Wyst

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  “Do what?” The fact he stared at my hand and took another goddamned casual sip before offering his question pissed me off. But not as much as the fact my friend might give birth without me by her side.

  “My tresl,” I repeated, waggling my fingers. “Give it to me.”

  Eyes on mine, C’ynyt lifted a butt-cheek and snagged my cellphone from his back-pocket. “Can see you’ve got your panties in a wad about something, but there’s no reason to snap at me.”

  “Sorry,” I managed to mumble as I ran through my contact list and pressed the one marked ‘Leah’.

  “Hey honey, how you doing? Listen. I was wondering. How long have you had that pretty, little bun in your oven?”

  “You mean Starla?”

  Whoa. They’d already named their kid and she hadn’t even been born yet?

  “Are you incubating anyone else?” It didn’t take much for my snarky side to show, especially under duress. And this was definitely, in my opinion, duress.

  Luckily Leah got me, knew my ways and what caused them, so she breezily replied, “Twelve weeks, four days. Which means according to that rat-bastard Jyrl, I have another seven and a half to go.”

  I didn’t realize I’d been walking as I’d been talking until I stood in the arch between the dining room and kitchen. “That may not strictly be true, sweetie.”

  Looking to Blythe, she gave a nod and began to wipe her hands in order to take my phone. Best to let her deliver the news since she, like Leah, had experienced it.

  “Am gonna turn you over to someone in the know, pretty girl. Somebody I trust, so you can trust her as well, okay?”

  “What’s going on, Pam? Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Her name is Blythe and I think she’s gonna knock your socks off, babe.” I held out my phone with both hands, knowing my heart was in my eyes by the way Blythe’s own gaze softened before she took the device.

  It was at that moment the doorbell rang and Wyst opened the door of our assigned bedroom.

  *.*.*.*.*

  Tyshar was greeted by a youngling, a youth wearing what he’d discovered was typical of the young males on Earth: sagging jeans, a faded t-shirt and some sort of knitted cap pulled down to his eyebrows.

  “Yo’, dude. You Ty?”

  As greetings went, the Protector wasn’t sure how to respond. In his studies, most human males, even those of the younger variety shook hands or at the very minimum bumped fists. But the youngling did not offer either.

  So he simply nodded without words, even as his eyes landed on the blue lips, the light lavender eyes of the youth in front of him. A sight which found Tyshar holding his breath, his body going into lockdown.

  “Reg? Where are your manners?” A rough voice called from behind and Ty heard the squeak of both leather and metal before a very large, very confident and fully-grown Basule pushed the youngling aside and reached out a hand. “I’m C’ynyt Treslyng Droos, mated to Blythe Whitefeather of the Lakota-Sioux nation. I welcome you to our home, Protector, and beg your indulgence for my no-mannered son.”

  Tyshar’s eyes did a quick roam over the other male, taking in his size, his coloring before his gaze flicked to the hand held out in an Earth gesture of friendliness

  “And I am Tyshar Rumkylt Rell, of the Picari Protectorate, currently on a mission to Earth to secure a mate in order to replenish our populace. You are well met, C’ynyt Droos and I appreciate your invitation into your family’s home.” The fact the Basule gave him a warm greeting, offered in perfectly flawless Baspic, found Tyshar responding in kind as he shook the other alien’s hand.

  But as it was, Tyshar’s arms were soon filled with Wyst’s pixie, who had run to him, ducking underneath the trunk-sized bicep of the Basule to throw herself against his chest.

  “You’re here, Ty,” she said, tears in her voice. “You’re really here!”

  “Yes, Wyst’s Pam. I am here.” Pressing his cheek to the top of her curls, Tyshar took a moment to close his eyes and breath in, to re-familiarizing himself with both the feel and smell of her. Raising his chin, his look collided with the Basule’s and he saw the other man nod in acceptance. And it was then, and only then, Tyshar allowed himself to take a step and enter into the ‘house’ of his enemy.

  “Greetings, brother,” Wyst offered from a doorway where a dark-haired unknown female fluttered to, propping her shoulder into his warrior-brother’s armpit, as if to offer a steadiness Tyshar could surmise wasn’t yet there. “Glad you made it.”

  “Can we talk in English, please?” Pam asked, her face shifting from male to male. “I don’t know about you, but this is kinda a big thing for me. My new friends meeting one of my old ones and all.”

  Tyshar took another couple of steps into the room and was surprised by the sound of the door closing behind him. Turning he watched a rueful grin spread over C’ynyt son’s face. “Sorry if I was disrespectful. Welcome to our place, man.”

  “Thank you,” Tyshar replied, turning back to assess the other Protector as he moved to Wyst, taking his warrior brother’s weight and helping him to the couch.

  “Dinner will be ready in a moment,” C’ynyt’s woman announced, apropos of nothing which made Tyshar nod again in wordlessness agreement. He turned his attention to the other male, grinning as Pam performed small niceties to make Wyst more comfortable—a small pillow behind his back, a knitted throw over his chest and lap.

  “Are you well, Wyst? Healing from your wounds from Jyrl’s crew?”

  Wyst sucked in a breath and grabbed at his bandage, so white against the bronze of his naked chest, before answering. “Yes. Thanks to the help of C’ynyt’s blood.”

  Tyshar blinked a couple of times, trying and failing to convert the English words into something he understood. So Wyst repeated them in Picari, which only left the dark Nutrolian more confused. “He shared your blood?”

  “No. I gave him my blood to replace what he lost.” C’ynyt’s firm statement seemed to be offered in a manner of both assurance and glee. Which would’ve been the case if Tyshar had been in a reversed position. But would he have ever allowed his blood to be used to help heal a Basule pirate?

  “And it worked, Ty! Praise every god and goddess in the skies over us, it freaking worked!” The small blonde carefully sat next to her warrior and tilted her determined chin his way, as if to refute whatever objections Tyshar might raise.

  But he had none. Not if what transpired had kept his friend and mission-brother on this side of Gyed’s ether.

  “Dinner’s ready,” C’ynyt’s mate announced, her hand on the shoulder of the large pirate seated across the room. “Let’s eat while it’s hot.”

  Waiting for everyone else to move to the table, Tyshar’s eyes went over the group only stilling when he spied a female he’d yet to be introduced. And one once he saw her, he couldn’t take his eyes away.

  She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen: tall, yet fully curved in all the ways a male could want. With her blue hair and lips, her darting purple eyes, she was all the things Tyshar wanted in his life. To look upon her was to see the promise of every moment for the rest of his existence on this side of Gyed’s veil.

  And he hadn’t even heard her speak.

  So struck was he, his steps faltered and he found himself unable to move, to take one of the two empty chairs around the table where everyone was gathered.

  And as he watched, the beautiful, exotic female bent over, scrubbing her fingers over her thigh.

  In the same exact place his goddess Gyed had positioned his wahrom.

  *.*.*.*.*

  “Okay, so. It sounds like Leah’s Starla…can you believe that name? Starla is due to arrive in maybe a week and a half—”

  “If I read her signs correctly, Pam. I could be wrong, you know,” Blythe interrupted before taking a bite of the succulent roast she’d prepared. “It could be two weeks or even three, but I doubt it.”

  I got it. Midwifery wasn’t an exact science especially when a gi
rl was getting the high-hard vigorously and often. “Either way, we need to get to them as soon as physically possible to help with her birth.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’, Kemosabe?” All movement and side conversations stopped and every eye came to rest on Wyst after he’d said the most human thing I’d ever heard pass his lips. His cheeks took on a ruddy hue and he shrugged before offering, “It was something Pete said to me once. Did I not use it properly?”

  “Perfecto, dude,” Reg replied with a small chuckle, his lavender eyes dancing. “We’ll have you talking like a native in no time.”

  While I thought Wyst was cute as hell, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to sound like everybody else. “Did I say us, babe? I don’t think I did because nobody thinks you’re gonna be much help. In fact, I think it should only be me and maybe Dani if C’ynyt can spare her,” I shot back in an affronted tone. Geesh, seriously? “The rest of you guys can help keep Rykhan in check as she yells.”

  “She will be yelling?” Wyst’s already pale face went even paler, if that was possible.

  C’ynyt leaned an elbow on the table and leaned towards my guy. “Dude, you don’t even want to know. Not if you want to get your tailpor up later to pleasure your mate.”

  I glanced at Wyst and found him fiercely scowling down into his plate.

  “Stop it, Cyn. You know you’re saying that only to scare him.” Placing a hand on my guy’s back, I started rubbing while spearing Dani’s dad a glare. “Leah will be fine, baby. Giving birth is the natural order of things. And if a girl’s gotta scream to let off some steam, it’s all good.”

  “Scream? No one warned me of screaming. I won’t be able to contain myself if there’s screaming!” Wyst’s face had taken on a shade a green I really didn’t like.

  Oh shit.

  “I won’t be able to contain myself either, much less Rykhan if there is screaming,” Ty announced, placing his fork carefully down on his plate. “Is that how human women give birth? By yelling and screaming?”

  Double shit with a side of oh-hell.

  But it was Dani who saved the day. “Not all of us give birth the same way. I’ve seen it with those my mom and I help who can’t afford a doctor or the hospital. Some scream, some yell but others only grunt. It’s all because of the effort they put into pushing that beautiful being out. Helping it come into the world so they and their mates can welcome it into the world and into their arms.”

  I was awestruck, never knowing the poetry Dani carried inside. And if my eyes were not mistaken, neither did anyone else around that food-ladened table. Especially not Tyshar, whose face expressed such awe, such deep emotion he looked as if Dani hung the moon and the very heavens all by herself.

  Prodding Wyst in his uninjured side, I felt more than saw his attention on me.

  I think we’ve got a mating in progress, big guy.

  He turned to look at Dani before his eyes went to Ty. But she is a Basule…

  A hybrid, babe. Maybe just the hybrid girl for him.

  Just then the doorbell rang and C’ynyt leaned back in his chair, stretching to look through the living room and out the large window facing the street. “It’s Pete. Get the door, Reg.” Without being asked, Blythe stood and got another plate, filling it and sitting it in the empty space between Ty and Reg, leaving me to think having the old man show up at dinner time was a pretty regular event in the Droos household.

  “Well now,” Pete offered glancing around the large table before seating himself. Picking up his fork he nodded to Wyst and me before turning to Ty. “Here’s a new face. Howdy. I’m Pete.”

  “Tyshar. A friend of Wyst.” It kind of irked me Ty didn’t name me as a friend too during the intros.

  After giving Pete time to dig into his meal, C’ynyt finally looked at him directly. “What brings you out, old man, besides to mooch another meal off me and my family?”

  Pete grinned without the least bit of shame at being called out. “Two reasons. First is the Sheriff is going around town, doing his investigation and filling out paperwork to file a report about the damages about some sort of firefight. Asking folks if they know what happened. Hasn’t found a soul who can give an eyewitness account.”

  C’ynyt and Wyst shared a long wordless look before each of them looked back to their plates.

  “Humph, that’s what I thought,” Pete mumbled before looking at Wyst. “Secondly, the part for your car came in. It’s too late to go tonight but you wanna take care of it in the morning?”

  “If the healer names me as healthy, tomorrow will be fine.” Wyst looked at Blythe and I liked both the nod and the soft smile she gave my man in reply.

  “You’re hurt? How’d that happen or is it another sitch nobody saw?” Pete was onto us and didn’t hesitate to let everyone in the room know it.

  Wyst’s gaze flicked to C’ynyt before it fell back to his almost empty dish.

  “He tripped,” the former Sulari pirate stated firmly and in such a way all of us knew the subject was closed. “I’ll take him and his buddy to wherever they’re going when Blythe gives the okay.”

  “Gotcha,” old Pete mumbled around another hefty mouthful of food. “Though gotta say, a man could die of curiosity with all the secreted shit flying around Wayward.”

  “You ain’t a cat, Pete. Now shut up and eat or I’ll rethink opening the door to you when food’s on the table.” C’ynyt didn’t even look up when offering the threat, but I noticed Pete took the warning and applied himself to his dinner with renewed enthusiasm.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Wyst counted off the last of the warm-up moves in C’ynyt’s converted garage, the ones he knew from prior experience would build back his strength and overcome the weakness in his chest. “Ninety-nine, one-hundred,” he breathed, only feeling the slightest twinge in his chest at the last of his moves.

  “Dude! A hunnerd push-ups in less than three minutes?” Reg’s announcement made C’ynyt’s and Tyshar’s eyes drift to him. “You are so fucking the man!”

  Unwanted attention for something so mundane found Wyst shooting to his feet and aiming towards the large apparatus C’ynyt called a ‘punching bag’. But even then, he heard his pixie’s voice in his head.

  Accept the kid’s praise, moron. He’s only had his dad as an example of what’s possible so you and Ty are like larger than life to him. Letting him know what’s possible for him…for the man he can become when he grows up.

  I am not a good example of a good and worthy male, my Pam, though I try to be. He would be better off to look to his tra-pa or Tyshar as a mentor. Otherwise I would accept and admit what we have between us.

  There was a break of silence between his and his mate’s thoughts, one he knew she’d done in order to stop his line of reasoning. I’m not going there. We agreed to wait on that shit, right? Then stick with the freaking program, ass-hat. And let me get back to Blythe’s lessons about the whole labor and delivery process.

  Wyst aimed a hard punch at the leather, sand-filled bag he hoped would hide his grin at his mate’s words. It was almost humorous who was the one most reluctant to expose what they’d found between them. Although she still insisted on covering up her warrior’s mark every morning, the growing feeling which beat between them couldn’t be denied. Not as they sat together, eating the food the females prepared and most definitely not when they were alone in their assigned room.

  Because the truth of it was, once she’d unapologetically allowed him to see his warrior’s symbol on her wrist, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Bringing forth sweet fervent sighs of want, feeling her shift toward him in desire, opening her hidden depths to him again and again until they both lay panting and replete on their borrowed mattress.

  How he’d followed her lead and used his mouth on her tyad, bringing her to fullness as her sweetly curved hips hunched and fell away from his ever questing tongue. Something he’d never thought to do until she’d used her mouth on him first.

  Then there were the sleepy mornin
g awakenings of lying on their sides, legs scissoring as he took her from the side. Expending minimal effort as he found maximum pleasure in the delights of her heated, swollen depths.

  But it was also in just sharing a knowing gaze, a sweet-passing caress as they moved within C’ynyt’s abode, a place he’d discovered held as much love and acceptance as any of those on Nutrol. And gave credence to the man’s stories naming them as cousins.

  The fact was, Wyst hoped his and Pam’s house would contain the same as he’d found in the Sulari pirate’s. The same joy and laughter, the same simplicity in enjoying the sound of his mate’s laugh as she prepared his meal, the same acceptance for others be they human or otherwise.

  Pete had been by often in the three days of Blythe insisted Wyst spend healing, crowing over how his business had been spared in the battle. But the human’s teasing was tempered with care and concern, an acceptance as a friend Wyst wasn’t sure was earned. “Shit happens, buddy. C’ynyt’s place got destroyed and yet I’m still standing. That’s just how the dice rolls.” And Wyst understood the other man’s philosophy. Bad things happened to good people. And yet old Pete taught him it was up to the unhurt to help in the rebuilding of the others.

  Wyst only wished he’d been physically able to do so. Tyshar worked it, even his Pam, but Blythe had not yet given her approval he could. And that lack chaffed at him sorely.

  “You’re gonna break the bag, dude,” C’ynyt announced, coming up beside him and grabbing at one of the ‘boxing’ gloves Wyst wore. “Don’t want a shitload of sand on the floor and don’t need you busting a gut to prove you’re 100% back to normal.”

  Without thinking, Wyst replied, only on a different subject than the one C’ynyt brought up. “Since I am back to full health, I need to repair my transport.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” The Sulari released Wyst’s hand and, tilting his head, grinned. “You anxious to get on the road or something?”

  “We both are,” Tyshar announced, coming up beside the two while flexing his fingers. “The birth of Rykhan’s youngling will be momentous for everyone.”