she was bored. While he was falling head over heels for her, she was putting on the breaks. She accused him of smothering her.” Anger burns through me just thinking about it. “I hope he ate her. Like the real eating, not the—” Yep, time to stop that thought train. “Definitely the real eating. We should sick Hotahn on her.” (Yes, we’re all still a little concerned that Hotahn will eat someone if he goes too long without food. It’s amazingly easy to get used to, and it’s not scary at all, as long as you always carry snacks in your pocket to toss his way every once in a while.) “No wonder Bash hates Gryfala. I haven’t even met her, and now I hate Gryfala!”
To my surprise, Gracie sobers even more. “Not to play the devil’s advocate, but there’s a chance his Gryfala—”
“Not his.” I think of Bash as mine. Not this faceless alien woman’s, no matter how much her actions warped him.
Gracie waves her hand, wordlessly acknowledging my claim on Bash. “There’s a chance a lot of these Gryfala aren’t twisting these Rakhii up maliciously. Think about it. These are barely-legal women leaving the rookery, leaving her sires and her dam for the first time, all by herself. She falls in love with a bunch of great hobs, gets bowled over by a hot young Rakhii, so she takes him on too. But suddenly he starts to get scary-possessive. Scary aggressive. It’s not natural for a Rakhii to share his mate and biologically he’s compelled to take out his love’s competition. So real quick it becomes a situation of all the other men she loves or him…”
I reach over myself to cup my smaller limb in my hand. My way of protectively crossing my arms over my chest. “So she cuts him loose. Dumps him. Kicks him to the curb.”
Gracie grimaces and tries to rub the bulge that her stomach has become. “It sounds harsh, and believe me, I’m not saying I approve of a lot of the treatment I’ve seen between Gryfala-and-males, but I am saying that I can understand being a kid in love and being scared out of my mind that if I don’t do something fast and drastic, something real bad is going to happen.” She points to Tara, who is cutting a stack of cards. No, she’s pointing to Tara’s mate, Brax, who is beside his woman, too far away for us to hear what we’re saying. He’s bending over her, his sunset-yellow scaled tail swishing lightly behind him, his face in Tara’s neck, his arms wrapped around her, keeping her spine plastered against his front. It’s a super affectionate clutch. But Tara’s other mate, a half-man, half-kangaroo guy—a kangaroo centaur, basically—he’s approaching Tara with a gameboard, and when he gets near her, Brax bares his teeth.
No longer looking gentle and happy. He’s deadly and possessive.
Tara twists so that she can glance up at Brax, a frown on her normally smiling mouth.
The kangaroo centaur doesn’t frown. He just raises a spray bottle and squirts Brax full in the face.
Brax only looks like he might snap the other alien’s head off for a few seconds—then whatever is in the spray takes effect, and he straightens, still keeping an arm around Tara, but not nearly being as aggressively threatening.
“That Rakhii’s brother?” Gracie says, her voice lowering even though they have to be too far away to hear—I think. “Killed his Gryfala’s hobs. Thirteen of them. Strangled each and every one of them one day.”
Umm, whoa.
Gracie’s eyes cut to me, taking in my sobering expression and she nods. “He felt really bad about it after. Apparently some of the hobs were guys he considered pretty close friends. But it didn’t stop him from breaking his chain and wringing the lives out of their necks.”
I let that sink in. I don’t have any choice but to let that sink in. That kind of imagery sticks with you. After a few moments where Gracie is uncharacteristically silent, I clear my throat. “So this Gryfala may have had some valid concerns about Bash. Maybe she had reason to cut loose and run. But now Bash has trust issues. Bash has reason to have his trust issues. I need to reassure him that I’m not going to joyride every Tom, Dick, and hob, and that I won’t be telling him to get lost as soon as we're done doing it all for the nookie.”
Gracie’s smile is a thin, commiserating slash.