Page 30 of Keeping His Mate
She bends down and gives the pup a kiss between the white stumps that will eventually become his horns. “Okay, Stanley. Be a good boy for Bruvix!” she says before closing the door behind her.
“Well, Stahn-lee,” I say as I finish my last bite of bread, “onward with this day.” He trots on my heels as we go upstairs to the security room. He lies at my feet while I check the views for the previous eve but see no tr’gory mother and pups. There is the pack of five fully grown tr’gorys that passes through the village, but the mother has not been seen.
I find this concerning. Where could she be? Her cries while giving birth were clearly the sounds that woke the clan, but she could not have strayed that far from the village, surely. Especially after leaving an ailing pup behind.
Stahn-lee is quite lucky Elle-noor has such a kind heart. If she had not rescued him from the woods, he might be dead right now. The thought sends a chill across my skin as I look down at the fluffy boy playfully swatting at the zip on my boot.
Frustrated by the lack of information we still have on the mother, I sweep Stahn-lee into my arms and carry him to my bedroom. I straighten the furs on the bed and rearrange the towels and furs of his bed until they are enticingly puffy. He leaps into the center of his bed, instantly flattening them, and I laugh as I kick off my boots and lie on top of the freshly made bed Elle-noor and I share.
A loud crash jolts me awake, and I do not know how long I have been asleep. When I look around my room, it is empty. Elle-noor is clearly not back yet. But where is Stahn-lee?
Oh no.
I race down the steps into my security room to find him tugging the cord from where my main server plugs into the socket. One chair is on its side while the other is pushed against the far wall. The table is upturned, and screen pads, monitors, keyboards, and docking stations are scattered all over the floor. Some screens are shattered, but most appear to be intact, though all of them are lit up with the red and black crinkly feed of a severed connection.
“Stahn-lee!” I shout. When the pup cowers at the volume of my voice, my rage dissipates, mostly. He does not know how valuable these items are to me. He merely sees them as toys he has yet to sink his fangs into. I take another moment to breathe in and out as I survey the damage.
Then I pull the screen pad from my pocket and send a comm to Nee-roh.
“Yes, scarred one?” he answers.
“I need your assistance. It is urgent.”
He studies my face for a long moment and then replies, “I shall be there shortly.”
I keep him at the front door when he arrives. “You must vow that you will keep what you are about to see to yourself. You may tell Kay-teh, because I assume you would keep nothing from her, but this cannot be shared with anyone else.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I will not help you hide Elle-noor’s body. That seems wrong.”
I growl in response. He is starting to sound like Kay-teh and these twisted jokes are not what I need right now. “Elle-noor is fine! She is not here.”
“Then what has got you so frazzled?” he asks as I step to the side and let him in.
I close the door just as Stahn-lee gallops down the steps with unburdened glee. He stops at Nee-roh’s feet and vomits a bile-soaked cable onto the draxilio’s boots, along with a bottle’s worth of formula I fed him this morn.
Nee-roh’s jaw hangs open, his upper lip curled in disgust, as he lifts his foot and examines the mess that is now all over it. “The favors you shall owe me outnumber the years you have left in this life, my friend.”
CHAPTER 14
ELEANOR
Pushing the high-backed chair beneath Bruvix’s desk, I take a step back to look around. “Not bad, huh?” I say to Bruvix as he plugs the server cord back in. His security room certainly doesn’t look as organized and tidy as it did before Stanley rolled through here like a tiny tr’gory tornado, but it’s pretty close to the original state, minus a few monitors that we haven’t been able to replace yet. Niro is working on it, but it will probably take a few days to get it back to where it was.
Luckily, he promised to keep Stanley a secret for us before he left a few hours ago. I’m not sure if I trust him yet, but I do trust Kate. She won’t let this get out.
Bruvix stands and puts his hands on his narrow waist. “Not bad. That is how I would describe this, yes. Not good. Not good at all, but also not...bad.”
“I’m so sorry this happened. Really,” I tell him with pleading eyes. I should’ve skipped dish duty entirely this morning and stayed home with them. I certainly didn’t want to leave. Being here with them is the best part of my day. It’s all I want to do now. And Bruvix has been such a good sport about this whole thing, especially considering how much of a mess Stanley has made.
Nursing him back to health has also helped me feel more comfortable here. The Frank-sized hole in my heart is slowly starting to close, and I’ve been able to put my skills to good use. I’m starting to feel like myself again.
“I am not mad, Elle-noor,” he says as he gently rubs my arms. I take advantage of the opening and wrap my arms around his middle, pressing my head against his chest.
“You sure?” I mutter into his shirt. He stills but eventually places his large hands on the small of my back, and it becomes the most satisfying hug of my life.
“I promise,” he whispers as he presses his nose into my hair, inhaling deeply. “I am concerned about the clan’s safety without the ability to monitor the perimeter, but Nee-roh has assured me his cameras cover the outer border of the village, so that will be enough for now.”
I pull back just far enough to look up at him and nod. “Makes sense.”