Chapter 6 #2
Just then, Rathyn and Everest appear, and Everest plasters a smile on his face. “Sorry. Had to remind Rathyn that he needs to try to behave out in public.”
Rathyn opens his mouth to say something, but quickly closes it.
“We were just going to check out,” I reply.
“Wonderful. I’ll go with you. But can I grab one of these real quick?” He reaches down and plucks a DVD from the top of the pile and taps it against his palm.
“Let me just get my library card,” I murmur, pulling out my wallet and grabbing the card. As I do, pain flares through my hand, and I let out a small gasp at the sensation. Cielo and Rathyn are busy talking in Eretharian, so they don’t notice the way I flex my hand and bite my bottom lip.
But Everest does.
“You okay?” he asks softly.
“Yeah,” I say, peering up at his concerned face. “Just have some pain in my hands sometimes.”
That’s an understatement, but he accepts my lie and nods.
“You know, there is this herb that they have on Erethar. I’ve taken it, and it’s amazing. Better than anything we have here on Earth. It’s called zitha. There should probably be some left over with the supply we sent with Cielo.”
My eyes widen. “You think it’ll help?”
Everest snorts. “Trust me, it’s the best painkiller I have ever tried.
It can be…a lot the first time you use it.
I mean, nothing scary, but their stuff is potent.
It’s small and purple, and you can dissolve one or two of the leaves in a mug of hot water.
The taste is kind of nasty, but it’ll work almost immediately. ”
“I’ll take anything,” I say, trying to temper my tone so I don’t give anything away.
“It’ll help,” he says. “Remind me to give you instructions on how else to take it.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, then scan my card. Cielo turns toward me, a trill in his throat as I start to scan all the items.
In this moment, he looks happy, and I find I like that a little too much.
While Everest is reluctant to say goodbye to Cielo, Rathyn whispers something in his ear that convinces him to leave, and I think Cielo overhears because he darkens with a blush and his ears flick back and forth for a second.
Part of me wants to ask him when we’re alone. Another part of me thinks they should be allowed this privacy.
I know Everest is trying to learn some Eretharian, but I’m not sure our brains are equipped for the Vyastil language. I still don’t understand how some of them can speak human languages and some, like Cielo, are incapable.
Cielo seems calmer when they leave, and I wonder if Rathyn stresses him out and he’s glad he’s gone, or maybe he’s just excited about all those romance novels he’s placed in my car.
The way his ears happily flutter when I shut the trunk has me slipping my hand into his as we make our way to the coffee shop. It’s not as crowded as I was afraid of, and Cielo seems to relax as we walk inside and approach the counter.
The woman at the register shoots him a curious look, but she doesn’t seem as uncomfortable as most people. Even so, Cielo scoots closer to me as I set my hands on the counter.
“What can I get you?”
I look up at him. “Latte?”
‘Large,’ he says, emphasizing the sign as best he can.
I laugh and turn back to the barista. “Whatever’s your biggest size latte, and I’ll have an herbal tea.” My pain is still present, lingering under my skin, and I’m still hoping it won’t turn into anything by the end of the night.
My flares are rarely this close together, so I’m thinking it might be the stress of moving Cielo in and of seeing what happened to him. I would never blame him for it, of course. This is not his fault.
But stress always takes me out.
‘Do you want to stay or go home?’ I sign after we pay and shift to the side to wait.
He flicks his ears, then lifts fingers to his cheek to tap them. ‘Home.’
We’ve caught the eye of a couple of customers in the café.
It’s not a look I’m unused to. We’ve lived here since birth, but people still stare at Luca and me when we sign in public like we’re putting on an improv dance routine.
Adding to that the fact that Cielo’s a Vyastil in a very human space—and considering most people know Vyastil don’t like human food—and we’re definitely a walking attraction.
After we grab our drinks from the counter, I offer my hand, and after a long moment of staring at it, Cielo lays his palm against mine. I feel a rush of possessiveness and a sudden urge to call him a good boy for following directions.
I’ve always loved heaping praise on the person I’m fucking, but this, with Cielo, is a very new feeling.
I bite my tongue and hold my paper cup tightly so I don’t give in to the temptation and instead, pull him gently through the front doors and toward the car.
Just before we get there, he makes a soft trilling noise and points to a shop across the street. Its sign isn’t lit up anymore, but I know that place. I know Asa. He’s shopped in my store a couple of times, and we’ve lamented the pain in the ass it is to run a business here.
“They’re not open,” I say. “Have you been there?”
He nods, then runs the side of his hand over his coat sleeve without spilling his latte.
“Oh. Is that where you got your coat?”
He smiles, all fang, and nods.
“We can go check them out sometime if you want,” I say. “Maybe something else will catch your eye.”
He brightens, and fuck, it’s cute. It’s…hell, there aren’t words for how he makes me feel. It’s a warmth in my stomach. It’s a need to curl my body around him and never let anything bad touch him again.
I lift our joint hands and almost kiss his knuckles before I realize that is not appropriate. He’s not my boyfriend—or whatever the monster equivalent would be.
Yeah, he’s drinking my cum, but he doesn’t know that. And yeah, we might cuddle, and he might purr all over me when I’m feeling like shit, but I have to have firm lines drawn until he tells me he’s ready for more.
If he ever wants more.
My chest aches with the need to have him in every way possible. To see him on his knees with his lips tucked around his fangs, my cock buried in his throat. To kiss him, to grab onto his cock and stroke.
But I keep all of that to myself.
Just then, a foreign sensation knocks right at my temple. An almost curious, “Huh?” sensation before it’s gone.
Maybe I’m losing it. It has been a long fucking week.
I take a deep breath, finish my last swallow of tea, then toss my cup in a bin a few feet from my car. Cielo stutters to a stop as he licks at the last of his latte, and I do my best not to imagine what that tongue could do to me.
I feel that temple pressure again. Cielo’s staring at me now, his eyes a little wider than usual. He lets me go so he can throw his cup away, and the sensation is gone before I can blink.
Was that…but no. That wasn’t him.
It couldn’t be him.
Vyastil don’t read minds. That’s not a thing.
‘You ready?’ I ask in sign now that my hands are free.
His mouth softens into a smile, and he lifts his hands in reply. ‘Yes. Let’s go.’
A little spark of panic rushes up my spine when I feel it. The first tell that another flare is incoming. I’m at the kitchen counter pouring some sauce from a jar into a pot when the persistent tingling becomes sharper and less forgiving.
I take a deep breath, trying to will it away. It’s manageable right now, but it’s not going to last. I hate the sensation. It’s deep beneath my skin, spreading across all my nerve endings. It’s relentless and unkind.
And it’s going to have me curled up in bed trying those stupid-ass dragon breath exercises to cope.
My hands are shaking, but I ignore them for now. If the universe is going to be nice at all, it’ll give me dinner with Cielo. It’ll give me conversation and peace before it takes me out at the knees.
But I don’t trust the universe, and I don’t trust my own body.
The pasta’s ready at least, along with some salad and some bread we picked up on the way back from the shop. Cielo’s in front of the TV watching an ASL DVD and absorbing more and more of the language, which is making conversing a lot easier.
At some point, he’s going to become fluent enough to tell me exactly what happened to him on Erethar, and while I want to hear it—I want to be the person who allows him to unburden himself—I’m not sure I’m ever going to be ready for it.
The state he was in when I found him lying in Everest’s arms…
I still have nightmares about it.
Taking a deep breath, I ignore the increasingly sharp pains in the bottoms of my feet. They’re starting to spread upward, over my calves. Eventually, they’ll crest my thighs and get me right in the gut, and that’s when I won’t be able to stay upright.
I wish I fucking knew what was wrong with me.
“Dinner,” I say.
Cielo trills something, and a moment later, he appears. He’s shed his coat and is wearing my sheer purple robe that almost matches the color of his hair, and is barely cinched around his waist.
He looks so fucking good.
My mouth is a little dry, and I gulp down water from my glass before refilling it, filling his, then taking everything to the table. He lopes over, all limbs, and folds himself into a chair, giving me a proud smile.
Something in me snaps. I don’t know why I do it. It’s like something takes over—a strange pull—and I find myself leaning toward him and pressing my lips to his forehead.
He makes a soft noise at the contact, but I can tell it’s not one of protest. He leans into me, a bit like a cat, and I linger like that until I know I’ve been kissing him for far too long.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
I start to pull back, but he reaches up with lightning-fast reflexes and digs his claws into my shoulder. They don’t break the skin. They don’t even come close to hurting. But they are possessive.