Chapter 29
Cassie
Ever since ?rim had confessed his feelings to her, the air between them had been strange. Not awkward or uncomfortable but charged with electricity about what could happen but hadn’t.
It was small gestures; the way he lifted her on and off his levibike instead of just offering her a hand. The way his fingers pressed against her shoulder or her lower back as they walked down toward the school. Cassie observed more than one curious pair of eyes on them as they moved together.
S’samph was already waiting for her near the schoolhouse. “I assume you haven’t found any new information about the Aviarist’s movements.” S’samph’s frill lifted as he glanced over at ?rim.
“Not yet. A few false leads, but nothing substantial.” ?rim released his hold on her shoulder.
“Let’s go to the training ground then.” S’samph gestured to his levibike. Cassie followed him after a final backward glance at ?rim, who waited until she was on the levibike before he headed inside.
“I’ll come pick you up after class,” he called to her.
Several of the younglings stood outside the building gawking at him watching Cassie until he finally herded them inside.
It would only be a matter of time before everyone in Laurus knew they had feelings.
Cassie suspected everyone already knew they had feelings.
When she arrived at the training ground with S’samph, the others were already mostly there.
K’kaen regarded her with a flick of his tail. “So, you and the teosian?”
“It’s always been her and ?rim.” Wreeta came up beside Cassie. “If you weren’t paying attention, that’s your fault.”
“Start your laps.” S’samph’s voice rose above the chatter. “Fifteen today.”
Wreeta and Cassie both groaned as they paired up to start their jog. “I’ve never slept with a teosian before. What’s it like?” Wreeta asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the next closest running pair.
Cassie considered the question. It seemed odd. How would Wreeta know he sat next to her most nights while she slept? “?rim doesn’t sleep. Teosians don’t sleep.”
Slowing down her jog, Wreeta produced a breathless trill. “I don’t mean actually sleeping. I mean, you know, lifting each other’s feathers. Singing filthy songs in the same octave.”
Wreeta warbled in annoyance at Cassie’s blank stare. “Sex, Cassie. I’m talking about sex. What’s the sex like?”
“Oh.” Cassie took a deep breath against the burn that started at her feet and simmered all the way to her scalp. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? I’ve seen the way he looks at you. We’ve all seen the way ?rim looks at you. That male looks at you like he wants to tie you to a tree branch and sing arias about your cloaca.”
“I don’t have a…” She had no idea what the word Wreeta had just used was. Until a few days ago, she hadn’t even known what her own reproductive organs looked like.
“How have you not had sex yet?” Wreeta stared at her. “Holy filoplume, have you never had sex before?”
Cassie shook her head and tried to pick up her pace. She hated running, but getting away from this conversation might be worth trying to keep pace with Arz instead of Wreeta.
“Hey! Come back here! I’m highly motivated to continue this conversation. You’re not going to outrun me today.”
Eventually, Cassie relented and slowed down enough for Wreeta to keep pace. “Sorry, I’m not trying to make you feel weird about it. Giradey are highly sexual. We’ll have sex with pretty much any species. I know most species aren’t like us. But sex is fun. You guys are mates. You should try it.”
“I don’t think we’re mates yet.”
“Okay, but like you basically are. You live together already. Just think about it. And after you do, I want all the details, ok?”
Cassie smothered a laugh. “I’ll be sure to tell you all about it.”
This seemed to satisfy Wreeta because they returned to more mundane topics for the rest of the training sequence.
After everyone finished running, Cassie usually left with ?rim, but he hadn’t arrived yet, so she stayed behind to watch their pulsar target practice.
The others were functional shots, but S’samph was dangerous with the weapon in hand.
Cassie watched S’samph at his target until he holstered his weapon and went to correct everyone else’s form.
She wasn’t sure if a weapon would make her feel safer, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
S’samph was often inscrutable to her, but she suspected he would at least consider her request. She couldn’t spend the rest of her days waiting and waiting for something terrible to happen.
She needed to feel like she was doing something, anything, so she’d pluck up her courage and ask S’samph.
The same way she’d asked ?rim for reading lessons all those months ago.
Still sweating from her unexpectedly intense run, Cassie rolled up her sleeves and grabbed a hydropod from the bowl someone had left on the table.
When the members of the patrol squad left quickly to go check on a ravik sighting, Cassie lingered behind.
She waited until everyone else departed before she approached S’samph with her request. Cassie accepted the additional hydropod he handed to her without a word.
“Do you have a question, Cassie?” S’samph glanced down at her from his great height. Cassie glanced quickly at his holster before making brief eye contact. She pulled out her datapad and started to write.
“Teach me, please.” She pointed at the pulsar gun.
S’samph’s frill lifted slightly from his spine.
Cassie couldn’t tell if the surprise was from the request or from her unexpected use of voice.
She doubted it was the second, as the speaking device around her neck was obvious, but S’samph wasn’t going to tell her either way.
“You want to learn how to use a pulsar gun?”
“Yes.”
S’samph unholstered the weapon for a moment, glancing at it and then glancing at her. “Why?”
“The Avrit.” Cassie knew she’d spelled it horribly wrong again, but hopefully he was able to understand her meaning. “I want to kill him.” The addition was meant to clarify, but S’samph’s frill only lifted higher.
“Killing the Aviarist, if it comes to that, is my responsibility. You are under my protection as head of security in Laurus.”
Cassie crossed her arms. “Teach me.”
His frill lifted. “I suspect you will seek a different teacher if I tell you no.”
Cassie hadn’t considered the idea, but now she certainly would. She thought about who would likely be willing to teach her if S’samph refused. “K’kaen? Wreeta? I will ask.”
S’samph’s tail twitched. “K’kaen is a terrible teacher, and Wreeta would be worse. I should know better than to try to negotiate with stubborn humans.”
“So, you’ll teach me?”
“And your mate won’t wonder where you are? If you’re not meeting him for reading lessons.”
“We’re not mates.” They had barely defined their relationship yet, but the thought of calling him her mate made her whole face burn.
“As Eleri would say, it’s none of my business.” S’samph’s tail flicked again. “Fine. I will teach you how to use a pulsar gun. You can stay here with me after training rounds. I’ll find a null for you to practice with. Today stance. Watch first.”
S’samph pulled out the pulsar gun and fired with one hand at a boulder in the distance.
He seemed pleased with his aim as the blast left scorch marks on the stone.
Cassie watched the fluid motion of his form as he shifted his weight to better align with the target.
He was about to fire another round when footsteps approached from behind.
“Why are you firing your weapon in front of our nest?” Eleri’s eyes were narrowed, and S’samph whipped around, his frill flattening against his spine.
“Cassie wants to learn how to use a pulsar gun.”
“I see.” Eleri crossed her arms. “Do you need to fire to teach her?”
“Probably not.”
Eleri laughed. “Don’t be a menace then. And if Cassie wants to learn, teach her properly. Don’t grump at her.”
“I do not grump.” S’samph’s tail curled around Eleri’s ankle, and Cassie looked away, getting the sense she was interrupting something intimate.
“Of course you don’t.” Eleri swatted his tail away with a playful movement. “I’m just here to let you know that S’kasia is looking for you. I’m also taking the rest of the afternoon off.” She lifted one of her eyebrows. This captured S’samph’s full attention for some reason.
“We’ll start lessons tomorrow.” He moved to his mate’s side and swept her off her feet to carry her toward their nest. Cassie waved awkwardly as she started to collect her things. ?rim was waiting by the roadside as she crested the hill leading back up to the magtracks.
“Sorry I was late today. Some of the students’ questions went on longer than I was anticipating.”
“It’s ok. I was talking to S’samph.”
“What happened to your arms?” He asked as she got close enough for him to see her properly even in the sunlight.
Cassie blanched and tried to pull down her sleeves, but ?rim had already grabbed one of her arms. They had happened last night, the most recent scratches.
She’d woken up sweating with the Aviarist’s face behind her eyes.
?rim had been in the other room, and she hadn’t wanted to bother him, so she just dragged herself back from the fog.
It’s nothing, Cassie signed away from her box, so she didn’t have to hear the words aloud. I fell during practice.
“Some of these injuries are old. Do you often fall during practice?”
It happens. I’m clumsy.
“You do occasionally fall in our home as well. Be careful, Cassie. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
I’ll be more careful. She didn’t want him to see her hurt either.
Once he released her arm, she pulled down her sleeves.
She would have to be more careful. She didn’t want him to ask more questions about it.
She didn’t want him to know. If he knew what she did to herself when he was in the other room or when she was in the shower stall, he would panic.
If he knew her memories sometimes made her scratch herself until she bled, things would change between them.
Cassie couldn’t bear losing the only thing she had left to ground her when everything felt too hard.