by Amanda Milo
We all blink to that.
Mandi breaks the silence. “When it gets hot out, you’re going to sweat in the belt. It sucks,” she offers, clearly from a well of some sorry experience.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I say lightly. And I stand—biting back my grimace as just that short sit-down does indeed result in some unpleasant… sticking. Ick. So much to get used to in such a short window of time. Bash is lucky I’m pretty spectacular when it comes to adjusting to doing things a little differently from the norm. Did I ask for extravagant wedding diamonds? I did not. Did I let him strap three pounds of beaten metal on my ass? I so did. I’m winning at this mate-of-a-crazy-Rakhii thing. “Okay ladies—and gents,” I add, remembering to include a clearly-happy-to-be-included-Jonohkada. “Time to get to work before my new husband ruins his Crying Counter record. He’s so proud of it.”
Beth’s husband Ekan is suddenly at Beth’s side, gallantly helping her rise from the rock she’s been perched on. Mandi’s cat silently steps forward, and it looks like he’s glaring down at her at first but then I realize that’s just his face. He’s got an angry catman face, or at least a fearsomely disapproving one. He offers Mandi his paw-like hand, and she takes it, and he swoops in—and he kisses her.
In front of everyone, just like that.
We all lose our minds.
It’s like when you’d go to a baseball game (before they paid actors to make scenes on the big screen), and you saw the kiss cam land on a couple who looked cute together and you hoped something wildly romantic would happen, and then it did.
“Ahhh, this is the best day!” I squeak-cheer, thrilled.
Gracie high-fives me, and holds up a high-five for a surprised Jonoh before Dohrein steps between them, his wings forcefully knocking Jonoh back.
“Awww,” a few of us girls murmur as Jonoh gives ground and holds up his hands in surrender.
“Sorry,” Gracie says to her mate and to Jonoh. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Dohrein casts a warning look on us, like, Don’t feel sorry for him. “Imagine for a click that Jonohkada has a woman and your mate just clapped hands with her right in front of you.”
“Kill him, got it,” I say.
Gracie slaps me on the shoulder.
“I mean in the scenario,” I clarify. I lean around Gracie and wave to Jonoh. “I don’t mean you, you know?”
Jonoh gives me an easy nod. “Of course.”
I turn back to the Catman-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and Mandi. “But shh, shh, back to our favorite channel!” I clap my hand on my thigh, cheering for them, grinning. Callie and Angie join in, and so does Jonoh, because he really is awesome. Gracie’s hands are captured between Dohrein’s, but I know she’s clapping in spirit even as her hob is giving her I’m going to fuck you so hard later eyes for daring to make contact with Jonoh. And fair enough: Dohrein has a point.
Mandi rolls her eyes at us and her free hand comes up, I think, to show us a finger but her cat catches her by this free wrist and makes her not-free. Suddenly, he’s taking her mouth again—biting her lips, kissing her, sucking face with her in the hottest display of alien-human PDA I’ve seen in all my time here, and you have to know that these aliens are not shy about showing everyone how they love their women. (Dohrein and Gracie in particular have a reputation for cavorting in public by him simply closing his wings around her so they have semi-privacy. Naughty lovebirds. It’s sweet though, to see them so in love.)
I cup my hand to my mouth to shout encouragement with everyone else who is so damn happy to see this couple finally going public, but Gracie edges against me.
I’m so surprised—shocked like heck, actually—to realize that she’s not cheering with everyone else, that my arm drops. “Are you okay?” I wave to indicate the pair on display for the whole quarry. “The Mandi and Kitty Cat show is like your personal channel. Why aren’t you going nuts for them?”
Gracie barely spares them a glance. “I’m wicked thrilled for them. This is actually the second episode I’ve seen today.”
“What? Do tell!”
“Later,” she promises as people around us keep cheering—and I distinctly hear my wonderful husband’s furious roar. I don’t pay close enough attention to hear what he orders, because I can imagine it consists of Get to work or I’ll kill you all! or something equally motivational that he’d get a lawsuit for if we were on Earth. We stand, with me turning my body in his direction, intending to join him—but first I have to hear this. Because what can be more engrossing than Mandi and her man? Gracie ignores Bash’s first roars too, scratching at her neck in a weirdly nervous way. An uncharacteristically nervous way. “But ah… just let me move into Mom Mode on you for a hot second. Are you sure that… Bash is over his Gryfala?”
Kitty Cat Show on pause, Bash is going to kill anyone still standing here if we don’t all get to work, and Gracie is nervous about…? “His…” I shake my head. “Of course he is. We had that heart to heart before he took me to get mated.”
Gracie is watching me out of the corner of her eye and the way she’s doing it is making my stomach cramp. “So… you know who owns his quarry?”
It feels like time stops.
“I’m sorry?” I manage through a tight esophagus. I can’t even swallow. The action stalls out, making my saliva hang in the back of my throat like an angry liquid walnut. Or an orange. It burns like citric acid and my throat feels way more choked than by a mere walnut.
Gracie’s eyes shoot beyond me, then flick back to mine and she very quickly finishes, “Don’t freak out, but maybe ask him if he’s over his lady boss.”
I suck in a breath; I choke on my spit.
Gracie grimaces. “My Gryfala-in-law mentioned that she wasn’t pleased to be paying the high fees to quarry stone out of here, so she’s sent her hobs to parlay with the female who owns all this. My Gryfala-in-law is hoping to buy her out. Then she’ll be the one who owns every scrap of rock she’ll be building our cages with—and then she’ll be Bash’s boss. She was a little worried to move forward with this plan until she learned he was finally interested in a human. She’s been hoping with the army of women I bring in here to work rock that one would finally turn his eye. She thought he might not want to transfer his employ to someone other than the Gryfala he… he uh…” She winces and shoots me a concerned look. “Well, I’ll pass your Mated status along. That’s going to make my GIL very happy to hear, just as long as it means his loyalty is solidly severed.” She bites her lip and makes a genuinely hopeful face for me.
I can’t respond.
No. Nooo. The Gryfala who fucked up his head—the woman who is at least a good deal of the reason for Bash feeling insecure enough that my virtue is at this very moment being guarded by panties with teeth… She’s the mistress to his master of the quarry.
(In the interests of fairness, I might also be decked out in metal panties for the simple reason that Bash is a kinky sucker. The sight of them on me did get him really hot.)
Still. The reportedly gorgeous (because all Gryfala are crazy gorgeous), successful (because they’re all insanely successful), brilliant (they’re geniuses, all of them) woman who is such a knockout in bed that she’s got a harem of men willing to share her rather than leave her happens to be my husband’s ex-lover and she’s his current and long-time employer.
Good Lord. And to think my biggest worry all of seven seconds ago was what I was going to do if I got an itch behind my belt.
But Gracie’s right: don’t freak out. What’s there for me to feel concerned, threatened, and inferior about?
Bah, let’s get real: what’s in this crisis cookie dough that I shouldn’t feel threatened/concerned/inferior about?
This is like every worst scenario ever. And such a romance cliché. Find the alien of your dreams, wear down his misgivings about your whole species, finally make it to a happy ending—only to find that his abrasive grouch self could totally still be stuck on his ex who’s had his marionette strings in her hands this whole time and I
had no idea—DAMN IT!
Dimly, I’m aware that Dohrein is snagging Gracie with his wings, and rescuing her from Bash’s warpath. Only, I don’t even really see that he’s on the warpath. I mean, sure, I can see that he’s prowling up to me like the sexy beast he is, but I’m suddenly so miserable, I can barely appreciate the view.
His rough hand wraps around my face with the tenderest concern. His voice could slice through rhino hide when he growls, “What did that pup-heavy hellbeast say to you?”
“That’s my mate you’re disparaging,” Dohrein warns.
“Did you just call her pup-heavy?” I ask, horrified in a distracted way.
“That mouthy underworld she-creature is going to drop a litter any day,” Bash explains, his pure and penetrating greens searching mine with an almost frantic worry. “What other way would you have me refer to her state and what has she done to upset you?”
I reach up and wrap my hand around his wrist. I don’t force him away from my face, I just hold onto him. “It wasn’t Gracie.”
Bash’s eyes flash and he casts a paint-peeling glower on everybody in our vicinity. “Who then?” Flames puff out of his lips. “Where is that Jonohkada?”
Gracie's growl is vicious. Dohrein has to reel her back further. “Hey!” she snarls at Bash. “You leave him alone! He didn’t do anything!”
Bash’s tail whips up between her and me, like his tail is a forcefield that will stop her influence. Except that she isn’t trying to exert her influence; she’s trying to exonerate her innocent friend. My mate is the crazy judge and jury and I’m afraid he’d be too happy to be an executioner too. “Jonoh didn’t bother me,” I groan. “By the pope, leave the poor guy alone.”
My defense of Jonohkada does not put Bash in a happier or less-likely-to-maim-someone mood. His gaze leaves mine to peer accusingly around, like he’ll find that very nice hob and he’ll use him to vent some frustration.
“Gracie, hide Jonoh,” I warn and reach up to grab Bash by the ear. “Look at me. Focus on me right now. You want to know why I’m freaking out?”
“Enlighten me,” he answers, all his sharp teeth gleaming dangerously.
“Okay, everybody, let’s give them privacy,” I hear Angie call.
“Show’s over,” Mandi adds. Then she hisses in a whisper that, if I can hear it, I know Bash can too, “Jonoh, follow Gracie!”
“I’m here for my quarry shift,” he calls to her, adorably nonplussed. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch his wings fall slowly to the ground, like deflating balloons in the shape of colorful bat wings. “If I leave, I’ll be late.”
“Bash is going to kill you if you don’t get out of here,” she whisper-shouts to him.
“Oh, I see,” Jonoh says agreeably. “In this case, I do prefer the tardy option.”
“Right? Get gone, boy,” she orders him.
Bash’s tail wraps around my elbow. He doesn’t tug my arm down so that he can charge after a certain clueless hob, but I wonder if he’s thinking about it.
“Information has upset me,” I tell him.
His eyes turn a little less murderous and more focused on me—and they become more confused than anything. “What information could upset you?”
I’m still holding his ear. I let it go, brushing my fingers over the back of it lightly. It must tickle, because he flicks it, bumping my hand twice but not hard. Just reflexively. “Bash, does your ex own your quarry? Does she still visit you?” I feel my eyes grow wide as horrific scenarios occur, born as diabolical eggs that instantaneously incubate, hatch, and blossom into acidic green alien pus that starts eating away at my mind. Scenarios like sexy boss lunchtime, big brawny quarry worker quickies, and paying Bash ‘under the table.’ Hell, on top of the table too, why not.
His brilliant, beautiful, super sexy Gryfala.
No wonder he’s still so messed up in his headspace. She’s never left it.
“What,” Bash asks, confused, “does exown mean?”
I try to swallow past the lump in my throat. My eyes try to leak a little. “Not exown—does your ex own.”
Bash is beginning to look frustrated and exasperated. “My what?”
“Your ex—your…” my voice breaks, causing Bash to jerk back, “your ex-Gryfala, Bash!”
“My...?” He rears up, frowning mightily. He takes me by the arm—with his hand now. His tail never left me. He starts hauling us away, but to my surprise, we aren’t headed in the direction of the nearest rock pile.
“Where are we going? We aren’t working?”
“We’re going to fix this communication issue between us,” he says with finality. Like somehow, if we change the way we hear reality/each other’s words, it will make our circumstances all better.
To everyone else in the quarry, he bellows, “KEEP WORKING! And don’t go near that Counter. Isla will not be weeping because of me, and if I find my numbers gone, I will flame roast every last one of you!”
CHAPTER 41
BASH
(Crying Counter: Outstanding)
I haul Isla to the Na’riths. If anyone can fix her, this lot will have the equipment. “Switch Isla’s translator so that she speaks in Gryph to me. No more of this human-to-Gryph. She is my mate and we can barely converse; she makes no sense.”
“That’s not the fault of the tech,” the pirate says, grinning. “That’s marriage.”
“Funny,” I growl.
The Na’rith makes adjustments to my translator rather than Isla’s, on account of the process having the possibility of being painful. Thus, rather than have her speak my native tongue, I get a download of more human words and phrases and other confusing data that will hopefully sort itself out whenever I have discussions with my mate.
We return to the quarry. I watch Isla become fraught with silence. Understandably, seeing my mate upset makes me upset. Unfortunately, she says she needs time to think and she tells me that she wants to work first rather than have this issue out.
On any other day, at nearly any other time, I’d approve of her throwing herself into a task. But I want her to throw herself into fixing what feels so very, very wrong between us.
When I tug Isla aside and tell her this, she assures me we will work on it, but first I must let her think.
Think. Think? I’m losing my teveking mind! But I let her be. I stare at her, but I try my best not to crowd her, and my mate who talks nearly nonstop retreats to seek solitude in herself.
My wrath turns darker than the purple-midnight core of our planet.
I’ve heard the humans claim that their ‘feelings’ can ‘bleed out’ onto others when they’re in a mood. My emotions don’t bleed, but the humans around me nearly do.
The humans become anxious, unsure why I’m snarling more than usual, and then they’re more anxious when I begin to yell at them. “No—tevek no, don’t you dare cry I’m not angry with you CRITE I SAID I’M NOT ANGERED! STOP CRYING THIS INSTANT!”
“Bash, whoa, whoa,” Isla tries to draw me away, but she does so still looking so glum, I’m infuriated. I have a vocation that is physically demanding, one that has honed my body, built me so that there is almost nothing that I can’t lift or crush. Yet all the strength in the world cannot help me lift or haul away or fix whatever is upsetting my beloved mate. “Isla,” I growl. “I am begging you to speak to me. What is causing you to be sad?”
Isla glances around the quarry stirring with her nervous friends, or tries to. I catch her with my tail and tighten her right to my front, roping us together by wrapping it around us both.
“Let’s maybe not talk about this here,” she hedges, eyes not quite meeting mine.
“Teveking agreed,” I say, and I loosen my tail only so that I can haul her up and over my shoulder. My dorsal spines slap low against my back almost with anticipation. They aren’t filled; she’s in no danger of being stabbed by them now and thereby struck with their toxin. She even gathers one in her hand for leverage as she hangs upside down.
“Bash!
” she screeches—and then she laughs.
My shoulders relax, hearing her happy sound. This causes the level of her body to lower until she comes to rest under my ear. I adjust where I clutch her hips and pet her metal-covered rump. I grow hard.
Isla’s fist clutches the dorsal spine she has a grip on. “Um, babe? Could you not fondle my ass? At least wait until we’re in the batcave and we can do something about it—”
“YOU THERE!” I bellow, glad that Isla’s ears are safe from my shouting with her at my back. “You stay away from that wall! I was gentle with the lot of you and your tears, if you’ve shed any, do not count now. Isla and I are taking a brief breaking time. The rest of you are to do the same. And know this: if I come back to a zero on my counter, I will beat every one of you I can get ahold of!”
“I don’t think sex on the regular is mellowing him out like you thought it would,” Mandi whispers to Gracie in decibels loud enough the whole quarry can hear.
Gracie doesn’t even attempt to whisper. She returns, “Give Isla a chance to work him. Let’s see what he’s like when he gets back!”
A punching growl bursts up from my chest, but Isla pats me on the back, beside my swelling spines. “Leave them be. I’m ready to talk.”
CHAPTER 42
ISLA
It’s a quick and quiet hike back to the cave… not that we make it there. I’m so quiet, Bash doesn’t feel like waiting for the privacy of his home, and halfway across the mesa, he changes direction and leads me to the Narwari’s stable rather than take me down into the old quarry.
He marches in with me and orders, “Out,” to the hobs who are cleaning stalls.
They go.
Bash’s hand tugs on mine and I look up to meet his concerned gaze. “Isla, speak to me. What has you so unhappy?” The part of his tail just behind his blades forms a soft loop and pets carefully along the side of my face.
“Who bosses you around?” I ask him.
“Not you.”
Despite myself, I smirk. It’s a sad one though. “Give me time. We haven’t been married long. And I meant at work.”