Page 59 of Theirs to Crave
“Estrayuh?”
Litha hovered at the entrance of my “room”, Zafett and Revik squeezed in close behind her. She sounded so concerned, so kind, and my vision swam with the tears I’d been forcing back.
“Lo siento,” I said. It came out wet and choppy, and though I knew they couldn’t understand, emotions overwhelmed my brain and flowed out my mouth in a river of Spanish. “I’m not upset, not with you. I’m overwhelmed, and scared, and God, this is all somuch. We were abducted by fuckingaliens! We could have died! I thought–I was so afraid Mariano had...”
I gasped in a breath, shaking, and swiped fingers over my wet cheeks. The three Teterayuh had crept closer, but I barely registered their movement. “As if that wasn’t enough, we had to stand there andwatchas Logan the douchebag tried to rape poor Cass. We couldn’t doanything! Then he got fuckingmelted!” I laughed, the sound tinged with hysteria. “I’m not sad he’s dead, but...shit!I’ve never seen a bodylooklike that. Watched someonedielike that. It was just—horrible.”
I shuddered, and an arm slipped around my back. When I leaned into it, bodies pressed gently all around me. I desperately wanted to stop talking, but the words forced themselves from my throat.
“Then there was the crash—God, I’ve never been so scared in my life—and...Ilya...” I gasped, but the air had turned to razor blades. Every breath sliced at me with fresh agony.
“Xe was so young. So innocent. Xe should’ve—It should’ve been...Fuck! I wish we could kill those damned bugs all over again! They didn’t suffer enough the first time.”
“Kshhh,” Litha whispered, her hand stroking my back.
I closed my eyes, letting the Teterayuh’s purrs soothe the sharpest of my edges.
“Thank you for killing them. And for taking us—taking me—in.” My fingers wove through Zafett’s silky fur, and I watched the strands slip and curl with detached fascination. “It would be easier if you weren’t so nice. God, that sounds terrible. It just...feels wrong to be happy.” I bared my teeth in something too manic to be a smile. “And isn’t that fucked up? I am one broken bitch. Have been for a while, honestly. This was just the icing on the cake.”
“And here you all are, being so kind, and thoughtful, and generous, and sexy...as if I wasn’t a neurotic nobody with more issues than fucking Penthouse. You bring me into your home and I cry all over you.” My hand fisted in Zafett’s fur, and distantly I registered his grunt and the tensing of his muscles. Revik’s chest was pressed to my cheek, and I buried my face against him, feeling the most out-of-place urge to giggle as his purr tickled my nose.
“I should be feeling bad for everyone back home who’ll never know what happened to us. Should be mourning the fact I’ll never get to put flowers on my family’s graves again. Never sleep in the house my Tata built. Fuck, it’ll probably be torn down and replaced by apartments. My whole life, Mariano’s life, gone forever.”
I groaned and smooshed my face into Revik harder. Maybe if I muffled the words enough, I wouldn’t have to admit I was saying them.
“I’m scared to be alone again. I don’t—I can’t—I’m bad at being alone.” Last time I’d felt this adrift, I married a man who’d poisoned my whole life. I’d thought he was wonderful, too.
I wouldn’t survive finding that kind of evil in these people.
The admissions finally dried up, leaving me a drained husk, sprawled over their laps like a starlet from a silent film. Hands petted my hair and soothing voices spoke unintelligible words.
I felt like an asshole.
“Ivresk,” I muttered. It was weak, as apologies went, but I didn’t have the words to explain myself. I snorted. Not that anything I’d have said in SpanishorEnglish would have made it better.
“Ix, Estrayuh. Lit seh. Ilatal.” Zafett refused my apology with such tenderness that I almost started crying again.
No, I was going to cry again. Shit.
I sat up, and it was harder than it should have been to pull away from their warm bodies. I forced a smile. “Relyat. Kesh?”
It was less of a question and more of a suggestion. I didn’t know if I could sleep, as ramped up as I was, but I wasn’t going to force them to endure my weeping any longer.
The Teterayuh moved away reluctantly. Probably afraid I was going to freak out again. I’d just let the grimace of a smile fall from my face when Zafett turned back.
“Eh Naryanuh aral oi va sethitzik?”
It took my exhausted brain a second to shift gears.Naryanuhwas the closest the Teterayuh could come to Mariano,aralwas one of the forms of go, andsethitzikwas morning...
“Si! Yes!Het!” I stumbled through all the languages I knew in my excitement, and Zafett smiled, some of the tightness leaving his posture as he nodded and joined Litha on their bed.
Revik moved to let him pass, staring at me for a long moment with those neon eyes before following without a word.
I sympathized. It was hard to find out the stray you’d taken in had way more problems than you expected. Fingers crossed he didn’t throw me out if the vet bills got too high.
I didn’t sleep much. I cried some more, and I stared into the night. I tried to convince myself that this situation wasn’t so bad by reminding myself of the not great things from home: bills, long workdays, shitty exes, internet dating. But that was depressing, and in the end I just cried some more.
If the filling of this cushion wasn’t waterproof, it was going to be a problem.