Page 32 of Keeping His Mate
He’s not Frank, and I can’t force him to be my pet simply because I miss having a furry sidekick constantly running around my legs.
Sighing heavily, I stand. “Be a good boy, Stanley,” I tell him.
“Elle-noor,” Bruvix says again. He’s growing impatient. I get it, but I deserve to say good-bye, don’t I?
“Stay safe out here, little gu–”
The words die in my throat when a steady growl emanates from behind the falls. I stumble backward until Bruvix grabs my arm and we watch as the blood-red eyes and large black body of Nanay come into view.
Bruvix tries to pull me behind him, but I rip my arm out of his grasp. “Wait!” I tell him. I need to see this. I need to know that Stanley will be okay. I also sense...something from the mother I wasn’t expecting. Her head is bowed low, and she continues to growl, but her gaze is locked on Bruvix, not me.
Does she perceive both of us as a threat and is planning to attack him first? Or is she only afraid of him? I decide to test this theory, by dropping the dagger at my feet, and reaching into my pack for the raw meat we were planning to leave with Stanley.
“Do not,” Bruvix warns as he tries to reach for me. The movement catches her eye, and she snaps her jaws at Bruvix.
“It’s okay, Bruvix,” I tell him. I hear his breathing pick up as I take a careful step in her direction. I hate that this is causing him so much anxiety, but I know I can do this.
Her lip curls and she exposes her fangs as I pull my hand from my pack, so I lift both in surrender with raw kuhnypa meat hanging from my left hand. Her gaze lands on it, and I watch the tip of her snout scrunch up as her nostrils flare.
“Okay, Nanay,” I whisper softly. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” she tilts her head to the side as I speak, still showing off her fangs. “Just returning your boy and leaving you a snack. That’s all.” I drop the meat to the ground and take three steps back.
Stanley’s red eyes light up the moment the meat hits the dirt, and he scampers over as if his biological mom and adoptive mom aren’t in a tense standoff right now.
She makes a sound low in her throat, not a growl, exactly, but more of a grunt that makes Stanley stop in his tracks. Her gait is graceful, lethal. Her large paws hit the ground heavily and with purpose as she approaches the meat.
But then she stops and assesses the smaller tr’gory. She sniffs at Stanley’s head, around his ears, and gives him a single lick on the snout. He lifts a paw as if to playfully bat her away but then flops onto his side, exposing his belly.
She continues checking him over, cleaning random spots with her tongue, and he basks in her attention. I feel a tear roll down my cheek as I watch the two of them. The pup she abandoned, assumed dead, now alive and well right in front of her.
Nanay lifts her large head, and her eyes meet mine. I know I should look away as she could see my steady gaze as a challenge, but I can’t. It feels like she’s trying to tell me something. Obviously, I have no idea what that is, but I can feel it in the way she holds herself, less rigid and afraid than when she first saw us. Maybe it’s bullshit wishful thinking on my part, but it feels real.
She drops her nose to the meat and then picks it up between her fangs. She uses her paw to tear off a chunk and drops it in front of Stanley. He sniffs it, then licks it a few times before he starts to chew. Nanay does the same, ripping off a bigger chunk for herself.
“Elle-noor,” I hear Bruvix whisper. I quickly turn my head to find him now several feet behind me. He’s been backing away this whole time. “We must go,” he says, gesturing me to follow.
I nod, and I know he’s right. I should leave them be. We came here to release Stanley with the hope that his mother would find him. She did. We accomplished our goal.
So why does it feel impossible for me to leave?
“Elle-noor,” he says again. I quickly reach into the pack and pull out a few strips of jerky. I toss them toward Nanay and Stanley, and they land a few feet in front of them.
“Until we meet again, I suppose,” I mumble quietly. I know they can’t understand me, but it didn’t feel right to leave without saying anything at all.
I walk backward with my hands raised in front of me until I bump into Bruvix. As Nanay and Stanley are happily munching away on their snacks, Bruvix takes my hand, and we get back onto the narrow trail that’ll lead us to the village. Once the tr’gorys are completely out of sight, we run the rest of the way, and we don’t stop until we reach Bruvix’s front door.
Slamming it closed behind us, we lean back against it as our chests heave from exertion. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I smile up at the ceiling. “We did it,” I say with a triumphant chuckle.
“We are lucky,” he replies, his gaze still wild and full of worry. “That was too close.”
“Yeah, it was risky,” I admit. It could’ve gone very, very wrong… but it didn’t. Because I know what I’m doing. And I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface on learning about these creatures. “Next time, it’ll be much smoother.”
“Next time?” he asks, jerking his head back. “There will not be a next time. We returned Stahn-lee. That is it. We move on.”
“No,” I reply in a forceful tone. “The more I learn about them, the less of a threat they’ll be to all of us. We just need to understand them a bit more. I’ll get there.”
“Elle-noor, we could have died this eve.”
“But we didn’t!”