CHAPTER 55

 

TAC’MOT

 

Sharing a female is a fact of life for many species.  They manage, and I will too.  I’m even getting used to the moisturizing quality of Brax’s leftover musk streaks whenever he scentmarks and licks her.  As I embrace her now, I demonstrate that I embrace this trio we now have by rubbing it into my skin.

With a considering tip of my head, I wonder if perhaps Brax might even be less aggressive if I smell like him.

Part of me internally bounces.  There’s a chance.

The other is more cynical.  Don’t hold your cheep.

She wants to take me to our quarters and I am forced to deny her—this gorgeous, willing, and even insistent female, my female, my mate—I have to tell her no, and in a stilted, broken manner, try to relay how badly I want to follow her, but the auto watering system exploded in the hopper unit and we’re losing her food.

I need to salvage what hoppers I can, freeze-dry and grind the dead, and hope the survivors recover enough to breed.

Tara looks sad that I have emergency work to do.

Veetling, you have no idea how sad I am too.

And as much as I’d love to have her with me, I can’t have her witness me use a net to scoop drowned hoppers out of their flooded tubs, and drop them in the cryodesiccator.  If she doesn’t recognize their legs, she’ll recognize the jars that the dried and ground powder is vacuum stored in.  Even if knowing where her food came from wasn’t an issue for her, right now, with the smell of soaked hopper carcasses in my nostrils, even I have lost my appetite for them, and I wasn’t food-persnickety to begin with.

She is making such an effort to follow after me however, that for once, I’m actually glad I have Brax to send her off to.  I give her a tight hug and have to muster my resolve again when she runs a fingertip over one of my ears.  “I cannot believe I’m saying this but, go be with Brax, Tara.  For now.”

 

***

 

The ceiling fans are softly working to pull suspended carbon from the air, I gather as I take note of the slight fogginess in the room.  I give Brax a meaningful look.

A look he ignores in favor of eyeing Tara.

Tara who is happy to see me when she wakes up enough to realize I’m crawling into bed next to her.

“My side of the bed is unnaturally warm,” I offer up.  “Isn’t that interesting?”

Brax grunts.

Tara though, is ecstatic.  After she brushes her hand along my chest, she senses the heat of the covers under her arm.  “Ooooh, wahrm!”

And then she sidles against me, threading an arm under mine and diving her feet under my legs in angles that don’t appear entirely comfortable, but you wouldn’t know it by the moan she releases.  “Eye weeel meees yoo.”

Abruptly, her body surfs across the surface of the bed.

She lets out a whine at the loss of me.

Or at the loss of the heat we were happily sharing together. I adore this female, but she has major circulatory issues and her priorities heavily revolve around this aspect.

Warm blankets or my chest, regardless of what she’s most miffed about losing, the fact is she is not pleased to be parted.

I can feel one side of my cirri rise and spread.  My lips tip up in a sardonic smile.  “That…backfired,” I tell Brax.

His answer to this is to build a growl in his nasal crest.  To her though, he waits until he catches her eyes, and he tries to repeat her phrase.  “Eye weeel meeees yooo.”

Tara sucks in a breath.

Before she can reject what we’re obviously both (mostly) certain is a declaration of love in her tongue, Brax smothers her in the top blanket, plants a hand on her to prevent her from peeling it off, and he lights up the spot between them with fire, heating the covers to the toasty temperature this Gryfala appreciates.

“Clever way to clean my scent from your bed, by the way.”

“I thought so.”

He doesn’t spare me a look.  He uncovers a spluttering Tara, smoothes the blanket down between them, and drags her onto the heated spot.

“Ohhhh!”  she yelps in surprise.  Then she whips her head over her shoulder to look at the warm spot I’m lying on as she considers the implication.  Slowly, she turns a glare on Brax.

Unrepentant, he shrugs and plants a giant hand between her shoulders, forcing her to squish against his chest.  “Sleep, veetling.”

But she shoves away from him to plant herself very deliberately between us, glaring Brax down when he looks about to reach for her again.  She grumbles and curses, “Kant cherr!” at him as she adjusts into a comfortable position.  By herself.  Brax’s hands clench and rise towards her again only to draw back at another withering glance.

Instead, he moves to covetously snare a lock of her mane, and brings it over to his side.  Tara makes a sound of disbelief and we can only both watch him now as he slowly collects another lock and also moves it to his side of the bed.  And another.  She lets him gently comb his claws through her mane until he has all the strands he can… reasonably…collect.  Seemingly content now, he sighs.

Tara swallows and I raise up on my elbow so that I can watch her face.  She’s pressing her lips together, letting her eyes go wide, and it seems she’s having a conversation with herself.  She takes a deep breath, and slowly lets her head fall back onto…

Brax’s hand.

Abruptly, she sits up, and Brax makes a nasal-crested reverberating sound of dismay as her carefully arranged mane escapes his captivity.  “Ware ees myy peelow?”

Peelow.  I recognize her word now.  I move to offer her mine, but Brax shoves his at her first.  She shakes her head at him but she accepts his before she rolls over, with more grumbling, and she gives him her back.

Now she and I are facing each other, on our sides, but we are separated by too many clicks of space.

I see the mane hairs above her ears tighten, then strands pull along the top of her head, and I know that Brax is back to bringing any part of her he is allowed to touch back on his side of the bed.

She blows out another breath and I smile at her.

She opens her hand, and gratefully, I reach for it, chirring at her as our fingers joyfully reunite.

A noise that could be construed as a growl sounds from behind her, and unperturbed now, she commands, “Stohp.”

The noise ceases.

And I watch her smile as she closes her eyes, and falls into sleep.