CHAPTER 27

 

BRAX

 

It’s been too long for there to be any true possibility that I can still sense the heat from her elbow’s application to my side.

But I would vow that I can.  Even through the layer of my uppersuit, I swear I can still feel her, as if my scales retain the sensation of her touch.

Impossible.

...I think.

Did my brother scoff and write off his suspicions too?

That has always plagued me.  He went into his princess’s service knowing the risks, aware of the warnings.

And yet.

My tail curls around itself, which makes me snap to attention.  I see the cause of its excitement—my excitement—technically, I’ve been staring at her, but now I’m focusing on her.

And right now, she’s delightedly rubbing her cheek across her blanket-covered shoulder.

My dishonored blanket.  At my brother’s execution, they tried to demolish his ceremonial mating blanket, and mine.  Tried—but failed.  In a rare show of public emotion, his princess went utterly crazed, attacking officials when they attempted to rip the scales off of our blankets.

The whole of our family’s line had been on mine once.  Not so now.  I’m not even begrudging when I admit thanks to Princess Llywelyn, who managed to rescue mine before they stripped the two scales most important to me.

Although, if not for her, my family would never have been destroyed.

This Gryfala examines them now, a faint smile curling her lips as she admires the sunsflower scale. My dam’s.  It’s the only thing I have to remember her by.  Shamed or not, this blanket will always be a treasure to me.

It is doing something to my hearts to witness this Gryfala’s genuine appreciation for it also.

Tevek.

Now she lifts onto the tips of her toes, wriggles her shoulders slightly, and sighs in contentment.  The look she sends me is… fond.  Curious.  Interested.

My tail coils so hard that it ties itself into a literal knot.

Tevek!  Tevek!  Tevek!

Tac’Mot is still wearing a ridiculous look of stupefaction, so I ignore him, attempt to ignore her, and instead invest myself fully in preparing the Gryfala’s dish.

I find that I can attempt to ignore looking at her all I want, but I can’t stop from thinking about her.  Earlier, I’d grown enraged when she stepped between us—stepped right between us as if we were her quarreling males—and she communicated that she didn’t want Tac harmed.  I was enraged because I was immediately struck with the question, ‘Was that what Princess Llywelyn tried?  Did she bid my brother not to attack her other males when he grew possessive?’

How long did that last for?

What changed?

And how is this even happening?  There should not be any bonding.  Rakhii serve Gryfala as a matter of course, never to suffer ill effects.

Except for the rare exceptions.

But those males are put down.  Their family is dishonored and their line dies out.  No family wants their Rakhii daughter to take part in carrying on a defective line.  And the dishonored line’s remnants will never again be allowed to serve a princess.

Never a chance for the defective to reveal their dangerous nature.

Never… until now.

Following what I’d thought to be a cruel overreaction of justice, I’d been shunned from future opportunities to mingle near Gryfala.  Any dreams my adolescent heart had ever harbored for serving a princess were well and truly crushed long ago.

I’d argued that what happened in the past, what happened with my brother was something I would never do—I would not repeat history.

Their belief that I’d be prone to do so seemed preposterous.  I never should have had the chance to know… they weren’t wrong.  Just as they claimed, my family line is tainted.  Genetically predisposed to falling into mad infatuation with a Gryfala, followed by a jealous homicidal rampage in which I snuff the life out of any male who I deem a threat to my relationship with the female I will grow to adore.

At least, that’s how history has played out.

Creator!  How did this happen?

Desperate for a distraction from my thoughts and my memories, I bring my tail up, and struggle to unlace it from itself.  A muffled sound of laughter remedies all worries over descending into dark reflections: my hearts buoy.  And now I’m hyperaware of her.

This is no better. I ignore the surge of pleasure cascading over me as she gives up smothering herself in my scentmark to release whooping gasps of hilarity as she watches my fingers get caught and tied into my own tail.

When I manage to free myself and work out the knots, I jam the end of it in the sink.  Risking a glance at her, I see she is watching me in fascination as I wash the blades of my tail.

When I’m done, I grab a spatula and gently apply it to her person in order to maneuver her backward.  I am doing this for her safety.  In thanks for this, I get a raised line of browfur and a princess with a very huffy attitude.

I don’t know why this makes my hearts even lighter.

It should not!

I viciously bring my tail’s blades down on the vegetables.  I hack at them until the pieces are too small to be considered chunks.

Tac sounds perplexed.  “What have you done?”

“I diced them, you dunce.”

“You made relish.”

He reaches out a claw to poke at the runny pulp left on the cutting board.  With the flat of my tail, I knock aside his hand.  “Wash first!”

Tac blinks twice, gaping at me.  “I did, before I came in.  Sire,” he adds with an uncharacteristic level of sarcasm.

Fair enough.  I’m not exactly fit to stand in judgement about deviating from my normal characterisms.

My lips peel back in a snarl.  “Wash again if you’re going to touch her food.”  I feel something pull free from my back pocket.  My spine snaps straight before I whirl around—frightening the Gryfala.

She’s holding the dust collection tool.

Her body convulses lightly in a paroxysm of nervous laughter before she taps the feather over my arm.  When I can only stare at her, she gamely gathers her courage and tries again: this time, making a light, reassuring stroke.

She’s trying to soothe me.

Like I did for her.

My hearts instantly heat up and alarmingly; it feels like they are turning into a liquid.  I grab at my chest in alarm.  Melting?  What fresh hells is this?

Oblivious to my demise, Tac starts speaking around a mouthful of— the Gryfala’s food!  He took her food?!  I advance on him—

The dust collector taps me and I freeze.  My hearts warm.

Tevek!  Is she conditioning me?

“Her name is Tara.”

Something bursts behind my breastbone.

I take a breath, expecting pain but… this feels like a happy-fueled occurrence.  “Tara?”

Her effort to intercede and save the life of her male succeeding, she’s in the middle of handing me back the dust collector.  And she’d smiled at Tac when he’d said her name.

But now, as I say it to her: she beams.  At ME.