“Can I havesome?”
She paused.“No, I have given enough today. This is for me. I need to make morethings for me.”
He put his handon her mark, but she kept eating. The wrapped pastry was reallygood and deserved more attention than she was giving it.
His fingersrubbed her mark, and there was nothing. Just pressure andfriction.
His fingerstrailed away.
“Did you wantsomething, Your Majesty?”
“Alo wanted youto sit with us.”
“He has you,Your Majesty. I am sure you are all he needs.”
Her words werecoming out weird, and she knew it wasn’t right, but she looked upat him and smiled. “I have been an intrusion into your life, and Iam aware of it. I am attempting to reduce my impact on your life.If there is some kind of guesthouse or something where I canreside, I will figure out a way to support myself if I can get somesort of resident status. If not, Ven has offered me a place in herhousehold on Emerald, and you can just call me when you needme.”
Kek steppedback in shock.
Syar slipped inwith a strange expression on his face. He lifted his phone and usedthe light on her mark. “Well, that explains a lot.”
She kepteating.
Kek scowled.“What?”
“Look at themark. Actually, look at it.”
Kek leanedforward and saw the light. “There is my bite, and... what the fuckis that?”
Syar turned thelight off. “Which person with human dentition could have placed amark over yours and stopped the progress of the link?”
Alohi wassitting with his fingers laced together. “The mark looked so good,I just had to bite it.”
Kek thudded tohis knees. “Alo, do you know what you did?”
“Somethingbad?”
Reynaldo said,“He didn’t know. They don’t really educate them, even if they havea centre in town. An interrupted mark is rare. Few bite directly ontop of each other, even if they share a bond partner. If the markisn’t set yet, it shorts it out. So, she was linked, and then shewasn’t.”
Hara looked athim and cocked her head. “Oh, that would explain it.”
Ven looked atKek. “But she still took care of you, made sure your vitals werestable, and then she goaded the person who would get her kicked offthe island. I had already been talking to her a little, but an hourafter we spoke, she was on the ferry and coming for help. This isalso the first food she has had since she had breakfast.”
The kittenswandered over to Hara and investigated the leaf wrappings from thefood.
She chuckledand played with them, opening the final fish stew in a pastryshell, and she offered them some food.
Alohi spoke,“What do we do? How do we fix her?”
Reynaldosighed. “We need to start the connection again, but it takesanother alpha to get it started.”
Ven frowned. “Iam gonna ask Ford if he has any candidates.” She typedfrantically.
Her phonestarted going berserk with incoming files. She laughed and raisedher brows. “Oh, wow. Yeah, he’s got one. It’s a dance partner froma video, and wow, they are good together.”
Syar walked upbehind her and watched then grinned. “They are amazingtogether.”
Syar turned toKekoa. “Are you willing to take on another alpha in your pack?”