CHAPTER 13

 

BRAX

 

The blanket I have tucked under my arm is an old one from off my bed.  It isn’t necessarily the nicest—it is simply the one that doesn’t have any holes.

It is the nicest.

Tevek.  I am giving her my favorite blanket.

My steps hitch when the words ‘my most prized’ try to whisper through my mind like a correction.

But no.  Not prized.  Not anymore.

And more shamefully?

I am going to bring it to her after I’d helplessly cleaned my face with it first… coating it with my suddenly over-active scent glands.

Heading down the same path as my brother… If Gelert could see me now, would he be happy for me?  Or would he pity me?

I feel my jaw muscles jump as I grind my fangs.  I don’t realize I’m shaking my head until I feel my horntips bounce off of the corridor sides.

I’m bringing this blasted blanket with me now because when I initially tracked her and Tac’s scent to his quarters a click ago, I found her unconscious on the floor; she was all curled up strangely with her hands clasped oddly, and her knees bent up to her chest.

She hadn’t touched the food Tac had put down for her either.

Why he’d left it on the floor, I can’t guess.  She is a princess.  She’s not going to eat off the floor like an animal, crite!

I am willing to wager that he didn’t even try to hand-feed her.  And where is that good-for-nothing hob?  Why isn’t he feeding her and making sure she is warm enough?

Why do I care?

I don’t.

I don’t care.

The issue here is not about my substantial lack of concern.  The issue is this: there is a passenger on this ship who has substandard accommodations and…  and it is clear she isn’t going to eat Tac’s piddly offering.  If I’d ever bothered to take on a passenger previous to this, I would have been just as concerned with their welfare.

I snort so suddenly at this that I stumble.

I roll my shoulders, take a deep inhale through my bared fangs, and force myself to control my pace: walk.

Not half-run.

When I find myself shoving my way past Tac’s door, something inside me eases.  Some additional source of tension I wasn’t even aware of, not fully.  I even feel my spines come to rest along my back, fully relaxed.  When was the last time that happened?  I shake off the thought and grip the container in my hand even tighter.  The container that holds something even a Gryfala would find appropriate.  And I’ve brought this blanket, my blanket, because it is obvious to anyone with even half of an operational synapse that if she is not pleased with Tac’s bed, not even his blanket, then she has to be provided something.  Any alternative is better than none.  I suppose I could have asked the new hireling to provide one, but I hadn’t spared him so much as a thought.

Yes.  Yes I did.  And I walked right past his new quarters and went to mine straightaway.

My intention had been to pick her up, to place her on the bed—but my brother’s adulatory ramblings about the heavenly feel of his princess’s skin…

I don’t dare risk a touch.  Instead, I dump the blanket on her and walk out before I can do something even more rash and dangerous.

Forbidden.

Then immediately, I turn to storm back in—confusing the track mechanism on the door.  It halts a little more than halfway…

Barring me from her.

The oddest anxiety grips me and I grab the door harder than I mean to, forcing it all the way open.

I step through, watching with dismay; it is shuddering as if it has been beaten.  I grab it again, giving it a jerk to assist it closed.

It makes an unhealthy whiikjutttk grinding noise.

Hmm.

Damned door.  I level a glare on it, willing it to cease with its pitiful complaining.

And my confused, traitorous hearts make an unwelcome, joyful leap when the most alluring snicker of suppressed laughter I’ve ever heard sounds from behind me.