is a real title. For a jailor.”
Bash’s jade pretties turn to slits of green fire. “I know what a warden is. Your people invented the wheel only yesterday—”
“That is not true! You are such an exaggerator.”
“—and yet you seem to be under the impression—”
“I wasn’t operating under any impression except the one where you might mistake what I mean, and look what’s happening. You’re overreacting. Gah, you’re such a drama queen.”
Bash stops speaking, and apparently his translator gives him what he needs to know for this term. “I wasn’t the one panicking over Narwari—”
“Who eat people.”
“—and puny grape beetles—”
“Those were nasty.”
“—and if you refer to me as your warden, I will take you and—”
“And break my neck,” I sigh, finishing his threat for him.
Bash pauses. “I was going to say I would take you on another kiln-fuel trip.”
“Oh!” I smile at him. “I’d totally do a repeat.” He shoves a new leather piece in my direction and I take it up, holding it where he indicates I need to. My hand is heavy because his tail is still gripping it… and I don’t mind at all. “You wouldn’t punish me with a beating? You? Are you feeling okay?”
“The day is young. Keep teasing me.”
Did anyone else hear Bash give me permission? He totally did.
CHAPTER 15
ISLA
Today started off well, with Bash having a beautiful shiny fourteen on his No-Crying Counter.
He was so proud.
It’s been two weeks of companionship for him and me and fourteen whole days wherein he handles us humans with something sort of like patience. A little brusque, maybe, (okay, a lot) but he’s been loads better.
Then… he yelled at Helen.
I mean he yelled at Helen. New girl; nice, quiet. And apparently, a crier when a gargantuan alien towers over her and roars in her face.
Her strike one? She showed up late.
Strike two? She arrived with a disheveled hob and a keyed-up Rakhii who couldn’t take his eyes off of her, even when Bash addressed him.
When the hob slipped his arm around Helen, her Rakhii beau attacked him, and the ensuing scuffle was a further delay in the workday and that was the last straw. Two perfectly good employees ruined by a slip of a human was too much for Bash to bear.
However… did he have to yell at her?
To be fair, he yelled at all of them, but the guys were barely paying attention to him, too focused on their girl to care that their boss was stripping their hide.
When Helen got upset though?
They cared.
Ohhh did that all get out of hand then.
When Gracie stood from his throne to glare at him and scratched out his Fourteen Days to a Zero—I thought Bash was going to combust in flames of fury.
At his side, I winced for him and picked at my lip, murmuring, “You kinda had it coming.”
Bash turned on me and exploded.
But the good news was, he didn’t say a word. It was otherworldly animal snarls, a lot of rage-roaring, and he coughed out smoke on more than one occasion. I expected my hair to singe from the fiery vehemence with which he uttered his invective but once he burned himself out hollering nothing but angry sounds, he stalked to the quarry’s wall opposite his crying counter and began to beat the hell out of it.
Everyone went quietly—and quickly—back to work behind him.
Even with him in a killing mood, I’m glad to see Bash. The human preservation where I’m at nearly every minute that I’m not working is starting to drive me nuts. There’s a gym, there’s a dance studio, there’s a beauty salon, but you can only coat yourself in revitafying mud and do Zumba-pilates while wearing ankle weights so many times before you lose your mind. I’m bored, I need sunlight, and I miss my grumpy pal when I’m not with him.
So I always come to work smiling. I also arrive with a slew of fresh mindless topics and tidbits to share. I give him an appropriate length of time to vent his testosterone on the quarry wall he’s cracking to pieces, and then I sidle up to him, the only one willing to get close enough to pick up the fallen stones, and I try to ease him out of his bad mood by making conversation.
“Our seasons are something else. For example, we have unfairly frigid winters and super hot summers. After a couple of days of either, you’re like, ‘Is it so much to ask for temperatures below ‘boiling alive’ but above ‘my