two horizontal lines and a vertical line to the very last character-strike in the string of alien text.
My glower should ignite her. “What did you just write?”
She drops the rock, dusting off her hands. “I changed it to zero.”
My ears sling forward. “Why?”
Gracie dares to send me a displeased face. “Not that you care, but you’re no longer running one day without making anyone cry, Bash.”
I glare at her. “I gained a mark.” I wave to what was a one. “You can’t take it back.”
Isla raises a stalling finger. “Remember how I said it was a counter? It resets to zero every time there’s an incident. If someone cries today, you lose your headway.”
“That,” I say firmly, “is asinine, and I have made no being weep this day.”
Isla winces (genuinely, this time), and Gracie slings her thumb to indicate my attention should go to something behind me.
As instructed, I turn. But I do it sending a withering look at whoever is lurking, waiting to catch flame.
Several someones stand huddled, it turns out. The females I drafted for assistance in reading my wall happen to be showing slight signs of emotional trauma. There is definite… sniffling. I growl, unimpressed. “Infernofire.” My eyes catch movement, and I glance over, noticing four humans standing in a knotted little grouping. One with a mane the color of sun-bleached straw, one with a short mane the color of pocket lint, one with a mane darker than a Narwari’s pupils, and one with a mane almost the color of a sunset. Not a spectacular sunset, just an average one. Yet still, she’s memorable. I suppose all of them are, because I know and remember all of them. And all four of the females are staring at me.
Four humans that I have at one point or another in the last two days… made cry. I narrow my eyes on them.
They nearly run over each other to flee.
I step forward, intent on capturing and questioning them, but a chilled, human-soft palm wraps around my tail.
Slowly, with a great arrow of disbelief hitting me square in the chest, I turn around to see who thought to catch me, to stay me.
It’s Isla. And by the mildly terrified look in her eyes, she realizes she will live to regret this.
We both look down at where her hand holds me. “So...” she fairly squeaks. “I have you by the tail.” Her swallow is audible.
“So,” I agree, “you’re about to lose your hand.”
The gasps of the closest thirty or so aliens (and hobs, and Rakhii—damn the traitors with their human-softened hearts) nearly deafens me.
Glancing quickly around the shocked mob of them, Isla snorts a small laugh—but she surprises me by continuing to hold me by my tail. “Come on,” she calls to them. “Did anyone really peg this guy for Prince of Political Correctness?”
“I am no prince,” I tell her.
She grins up at me. “Oh, I know it.”
Distracted by her touch (and spending not nearly enough consideration on the serious implications of the frequency in which our skins have made contact—the potential for bonding increases, or so it is believed) I don’t know if it’s because I see her gaze shift slightly, or if I’ve simply developed an extra sense where a certain human is concerned—but I twist to turn my glare in the direction of my chair—and teveking yes, yes, I find Gracie lounging in it.
“What,” I ask conversationally, “in the slow green rut is under your about-to-be-deceased rump, female?”
Gracie has the nerve to tip her face up and send me a dashing smile. “My new throne.”
My muscles tense. Isla flings herself on me, protecting this female she associates with, and suddenly Gracie’s mate swoops in too, literally, and it’s about teveking time.
“Watch her better,” I order her harried-looking male.
Dohrein turns a beleaguered look on his mate. Which Gracie ignores. She’s keeping her eyes on me, still wearing her baiting smile. “Ha ha,” she laughs.
“Shut up, Gracie, seriously,” Isla pants, shoving at me as if she can push me back and keep me from wrapping my hands around my target of that human’s throat.
“Human,” I warn—and I don’t even know which one I’m warning. The center responsible for my higher thinking is experiencing an accidental diversion of my thought current because Isla is touching me everywhere.
Instead of growing angry, my irritation sits, sparking slightly but not, I note with no small surprise, is it taking over the whole of my thoughts.