Page 10 of Keeping His Mate

“Hmm,” Chloe says, her brow furrowed. “Not unless you’re looking to get your arm bitten off by a tr’gory, I’m afraid.”

“A tr’gory? What’s that?” I remember Bruvix mentioning them in the forest, but I was too distracted by his presence and wet chest to ask.

“Oof,” Ava mutters at the same time Kate makes a clicking noise with her tongue and Chloe lets out a dramatic sigh.

“It’s a massive wolf-like creature with blood-red eyes and curled white horns,” Chloe tells me.

Well, that sounds scary. But looks can be deceiving.

“And when I say massive, I mean fuckingmassive. Like, the size of a car,” Chloe continues. “One attacked Varrek at the falls. I thought maybe it wasn’t afraid of me because it didn’t get growly until it noticed Varrek, but that was probably all in my head.”

I certainly don’t want to be eaten by a wolf the size of a car, that’s for sure. “I’ll pass.”

CHAPTER 5

BRUVIX

Ienjoy sleep, but it evades me this eve. Is it because of my encounter with Elle-noor by the falls? Possibly, I suppose. But why is she consuming my thoughts? There is a chance she is my inara, but she can never truly become my mate. She is already mated.

Unavailable.

Not for me.

Never for me.

I let those words repeat as I trim the empty stems of the piloi flowers in my garden, the few flowers that were unable to bloom, willing her face to leave my mind. I do not need to wonder what those two brown spots are doing next to her right eye. Why are there just two? Why does Elle-noor have fewer of them than Kay-teh? And why does her long black mane look so soft to the touch? Where are the snarls and knots that my mane is constantly riddled with?

She looks different from the other humans, this is true, but also similar in many ways. She is small in stature, and her skin seems dangerously delicate like the others. I have concerns about their ability to breathe through such compact noses, but somehow, they manage to do so. Overall, they are fragile. That seems to be a standard component of their race.

But Elle-noor… she moves with elegance, as if her feet do not touch the ground. Her wide dark brown eyes can see beyond what is in front of her. When she looks at me, it feels as if she is peering inside my head. It is unsettling. Her skin is darker than Cloh-ee’s and Kay-teh’s, but is still light, and there is a soft glow about it that makes me want to feel it beneath my fingers.

Her mane smells of flowers and crisp morning air. The sharp point of her chin when her smile stretches across her face––it dazzles me, especially when that fascinating indentation appears beneath her lower lip on the right side of her mouth. Her belly and arms are soft and rounded, and her legs are thick and muscled. How could such a stunning combination appear on one human frame? Down to her short blunted claws, every part of this female entices me, which is cruel because she can never be mine.

But maybe this torture was meant for me. Maybe I deserve it for those I have wronged. For the lives I have taken. For the occupants of the med tubes that I left behind at Bzzsil Chi’s brothel. Maybe, to the goddess, my soul is as gnarled as my body.

I let the latter thought take root, sink into my brain tissue, and allow it to reframe recent memories as well as give it the power to influence the moments ahead of me. Part of me wishes this is merely a dejected concept created by shame, and I should bat it away, dismissing it as such. But a bigger part of me is certain it is truth, and it makes a great deal of sense with the way my life has turned out.

I am alone.

I shall remain alone, just as I have always been.

The tether between Elle-noor and me will continue draining my energy, the longer I deny its existence, but I can persevere. I must.

My hands dig into the soil as I create small holes for the piloi seeds. Once I drop five seeds into each hole, I fill it back in and spread out the dirt. These seeds should take nicely, I tell myself as I repeat the task over and over until I have no seeds left.

I remove the brown wilted leaves of the huutra vines that climb the inner walls of the roof garden until there is nothing but bright yellow. Next, I harvest a pile of red bozpa stems to mix into my next batch of ale. After that, I water the blooming buds of the vakopurri, a flower foreign to Oluura that I bought long ago on Nu’Piix. The stems are said to have a rich, savory taste to them, which I suspect will be a grand addition to my ales.

But a quick inspection of the eternally wild branches of the qam shrub leads to a disappointing discovery: several of the light purple leaves have circular holes in the center. That can only mean one thing: niimi worms. These little buggers continue to gorge themselves on my qam shrub, despite how often I spritz the leaves with soap and water to keep them away.

“Ah, there you are,” I say to the long, hideous, white-and-brown-speckled pests when I find a group of them huddled under a thick branch. Carefully, I extract them from their snack zone and place them in my palm. Once I have all six, I put them on the roof ledge near a huutra vine. They do not like the taste of the huutra, and I know they will eventually make it back to the qam shrub, but with their tiny feet, it will take days. That should give the qam leaves enough time to heal from the niimi’s destruction.

It would be much easier to kill them, but I do not see a need for that. They are merely trying to eat. I can play this game with them forever as long as they do not cause me harm.

Standing, I brush my dirty hands on my pants and survey the progress of my garden. The piloi flowers––if the seeds I just planted grow––will border the garden on all sides, encasing my other plants, herbs, and vegetables in a wide rectangular shape. A divine embrace in various shades of pink, much like Elle-noor’s soft lips.

Stop thinking of her,I tell myself.

“You will grow tall,” I whisper to the seeds that lie beneath the soil. “I know it.” I look forward to the pride I will feel when that day comes.

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