CHAPTER 42

 

BRAX

 

Let the Gryfala set the pace.

That’s the advice fed to Rakhii that are hoping to attract a princess.  I confess I hadn’t paid much attention when I was young, and after Gelert…

I grit my teeth.  I wouldn’t go near anything having to do with Gryfala after Gelert’s demise, certainly not information on the care and wooing of one.  My gaze jumps to my Gyfala.  The one I’m… bonded to.

She’s pacing, looking decidedly uncomfortable.  She’s been stealing glances at me, and her troubled look tells me I have made an error in judgement.

She’s been deeply agitated since the moment I attempted to kiss her.  Either she doesn’t want me, or I’m so lacking in skill that she doesn’t see any benefit to training me.

I can be trained!

...What in the hells am I even proclaiming?

Frustrated, I briefly turn my back on her, running a hand through my quills.

If my hearing weren’t so keen, I’d never have turned in time.

I capture her just before she reaches the door, hooking her thigh with my tail, clutching it.  Just touching her settles something in me.

“Eye haff too takk to Tac.”

Tac.  Of course she wants Tac. I wait, but she doesn’t meet my eyes.  I tug my tail, which in turn gets her focus on my tail’s behavior, which is akin to her paying attention to me.

Just—not nearly as satisfying.

“Lemme gess.  Not wiffowwt yoo?  Fyyne.”

Tara grabs the safe area right behind my tail’s closed blades and pries back my reluctant-to-slacken grip.  She allows it to transfer its greedy clasp to her hand instead, letting a loop close around her fingers.  Shaking her head, she stalks to the iron ring in the floor.

It’s a standard feature in every Gryfala ship.  Yet, this Gryfala is grimacing, appearing slightly ill, or horrified, or perhaps amounts of both.

I stare down at it too, about to sneer; then I consider my position—as a Rakhii requiring chaining down in a Gryfala ship—and sober my expression and my errant, curling lip instantly.

I’ll concede that it's a wise installation.  Still: I can teveking despise their cold, infallible logic.

“Haff kee?”

She’s pointing to the manacles around my wrists.  We may not be able to speak each other’s language, but neither of us are dense.  I shake my head.

Her features pinch in concern.  “Duz Tac haff kee?  Or Grayyk?”

I nod.  Also standard: three keys.  One for the Gryfala, and one to each of her top hobs.

“‘Kay.  Bee bacch.”  And with that, my tailblades thud to the floor: she managed to loosen my coil without me noticing!

Alarm makes all of my hearts race.

I immediately snag her with another loop, this time around her midsection and—slowly enough she isn’t toppled backward—I reel her in towards me.  She doesn’t precisely struggle, but neither do I trust this silence to be true complacency.  I convey her back to our bed, but her open, easy manner from before is completely dispelled.  She almost seems more wary of me now than she was when Tac joined her to me to begin with.

When she gets tired of sitting up, stiff-backed and chary-postured, she carefully lowers herself to get more comfortable—yet she doesn’t decrease the space between us.  I regret that she feels the precaution is a necessary one.  I also regret and worry that if she as much as sneezes, she’ll fall off the bed.  She is riding that close to the edge in order to stay as detached from me as possible.

However. My tail, which is spiral-coiled from her ankle to her kneecap, has no concerns over her taciturn manner and is creeping its way along her side and will soon anchor itself to her arm.

No more worry of falling then.

She blows a strand of hair from her face.  “Sooo thees is borreeng.  Howw lung wus eye ahsleepuh?  Eez eet nyyytuh noww or affterrnoon?”

Unsure if I should nod, or shake my horns, instead—I give in to the compulsion I’ve been struggling so hard to rein in.

I lick her.

“Wut tuh heck!  Keheep yor tung uff ahf mee yoo freeekah!  Ack! Stohp eet!  Yoo—!

I capture her flailing hands easily and snatch her wildly kicking foot, winding my tail around her until both of her legs become passive captives.  Free now to roam, my nose makes its way to the hem of the shirt she is wearing.  Tac’s shirt.  I growl.

“Yoo dee NOTT juss growwl ahhs yoo snifft mee.  After you speet on mee?  Ugggh lookeh et thees!  Yoo left slobber on me, growwws—!”  Disbelief does not have a scent, but I believe I am reading correctly that this is the emotion displaying on her face.

She pauses and despite the fact she sounds like she’s chastising me, I watch her avidly.  I grunt to encourage her to say more words.  When she widens her eyes at me in meaningful warning, I concede and emancipate one of her hands.

“Geee, tanks.  Heyy…” she plucks a bit of the fabric up to examine it more closely.  Sniffff.  “Eet shooldna smehl soo goood.”  She bends her head to inhale again, and considering I’m quite familiar with the thrall she’s cast on me, I recognize perfectly well that she can’t help herself from reacting to my thrall on her.

Just as quickly, she rears back, looking nonplussed over her reaction.

Ah.  She isn’t aware we are bonded.

She’s shaking her head, staring down at my saliva as it evaporates off of Tac’s shirt.  “Eck, no, no—acktooalley, eye don kerr eef eet smehls goood.  Stohp dooeng eet.”

Keeping an ear tuned to her because I like the sound of her voice even if I don’t like the chiding tone to her words, I exercise great control when I begin to nose-up her garment to taste the skin of her bared stomach… and make a horrifying discovery.  She has a painful looking set of scars.  There is a round gouging dip, and a slash.

Someone has sliced this princess open!

This can’t be from when her hobs were killed: these are old.  What made this?

Squeaking in dismay, she darts a hand out and pinches my tongue—causing us both to freeze.

She breaks our stare first, narrowing her eyes before pointedly darting a look down at what she has squeezed between her fingertips.  “Stohp!”

I manipulate the muscles of my tongue so that it flattens before the sides curl up to cover her top finger.  She squeals.  “Growws!  Growwsss, don’t move it, growws!”

When she tries to release it, I quickly curl the tip up over her hand.

We stay like this for several clicks until she exhales loudly.  “Okaaayah, fyyyne.  Thees ees ‘stohp.’  Thees ees goood.  When I tell you to stohp, yoo stohp, jus lyyke thees… buht yoo dohnt haff too holdeh meh hahnd.  Weef yoor tong. Deesgussteeng!”

I gather that ‘growwss’ means she finds a behavior repellent.  Yet I’ve seen her happily wipe her face with the blanket after I’ve licked it for her.

This princess is confounding.

When she braces a hand on my nose and shoves my tongue back to my mouth, I grasp her meaning perfectly well.

‘Keep your saliva to yourself.’

This pricks at me.  A princess allows a Rakhii certain privileges if she accepts him into her service.  Bonded we may be; but she has not accepted me yet.

That I so desperately want her to is an irony I’m not ready to examine any further.

Freed of me now, she perches on the edge of the bed again, and I poise to leap for her—only to freeze when she peels off Tac’s dampened shirt, revealing the finer, form-fitting plain tunic underneath.

This is a welcome improvement.

It’s the one she arrived in, and she’s using it as an undergarment.  It is plain, yet flatters her.  I like the way she looks in it.

But I’d like it better if it was my shirt she claimed as an outer-garment.

She holds Tac’s between her fingers like it’s filthy.

I concur.

I pluck it from her hands, drop it to the side of the bed, and blow fire on it.

She shrieks.  “YOOO BREETHE FYYRE?!”

I watch the flames fizzle out.  It’s a flame-retardant fabric: tested many times previous to this, I could assure her—if we were able to communicate.  Now the fabric will be dry and won’t turn musty all crumpled in a heap like it is.  And how fortuitous: it won’t smell of Tac in here any longer.

Grake knocks hurriedly before barging in.  I feel a grumbling trumpet building in my nasal crest.  As if we require supervision.

Which he obviously believes is the case, considering that he’s been standing guard in the corridor nearly constantly for all the spans the princess has been with me since Tac retreated.  I’ve smelled him.

“She is fine.”

Grake’s eyes meet mine, and although he nods, he still appears somewhat troubled.  I narrow my gaze in warning.

“Eyme fyyyne, Grayyk,” she says kindly, and the hob’s wing markings turn an entirely new shade.

It could be that when he is spoken to in a kind or praising tone, his colors change.  It could be that simple.  I wouldn't know: I certainly haven't spoken to him in either.  But it could also be that he’s attracted to her, and this is his attraction display.

I snap my teeth.  “Don’t you have an engine to dote on?”

We both know he does.  That engine needs near-constant upkeep.  The fact that he’s stayed here most of the rotation is no little cause for perturbation.

The look she locks on me is so horrified that I’m shocked that she waits until we’re alone again before she calls me out on my uncivil behavior and reprimands me.  “Yoor mean. Stohp it.”

This word again. I’ve belonged to her less than half a rotation, and already I’m being ordered about.

But in an attempt to be dutiful, I nod.  I rise from the bed, trying not to take offense at the way she tenses, preparing for an attack.  From me. Her mistrust rankles painfully.  Instead, of reacting, I walk the length of my chain in the direction of the B.C.U. built just off of my room.

Perhaps that is one of the few upsides to being a dangerous creature of service.  We get our own cleansing and relieving facilities built right into our quarters within easy convenience of our chains.

But in actuality, this is more like ‘her’ own bathroom: this room was designed for the Gryfala that possesses a contumacious Rakhii guard.  Most everything essential is set up to be easy access for the member of her service that spends the majority of his resting time chained down.

Unfortunately, I come up short just shy of my goal.  Truly?  Was clothing not considered in their easy-access plans?  Frustrated, I grunt and glare.

“Whot doo yoo need?”

I’d been so caught up in my aggravation that I hadn’t realized she’d come closer.  Now I try not to secondhand-scowl at her as I stab a claw at the drawer just out of my reach.

She slips past me, careful not to touch me, I note—and silently begins to lift up items for my inspection.  I thrust up my chin when she holds up the green one.  She starts to hold it out to me, but I indicate it’s for her with another jerk of my chin.

“Ohhh, eye seee,” she says, with an incredibly dramatic roll of her eyes.

Such a sassy princess.

She brings it to her chest then stops, gaze locked with mine as she slowly raises her eyebrows.

I cock my head, feeling my ears lift in curiosity.

“Turrn arrund!” she finally huffs.

I cross my arms over my chest.  The chains slap against me, drawing her eyes for a click before she stalks towards me, muttering, “Bee thot wayyy,” and with a cheerful smile, she slams the door in my face.

I never understood why there was a gap under this door.  None of the other B.C.U.’s have doors like this one.  But now, as my tail slinks inside to seek out her feet, I wonder if this is intentional, and if I’m not the only Rakhii to need this contact.

I know when my tail finds her, because she stomps on it.

I question whether it was deliberate or accidental, and decide that though she doesn't look capable, I still believe it’s the former.  This Gryfala may not be cruel, but she does have a temper.  When my smarting limb is clinging to her ankle, I can follow when she relieves herself, hear when she washes her hands, and I also know when she starts searching.

For… what?

If I were Lem, I would be able to sprout eyes on my extremities and find out right now.

I, however, am not Lem.  This is perhaps for the best, because if eyes unexpectedly sprouted out of my tail right now, I believe she’d panic and that stomp she gave me a moment ago would seem like fledgling’s play by comparison.

I have excellent hearing, and with both of my ears pressed up against the door like this, it is almost as if I can see her.  From the location of my tail that is resting like a bracelet about her ankle, I know she’s standing in front of my stored clothing.  From the soft sounds of her rummaging I know she is examining my possessions.

Which are now her possessions.

This should infuriate me.

Why doesn’t it?  Even the mere thought of my brother’s mistress still makes me so angry I can’t think.

This one… I can't STOP think—

*clink*

“I FOUND EH KEE!”