Page 125 of Theirs to Crave

No response.

I scrambled off his lap, pushing at him. “Go! Go! Help him!”

“I can’t leave you alone,” he ground out, tormented.

“You can, and you will,” I snapped. “Everyone is at the funeral. I’m safe. I have my knife. Litha and Revik will be back soon. Tsalot is achild, Zaf! He wouldn’t cry out like that if he wasn’t hurt. I won’t forgive you if you don’t go. Go!”

Zaf snatched me against his chest, squeezing so tight my ribs groaned. He kissed me, growled a curse, and ripped himself away, disappearing into the branches overhead in a flash.

I stumbled and fell onto my ass with an undignified grunt.

Although I still wasn’t sure if my God could hear me in whatever galaxy this was, I closed my eyes, and I prayed. I prayed for Tsalot’s safe return to his family. I prayed for myloves to come back to me, whole and undamaged. I prayed for Saytireka’s understanding—or, if that was too much of a miracle to ask—for her silence. I prayed for a future.

Gradually, as I inhaled a familiar perfume on an alien planet, a sense of peace spread through me. I lay back, feeling like Alice with the flowers nodding overhead, and basked in the unexpected surety I felt. Thingswouldbe okay. My family and I would be safe. My loves would be safe.

My loves. Mis amores.

I had to tell them. I was pretty sure they were waiting for me to say it—or maybe to accept their courtship, which might be the same to the Teterayuh—because they wore their feelings on their nonexistent sleeves. I knew they loved me. They shouted it from the rooftops with every thoughtful, sweet, wonderful, caring, filthy thing they did. They just didn’t say the words.

I loved them so much, sometimes it didn’t feel real.

Six months ago, I was working my boring office job for an hourly wage that was three years behind on the annual cost of living raise, and doing everything I could to turn off my brain during my off hours.

A year before that, I was hiding in a closet, hugging my cell phone, Mariano’s cursing and the sound of a racing engine in one ear, Drake’s slurred, angry shouting and pounding fists in the other.

It felt like three different lives.

In a lot of ways, I didn’t feel like the same person who’d cowered in that closet. She was still in me—she popped out at the worst times—but she wasn’t who I was anymore. Drake had cut and cut and cut at me until I was just raw, bleeding stumps.

I lifted a hand, tracing my fingers over the big, splashy petals proud above me.

My loves had given me room to bloom.

I had to show them how much they meant to me.

I could make a spectacle of it, do the dramatic romance moment in front of the whole village. They liked to show me off, and it would be a fun change. I could get Shane to provide a soundtrack, even.

No. It should be private. Intimate. At home, or maybe at the bathing pools. Just the four of us, whispering love and promises.

And after all, it was probably best if Saytireka had a chance to cool down before she made a “public statement”.

Zaf could tell her. He’d enjoy that.

What did a Teterayuh mating look like, anyways? Litha mentioned a ceremony, but would it be anything like a wedding? Or do they just braid each other’s hair and call it a day?

At the very least, I wanted some of thosecasacakes and a wedding night to remember. I had three holes, three partners, and a pot full oftov. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate becoming theirs, forever.

“Where are your guards, little Hyunan?”

I jerked. Arvel prowled across the branches above me, his claws glinting with each flex of his fingers. It felt weirdly and uncomfortably sexual to be laying beneath him, even with ten feet between us. I scuttled to the side, bumping into a tree leg and using it to push myself upright.

“They’re not my guards. And they’ll be back any moment.”Please let that be true, I prayed.

He dropped to the ground, his stare never wavering. The memory of his attempted attack a few days ago snapped like a threat between us. Slowly, he straightened.

“I was wrong.”

What? I stopped, frozen, the breath halfway out of my lungs. That wasn’t anything I expected him to say.

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