my eyes. Now I can’t hurt Mick.
“Who is Mick?” Xoknith asks, looking distracted. His mate is putting up quite a struggle, and he has to readjust his grip on his new family. His pup, it’s sad to note, isn’t crying anymore. It’s absorbed in playing with Xoknith’s tail, which he’s keeping held aloft, shaking it lightly as a shameless distraction.
As if his tail were a harmless child’s toy, not a deadly bladed weapon. Although he is holding the blades of his tail tightly closed.
“Mick is a parrot,” I tell him.
Xoknith frowns, his eyes taking on a distant quality as I imagine his translator is giving him a description of what parrots are. He asks, “My translator says that’s a pet.” He gives me a puzzled look. “Is a Mick an edible pet?”
I start to correct him, but give him a solemn nod instead. “Yes. Yes, he is.”
Hannah releases my hand and bats my arm.
An apology immediately springs from my lips, but most unfortunately, before I can inform Xoknith that Mick should probably not be eaten, a clamor of screeches wails up behind us—this time, from the throats of two younglings. We turn. Yet another Rakhii rises from his hunting crouch, a male child in one arm and a female child in the other.
As if the one abduction isn’t enough of a shipwreck in progress. Now we have two.
I storm forward. “Oido, what do you think you are DOING?” I demand, incensed. “You—you MICK!”
Hannah looks at me sharply. “Jonoh. You don’t have to be jealous of Mick.”
Julie coughs.
“Seriously, you don’t need to feel threatened by him,” Hannah tries to claim. “He’s a bird.” Even as she says this, her eyes implore me—my mate is attempting to make me feel implored on Mick’s behalf. She’s taking up a cause for him. Not me. Mick.
Directly antithetical to what my mate claims, I feel intensely threatened.
Oido’s ears lay back, drawing my attention to him. He levels a cool stare on me. “My translator doesn’t recognize what a mick is.”
“In the noun form, I propose that a mick is a terror who angles to steal a mate,” I inform him.
Hannah makes a noise. Oido glances at her, then meets my gaze again and shrugs, unrepentant. “I am adopting both of these pups.” He tips his horns to a human female who is rushing up to him as he clutches the two squalling human children. His new pups, apparently. “Claiming their dam will be my next task.”
“Ummm…” Hannah says, wincing for the Rakhii. “Hate to break up your dream, but…”
Julie is shaking her head. “I don’t hate breaking up your dream. Those two have different moms, genius.”
Everyone looks down at them. If they are littermates, they are polar opposites in coloring and features.
The Rakhii stops dead and looks between the children he has claimed in pained horror. “I can keep only one of my pups? How will I choose between them?” he asks in a heartsbroken voice.
Sighing, I cover my eyes.
Julie’s voice is dry. And strained with disbelief. “Alright, as much as I want to stay and watch how the alien version of Sophie’s Choice plays out, I have to get to work.”
I drop my hand.
“I really have to get to work too,” Hannah shares, sounding clearly torn. “I guess it was a really good thing we started out early. If we hurry, we won’t end up late.”
Behind Oido, his human female is in battle mode as she storms up to him. He senses her proximity and turns, still brazenly holding the mismatched set of squirming human offspring. I watch, stone-faced, anticipating the female’s frenzied attack in order to rescue whichever child is hers.
But with much furious shouting, the female demands that he release her ‘babies,’ indicating that they both belong to her.
“Huh,” says Julie.
“Well, I”ll be darned,” murmurs Hannah.
My brows have risen. My wing talons are pointed straight up, just shocked. Evidently they are of the same family unit after all.
Oido throws back his head with a triumphant roar. “I am the luckiest male!”
I dart a nervous glance around us, noticing the small crowd he’s attracting with his loud display. “Oido!” I chide. “You’re contemporaneously breaking rules one, two, and three! And for all you know, this female might already have a mate!”
The Rakhii glances sharply at her hands, and brings one up to his face. Smoke escapes his nostrils, briefly obliterating everything below her wrist.
“That’s her right hand,” Hannah points out, sounding disturbingly helpful. “Unless it’s on her left ring finger, she’s probably not taken yet.”
I look at her in disbelief. “Hannah. Don’t encourage him.”
She sends me a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
The Rakhii asks his intended, “Do you have a mate?”
“My boyfriend—”
“Boyfriend?” Oido, like Xoknith, has adopted the mannerism of rolling his eyes like a human. This isn’t so strange; his sister-in-law is the human Isla, and doubtlessly she has had cause to roll her eyes when she is surrounded by her Rakhii mate and in-laws. “This is not a husband.” He pauses, a troubling thought occurring to him. “Is it a betrothed?” Oido muses.
“He doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage—” the female says, sealing her fate.
Oido snorts. “Fool.” He flicks his spines. “His loss.” He transfers both his stolen pups to one arm and picks up his new mate, ignoring her shriek, and starts walking away.
Giving up on the impossible task of attempting to restrain the Rakhii predilection to steal mates, I herd Hannah and Julie in the direction of Hannah’s workplace, swiftly escorting Hannah to work.
Once inside the Sew Cute shop, I’m forced to watch as Mick hugs Hannah and stares me down until I’m sufficiently cowed.
I take a step back, dropping my gaze from Hannah, and from the triumphant look in Mick’s beady purloining eyes. “Goodbye,” I mumble, my serotonin dropping.
“Hey, Jonoh?”
I keep my eyes respectfully on the ground. “Yes?”
There’s a flapping of wings and a protesting squawk, and then Hannah is walking quickly to me. I glance up in time to see her open her arms. She has left Mick. She closes them around my ribs, awkwardly attempting to hug around my bound wings. The bulk of them is too large for her to manage this comfortably, unfortunately. She releases me almost as quickly as she took hold of me, and steps back.
Stunned, I stare down at her.
“Have a good day, Jonoh,” she says a little shyly, taking another step back.
“Wait,” I rasp. And then I open my arms and engulf her in a heavy-limbed, squeezing hug that makes her squeak. Breaking every rule set forth in the Methodology of Attracting a Gryfala manual that sees all Academy graduates becoming experts in how to best handle their future princess, I hold Hannah for long enough to test my control, then I force myself to release her and I’m the one taking several steps back. “Have a good day at work, Hannah.”
She meets my eyes, her pupils dilated, her smile so radiant it makes my hearts beat faster. “Thanks. You too, Jonoh.”