forget he overheard our conversation, I will be forced to provide him with enough incentive to stay silent. He must see I mean to provide him plenty, because he begins to back away from me.
But not fast enough.
I catch the hob by the throat, raising him in the air, about to shake him into compliance—
When a voice—a voice I detest hearing because if I’m hearing it, it means I’m about to have a hornsache all the day long—rings out with authority: “PUT HIM DOWN!”
Gracie. TEVEK.
The irksome female is suddenly before me, pointing one of her small, breakable fingers at my snout. “Enough, Bash! I mean it! You stop harassing my hobs. Jonohkada is MINE.”
“When, exactly, did this happen?” Dohrein asks from behind me, voice holding a note of threat.
Hm. Sounds like her mate won’t protest if I fling Jonohkada off the side of the canyon.
(Don’t you make that smooth-faced grimace at me. Yes, YOU, you little hob sympathizer. Jonohkada has two as-yet unbroken wings: he’ll survive.)
Gracie leans around me to look at her male. “Not romantically, chill.” Her glare snaps back up to me. “You can’t hurt him.”
I laugh, just once. Flames leap out in front of me, splitting the air between us.
Gracie’s eyes narrow. “Why are you threatening him? Jonohkada never fucks up.”
It’s true that this hob has never given me reason before this to punish him. He’s probably a fine male. But I can’t have him telling Gracie, who is queen to the herd of humans, what my intention is before I enact my plan for Isla, especially if my plan hinges on abducting the female that I want. Gracie could sequester Isla away. Gracie might alert the Gryfala’s high council that I am a danger.
Dangerous Rakhii get put to death.
But I am not a danger. I only want Isla. She will be mine, I will be hers, there will be great love, and I will take good care of her.
As if my thoughts have conjured her, Isla appears. And her expression undergoes surprise, shock, and… perhaps even horror. Because, from her point of view, it must look as if I’m about to silence her friend Jonohkada. Permanently. “Bash?” she asks.
At the sound of her voice, at her saying my name rather than the hob’s, I open my hand.
Jonohkada lands on the quarry stone with a fang-jarring snap, his oxygen-starved body hitting the unforgiving surface with a loud smack. He gasps and clutches at his throat.
Gracie and Isla drop to their knees on either side of him—and at first it seems Gracie is slower due to the cumbersomeness of her pregnancy, but this isn’t entirely the case. Well aware of what a hob’s wings can do, the female is cautiously nudging Jonohkada’s limp, bedraggled wings closed so that the powdery insides aren’t a danger to her, and she instructs Isla to do the same on her side.
Then they thoroughly fuss over the male.
I search the side of Isla’s face with blistering intensity. Does she care for this hob?
If she does, then he is an obstacle.
I will obliterate an obstacle.
Jonohkada must be able to sense the direction of my thoughts because he’s gone completely still under the females’ ministrations—even his coughing fit has frozen. His hands are still at his throat, but he’s got two females beside him and he’s not basking in his moment with them at all. He’s watching me out of the corner of his widened eye like I’m about to attack.
He’s correct to worry.
And when Isla’s concerned hand pats the side of his face to get his attention, he should be able to feel his impending destruction.
Gracie’s hand hovers over Jonohkada’s shoulder. Hesitatingly—oddly hesitatingly, when there is nothing hesitant about this female—she brings her hand down, clapping him on his shoulder, pat, pat. “What the hell happened, Jonoh? Why did Bash go after you?”
I know the moment the hob decides to be a lungsqueak. Anyone can tell—because the male curls up and hugs Gracie’s hips. He starts, “Gracie! Bash is going to—”
Dohrein makes an unholy snarling noise and flies at the male who has ahold of his mate.
Only he slams into my shoulder because I’ve beat him to the blubbering hob; I’m lunging forward with the aim to smother Jonohkada’s reply by shoving my hand over his mouth. I succeed.
For my attempt, Jonohkada bites me viciously, and I shake him.
While his wings flap and slap wildly as I jostle him roughly back and forth, Dohrein takes his Gracie, hauling her back with him possessively.