Page 33 of Faun Over Me

The sky was barely greying toward dawn when Cricket left. It was cowardly, sure, but what the hells else was she supposed to do?

She should have known better. Should have known Avery would backpedal the minute she got what she wanted out of her. Gods, she even offered an out, but Cricket was too stupid to take it.

You didn’t have to walk me back.

It would have been so easy to say good night and walk away at that, but no. Cricket had to go and flirt and touch her face and want more when it was so obvious all Avery wanted was distance. It was so Gods-damned unfair. Why couldn’t she get infatuated with someone who wanted to be with an inhuman, instead of a human who took what she wanted and shut down the moment Cricket showed interest?

And she’d been so receptive! So pliant under Cricket’s hands, her pussy so hot and wet, and, Gods, the noises she’d made. Each tiny whimper and needy mewl rang through Cricket’s ears as she curled into her nest of blankets on the floor. Because, yes, she slept on the floor. There was no way she was going to sleep in Avery’s bed, even with the girl pouting at her from the pillows.

Adrenaline.

That’s all it was. Adrenaline and fear clouding her judgment. A near-death experience sending Avery running into the arms of the closest being, which happened to be Cricket. She didn’t want more. She didn’t want Cricket. She was just being kind and taking pity on the poor, limping inhuman.

… so why had she looked so hurt when Cricket refused to sleep in her bed?

And why had Cricket even bothered cleaning and bandaging her wound?

“Ugh!” She threw her hands up, stomp-limping in an angry circle. The lack of answers was more frustrating than the human. She should have known better, should have known Avery was playing with her. She seemed so innocent half the time, asking her weird questions like she’d never been around an inhuman before.

This is the first time I’ve lived apart from my family.

Alright, so maybe … maybe she hadn’t been around inhumans before this. Cricket leaned against the fence in Mac’s backyard, thinking back to the guitar lesson she’d witnessed and how abysmally Avery had managed the students, replaying it beneath a different filter. Not one where Avery was prejudiced against inhumans and treated them poorly, but one where Avery simply did not know how to manage the situation.

“Huh.”

Her ears twitched, a new image of the girl painting itself in her mind. All the questions, the frustrations, the adorable blushes that Cricket could still feel warming her palms. How she’d reached for Cricket’s ears that first time and hesitated the second.

“No, she knew.” She had to know. It had to be a performance because she’d hummed like she knew what touching a faun there would do … but then again, the girl had ground herself against Cricket’s thigh. She had kissed Cricket. She had pressed her breast into Cricket’s hand. Avery had led every moment of that interlude only to flinch away, and it made no Gods-damned sense. Either she was a damn good liar or was a really fast learner because Gods-damn she’d given good ear.

She shivered at the memory, running a hand down her front and feeling the hardened nubs of her nipples beneath her cotton shirt. Avery’s face floated into view, delightfully flushed and oh-so-pink. The human girl blushed so damn easily, she was probably incapable of lying. Her neck would go bright red if she tried. She’d bite her lower lip and look anywhere but at Cricket. Instead, she’d held her gaze, even after that flinch and again when the howl tore through the woods, those spring-blue eyes silently pleading with her to stay.

“Fuck.” She scrubbed her face with her palms and stormed up the steps and into the Director’s Cabin, the backdoor slamming closed as she stopped short.

A figure stood beside the coffee pot, their dark, wild curls haloed by the rising sun.

“Ramble?”

The faun spun around, ears stock straight, eyes wide. Their waist was thicker than Cricket remembered, but their face was just the same: warm, oak-bark brown eyes, a smattering of dark fletching across the bridge of their nose that looked like freckles, and a soft, smiling mouth.

“Where,” they gasped out, blinking from their stupor. “Where have you been?”

Before Cricket could reply, Ramble rushed across the kitchen, gathering her in soft, plush arms. They’d always had thicker haunches and more curves than Cricket, but a decade of living among humans had left its mark on her cousin. Ramble was sturdier than other faun, softer around the edges but no less strong. Cricket sank into the hug, wrapping her arms around Ramble so tight she thought she might never let go.

“Oh my Gods, Crick, we thought you were gone.”

“I left.” Ramble’s hair muffled her words. She nuzzled their neck, seeking comfort in the cousin who had left and found a new home. A safe home away from Green Bank.

“I know.” They loosened their arms, gripping Cricket’s shoulders and leaning back to see her face. “I went to Green Bank for a visit when the camp road stayed closed. They said you’d left, and with the reports of a monster in the wood …” Cricket’s stomach sank. How had Ramble known? They hadn’t been back to Green Bank in ages, not since before the monster began stalking the human homes. And for the last few days, it had been stalking the camp, bedding down in the woods, and—and Cricket slept during the day, and that howl last night had come from a distance. Who knew what the creature got up to during daylight hours? “One of the border patrol came back with your jean jacket. We thought that thing had gotten you. There was so much blood, and you—” their voice hitched, and Ramble blinked rapidly. “You love that jacket.”

“You gave it to me,” she said dumbly.

Ramble tightened their arms around Cricket, giving her a big squeeze before releasing her. “I heard it last night when I got in. Do you know what it is?”

All Cricket could do was shake her head. “I was hoping you’d know or that someone back home had seen it.” Ramble’s ears drooped, and their lower lip thrust out. “I only caught glimpses the night I got here. It’s big, bigger than any faun or wolven I’ve seen, and it bedded down behind the camp. There was so much blood. But now that you—”

“It what?”

“Now that you’re here,” Cricket pressed, “we can go together and convince the family to move. I saw an assessor near my family’s den, which means the land sold, and the Georgia men are here.”

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