stride and she struts towards the darkened doorway of my—
No. Our. We share this den together now.
My hearts swell and pump fiercely.
She stops suddenly… and immediately, I know what she sees. To her left is a wall shelf filled with everything I’ve collected from her since I’ve known her.
There’s also a bucket below the shelf filled with nothing but her rocks.
“Is this…” Isla asks, her voice trailing off as she reaches into the pile of her things and pulls out her mane’s controller-ring. “Is this my hairband?”
I remain silent so long, she glances at me over her shoulder.
“Yes,” I admit.
“And is that my glitter pen?”
“Yrrr.”
“What was that? And—Bash, is this…” She picks up a ball of paper, smooths it out, and reads the alien scribbles on it. “This was my scrap paper.” She looks back at me.
My tail flicks, agitated.
“That I threw away,” she stresses.
Uncomfortable, I glance away, trying to see past the smoke billowing up from my nostrils. “I know.”
“What is all this?” Her voice sounds odd, finally forcing my eyes back to hers to gauge her reaction.
She’s smiling. “Oh my GOSH—is this hoarding?!” She dances in place a little, either from her excitement or from her burgeoning need to ‘pee.’
When the Gryfala who kept me saw me hoarding her things, she panicked. It marked the end of what we had, which, it turned out, wasn’t the relationship I thought it was. On my side, I would never have walked away from her. But she all but ran from me that day. I told myself if I was ever stupid enough to be in that predicament again, for Creator’s sake, lie. Don’t admit how crazed you are for your female.
But I don’t lie. Because I am crazy for Isla, and she should know it. “Yes. I have been hoarding all of your things.” Wrapping papers from foodstuffs, spoons she ate meals from, rocks her hand collected, the controller bands that hold her mane. There’s even a stubby writing instrument. It’s one that she was keeping tucked behind her ear and she thought it fell out. It did, but instead of alerting her that it fell, I retrieved it from the ground and shamefully kept it hidden in my pocket. I touched it every chance I had until I started to become hard by the association of keeping her lost item as a trophy. At that point, I knew I was ill. I’ve gone through more anti-bonding spray to keep me from attacking males in her vicinity than any Rakhii the hobs have been supplying the elixir to save for Zadeon, the former gladiator.
Evidently, he is even more insane for his female.
I don’t envy him. Sometimes I think that if I were driven any madder, I’d wrap one of Isla’s limbs in my tail, and simply not let her go.
I’ve thought about that. A lot.
And there have been many nights that I’ve slept on a bluff near the compound. Under the stars, growing wet with the dew of the grass. Too brain-sick over a female to bother with a bedroll or any sort of protection for myself. The whirring of the security cameras irritated the tevek out of me, but I couldn’t make myself leave when I knew Isla was slumbering just inside.
Isla picks up one of her rocks that I’ve collected. “I remember you being weird about this! You’ve been keeping all this stuff? Everything my sweaty hand touched became special to you?” She lifts a wax-paper sandwich wrapper from three cycles ago. I watched her lick a substance off it called cheese. I’ve licked it every night since, even though the taste of her tongue has long since disappeared. “Wow. I didn’t know I could be so touched and a little freaked out at the same time.”
My hearts resume their beating rhythm when she turns to me and looks… thrilled. “You’re obsessed with me! I got mated to my very own sex machine stalker!”
CHAPTER 37
ISLA
So, if I were on Earth, and Bash were a human guy—I’d have to run away. Because girls, if a guy on Earth rifles through your trash, follows you at work, intimidates other men away from you, forces you to marry him, and chains you to his bed? It means your life got switched to the Lifetime channel and it’s time to get gone.
But Bash is not human.
He’s a Rakhii, and while I hear they’re all bonkers, I’ve also seen (and heard tell) that they’re one hundred percent devoted and safe. I don’t have