this Rakhii’s assistance. So much so that it’s obvious she’d rather go to Bash… if only she weren’t terrified of Bash.
“Have some mercy on the girl,” I say under my breath. “She’s scared to ask you for help.” My eyes search out the others, who are lingering but not approaching Bash either. “They’re all scared of you.”
“They’re finally all showing sense,” Bash more or less agrees, his claws dragging under his chin before he straightens and snaps his fingers. He pins Mandi with an attentive glare, but I don’t think he means for it to be a glare as he motions for Mandi to come to him.
The girl jumps, her eyes going wide before she obeys, zooming to us.
While she’s making her way around people to get here, Bash snaps his fingers twice more, pointing at one girl then another—the two others he ordered to the task of tile-making today.
They look startled and pretty much nothing short of terrified, but they don’t make him snap at them twice. They trot up and arrive right behind Mandi.
Bash uses his clawtips to grasp their wrists and turn over their hands, spitting efficiently. As weird as the idea is, there’s an art to doing it clinically and without insult, and Rakhii have this skill down pat. Or at least Bash does. He gets all six hands done, tells them to get on their way, and they do it—faces pinched with distaste and winces and ruefully twisted lips.
But the discomfort the humans feel is nothing compared to what the partners of the humans feel as they watch their females getting tended to by another male. A male who can do something for their female that they cannot. And no matter how much he wants Mandi’s hands all better, the reality of watching another male touch her right in front of him is apparently a special kind of hell for our favorite feline alien.
“Nice murdermittens,” Gracie says to him—and she’s grinning like a crazy person. Mandi’s catman looks down at his paw and retracts his many, many visible big, wicked-curved claws before raising his gaze to her, his eyes narrowing, clearly not sure if she’s giving him a real compliment or teasing him.
I can’t tell either, but I’m pretty sure it’s the first one. She’s hoping hard that he’ll get together-together with Mandi someday—and soon.
“The way you humans spy on each other,” Bash comments.
“What? We’re not doing anything wrong,” I protest, like I’m feeling defensive. I’m not, but I know that I should be. Staring is wrong. Everybody on Earth used to say so. Then again, back on Earth, we didn’t have the MandiCat Channel.
“Let them alone. Your people’s interest in that couple’s affairs is excessive. Are you working or prying?” he asks in a tone that I’m sure is threatening, but I’m too busy staring at Mandi’s cat as the guy stares intently down at Mandi. It’s a heated look, ooh la la.
Something like a fist but not like a fist at all gathers my hair, wrapping it in a hold at my nape. “Isla.”
The solid weight trailing down from my hair tells me that Bash’s tail has grabbed a ponytail-full. His tail gives me a light tug, making my head bop up a fraction, and this is what makes me give Bash my full attention. “Right here, boss.”
He’s giving me judgey eyes.
“Fiiiine,” I moan, sweeping up the rag I’d dropped, my small movement making his tail bounce against my shoulder blades because it’s still gripping me by the hair.
For my capitulation, it gives me another little tweak, an approving one this time, before it drops off of me and slithers behind its owner as he leaves.
***
“We call this elbow grease,” I tell Bash, my arm beyond tired as I scrub a knotted steel-bristle brush back and forth over every surface of the anvil.
Bash frowns, gaze flicking to me, then down to my elbow, and then my hand. “What grease?”
“We call all the arm action ‘elbow grease.’”
Bash looks so confused. “Why?” He looks me over again like he’s wondering if he’s missed something. “You don’t emit grease.”
I pause my steel-scrubbing to pat his hand, which makes his lips part, and it almost looks like his chest seizes. “Chalk this up to another human saying, all right?”
I go back to scrubbing, and after a moment, Bash unfreezes, clearing his throat so brutally my eyes shoot to him.
Ignoring me, he dips his fingers in the jar of polish and applies it to a rag. “Tell me