Patty moved around him to approach the bodies under the table, crouching to lean over them before whistling. “She ripped out their throats and disemboweled them. Nice.”
“I’m glad to know you approve, Patrica Dells,” Imma said, dryly.
Patty grinned at her, giving a wink before grabbing one of the bodies by the leg and dragging it out from under the table and towards the door.
They watched her in puzzled silence as she did the same to the other bodies that lay on the floor, piling them by the door with the first. It wasn’t until she skipped back to the body on the table, pulling the knife out of its chest with a flourish, that his shock wore off.
“Oh man, this is a nice steak knife. You dulled it on the bone,” she tsked, rolling the body to the floor before grabbing a leg to start dragging it.
“What are you doing?” Dhenea finally asked, turning in Imma’s arms to stare at Patty who continued to drag the final body to her pile.
“Clearing the table, of course. I’m hungry.”
A laugh tried to escape, got caught in his throat and only a squeak managed to come out of his mouth before he coughed to clear it, using his hand to cover his mouth to hide the smile that erupted at his female’s antics.
Imma blinked all six of her eyes at Patty, her lips slowly spreading by fractions at a time until all her sharp teeth were bared in a dangerous smile. “We eat dinner at a table covered in the blood of our enemies? With their bodies still in the room? What a message that would send to their handlers.” She was still smiling when she guided Dhenea to her seat, pulling it out and gently pushing her mate into it before pushing it back in.
Her face blanked for a moment as she relayed instructions to someone, and then she too took her seat at the head of the table with Dhenea to the right. It was a small table, seating only twelve. The plates and silverware that had been set out in a lovely arrangement were scattered and broken on the floor, blood pooling over the surface of the table and dripping down the sides onto a once beautiful cream rug, which was now sosaturated in blood that it squished under his slippered feet. A terrible fate for such a pretty room.
The dining room itself was an intimate space, meant for the Queen’s personal use. Small in that it only fit the table and a small sitting area set into the recess of tall windows directly behind the dining table, where the Queen and her guests could look out over a small garden filled with flowers. The red stone walls were covered in bright tapestries in shades of blue and pink depicting Neldre’s in flight, hunting a great winged predator native to their home planet, with cream rugs to break up the red tones of the floor. The blood spatter did not add to the beauty of the room, though it did send a message.Here there are monsters who would dine in your blood.
“Your seat, Patty,” he said, pulling out the chair to Imma’s left. He had long since gotten used to strange occurrences that routinely happened around the females from Earth and dining on a blood covered table over more pools of cooling blood was the very least of things he’d seen. The scene of carnage in the Solus dining hall with Jack seated before a half eaten corpse still ranked highest. Were all females from Earth bloodthirsty? Or was it only the ones he’d met so far?
“Imma? Send for Sira and her daughters to join us. Have your sister come as well. They should partake in the excellent meal our lovely Briilia has made for us this evening,” Dhenea said, smoothing her blood-covered hand down the front of her dress, smearing it with more.
The smile the Queen still wore grew more cruel as her eyes got that far away look of link communication.
“Oh, wow. You are nasty, Dhenea. Marry me?” Patty said, batting her long eyelashes at Lyees.
Dhenea laughed, shaking her bloodied finger at her. “Ah, but then what would Imma and Rema do without us? They would be lost. Best we stay where we are, no matter the tragedy that is.”
Patty sniffed, wiping at her eyes with her hand. “It’s a sacrifice we will have to make. I’m so sorry.”
Imma snorted, flicking blood at Dhenea’s face as if it were water to play with. “As if you could survive without me. You lost both of your slippers this morning, and you don’t know how much Kava root goes in your tea. Lost, indeed.”
Dhenea only smiled in answer.
“You don’t know how much sweetener goes in your tea?” Patty asked, incredulous.
Dhenea shrugged her golden wings behind her, all for hands coming up in a helpless gesture. “I haven’t made my own tea in over a thousand years. I don’t even know what leaves are used.”
“Like a servant makes it or Imma does?”
Immainthe chuckled, reaching for Dhenea’s hand. “I have made her tea every morning and evening since I first started courting her. I tried many different types over the first few years until two stuck out as preferred. It hasn’t changed since then, though we try new ones every now and again. Dhenea is very particular about tea and the notes of flavor in them. Not too bitter, but not too weak. It must be bold without being overbearing. I have gotten very good at tea.”
Patty sighed and seemed to melt against the short back of her chair. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
He made a mental note to start making Patty’s coffee for the next half of eternity. Anything to make that dreamy look in her eyes be directed at him. She took two small cubes of Kava root in her coffee, and enough cream to make it a pale caramel color. Her sigh of contentment after the first sip of the bitter drink always made him smile.
She preferred her toasted bread spread with the pink fruit mash that she called jam, made from the leaves of the sun bush, cut into triangles. And while she was willing to try most things, she’d balked at the roasted Baki, and the look of horrorin her eyes at the Natti bugs would forever make him laugh at the memory. He hoped that in a thousand years, she wouldn’t remember the last time she’d made her own coffee or fixed her own plate. The honor would be his.
Emotion making his throat tight, Rema reached out his primary hand to take up Patty’s. She looked at him, reading the tenderness in his face for what it was and smiled warmly at him. He turned her hand over in his, marveling at the difference in size between them. She was so delicate, yet so fierce. Each clawed finger was elegant, the blackened skin adding a flare of danger, like taming an elusive predator.
“How are you feeling, Patty?” he asked, looking up from her hand.
She was watching him with a soft smile, her brownish green eyes filled with an emotion he couldn’t place.
“Are you asking about my cuts? They are numb now, so I’m okay. How are you? I mean, I was attacked, and now your step-in-moms were threatened too, so you’ve got to be stressed the fuck out.”
