Page 6 of The Wish

“Get away from her!” the female shrieked.

Her? Flicking his wings to shake off his stupor, Agrel lifted his hands in front of him to demonstrate that he was unarmed.

“Do not be afraid. We mean you no harm,” he assured her. She immediately flinched and shrank away, her eyes going round with fear as they focused on his talons.What? Oh!He immediately dropped his hands and discreetly broke off the excess length. “There was a beast preparing to attack and I?—”

His words faded as the female picked up a small furry creature and cradled it in her arms.

“Y… you mean this?” She peered at him quizzically. “You thought you were saving me from a… kitten?”

He peered down at it as it stared at him with large, yellow eyes. Its mouth full of razor-sharp teeth opened and he tensed, ready to slap it aside if it attempted to tear flesh from the female holding it. Instead, it let out a soft mew, and he blinked down at it in surprise. It was… cute?

A very soft chuckle rolled over him, making his feathers fluff with pleasure. His gaze lifted from the kitten curiously. The female stared down at him, her hand pressed against her mouth, muffling her laughter. Her eyes sparkled down at him from above her hand with open amusement, and his lips curled kindly in response.

“I take it that you do not require saving,” he observed with a trill of amusement of his own.

She shook her head, and she lowered her hand from her mouth, though an uncertain smile remained in place. “No, Nimhmight be mischievous, but she is our pet. She wouldn’t actually hurt us.”

“Nimh,” he said slowly and cautiously extended one hand only to draw it back quickly when tiny needle-like claws extended from the kitten’s paw to swipe at his fingers. “Mischievous indeed,” he muttered, and to his delight, the female gave another quiet chuckle in response.

“Flexing her predatory instincts is part of her play, but she doesn’t mean any harm either,” she said as she bent and set the wiggling kitten back on the ground. Her fingers clenched together, betraying anxiety.

He nodded, his eyes dropping to the discarded basket and all the foodstuff that once again scattered everywhere because of him. He grimaced as he heard the loud sound of Gehj’s beating wings as the male landed just behind him. The female’s smile slipped, a look of wariness coming over her expression as her eyes bounced between them.

“Making a mess again, Agrel?”

He did not even bother to look back at his ahaku but smiled apologetically at the female in front of him instead. “It seems that you have lost all of your foodstuff again,” he observed as he slowly knelt and began to gather it up. “I apologize that I frightened you so much that you were willing to sacrifice it to beat me away.”

“I… I didn’t really think about it,” she admitted. “I was a bit surprised. And afraid you were going to eat her.”

“Eat her?” he echoed, his gaze trailing back toward the kitten that was busy chasing an insect through the grass. She was no larger than some animals that he had hunted and brought back to the village. “I can see how you might have misunderstood the situation.”

She shook her head, a look of exasperation on her face as her eyes followed the kitten for a moment. “I hadn’t planned forher to follow me out here, but I suppose she was getting tired of being cooped in the house, too.”

Too? His mind immediately went to the nestling, and he wondered if she was also being kept within the dwelling because of their presence there. Guilt ate him, but he kept it to himself. He did not want to make her wary of him again by expressing too much interest in her offspring too early. Instead, he focused on picking up the spilled roots that she’d been busily pulling from the ground a short distance away. His nose wrinkled as he held up one pitiful looking root and dangled it in the air by its stem.

“Surely this is not all you are going to eat?” Agrel asked as he peered at it with a measure of distaste. “Do you not eat meat?”

The little female’s shoulders slumped with defeat, frustration gathering in the small line between her brows. At this side, Gehj puffed up with annoyance, swiftly reacting to her obvious discomfort.

“Agrel,” he hissed. “It is rude to assume. She may not even eat meat.”

“Actually… I do,” she interrupted, her eyes flicking between them nervously. “I just don’t have any. At least not after the chickens you killed. I should thank you for that. We were able to eat well off the stew while it lasted. But there is nothing left now. The forest is… not safe. I wouldn’t dare to enter it to hunt, even if I knew how to set a basic snare.”

Gehj made a sympathetic sound and edged a little closer. He nudged Agrel out of the way, much to his amusement, as he picked up her basket and offered it to her.

“It is not,” he agreed. He hesitated and glanced around, as if uncertain how to broach the topic. “Do you not have mates to care for you? Or perhaps your brothers?”

Smart. He inferred nothing but inquired over those things that would concern an Atlavan almost immediately. No Atlavan male would leave his sisters unprotected any more than hewould his mate. Even if it happened that both of her mates had to attend to something, she would always have a brother, or another male relative, to see to her welfare. Leaving a flightless female alone and abandoned was punishable by their laws. Not that there wasn’t the occasional rogue who did so, as Gehj had reminded him, but they were very few and far between.

She gave a small, nervous shake of her head, betraying her discomfort with the intimacy of the question, her earlier ease obviously forgotten at the reminder of being alone with two unknown males and with no male protection. “N... no. No brothers. And my…mate died a long time ago.”

Agrel trilled softly in sympathy. She jumped at the sound, her head whirling toward him, and he smiled apologetically in response. His ahaku had the sense at least to smile apologetically in response.

“W… why are you still here?” she stammered. Despite her fear, her words were starting to come quicker and firmer again, much to his relief. “What do you want?”

“To hunt,” Agrel replied bluntly, and Gehj gave him a sharp look when she immediately winced.

“Wh… what do you eat?” she whispered, dread thick in her voice.

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