Page 10 of On A Rift's Edge
“You never told me Kat was your Matchmaker match.” Remi had the nerve to sound outraged. Lyall breaking his indenture contract meant he had bested Arimanius, and the ratkind mafia boss never took that well. If Remi’s father found out the Matchmaker had struck twice, he would use the threat of hurting Kat against Lyall for the rest of both of their lives.
He couldn’t ask his pack for help. Even an exiled clan member’s spouse had to be protected to preserve the family’s honor, and Kat’s wishes wouldn’t be considered at all. The drakones had been prepared to take Kat against his will, and they had a friendly relationship with the local humans.
Lyall’s hellhound clan hated humans, their planet, and most of the Earth species they didn’t find tasty. Kat would be their prisoner, and Lyall would have to battle his entire clan or give up and beg to be let back to protect him.
Leaving Kat alone was the only way to keep him safe. Seeing him yesterday and knowing he could never have him had been like a punch in the snout.
“Wait, that was why you stayed with me.” Remi pointed his beer bottle at Lyall in accusation. “You knew all along Kat didn’t belong to Kaveh, but you had to make sure he was okay.”
“I have to make sure he’s safe.” Lyall knew how the old Matchmaker had worked, creating marriages between the upper clans to achieve its mysterious goals that might come to fruition generations in the future. The new, misfiring Matchmaker had spun out of control after the Sundering, linking drakones to ratkind, as in Remi’s case, or a hellhound to a young and vulnerable human like Kat. The process still followed the old rules, though. Lyall didn’t have to fall in love with Kat, or even like him, but he had to protect him with his life if necessary.
“I can’t walk up to Kat and tell him he’s my match. He’ll think the Matchmaker will force me to marry him and carry him off.” Lyall had a hard time thinking about anyone but Kat these days, but talking to him about this would be—even worse.
Remi sighed and placed his beer bottle neatly on a coaster on the coffee table.
Some things would never change.
“What I’m going to say may shock you.” Remi leaned forward and held Lyall’s gaze. “You need to be honest with Kat. You need to trust that he’s able to make his own life choices, even if that choice is to run screaming away from you. Look, I tried to mess with the Matchmaker and got myself crucified on a cactus.”
“The Matchmaker’s malfunctioning, and Kat’s better off not knowing anything.” Lyall didn’t like this human life coach/therapy thing at all. “He’s safe here with your Azdaha protecting him. My clan wouldn’t dare challenge Kaveh on his home turf. Even a sneak attack like the one Arimanius tried would be too risky.”
“About that.” Remi frowned. “You know I didn’t let Zale stay here out of the kindness of my heart. I think he’s telling the truth regarding the portal, but it’s also clear that my father had planned for him to scout out the monstertown and the ranch.”
Lyall snorted. “Zale’s a shitty liar. If you want, I can make him want to leave town quickly. Or stay here forever in a shallow grave.”
Remi waved that offer away. “My cousin may believe otherwise, but I know a scouting mission isn’t the real reason the don of the Colony sent him here. Zale’s here because Ari wants to send a message.”
Lyall stilled. He had kept telling himself it was all over. Arimanius had lost, and Lyall was free and would never go back to being his servant. He knew his old adversary well enough never to underestimate how far he would go to keep something he wanted. “What message?”
“That he’s not done with us by a long shot.” Remi sounded both exasperated and resigned. “If he didn’t have a solid plan to get back at you, me, and Kaveh—and maybe get his claws on the control object in the process—he wouldn’t have bothered to send Zale. My dear daddy Ari is awfully good at getting revenge.”
4
Kat stuffed an onigiri into his mouth as he walked up to his parent’s house for Sunday dinner. He usually wouldn’t be snacking right before a big meal but given there was an excellent chance he would need to flee before the food was served, he had decided to get something into his stomach.
The Nakamura family lived in an adobe-style house in the south of Tucson. Like the other single-family homes around it, it had low-water-requiring cacti and succulents making up the bulk of the landscaping, gleaming solar panels on the roof, and an accessory dwelling unit in the back, a nod to urban density regulations.
Kat’s parents loved to talk about renting out the tiny house, which had its own solar panel power source, a cutting-edge composting toilet, and a mini-kitchen with a pizza oven.
That was never going to happen, of course. There was only one person the Nakamuras wanted to rent that little home to, and that was Kat himself.
He adored his parents, he truly did, as well as the rest of his sprawling family composed of aunts, uncles, niblings, and a horde of cousins. It was only that he needed a little alone time. Okay, he needed a lot of alone time away from his family, and his apartment in the northern part of Tucson was more convenient for work anyway.
He stepped up to the side door—his parents considered the front door too fancy for family members to use—smiled into the door camera and began counting.
One, two, and…
“I was so worried!” The door was flung open by his father, his buttoned-down shirt and trousers covered by a cooking apron decorated with cats wearing chef hats. Both of Kat’s parents were what could only be described as feline fanatics. George Nakamura engulfed him in a bear hug, squeezing so hard Kat had trouble breathing. “Those monsters could have eaten you.”
Kat extricated himself from the embrace with difficulty, slipped his shoes off, and tried to enter the house proper. It was a difficult task. Sunday dinner meant an open invitation to family members and any friends, dating partners, or even casual acquaintances they might want to bring along. The house was more crowded than usual, which Kat realized with a sinking feeling was because everyone wanted to question him about the monstertown livestream debacle.
After enduring hugs, kisses, and half a dozen variations of “what were you thinking?” he made his way with mounting anxiety to the kitchen. His mother sat there in her autonomous wheelchair, which she called Fluffy after a long-deceased pet cat. She had a large spoon in one hand and looked furious.
“Katsuo Nakamura!” Winifred “Winkie” Nakamura waved the spoon at him and Fluffy the robotic chair obligingly elevated Kat’s mother’s body to a standing position so she could yell at him more effectively. She used his full name for dramatic effect. “Do have any idea how frightened we’ve been? You promised me you wouldn’t go near those horrible monsters, even at the ranch. You were inside their alien planet, attacked by an octopus, and then a demonic dog jumped on you.”
“Mom, that’s not what happened.” Kat’s mouth felt like sandpaper, and his knees were shaky. His mother might only be a meter and a half in height, but she was an intimidating presence despite her size. “The monstertown isn’t inside the rift. The riftperson who knocked me down did it to protect me, not hurt me. Even the pool dunking was only a prank meant for Kaveh’s friend Remi.”
Remi was a lot more than a friend to Kaveh, but Kat found it difficult to describe his or other people’s romantic partners to his parents. His sisters had talked to their parents about their lovers or casual hook-ups when they were both single, but Kat was the youngest and at times he wondered if his parents thought he had never had sex.
