Page 75 of Theirs to Crave
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Hedidn’ttalk to me when he came back with Cass—whose burn marks were looking much better—but I dragged him over and showed him Yin’s cracking skin anyway. He could have his little snit later.
Zafett looked the Quoosalk over thoroughly, his expression serious. Then he had was sounded like a very polite argument with Saytireka that ended when he sent Roosa out for...something.
He’d brought enough of his ointment to allow us to get a good coating on the worst spots, and by the time we were done with that, Roosa had returned with a smaller Teterayuh in tow.
The new girl didn’t look at us. From her, the avoidance didn’t feel antagonistic, as it had from the other Teterayuh. I got the feeling this girl—who I thought to be a teenager—was just shy.
Her name was Aretoi. She’d brought a clay pot containing something that smelled like heaven: woodsy and spicy, with a hint of something darker. Earthier. Almost amber.
At Zafett’s urging, the Quoosalk covered themselves in the stuff.
They used every bit of it, to my disappointment. I’d wanted to try some too. It smelled so good. But the relief on their faces made it impossible to feel any kind of way but happy.
???
We stayed through lunch.
Svixa and her family joined us, and the younger girl soon pulled Aretoi out of her shell. It would have been a lovely visit, if Saytireka hadn’t been watching us the whole time as if we were grenades without pins. And if other suspicious-eyed Teterayuh hadn’t accreted around her, not-so-coincidentally forming a barrier between us and the rest of the village.
I kept waiting for the pitchforks, or for them to break out in a song and dance routine from West Side Story. The closest they came was when more than half of them had done the weird overhead hand flap—in unison.
Whatever was going on there worried me. But the most immediate part of my attention was on Zafett, whose behavior had only gotten weirder.
He stationed himself behind me at lunch. He didn’t try to join any of the conversations happening around us, and only gave Revik-short responses when spoken to.
If I talked to anyone for any length of time, though, he’d start growling. At one point Shane offered me something that looked like a pink succulent arrowhead, and Zafett knocked it from his hand.
The hopeless romantic tucked deep inside me wanted to believe he was jealous. But I was glumly sure that I’d fucked up. I’d been too pushy. Too aggressive. I’d crossed some line, and Zafett—sweet, protective Zafett—was now defending everyone else from the possibility of my unwanted attentions.
Feeling about two inches tall, I picked at my food until enough people were done that I wouldn’t have to deal with questions about why we were leaving so soon.
Mariano—who’d been low-key moody all day—jumped at the idea of going home, and we said our goodbyes.
There was some sort of tension between him and Kurz, but he wouldn’t talk about it, and I was too upset to push, so the four of us walked mostly in silence.
Even so, when he and Kurz split off towards their house, the atmosphere darkened.
When we finally got home, I waved off Litha’s greeting—Revik was still nowhere to be found—and marched straight to the alcove that served as my room, throwing myself on the bed.
The tears started before I stopped bouncing.
Chapter 22
Litha
My ears twitched, and I looked up with a welcoming sweep of my tail.
I’d been waiting for Zaf and Estrayuh’s return with all the patience of a child waiting for theircasacake to cool enough to eat. I should have been relaxed—Revik and I had worked each other to exhaustion by the river—and I was, but the lesson I’d prepared for Estrayuh was on one of my passions. I couldn’t wait to show it to her.
“Kezhai—” I snapped my teeth shut as the little Hyunan stalked into the den. She didn’t pause or look my way, only flapped a hand as she disappeared. My eyes arrowed to Zaf, who stood rigid, his tail quivering with stress.
“What happened?”
“Oh, spirits, everything went wrong! I am a beast. I should go stay with my sister. I am not safe to be around Estrayuh. I try—but when she is sad, I’m overcome with the urge tohunther. I imagine licking the tears from her cheeks as she squirms beneath me.” The words burst out of him, fast and ragged, butbarely above a whisper. They could have been a scream for the amount of heartbroken intensity that rang through them. He curled inwards, hiding his face from me, both hands pulling at his head fur.
“I try to hide it, but I fear she knows. The way she looks at me,sha’vail, as if she’s peering into my thoughts and cannot comprehend what she sees. As if she needed more to contend with, after all she’s been through.” Each word was a slice, contempt for himself tearing him bloody.