part from me, but she pushes away and holds up her hand for me to tap. “Ah,” I grunt. “Five-high bonding.” Gracie’s mate explained the purpose of the gesture to me the first time I saw two humans slapping their five-fingered hands together.
Mimicking the relaxed-set of Isla’s fingers, I bring my palm to hers.
“It’s like watching the kid teaching the Terminator to do it,” someone whispers from not far away. My eyes dart in the speaker’s direction to find Beth with one of her mates, who’s grinning and watching Isla and I. A glance around and I see several humans watching us too.
I take a deep inhale, ready to render the onlookers deaf with my shout—when Beth covers her hands with her ears and begs, “Wait! Sorry, sorry, we’ll get back to work! Just please don’t do the bellowing thing—it freaks me out.”
I frown. I was scowling, so this should be a softening in my expression, but whatever it looks like, the change has the humans scrambling to get back to their posts, and soon the sounds of a well-oiled workday are back underway.
But I’m still thinking about Beth’s words. I turn to Isla. “Does it ‘freak you out’ when I shout?”
Isla’s arm hangs relaxed at her side, her hand no longer in a high-five pose now that we’ve performed the palm tap gesture. “Nah. I’m not scared of you.”
“I’m not certain if I should marvel or be offended.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Isla states. “You’re still plenty scary. Just…”
“Stop,” I order her. I point to the wagon with my tailblades. “Get back to your duties, indolent pup.” I send her on with a mock scowl that only makes her shake her head and grin.
Something is wrong with her. But I like her despite this fact.
Or perhaps because of it.
***
As I work close enough to Isla to catch the spontaneous smiles she sends me, I find myself wishing I knew what to do with my desire for her. Oh, I know what I want to do—throw her over my shoulder and carry her to my cave.
Keep her chained to my bed.
Mate with her savagely and taste her wickedly and cherish her wholly. Feed her and care for her and order her to stay with me and demand that she always pets my chest whenever I’m not rutting her senseless.
I consider this scenario of keeping Isla captive far too often. I want her desperately. I know she is fond of me. She has made it plain that she would like to sate herself with me. If I were a different male, this would be enough.
It isn’t. I’m not that male.
Because if I have a taste of Isla, I will keep her. I will never let her go. And eventually, even the willing want nothing more than to escape when they realize they’re actually prisoners.
So. How do I make Isla want me enough that she never feels caged by my possessiveness? What can I do to make her decide she never wants to discard me?
Beyond lust, beyond fickle infatuation, beyond mere attraction: I want Isla to love me. No, not want. Need. How do you cultivate an abiding love?
Unobtrusively, I observe the loving embrace between the Rakhii male named Zadeon, and his human mate, Callie. Zadeon is a former gladiator, a fearsome male in size and temperament. When his female draws away from him (he doesn’t, I note, let her leave his arms until after he’s liberally applied a coating of his scent by rubbing his horn bases on her person—an activity that makes her smile), he takes responsibility of their infant, fitting the youth in a pup harness made to carry a litter of Rakhii offspring. Instead of carrying a litter though, it totes only their lone pup, Baskian. A scaly but small thing who doesn’t look very Rakhii at all, save that he does have scales. He is the smallest pup I have ever seen. Pure Rakhii pups are born twice his size, even when they’re birthed three in a single lifesack. (Pups who share lifesacks tend to be birthed smaller than their contemporaries.) The poor hybrid has no other features: no horns, no tail, no spines. He appears almost as blank in features as a human, yet despite this, he still possesses a winsome factor that cannot be denied.
I suppose I’m staring at the unit the family makes, specifically, at the result of a Rakhii and a human—but Zadeon catches me staring at his son, and he mistakes my curiosity