by Amanda Milo
I drop myself into a chair, glaring at her.
With a coquettish smile, she sits on my knee as Cricket plays on the floor with Gracie’s drawing markers and paper.
“You’re wretched,” I tell her mane, my temple resting on her shoulder.
“I love you too,” Gracie sighs. She shifts, her hips wriggling slightly. “I’ll make it up to you later.”
I drag my brow over the softness of her mane and say, “Yes you will.”
I begin to purr.
Gracie stiffens—because the quality of this type of purr causes her to become greatly aroused.
Meanwhile, Cricket remains oblivious.
Hotahn does not.
He storms over, grabs up Cricket, and my purr chokes off in contrition—I can grasp why this would be inappropriate.
He glares at me, appalled.
I hiss out a breath. “Apologies.” A look at Gracie shows even she is shame-faced.
Doc however, is watching the four of us like we are her experiments. “You know, in humans, they say it’s healthy for children to be aware of their parents’ affection. By extension, the same goes for couples they’re related to—uncles and aunts for example. Being aware of these bonding displays is a positive building block that shapes the way children will view their own future relationships.”
Hotahn’s ears are flaring open wider with her every word.
It’s a relief to see him doing something other than worry, and now that he’s more contemplative, and less outraged by our behavior, he’s relaxing somewhat.
Which means I’m feeling less guilt and am back to enjoying my study of the pair.
Tiral exits the Medbay, and everyone goes on the alert.
“Levi’s awake and asking for his family.”
CHAPTER 22
GRACIE
I smartly rap my knuckles twice on our bedroom door.
Then I shake my hand out. Yowww.
How do men do this? Are their bones made of granite?
The door beeps and slides open to reveal Dohrein, whose expression manages to be both distracted and perplexed. “Why did you knock?”
I lean against the doorframe. “What’s up, Rein? You got all cerebrally distracted after Hotahn and Levi reunited like the alien version of a Hallmark movie.” I take a slinking step towards him. “Did you notice? I’ve been giving you space.” I take another slinking step, enjoying the way Dohrein is starting to look less abstracted. I didn’t like seeing the ragged intensity dogging him earlier. It’s fine if he retreats into his head to think: it’s not fine if he’s being pestered by his thoughts.
“Where you’re concerned, I claim exclusive pestering rights,” I inform him.
He cocks his head. “I love you too much to ever consider you a pest.”
I trip back a step like his words have physically lunged at my heart. “Whoa. That’s the very best answer ever.”
By now, Dohrein would normally have greeted me with some sort of touch—a brush of his hand or his wing, or a hug or a kiss or something.
Instead, he’s not standoffish but he is standing off by himself, watching me but only half-seeing me, I think. I cluck my tongue. “I’ve given you several minutes to do the man-brood. Did I do good?”
One half of his lips quirks upward even as he expels a soft chuff of a laugh. “You’re always good.”
I lower myself to my knees. “I bet I could be better.”
Ohhh, I like how his eyes follow me and go black. “Is that so? As it happens, I enjoy demonstrations.”
I ease to my hands, and let my back arch so that my boobs are displayed nicely as my chest thrusts out ahead of me. “Demonstrations are important.” I add a sensuous roll to my shoulders and let my hips sway as I crawl to him on all fours. “They prove things.”
Rein’s wings are brimming with blue ripples. “I adore proof.”
“Prepare to love this.”
“Grace, if I get any more prepared than this I’ll be literal stone.”
Crawling in heels is an interesting experience. Dohrein’s eyefucking me in them so hard my toes are curling and I’m doing heel pops as I’m on my knees which means my heel points are tapping against my cheeks.
Just a little lovely extra stimulation.
His wings reach for me, pulling me in close enough for his arms to catch me.
His thumb brushes across my bottom lip. I suck it into my mouth and let him feel my teeth.
Everything speeds up from there.
He restrains his cock in his fist as he admires my latest set of panties (teal satin and gold accents today) before he throws me down and climbs on top of me.
I gaze up at him, grinning like a fool. “So this is what it’s like to do it on a bed.”
He leans down and carefully nibbles my ear. “Too normal?”
“Nah, for us, it’s so rare it almost feels deviant. Let’s carry on.”
“At your command.”
“It’s a good thing,” I pant as he guides himself in, both of us stifling a groan as we watch his cock press forward, slowly, slowly disappearing inside me, “that being sarcastic only enhances your looks or you’d be in troub—”
He sucks my nipple until I lose the ability to manage coherent speech.
When we finish, skin sticking as we clutch each other, I move my arms around his neck and pull him closer for a quiet hug. “What’s wrong?” I breathe.
His lips find my shoulder. “I’m all right, Gracie. Seeing Hotahn reunited with Levi just stirred memories. They got me thinking.”
“Tell me.”
“Mabahote—”
He’s not sneezing. That’s the Rakhii who raised him.
“—refused to let me go when we stood in the atrium of the Academy. Just like Hotahn couldn’t initially let Levi go at the Medbay.”
I slide my hand into his shirt and press over his hearts. I clear my throat. “How’d they convince Mabahote to let you go?”
“They didn’t. They had to subdue him.”
I set my teeth. I’ve seen this before. I was a bystander when a little oversight ended with hob border patrol getting mowed down by protectively panicked Rakhii. The patrols responded by frying the Rakhii until they were inert masses of limp tails and leaky spines.
Luckily, Cricket’s fear for her brother was enough to have Hotahn pulling himself together before he went crazy on the medical staff. He practically shoved Doc into the Medbay after Levi. Not that she wasn’t willing to go, but it was like he couldn’t bear to have Levi out of his protective eyesight, and by extension, Doc’s, not until Levi was in the clear.
Zadeon was like that when Baskian needed to be pulled away for medical care. Zadeon insisted they care for him right where they stood: there was no taking that baby out of his sight. It’s like the logical half of him (and it is only half—he’s a wonderful beast) was overtaken by a completely instinct-driven nature. He was aware of it happening but he couldn’t (although, knowing Z, maaaybe wouldn’t is the operative word) wrestle control of it.
Dohrein’s shaking his head. “My dam attempted to hatch clutch after clutch for solars and solars. She desperately wanted a brood. When she read that Rakhii have the best success rate, she Chose Mabahote. The very next egg she managed to lay, he chased her from her nest and hatched me.”
I fucking knew I wanted to see this. Like, I really, really want to—
“I loved him,” Dohrein says, but his voice is far away, and I know this isn’t going to end happy. Bile curdles in my throat.
“Repeatedly, I was instructed not to grow attached, because Rakhii self-destruct. Again and again, I was told it would only be a matter of time before mine tore off for a gladiator ring and fought until he lost to the competitor that could best him.”
My aversion to the direction this story is heading is so strong I feel like I need a muzzle. Somehow, I manage to keep words from exploding out of my mouth. Dohrein needs to get this off his chest. Shut up and let him.
“We’re taught that
Rakhii are incapable of overcoming their urge and inclination to fight, and after nannying one or two or three fledglings—well, that’s that, and the fighting instinct eventually overtakes them. Nannying with the degree of care they do must be stressful.”
He shrugs his wings, and because they’re hugging me too, my body moves up and down slightly as it rides the motion.
“Several of my sires experienced the loss of the Rakhii that raised them. All their advice had been in an attempt to help me shield myself.”
His jaw tics. “After Mabahote was separated from me at the Academy’s gates, it wasn’t long before I received the Comm informing me he’d died in the ring.”
I reacquaint myself with those sixteen holes I’m biting into my tongue, and stare over his shoulder as he absently strokes my back.
I jolt when his flat claws tap my spine. “Relax.” He makes it a suggestion rather than an order, but just the same, I become aware of the fact that he can smell my anger building to the danger level, which means he’s not been absently doing anything. He’s managing me.
Interestingly, the act of calming me down seems to be bringing him back to himself: with each second that passes, I can feel more tension easing out of him.
He rubs the side of his big head against my neck, slowly, like a cat, though he’s not purring. That in itself says a lot. “After observing Brax, and watching Hotahn, I venture the hypothesis it’s not the stress of raising a fledgling. It’s the stress of the fledgling being taken—with nothing immediate to soothe the void.”
Feeling in better control of myself, I pull back enough that my eyes can lock on his throat, though I’m not really seeing all the elegantly carved masculine muscle as I turn over his words. My fingers find the bases of his wings, and I dig my thumbs into the meat of his shoulders and back, knowing he loves it when I do this. “Hotahn had Cricket today, and he even let Doc comfort him there at the end.”
Dohrein’s wings open, spreading like hands, as if they’re saying Precisely. “Rakhii don’t give up their pups, and no one would ask them to—taking away one’s offspring would be cruel. Yet we expect them to hand over their hoblings and princess fledglings when Rakhii don’t see a difference. You ask me what’s wrong. I’m turning over how some Rakhii manage to survive it. What are they doing differently?”
“And what did you come up with?”
“Well,” he starts slowly, assembling his thoughts. “It’s been a long held belief that the propensity for bonding in Rakhii is genetic.”
I wonder if he knows about his dad. If he knows about himself. If his dad hadn’t been a shitehole to him all his life, it’s definitely the kind of thing Dohrein would love to discuss, but I’ve been reluctant to broach it yet because… Although nothing seems fragile about Rein, this is the kind of information that can fuck with your head.
One day soon, we will be talking about it—I hope after he’s had time to digest it that it puts his childhood and his relationship with Stelen into a different, maybe less painful perspective—but I’ll table this topic for another time. Instead, I murmur, “Humans have thrown a wrench in that theory.”
“Right. Every Rakhii-human pair has bonded.”
“The spray helps control the effects after bonding, but how are these guys with Gryfala not bonding at all,” I add to the thought chain.
“Mmhmm. Rakhii that desire to join a Gryfala’s service enjoy the responsibility of the position. Thus, they’re content. Perhaps those individuals feel nothing more than attraction for their Gryfala. There’s no danger of their service relationship becoming anything deeper.”
“It’s a job.” I think of Tink. “Sort of an FWB setup.”
Dohrein pulls back, and I nearly breathe a sigh of relief to see the scholarly light flooding into his eyes. “FW... what?”
“Friends With Benefits,” I explain. “It’s when two people get together for sex and some benefits. It’s more than a hook-up, but they can walk away from each other at any time and—theoretically—neither party will be affected. It’s all the bells and whistles without the semi-permanent institution of marriage.”
Dohrein turns his face so one eye is closer to me than the other. “Shouldn’t marriage by the very definition be entirely-permanent? A solemn commitment?”
I pat him on top of the head. “I’m not saying that humans aren’t a little messed up.”
“Good,” he says, widening his eyes.
“Just like I’m not saying your people’s way is messed up.”
He tips his head in my direction. “Your point is valid.”
“Thanks.”
One of Dohrein’s wing claws carefully hooks under my chin, lifting my face for some excellent deep and meaningful eye contact. “Is this what bonded Rakhii feel for each other?” he rasps. “We have a spiritual symmetry, you and I. A consonance between the notes of our personality that allow us to find harmony together.”
“I love it when you bust out the nerd,” I breathe.
Dohrein’s wingmarkings flare. “Is that so?”
“You’re never hotter,” I confirm, and his grin is starting to melt my ovaries.
Just when I’m gearing up for round two, his eyes change from heat flooded pupils to calculating color in an instant. “Do you know two vocations Rakhii excel at besides fighting?”
“That’s almost random,” I pat his chest. “Your brain is always working, love. And no, I don’t. What?”
“Tending transport animals and plant husbandry.”
I walk my fingers over his arm and I think of his dam’s gallery full of flower beds. “Vocational fields that require a touch of nurturing.”
“Indeed.”
“Enough to use as a surrogate if they have nothing to dote on but they’re instincts are already in play?”
Dohrein’s eyes seem to be seeing beyond me when he murmurs, “I wonder.”
CHAPTER 23
DOHREIN
Callie is singing quietly to her son when we join everyone at our table in the commons area.
“Do humans naturally sing to their offspring, or did you learn this from Zadeon?” I inquire.
“We sing to them,” Callie confirms. “Lots of what we call ‘nursery rhymes.’ They’re a lot like the Rakhii songs.”
I freeze, my spoon partway to my mouth. “Rakhii songs?”
She’s smiling down at her son, and it’s in the same lilting, soft register she uses for him that she coos to me, “Yes, Rakhii songs.”
“The… ‘sad-whale’ songs?”
“I wish I could speak whale,” Gracie and Beth whisper oddly before striking their palms across the table.
“As do I,” I say distractedly. So help me, if Callie’s translator allows her to decipher Rakhii tonal notes into definable words, I will wrestle Zadeon to the ground myself in order to copy the program files from her head.
Gracie flicks the back of my wing. “You’re coloring up. You’re having thoughts that are going to get you killed, aren’t you?”
“It’s simply that I wasn’t aware Rakhii songs had words…” and I want them.
I’d go to many lengths to obtain them. The curiosity will consume me. It IS consuming me. I can barely think of anything else now—
Gracie plants her hands on my thigh, her weight coming down—which is almost laughable because she’s certainly not enough to slow me let alone stop me—and she shoves her lips to my ear. “Do not be thinking what I think you’re thinking. It’s one thing for me to rile Zadeon up for fun, but don’t you dare go after Callie. He will stop playing so fast your head won’t get time to spin—because he’ll have bitten it off, Rein!”
Absently, I pat her hands.
She attempts to dig her human-thin nails into my leg’s muscle.
As if her claws can anchor me. Ha.
Callie, who assumes Gracie and I are up to our typical half-private flirtations, acknowledges our display with a smile of amused pleasure and she continues our conversation much to my extreme, intense interest
. “Wordless music, right?” she asks.
Quite out of nowhere, it strikes me that she’s conversing with me using the smile she only reserves for her close friends. Her trusted friends.
I have gained Callie’s trust.
My hearts grind to a slower pace, choking off the excitement that the hunt of knowledge brings, halting it most unsatisfactorily.
Callie trusts me.
Tevek. I know she won’t like the idea of having her translator removed for study (it involves a degree of pain that is unavoidable) and double tevek that it poses a risk to our… our friendship. If I force the issue, I could very well lose the gift of hers. “I want—”
Gracie brings her hand up to cover my mouth and anticipating this, I catch both her wrists with my wing. “I want someone to teach it to me.”
Callie’s paused her soft humming to Baskian, who she has propped up in an interesting fashion: her heels are braced against her rear, forcing her knees upright. Baskian rests against them, facing her, quietly watching his dam as she visits with us. This also allows him to watch Zadeon, whose large—smallest—finger is being gripped by Baskian’s tiny hand.
I pry my gaze away from the sight to implore her. “I wasn’t aware they had words to their songs. This means they have their own language. Rakhii have an entire secret language. What else don’t we know about them?”
Oddly, Callie’s eyes dart to Zadeon—and Zadeon, who had been watching my mouth in order to read the words from my lips, turns in time to catch her look and tips his head.
Callie shakes hers.
My wings snap up.
She shoots a glance at me, and performs a double take when she catches me gaping at them both. Her face instantly suffuses with a deep red color.
I consider the pair. “What is this?”
Callie shakes her head vehemently. “Nothing.”
Strangely, I’m struck with a stab of—not disappointment—something related, something stronger… perhaps… hurt. I’ve long considered myself on close companionable terms with both of them. To not be included in something that feels so monumental is… well, it doesn’t feel terribly good.
I suppose it’s not unlike the betrayal Callie would feel if I pressed her down, removed, then reinserted her translator. Hmm. Served a bit of a dose of my own cure, wasn’t I?
