CHAPTER 26
My contact is Dohrein. Before I left, Dohrein took over communications between me and his mate. I was glad of it when I sent a brief update upon my arrival to Earth. My update was thus:
“Arrived to Earth safely. Located my mate. I am focusing on pursuing her so this may be the last of my communications while I secure her affection.”
Dohrein had responded: “We are relieved to hear this joyous news. Yes, focus on your mate. Only reach out if you need us.”
Cold,my friend Isla would say. I expect Gracie had a lot more to say on the matter. But I didn’t reach out to Gracie directly nor did she reach out to me. And that is for the best. I have indeed learned what my coworkers warned me of: a marriage is not meant for more than two people. I say this as a being whose people practice haremship. But a harem is not a marriage.
A marriage is a covenant relationship between two people. It cannot be three. Too much friction. Too much interference. I have seen a heartsbreaking number of couples who tried, but they all suffered to the point of utter vow and bond-breaking because of it.
It is a relief that Dohrein and Gracie’s bond is intact despite how close Gracie and I had been. But that is done now. It is a good thing to treat a mating bond with honor. And finally, with me gone, their mating bond is being given that honor.
I was an interference between them, even though that was no one’s intention.
“I am not returning with the others,” I had informed him then. “I will send Comms if I need assistance.”
“Quest luck,” Dohrein had said. And with this exchange, our lives shifted. I had removed myself from Dohrein’s territory, I left Gracie’s caretaking, and embraced the pursuit of my own mate—and we all embarked on a new future. It felt momentous. It called to mind a saying that Tepkik the Rakhii oft repeats. This is a new season of life.
Now I send a much more difficult communication. One that should bring relief—and might, to Inara’s family. But it is bringing me enough anxiety to breed ulcers into my stomach lining. My missive begins thus:
“I’ve encountered Inara of the Bone Grinder’s cave. Or rather, her scent, and a male who says he employs her.”
It’s only a handful of moments before Dohrein replies. “The Bone Grinder family will be notified immediately. Send coordinates.”
I provide the information that I have, including every word of data off the parchment rectangle the male gave me. Escape Worlds HQ, the parchment rectangle begins. Ironic, because for a little while, Inara was able to do just that. Escape her world.
But now her time is up. Her brothers are coming.
In fact, they’re already on their way, Dohrein informs me. With her location pinpointed, it will make retrieval that much easier.
“When the murder of Rakhii arrive to retrieve their lost jewel, I suggest you encourage your mate to board their ship for your return home,” Dohrein advises.
A group of Rakhii are not referred to as a murder, but I take Dohrein’s word choice to mean that Inara’s family will be in precisely the mood I expected.
“Thank you,” I tell him, my ulcers multiplying. Because Inara will be upset that I’ve acted as an informant and brought her siblings down on her. I had to though. Before I embarked on this venture to Earth, a very worried Angie and Callie and Janet, human sisters-in-law of Inara, each of them mated to one of Inara’s seven very worried, very protective brothers, ordered me to report Inara’s whereabouts if I found her. “Who is still on Earth, seeking a mate?” I ask Dohrein.
Dohrein gives me a list of names, and we sign off.
***
I’m sitting on the floor near the tri-seat furniture, feeding Saphkarra the way she prefers: one kibble at a time, by my hand, while she sits on my thigh, her tail lashing my knee.
“I have selected Cyden for your first suitor. He is a reject hob,” I say to Julie, warning her about Cyden’s marked difference.
She’s sitting in the chair across from me. But she gets up, pacing between the living area and the food preparation area. “What does that mean?”
“He isn’t like me.”
“What’s he like?”
“More aggressive. More dominant.” But he has worked for a very long time with Bubashuu, an incredibly irritable Rakhii prone to fits of aggression and famous for his dominance displays. If Cyden is adept at working with a creature like that, he will be a match worthy of Julie.
Julie’s tongue makes an appearance as it licks across her lip. “Oooh.”
“I see this doesn’t give you pause for any concern.”
“Nope.”
“Well then. Enjoy Cyden.”
“I believe I will, thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
Making fists that she slowly meets at the knuckles, she chuckles softly. “It’s a novelty to have a man picked out for me by a man I trust. I’m not anticipating that I’ll get the usual fare at all.”
“And what is the usual fare?” I ask, following Saphkarra’s nose, which has turned up and away at this latest morsel between my fingers. She might be full. Or she might want a different food entirely.
“Terrible,” Julie replies. “Men are such pricks.” She moves for the food preparation area. Likely so she can snack in an effort to distract herself enough to calm her nerves. Somehow I apperceive that this tactic isn’t likely to work.
I put Saphkarra’s uneaten kibble bit back in her dish and prepare to stand up and return her dish to the bathing and cleansing unit should she get hungry later and want this piece or any other piece. Saphkarra puts her paw on me, and I pause. I look down at her and determine that she deigns for me to carry her. Dutifully, I take up her flexible form in one arm.
“Oh, but not you, Jonoh,” Julie calls as an afterthought. I hear the crinkling of a human treat bag.
“No offense taken. It sounds as if human males are an entirely different species in nearly every way,” I respond, rising and carefully carrying the dish in my free hand so as not to spill it. I set it in its designated spot in Hannah’s bathing and cleansing unit.
“What are you doing?” Hannah asks me as I exit her cleansing unit and reenter her bedroom. She”s lying across her mattress, wrapping gifts she bought today. I set Saphkarra on the bed with my other hand. “Saphkarra indicated that she wanted me to carry her to this room. Since I was returning her food dish anyway, I agreed.”
Hannah’s lips press together as she fights not to smile. Even though she’s attempting to bite it back, I can see it. I set a knee on the bed, closing the distance between us. I slide her delicate wrapping papers aside and lean down to kiss her.
She obliges me by turning her head and meeting my mouth with languid sensuosity.
I hear my Comm device ping. I finish our kiss and pull back to check my message. It is the one I expected.
“You got good news?” Hannah asks, reading my face.
I return my device to my rear pocket with a flourish. “I have fulfilled Julie’s request and assisted a fellow hob. I am quite gruntled,” I tell her, and pull her against my chest.
There’s a knock on the outermost rookery door.
“Is it him already?” Julie calls, her voice unnaturally shrill. I can’t decide if she sounds panicked or thrilled. There’s a loud rustle of human treat bags. A variety of thinly sliced, heavily salted creations called chips, by the sounds of the clamor.
“Like we know,” Hannah groans. She pushes against my chest. “I’ll get it—”
“It is for Julie,” I say with confidence. “Julie,” I call loudly enough for her to hear me, “your wish is my command. You have a male at the door.”
Julie’s head pops into the open door of our room and she’s giving me a very serious, very intent look. “If I didn”t say it before, I love you.”
“Oh,” I grimace apologetically, looking uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, but I have feelings for—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Julie waves my words away as disappears from the door. Her footfalls are padded, an indication that she slipped her feet into footwear far more practical and comfortable than what she wore earlier today at the shopping mall. Her voice moves away as makes strides to answer her caller. “You’re for Hannah, I know that, dummy.”
“Let’s go see!” Hannah whispers, and I let her push me until we make it off the bed and can follow Julie as she travels for the door in what we find are fluffy white slippers shaped like alien animals called llamas.
Julie raises herself on her llama-clad toes to peek out the peep hole. “SHAZBOT!”
“What?!” Hannah hisses back to her, grabbing my arm as she watches her friend at the door. “What’s wrong?”
Julie smooths a hand through her hair and looks at her T-shirt as if she wishes she could make a rapid costume change back into the very pretty dress she’d been wearing at the mall earlier, but then she visibly gives up, muttering, “Fuck it,” and whips open the door.
Standing there is Cyden, in all his ruggedness and deceptively quiet charm.
“Shazbot indeed,” Hannah breathes.
I glance down at her and frown.
She blindly pats my arm, attention glued to our enigmatic newcomer, or her friend. Or both. She is no doubt measuring the chemistry between Julie and this possible love interest. She wants Julie to be happy. And safe.
But she is gawking at Cyden. I shake out my wings, thinking that I should have anticipated Hannah would be captivated too. Cyden’s face is arresting to females. He’s a mature male with prematurely deep creases in his cheeks and the outer corners of his eyes. These and his silver-threaded hair don’t detract from his magnetism, if Julie and Hannah’s reaction is anything to go by.
He’s wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, hiking boots, and what looks like an overlarge hiking backpack, and technically is—but it has a slit in the back panel to smuggle Cyden’s folded wings. I know because I sewed it for him. It isn’t Earthen fabric, but it doesn’t seem as if anyone has identified it as an alien backpack from another planet and accosted him for it. He must, dressed as he is, look very out of place in this city, but he isn’t so out of place that anyone would guess he’s an alien.
“Hellllo,” Cyden purrs, greeting Julie—and even my jaw drops. He’s daring to emit a near-mating purr.
He steps forward, not waiting for an invitation to enter.
Julie doesn’t step back, not exactly—she’s too focused on his arms, which are on display with Cyden’s sleeves rolled back to his elbows.
I guarantee this is no accident. Cyden is a blacksmith who works around human females. He’s well aware of the effect of both his arms’ muscle’s bulk and their hard-earned sculpting.
Cyden pushes further into Julie’s personal space under the guise of moving past her, and because of their proximity, their bodies make contact as their gazes stay locked. Julie’s breath hitches.
Promising.
When Cyden drags his gaze away from Julie, he sends me a tip of his head. “Thank you.” He shrugs off his backpack, slowly revealing his massive black wings. He unfurls them as much as he”s able, although he”s hampered by the mirror on the wall near the door and the island on his other wingtip’s side.
Julie slowly closes the door behind him, licking her lip as she looks him up and down.
“No need to thank me.” I place my arm around Hannah and pull her against my side, never taking my eyes off the other male. “She isn’t your gift—you’re hers. I am giving you as a gift to Julie,” I tell him. “Don’t disappoint her.”
He looks back at her. “I would never leave this beauty unsatisfied.”
Julie was admiring his rear end, and at his words, she slowly rounds him and raises her gaze to meet his again. “Marry me.”
Cyden grins.
I didn’t tell Julie that she will have to essentially marry Cyden in order for him to agree to have sex with her, but it seems as if this is exactly what she wants. Oh, I know she’s being facetious—but only somewhat. She wants a lifemate, and her attraction to Cyden is apparent. Her pupils have blown and she can’t take her eyes off of him. And I believe they’ll match in temperament very, very well.
I think back to the last time I saw him. He and I were loading the ships that brought us here.
Inara, the female Rakhii I just turned in, came up behind us and said “Do not turn around.”
Cyden and I obeyed. Me because I had to, Cyden because he’s usually polite to females.
“If someone asks you if you saw me,” Inara said, “please tell them you haven’t. It will technically be the truth. Isn’t that right?”
Cyden’s wings shrugged upward as he said, “Sure.”
“Yes,” I’d replied, feeling trapped. Of course we could identify who she was by her scent, but if no one directly asked us this, our answers would stand.
“Do you have access to personal ships here?” Inara had asked. “I don’t want a bulky cargo vessel.”
“Jonoh does,” Cyden offered.
“Which ones?” she’d asked sharply, sounding like she was turning her head to scan our area, checking to see if her appearance had raised alarm, clearly attempting to remain undetected.
I gave her the names of all the personal vehicles, but it took me two swallows before I could form the final one. It was the newly re-named Callie’s Rotk Kotok. Zadeon’s ship.
Roughly translated to human, Rotk Kotok essentially means sociopathic beast off its leash—which Zadeon is.
“Oooh, I’ll take Zadeon and Callie’s ship!” Inara had whispered. “I need a fast getaway. I vow I love my brothers, but if I have to spend one more moment on this planet with them, I’ll go mad. Please unlock the controls for me and start the engine.”
With dread, I’d dropped my attention to my Comm, and did exactly as she bid me to. As I skimmed the list of ships and found the one Inara sought, I was consumed by the notion that Zadeon thinks so highly of his beloved mate Callie that he renamed his ship after her.
His ship. His exalted, very dear, preciously prized ship.
“Female whom I cannot see,” I said, alarmed enough to address Inara who was shifting from foot to foot behind me, impatient or full of nerves or both. “I’m not certain Zadeon loves anything besides his mate and offspring, but if there is anything he treasures after his family, it would be this ship that he renamed to acknowledge that he has become his wife’s psychotic killing beast and I don’t recommend taking—”
“Hush on attempting to deter me,” Inara said. “I didn’t ask for your recommendation. I asked you to start their ship for me, please.”
“I already did,” I answered hollowly.
“Good. Tell no one that you helped me,” she ordered. “Thank you!”
And with that, she was gone.
Hands trembling slightly, I turned to my fellow hob, who was silent as he watched the ex-gladiator’s stolen ship rise into the sky. “Are you going to tell?” I asked. Because Cyden could.
“No,” Cyden replied. “Let her have some freedom.”
“She could be attacked!” I’d pointed out.
He’d cut me a calm stare. “No one will take on Zadeon’s ship. Not even Krortruvians would be that stupid. Plus it’s one of the fastest ships ever built. She should be able to make an escape from nearly everything.”
“True.” I frowned. “Do you… do you have feelings for her?” I’d asked.
He’d thrown me a bewildered look. “My ‘feelings’ for her are avoid at all costs. As you know, she propositioned me once. We managed exactly one kiss before her brothers found us, dragged me away from her, and broke my arm in three places. I wish her all the best,” Cyden said, heartfelt. “But I’m really attached to my arms. And my cock, which was the next body part they were threatening to break.”
“Ah,” I said gravely, seeing his predicament. “I suppose making a trip to the infirmary bay to repair your broken limb may not be worth a kiss?”
But even as I’d said it I’d thought, For my mate, if I found her,I’d risk it.
Now I know that one kiss with Hannah would be worth it. It confirms that Cyden is not a match for Inara, or not even broken bones and threats of harm directed to his reproductive organs would have kept him away. Which means he and Julie have a chance.
“Quest luck, friends,” I say, smiling.