Page 41 of Right Next Door
A flash of silver caught his eye and Misty turned.
As he watched, his heart sank because a great, big smile stretched across her face. He didn't hear what she said, but he couldn’t mistake the excitement on her face as she rushed forward with open arms, throwing herself into the embrace of a silver furred male.
Immediately, unbidden but unspeakably powerful, choking him with a sick, sticky feeling, a horrible tarry emotion, black and suffocating, rose in his belly.
Who was that disgusting hairball embracinghismate?!
The hug didn't last long. Just long enough to scrape against all his nerves. But even when they separated, they continued to hold onto each other's arms. Misty was saying something. The silver male said something in return. She bobbed her head eagerly.
She looked so… happy.
Misty didn’t smile at him like that. And while he could say that she was angry with him right now, so of course she wouldn’t smile at him right now, she hadneveronce given him such a bright, open, happy look. Not even when they first met. Certainly at no time after.
Something was clawing at him from the inside. Something dark and angry and violent. Tsok was a refined, modern male, a paragon of self restraint and will power. Yet, in that moment, hewanted nothing more than to rip off those arms that dared touch his female before tearing out his weak throat.
“Who is that?” He asked, surprised by the growl in the words.
Surprised enough to rip him out of his angry glare. Not enough to make him actually stop hating this unknown male, but enough to force himself back to calmness. Relatively, anyway. His entire body was still tight with the sudden, irrational urge to rip him away from her.
But he had nevergrowledlike that before. Who was he turning into that he would have such a reaction? It was shameful.
Davard came around the desk to stand at his side with a curious sound. But he looked first at Tsok, no doubt just as shocked by the growl as Tsok himself had been.
It was such a short time, barely a glance, but Tsok had to resist the urge to snap at his aide and demand he focus on the much more important matter – the fact that his mate was now walking around the garden with the silver furred male who was completely oblivious of how close to being mauled he was right now.
“Ah,” Davard smiled. “That is Master Flik.”
“Master?”
“Yes, honored char. Following your orders to screen each of the charina’s clients before they are allowed to make an appointment, the first ones I allowed access to her were only those from prominent, wealthy, or respected families.”
Tsok made a sound deep in his throat. If Davard was calling him ‘master’ that meant that Flik was a member of a prominent family. Their society didn’t have nobility anymore. Not in the same way that they used to. That system had long fallen by the wayside. However, the most prominent, important, or influential families still retained the use of their titles. Theywere purely decorative now, but since most of those families were wealthy and powerful in their own right even after the abolishment of the previous system, having a title meant you were usually still an important member of society. They were some of the only people that kept to the old family ways, even as they still followed the modern idea of artificial insemination and kit centers raising their young. They simply paid for their young to attend the best kit centers and, sometimes, even allowed them to live in their ancestral home before they graduated from those centers.
Flik being called master meant he didn’t hold the title itself yet, but that he was the currently the named heir to whatever title it was.
Must not have been a particularly influential one, or Tsok would have known him already.
The fact that he gathered no small amount of smug satisfaction from that knowledge was as pitiful as it was unstoppable. Tsok couldn’t believe he was that petty, but he also couldn’t stop himself from feeling that way.
He was the superior male. No doubt, his demanding female would see and appreciate that.
Except Flik had her smile.
That thought cut clean through his smugness, humbling him in an instant. Like he was punishing himself for daring to think he deserved to feel good about something when he had never earned Misty’s joy.
But he would! He’d get her a bouquet of the rarest flowers on Kree! He didn’t care if he had to hike to the top of a mountain or the bottom of a wild valley to get them.
“If he is her client, why are they walking in the garden?” He asked, able to cover his growl this time, but not prevent thevenom from entering his voice. “That doesn’t have anything to do with braiding his fur as far as I know.”
“I believe they are also friends.”
“Friends?”
“She has a few of them.”
“Are they all males?”
“No, not all.” Davard gave him a look. “What has come over you, char? You were in such a good mood just a moment ago.”
