Page 15 of Unhaunt Me

“But---”

“There’s always a but, huh?” I grunted.

“There are parts of my life that are just mine. They have to be that way. It’s not some starcrossed lover or some bullshit like that. Some things I just can’t talk about.”

“That’s why I asked if you were cursed.”

“I am then. In some ways I am if that’s how you want to look at it and before you say the claiming vows will show you what I’m talking about, no they won’t.”

I slid the chicken and veggies into the oven and stopped chopping the potatoes in half with a cleaver. Whacking them sizzled the right parts of my brain.

“There’s nothing you can tell me so bad that I wouldn’t want you here,” I said once the potatoes were done and dropped into the boiling water. “Nothing and I mean nothing.”

“Do you want me to make you less horagey?”

“Whore what?” I laughed.

I couldn’t help it. The sound broke free from deep inside me.

“Horagey,” he said it again.

“Are you combining horny and rage together?”

“Yeah. I’m making that cousin word for you.”

“It sounds like you’re calling me a raging whore,” I said, still laughing. “I’m not charging for it.”

“Okay. Be that way. Is it slut rage then?”

“Fuck you!”

“I was sorta offering to do something like that, but you got all caught up in semantics, mate,” he smirked.

“I’ll show you semantics,” I stood akimbo, half hard, half offended and very horagey.

“Is that what you call it?” he asked, scooting his chair back from the table. “Do all Starscales name their dicks?”

“Fucker.”

“I would be,” he shrugged.

“I’m trying to cook.”

“The stove and the oven are cooking. You’re standing there getting slicker and harder by the minute. I can smell how you’re gushing.”

“We still haven’t decided about waiting or not,” I said, narrowing my eyes on him.

Chapter Seven

Casimir

My breath came out in a smoke ring. That wasn’t the million-dollar question. That wasn’t even the one-hundred-dollar question. The Starscales didn’t even use dollars or money but that wasn’t the question that beat itself into my brain cells. It wasn’t the having a kid thing that scared me. We could barricade the nest somewhere and keep everyone away from it. It wouldn’t be as complicated as it was with Melon’s nest. There would be no --- I shook my head before the thought could finish itself.

The million-dollar question was if I could give him the claiming vows that he deserved. I didn’t need to know Tritus to know if he deserved them or not. I trusted myself – had to trust myself – enough to know that if I chose him, he deserved everything he wanted in this life and every one that followed it. Still, I wasn’t sure I could give him anything he wanted. Well, one thing I could give him easily enough if I planned it out ahead of time and kept his hungry mouth on every part of my body except my shoulder where my claiming gland lived.

“You gotta think that hard about it?” he asked, still standing by the stove.

“Do you want my help with your raging hormones or not?”

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