look like ornamentation compared to Bash’s stabby-killing back-sticks. Suddenly, Bash’s mom gives me a winning smile. “Bash’s wrinkles are from endlessly scowling. And I was never blessed with daughters. But,” her smile is sly as she shoots a speaking look at Bash, “It looks like that’s about to change. Come in!” Her gaze snaps back to me, full of welcoming. “I’m Jyzu. I’m thrilled to meet the female that Bash finally—”
“Is bonded with,” Bash says. “We came for my blanket.”
Internally, I cheer. Externally, I keep it to a victorious suspiration: bonded!
Bash’s mom’s eyes roll up in her head and I twitch. Bash’s hand is cupped around my hip, and at my involuntary movement, his thumb begins soothingly sweeping the area in front of my hip bone.
Or, I think he intends for it to be soothing. Having him touching anywhere on my pelvis area is kind of a danger zone for me, what with his mom being right here. I scramble to catch his hand before I get turned on even a little, because I’d be mortified if his mom smells it.
I see Bash turning his head to me, a questioning look all over his hard-but-not-angry face, but I don’t look away from his mom because I realize she’s staring straight at the ceiling not like she’s in the throes of a seizure, but like she’s talking straight to God.
This is confirmed when she folds her hands, clasps them to her heart...s (Rakhii have more than one) and breathes, “Oh, Creator—THANK YOU!”
“Please stop,” Bash says.
“I’ve always said it would be a miracle if my Bubashuu stopped frightening away females—”
Bash sighs, and his hand around mine tenses a little, and suddenly I feel his claws. It doesn’t hurt, it just reminds me that he has them, and really soon, if he doesn’t chill, I might have to start praying to my own Creator so I can ask for this visit not to end in me (very human not-tough-skinned Isla) turning into a pincushion. Families bring out the crazy in the most laid back people, and Bash is not that. But I have to say, his mom seems nice.
“—and here he is, bringing home his female—You are a worker of impossible miracles!”
She’s still addressing their Creator.
I’m pretty entertained.
But it’s clearly making Bash uncomfortable. “Keep to this and we’re leaving,” Bash warns. “We can see this done without my blanket.”
Despite the threat in his words, Bash keeps me tight to him and guides me to enter through the charming doorway, into his parent’s cave abode. Inside, the floor is—no surprise—solid rock. More yellow-and-purple swirled than Bash’s cave, Bash’s parents’ home sports a floor surface that’s been smoothed either intentionally or tread-worn by time so that everything is polished marble.
The area is warm and cozy somehow, with exposed rock walls and timber beams that frame up the kitchen, forming rafters that double creatively as drying racks for all sorts of herbaceous plants. It looks like there’s half of a garden above us, with heather-colored stalks and faint bursts of fading colors on various drying flower petals. A garland made of more herb-looking greens curls all the way around the space, lending a decorative effect.
The place is cavernous. A whole lot bigger when viewed from the inside than it looked like it’d be on the outside. Glancing to the side of us, I find a large, deep sink and an expansive stretch of countertop. There’s no stove. Instead, there’s almost an open pit grill, stained a chalky black—but as this place is home to aliens who breathe fire, that’s to be expected. Below the stone slab countertop are wooden cupboards, all sporting embellished iron handles (or similar alien metals) that have been beaten and melted into shapes that look vaguely like Narwaris.
Along the back wall of the room are racks stocked with a rainbow of glass jars. The jar glass itself isn’t colorful—the contents are, along with each jar’s lid, which are shaped sort of like pumpkins, not a flat mason jar lid like I’m familiar with. It’s artsy. It’s cute. It reminds me of the decorative conchos Bash puts on harness leather for the sake of making pieces pleasant to look at as well as useful.
A thrill zings through me because now that I’ve had a peek into his private life, I see Bubashuu might have inherited his crafty side from his mom.
And it’s got to be said: Jyzu may have raised her kids in a cave, but she’s got some mad decorating skills—because she’s