Chapter 20
Keelo
Iswat at Eot as he tries to wake me and am rewarded with a kick to my side.
“What?” I hiss, sitting up and accidentally sliding a few inches farther into my bedroll, the sand underneath me shifting under my moving weight.
“It’s your turn,” Eot says, tugging at my blankets as if he’s trying to push me from my bed so that he can take my place. Which, fek no. I can keep watch from the warmth of my bedroll. I’ve no intention of giving up my place.
“Come on,” he whispers, with a shove to my shoulder. “Halley’s got my blankets. I’m taking yours.”
“You are not.” I push my feet out the far end of my bedroll and struggle into a standing position, wrapped in a cocoon. “Sleep on the ground.”
“Why are you like this?” he demands, and even though he’s keeping his voice quiet enough to not wake the others, I can still hear how frustrated he is.
“Because.” I shuffle toward the stove, taking tiny steps to avoid tripping.
“If you don’t give me your bed,” Eot argues, taking a single stride forward and bringing himself level with me, “I’ll climb into my own bed. With Halley.”
I freeze, then struggle to extract a single arm so I can point at his chest. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
Fek. “She’s not staying,” I remind him, because he absolutely would climb into bed with her, and I because my heart is beating uncomfortably fast with the thought of them curled up together.
Heat prickles the skin of my hands, and my grasp of the blankets slips. They slide down, crumbling around my feet. The cold night air hits my newly exposed skin with the force of a slap.
“About that,” Eot says, and his cautious tone has me glaring at him. “I’ve been thinking—”
“Have you?”
“Yes.” He bites back his obvious annoyance at my patronization. “And I’ve decided that I really do want her to stay. If that’s what she wants, of course.”
“You can’t. She isn’t—she doesn’t—” I snap my mouth shut. Part of me knew this moment would come, but I’ve been working so hard to ignore it that I’m nearly as shocked as if I’d been blindsided.
I hate how scuddingly insecure I sound. And I hate the way I want to slam my fist into Eot’s face just to wipe the concerned look off his face. Is this why he waited until the middle of the night to tell me—because he knew I wouldn’t want to wake Rin with my yelling?
“She isn’t Arrok,” Eot says, completing my unfinished sentence.
If Halley isn’t Arrok, then she doesn’t have an other half. And if she doesn’t have an other half, she can only ever be claimed by one of us.
That’s how it’s always worked. An Arrok pair is always partnered with another Arrok pair, each male claiming one of the breeding females to be their mate and the mother of their younglings. It’s a luxury we gave up when we stole Rin.
“I didn’t think you could be so selfish.” It takes all my self-control not to strike him, but he flinches all the same—his great weakness is his constant desire for everyone around him to be happy.
“You’re forgetting. We’re outlaws now. Nobody’s telling us what to do. Nobody’s stopping us. Halley doesn’t have to be Arrok.”
“You’re thinking only about yourself,” I hiss, doubling down on my attack, even though I know my argument is weak. “You’re being a fool all because you can’t keep your cock in your breeches long enough to resist the tempting smell of a female.”
Why can’t he deal with such a problem like the rest of us—with a hand down his pants, hidden behind a sand dune?
“I’m not—”
“You think to claim Halley and to leave me with nothing. With less than nothing. You’re going to force me to watch you pursue Halley, couple with Halley. How dare—”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” he confesses, interrupting me. “And I think…well…” He runs a hand through his hair. And now he’s the one not quite meeting my gaze. “What if we shared?”
A bolt of violent longing shoots through me, strong enough to cause my mouth to drop open.
“Share?” I imagine myself on my knees, and the two of them towering over me. I imagine Halley’s small hand gripping my forearms and Eot fucking her from behind.
“It’s not such a terrible idea,” he whispers, for once misunderstanding my reaction. “We share everything else.” And when he grasps my shoulder, I feel the same pull I always feel when we touch, the one that would have us shifting together into our monstrous form.
Instead of allowing that to happen, I take a hurried step back, because what I crave and what he’s proposing aren’t the same thing. Renewed humiliation stabs my chest. How messed up must I be for the thought of watching my other half fuck Halley to be a tight fist around my rising cock?
Unfortunately, I forgot about the blankets around my ankles, and I fall, landing on my ass in the sand.
“Akh, Keelo.” Eot crouches beside me, and the idiot is too concerned to muster up a laugh. Which does nothing to smooth my burning temper.
Fek him for not laughing at me. Fek him for thinking I need his concern. And fek him for trying to change the rules on me without so much as a warning.
“Share? What does that even mean? Are we to pass Halley between us like she’s an item of clothing? Are we to schedule appointments for when we’re allowed to spend time with her? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“No, I’m—” He frowns, confused about why I’m reacting this way.
“You said you’ve been thinking about this. Well, how did you think this would work?”
“I didn’t get that far—”
“So this is like every other plan you’ve made.
Driven by a fool’s positivity and not a lick of common sense,” I interrupt, knowing exactly what to say to hurt him the most, like he’s hurt me.
“Fek, Eot. We’re barely surviving as it is, and you want to make our lives infinitely more complicated. All so that you can fuck a female.”
“So that Halley can be my mate. Our mate.” He hits my shoulder with the back of his hand, and the slap is louder than our whispered argument. “So we can be happy together.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” I scoff.
“You like Halley as much as I do. You want her.” He grits his teeth in his first real show of aggression, a warning against me trying to lie.
And he’s right; I open my mouth, my first instinct being to deny the accusation—because how I can admit to wanting Halley without also admitting to wanting him? The one person in the known universe so completely outside of my reach?
He’s my other half. A piece of myself.
He isn’t my lover.
He certainly isn’t my mate.
Even now, Eot’s studying me through the darkness with an intensity that has me worried he can see how hot my skin is.
“Don’t be selfish,” I snap instead, kicking my blankets off my feet and vacating my bedroll. “Leave Halley alone.”