be to your liking. I will find a hob who knows our craft supplies, and I will make him retrieve what you need. Then you shall make your crafts again,” Bash vows.
I smile up at him. “Thanks, boss. You really are sweet.”
Bash makes a disagreeable grumble before he grouses, “Isla?”
“Yeah? Wait—I know. Get back to work, right?”
His tail dumps a tin of wax between my hands. “Prepare to get yourself greased to your elbows. This anvil is ready for a good black patina.”
CHAPTER 17
BASH
(Crying Counter: 15)
Isla is contained in the smith’s stall and for some reason, it pleases me to have her there. I don’t examine it. I barely acknowledge it. Instead, I concentrate on other matters.
Insignificant ones.
It is time to break the humans—and today I am determined to succeed at this with no tears from any of them. I have an impeccable record building up, and I won’t tarnish it today. I have to swallow three cog-damned times to manage speaking to the infuriating little aliens without yelling, but by Creator, I succeed. “Ladies,” I stress while internally supplying the word weevils. Tiny weeping weevils. “Relax in the shade while you feed yourselves.”
One called Lexi raises a human-fragile-boned hand.
“What,” I bite out—not a question because I don't want to encourage interaction. Heaven knows the more I speak with them the more likely I am to growl until they cry.
“So this is a break?” Lexi questions, seeming unsure. I spy her other hand rubbing at a spot low on her back, and I take note of it. Once she’s finished feeding and watering herself and has rested some, she’ll need to be rotated to a task where she’s not straining her back. I’ll be watching the rest of the humans and rotating them for the same reason.
But only after they take their confounded break. Humans have made me grow to hate this term.
I glare at her while trying to moderate my eye contact to a mere stare. The longer I glower at her, the more she shrinks, the more her face crumples, and I can mentally picture that confounded weeping counter losing my good numbers, my hard-earned patience-measurer blown to smithereens if this female can’t get control of herself.
I have to storm away from her and give her my back before I can speak a response through my teeth. “You’ve done well. You can call this your break.”
I don’t know why humans insist on referring to this feeding time as a break. Whenever I think of breaks and humans together, it’s far, far more satisfying.
However, my version most definitely violates the weeping counter’s perfect tally.
I’m stalking past all the gaping smooth-skinned faces when a few of them call out, “Thank you, Bash.”
I stop. Risking a half-turn, I run my gaze over them, finding them all looking at me, some of them are even smiling. Tentative hope plays across many faces.
I try now to scowl. “You’re welcome,” you freakish aliens. “En…” I struggle to swallow, smoke escaping my lips. “Enjoy your meals, then I expect you to rejoin work with vigor.”
I turn away.
Almost as one, the females call, “We will, Bash!”
As I prowl back to Isla, I marvel at how their propitiation actually makes me feel… pleased.
CHAPTER 18
ISLA
When Bash calls an end to everyone’s workday, he applies more spit-made muscle relaxant on my shoulder and arm. “How is your back now?” he asks.
“Feeling normal.” I reach under my shirt to peel off the gel pack. “I’m so good, I think we can quit with this.”
He acknowledges this with a grunt and slathers his liniment down my spine before he tugs my shirt down and begins to walk away.
Like an infatuated puppy, I dog his heels.
If he minds, he doesn’t say. And Bash doesn’t strike me as the type of alien to hold his peace if somebody is bugging him.
I could follow my fellow humans on their exodus back to the compound, but I get bored there. And Bash isn’t there.
I wave to a couple of women as they pass us, but I stick to Bash, determined to follow him until he tells me he’s sick of me.
It’s loud as everyone tromps for the exits but I’m used to it now, the noise. I’m even used to the sort of thick taste in the air; it’s the ever-present dust that I suck in with every breath and can’t help but assimilate since it coats my tongue.
Bash glances over to me. “Would you like to see the Narwari barn?”
I’d do pretty much anything