by Amanda Milo
Fire escapes from Bash’s nostrils and his tail whips angrily behind him. “Isla, I don’t know what a ‘normal guy’ is.”
I’m smiling so hard I feel a dimple form in my cheek. “This explains some things.”
Bash’s eyes are pinned on the spot next to my lips, at my dimple-impression. He mutters something too low for me to catch, sounding very distracted.
Gracie and Angie are calling to people, “All right, folks, why don’t we clear out of here. Someone unhitch the Narwari and take them to the stables.”
“Are they leaving without my permission?” Bash asks in a deadly voice.
“...kill us or bang her,” Beth is saying, helping to move people along. “You know the odds of which way this guy could lean, so let’s go, everybody out of here.”
“They’re directing my workforce to exit this site without consulting me,” Bash continues speaking in a dangerously level tone. One that sounds like it could explode at any second.
“They’re helping you,” I contend.
“They are not.”
“They are!”
“Those flameless eternal punishments are driving me to the brink of insanity.”
Shuffling off to the side of us, Beth and Ekan laugh together, quoting, “The Cliffs of Insanity!” as they make their way to the steps that exit the quarry.
Oquillion, another of her pirate husbands, must see Bash’s nonplussed angry face because he explains as he passes us, “The Princess Bride. It’s a movie.”
“Humans and their damned movie-ing,” Bash mutters. He waves a hand capped with killing talons. “Get out of here, all of you. I can’t stand to look at your freakish smoothness and hear of your strange customs anymore.”
I start to pull ahead of him to go too, but to my relief and delight, Bash’s tail hooks around my short arm. “Not you.”
“You make me feel so speschial,” I sigh happily, falling into step beside him.
“You must be special,” he agrees, finally sounding amused more than murderous. “You are the only human who does not run from me.”
He doesn’t sound bothered by this, but still. I don’t want him to think he’s a monster, or anything. At least not on the outside. “Look at you. You’ve got sexy all over you with the big horns and the angry tail and that murderous glint in your eye. I can’t imagine why one of these women hasn’t run off with you yet. I mean, they seem to run from you fine,” I say, eyeing the women still scrambling out of Bash’s warpath.
“Stop speaking, Isla,” Bash orders. He shocks me by tugging on a lock of my hair. “Or I might feel forced to become creative in finding ways to encourage your silence.”
Whoa, happy-belly-shiver. “Really?” I croak.
Bash’s eyes narrow dangerously. “You’re incapable of not speaking.”
“Not true,” I argue, making him widen his eyes pointedly. “I’m told I don’t talk in my sleep.”
Instead of smiling or laughing like I expect and honestly was looking forward to, Bash’s expression turns Stygian black. “Who has been with you while you sleep to know this?”
I wave my hand in front of his face, making his eyes narrow and his nostrils flare and puff smoke. “Never mind that. That’s not the point of this conversation.”
“What is,” Bash says, fiery green eyes fixed on me, “the point of this conversation?”
“We’re working out how to get together. Here, let’s try holding hands.” I take his, and because he’s not expecting my palm to slide against his palm, he jumps. I ignore his reaction. I’m taming a wild alien, this twitchiness is to be expected. “It’s basically all the rage in stage one of dating. Or so I think it goes.”
His narrowed eyes are saying all the things. “You don’t know?”
I shrug and run my thumb along his calluses. “Guess things always moved too fast for this part. The downside of hookups, right?”
As always, Bash is peering down at me like he’s not catching everything I’m saying and he sort of looks like he could shake me for it. But his warm hand closes gently on mine, and doesn’t let go.
CHAPTER 25
ISLA
“Those deserters,” Bash mutter-complains, staring at the end of the nearly-emptied quarry where all of his workers are fleeing.
“Just because they left doesn’t mean we have to abandon work,” I point out.
Still clutching my hand, Bash walks us to a lineup of chisels and picks that need sharpening. Something I’ve never done but I’m happy to have Bash teach me—and he is insistent on teaching me because work must go on.
But that's fine by me. We enjoy each other’s company while getting tool repair done.
***
“Some humans went back to your home planet. You were not one of them?”
“Nope. I didn’t get here til after everyone from that trip got back. I didn’t get the chance to see Earth one last time.”
“Isla,” Bash starts, and suddenly I notice he’s all tense. I poke him in the ribs to snap him out of it, but he keeps his face averted. All his quills are standing on end—same for his dorsal spines. His tail swings behind us, snapping in an agitated, absent-minded arc that flicks lightly against my ankles every so often.
“What?”
“Were you taken from your dam or sires when you were stolen from your home planet?”
“My—” I brush my hair behind my ear. “No. Why?”
If possible, Bash’s body has stiffened even more. “I have heard humans do not keep harems but… were you taken from a mate then?” he finishes, voice harsher than the question calls for.
“Ha, yeah right.” I brush dirt from the leg of my pants.
Slowly, one glowering eye is turned enough in my direction to manage a baleful glare. “What sort of answer is that? You sound positively sarcastic. Is it a yay or a nay?”
Some of our most common phrases are already being adopted by hobs and even Rakhii. Yet Bash is still thrown by them. I give him an encouraging smile. “It’s a sarcastic expression meaning not a chance. I was man-less.”
A baseball-gloved sized hand suddenly wraps around my upper arm and tugs me right to his smoke-emitting nose. “If you could go back to your Earth, would you?” he asks, voice tight and raspy.
Surprised at his level of emotion, buoyed by his obvious interest, I tug on my arm until he lets me go. I bring my hand up to the back of my neck and blow out a breath. “I’ve actually thought about that question a lot.”
Bash says nothing but his tail speaks plenty—it slinks under the cuff of my pants and curls so gently around my ankle that I almost, almost wouldn’t have noticed if I were wearing taller socks. Because I’m only wearing this planet’s equivalent of crew-socks, my skin feels the smooth-pebbled texture of his surprisingly strong extra limb. My ankle definitely notices the way it tightens on me during my silence.
“Earth is… well, it’s home, you know? My mom died when I was sixteen, so my brother took guardianship of me. After a few years of dating this girl, he got married, and him and my sister-in-law are great, but I felt like a big third wheel so I knew it was time to move. I got my own place and lived alone.” I pick at a thread on my pants. “If I was dropped off on my doorstep right now, in this instant, do you know what I’d find?”
Bash swallows, turning away, his gaze fixed far off to the other end of the quarry. “Tell me.”
“Someone else would be living there. I’ve been gone for months. Everyone’s got to think I was murdered—I just up and disappeared—me, who has a squeaky-clean attendance record at work—”
“You are a diligent worker,” Bash acknowledges.
“—and when a person disappears, they don’t stop the world for you. A lot of my stuff is probably in my brother’s cramped little basement but I can’t guarantee that. My purse, my I.D., my debit card, my bank account—my freaking bank account is probably closed. They do that if it’s inactive. My driver’s license—all that stuff that you need in order to get transportation, to get e
ven a temporary place to stay, to pay for things like food—I don’t know where mine is. I had it on me when I was taken. My job? That’ll be gone too, because if you don’t show up for work, the show still has to go on. So now what? My brother and sister-in-law can’t float me the downpayment and first month’s rent for a new apartment. I’m a grown woman. That’s not their responsibility. Plus, they were barely covering all their own bills while I was alive—”
Bash twists to me, fully facing me, his quills raised, making him look shocked or super intense or both. “You have not died, Isla.”
“But I might as well have. Do I miss everything I loved about home? Yeah. There was a lot to like. It’s scary to leave everything behind. It hurts to leave everything behind. But even if I could go home, I won’t be home. I don’t have one anymore, and it would be a huge financial strain if my brother tried to put me up. And that’s not even getting into the territory of the authorities and all the questions they’d have about my sudden reappearance. It’s not like I have any good answers. So guess what? Here I am.”
Bash takes my face in his hands, startling me. “Yes. Here you are. You are…” His intensely colored eyes search mine. “You are with me.” His face nears mine. He whispers, “I regret that you are sad to turn your back on that life. But I do not regret that you are now in mine.”
CHAPTER 26
BASH
(Crying Counter: Meritorious)
She looks stunned that I’ve admitted a fraction of what I feel for her. “Well, thanks, Bash. From you, that’s a huge, huge compliment.”
“It is,” I confirm. I lean back, trying to calm myself. My insides are humming for her and it’s difficult to concentrate. “You are…” I cast about for words to describe Isla. “Great in counsel.”
“In counsel?” Isla repeats, beginning to grin up at me.
“Daft woman. I’m paying you a compliment. Stop arguing.”
“Sorry, right; by all means, continue.”
This would be a perfectly acceptable response except that she pairs it with a tiny laugh and a wide, rather princess-like wave of her arm.
I tip my horns, darkly acknowledging her lofty permission. “Brazen scaleless vermin. As I was saying, you… well, for a human, you do a mighty amount of work.”
“For a human?”
“Shush. And among the humans, you are the best of them. If I was given the permission, I would grind up their bones into powder and use them as mortar, and finally make them useful for something—but you I would spare.”
“Gee, Bash. Don’t hold back. Tell me how you feel about us.”
“I am,” I assert, my eyes flaring. “You, I would keep.”
The humor is wiped from Isla’s face. “Oh.” She stares up into my eyes. “I like you too.”
My fists clench, instinctively wanting to reach out and catch her. I refuse the impulse.
Claiming instincts rear up though, so loudly I can almost hear my body ask, Why? Why shouldn’t I give in to this attraction? It isn’t as if I haven’t begun bonding to Isla. I’m already gone for her. It’s only going to grow worse.
She could destroy me.
I crush the thought. I have tried to learn from my mistakes. I have watched Isla, and she hasn’t shown untoward affection for masses of males. She is not a Gryfala to take a harem. And if I can weave myself carefully around her heart, she will never want to part from me. Which is absolutely a must, because the more I spend time with her, the more I fear I can never part from her.
“Bash?” Isla asks.
I’m staring at her. I haven’t stopped staring at her. It’s too much intensity, and it’s making her nervous but I can’t stop. Instead, my tail wraps around her ankle, shackling her.
How do I make her want me like I want her?
When she drops her gaze to look down at her caught leg, I bring the back of my foreclaw along the side of her smooth face. “I noticed your lips are pale.”
Her head snaps up. Her browfurs almost touch. “Pale?”
I nod solemnly. “I believe we can restore your color if we do this…” I lean in and take her mouth.
CHAPTER 27
ISLA
Bash can kiss. He angles my face with his hand, tilting my mouth, encouraging me to open for him. His lips are surprisingly smooth despite being made up of scales. They’re firm and hot—as hot as he is, and he feels like a furnace as he keeps me trapped against him. His tongue meets mine—and the surface of it is heavily textured but not unpleasant. He takes my mouth like he does everything else, like he owns it, like nobody can stop him because he’s the master here.
He’s certainly mastering me.
Until… he just… stops.
He pulls back from me, breathing hard enough that I can’t help but be flattered. Did I cause him to get this excited?
Rhetorical question. We’re the only ones around; of course our zinging-hot kiss is the reason his ribs are heaving like he’s just run a couple of miles. “We need to stop,” he says.
My fingers tease up his side. “That is terrible advice. I’m rejecting it,” I declare, my lungs working overtime just to manage the oxygen intake process plus words.
There’s kind of a weird pause, like the tiniest, almost imperceptible hesitation before Bash looks at me. And in his eyes… for a second, there’s a flash of almost… unease.
The only way I could be more stunned is if a lightning bolt burst out of the sky and nailed me right in the back. Because Bash looks—not scared, but… extremely uneasy. Of me. “Hey,” I say, reaching up to cup his face.
Except he raises his head so that my fingers barely do more than graze his jaw.
What’s happening here? “Do you not want me to touch you?”
“Of course I want your touch on me,” he grates out.
I motion around us, to the very empty quarry. “Are we leading up to sex?” I ask.
Alluring green eyes flash to a brilliant shade of lime. “Yes.”
“Ohhh, are you worried about the bonding thing?”
Stern face in place, nose slightly in the air like it’s just killing him to have this conversation, this guy probably eschews feelings and all conversations involving said feelings—he gives me a chin jerk. “Yes.”
“Makes sense that you’re nervous.” I feel a little pang, because if Bash wanted to keep me forever, he wouldn’t be worried about bonding, right? But it doesn’t mean he won’t want to someday. I need to play this cool. Just like Earth, no guy wants to get locked down after one kiss. Plus, he said he had a bad experience. Of course he doesn’t want to get bonding-hitched without road testing this a little further first. That’s fair, right? Right. Chill out, Isla, you’re being crazy. “Everybody talks about it. Bonding, when Rakhii find a woman they connect with in a special way, I mean. But all right then, I can make this really simple for you. We can just have sex. I’m going to amaze you with my ability to do friends-with-benefits.”
If possible, Bash actually tenses up even more. Very, very low, and very, very quiet, so quiet I’d have missed hearing him if I wasn’t staring at him so hard, Bash asks, “What?”
I shrug. “No expectations. No,” I make quotes with my one hand’s fingers, “‘bonding.’” He gets to his feet, towering over me. “We can just fuck,” I finish, feeling weird saying the word. It feels crude coming out of my mouth, and with him standing above me all imposing, it makes me blush to say it. Even though it basically describes the commitment depth of every relationship I’ve ever had.
An arrow couldn’t pierce me more sharply than Bash’s reply: “Isla, I don’t want to fuck you.”
There’s a Rakhii word, tevek, that pretty much translates as fuck. But that’s not the word Bash uses. To hear him say my word, this word, in his thick accent—and to stay it so stonily and disapproving?
I die inside. I actually feel little petals on my inner sunflower shrivel up and fall. And they don’t float down to the bottom of my stomach like fall leaves leaving trees. They drop like stones
.
“Uh,” I say, blinking rapidly. “Oh, I’m—I’m sorry, I misread—I thought—”
Bash’s hands wrap all the way around my upper arms, his smallest finger reaching the sensitive skin of my elbow on my full arm, and his thumbs touching my shoulders, his hands are so broad. His teeth gleam like a Colgate commercial’s dream—if Colgate hired fanged aliens, that is. And his eyes spit fire as he glares down at me. Which is ironic, because he looks like he wants to literally spit fire.
Concerning, when he actually can.
“Do you know why I hate humans?” Bash asks, voice a dark rasp.
Embarrassed, hurt tears at his rejection are trying to slam tiny pickaxes into the backs of my eyeballs, so I’m blinking like someone’s blown dust in my face to keep the moisture from betraying my feelings. “Uh, no.”
So much for hiding how I’m feeling and trying to save my pride. I manage two words without bawling but my voice cracks and crackles like a Sun Chips bag.
(Seriously. There is no stealth-handling a bag of Sun Chips. You want to sneak ‘em, you can forget it. It’s like the manufacturer made their sacks a beacon for chip-lovers. All chip-lovers know what that crinkly racket is.)
Even as he scowls down at me, Bash’s eyebrows draw together. It seems like he’s trying to parse out the change in my voice as a distant process, struggling because he’s so fueled by his sudden, unexpected anger. “I hate humans because they remind me of Gryfala. I hate Gryfala because they love their hobs, but they only love to sample Rakhii.” Bash’s nose, covered in very small, smooth, roundish scales, brushes the tip of mine as he grits out. “They love their hobs—they’ll fuck a Rakhii.”
The word sounds extra ugly coming out of his throat now. My throat is too tight to speak, and my heart has shriveled to the size of a bleeding raisin. My chest tries to force out, “Oh,” but since my throat won’t work, the sound gets trapped, humming there until I can clear it enough to manage, “I meant something else.”