Aloryk’s big, warm hand covers mine where I hold his feather. “However long your name lasts on my skin, it will not belong enough, my Polly.” He tells me, his voice warm and smooth like melted butter sliding down hot toast. He releases my hand and juts his chin toward the little pot of stain. “And as for your mistakes,” Aloryk points to his chest, over his heart. “Make them here. When they fade, you can make them again.”
I stare at his violet eyes, unsure of what to say to that, but certain of something now; Alorykismagical in his own way. The way he so easily makes me feel-… makes me feel…
I swallow, my gaze dropping to his chest where he wants me to brand him with my name, sitting possessively over his heart.
He makes me feel loved.
* * *
I think I must spend the best part of the morning perched in Aloryk’s lap, adding a semi-permanent tattoo to his beautiful skin. I’d pondered long and hard about the design of the first one; my name written over his heart. Text work is not my specialty, and when I’ve dabbled before, it was by copying already well-loved fonts. Aloryk had insisted that I add a heart shape, just like mine, so I’d imagined the design with the heart framing my name.
It had been strange to go straight in without the transfer stencil paper as a guide - just straight up raw-dogging it right on his skin. But Aloryk didn’t seem to care if I messed up, and that bolstered my confidence a fair bit.
What didn’t help was feeling the intensity of his eyes on me the whole time I’d been trying to concentrate on writing the gothic-inspired letters on an upward diagonal inside the heart. Hell - I’m surprised I didn’t misspell my own name.
Every time my hand took a break, I’d flick my eyes to Aloryk’s face, only to find him already staring, his lips pulling into asmile whenever our gaze would connect. Couple that with the way his skin-stars all seemed to come and ‘hang out’ in the area that I was working on. Honestly, it was like some of them were watching the design unfold as they danced and whirled their delight at my attention.
It was quite distracting.
After I’d finished the possessive brand of my name over his heart, I’d wanted to try out a new design on my own skin, and especially to cover up the ugly ‘proof of purchase’ tattoo I’d been given in my sleep by my captors. I’d originally made a move to get out of Aloryk’s lap, but he was having none of that, and pinned me in place. “Where do you think you are going, little female?” he had rumbled in my ear, his tail wrapping around me tightly.
In the end, I had shook my head and worked on my new design on the inside of my forearm right there with him holding onto me tightly, occasionally reaching to feed me morsels by hand while I’d added the strange stain to my skin.
“You will give this etching to me too,” Aloryk had demanded when he’d seen my new design; a cuff of dark feathers to cover my unwanted purchase tattoo, and some new text in a cursive font.
“You don’t even know what that says,” I snort. “It could say ‘Aloryk is a pervert’ for all you know.”
Aloryk leans down to shove his face into my neck, nuzzling me in a way that makes me squirm and a thousand little lightning bolts shoot down my spine. “It would not be a falsehood though. Not when it comes to my mate.” Good Lord, I don’t want to smudge the stain while it’s drying, but oh, my God, I want him so bad right now. “But it does not say this, does it?” I shake my head, gripping onto his huge bicep and he nips at my skin. “What do the symbols mean, little female? Tell me.”
“Aloryk!Aloryk!”
Aloryk tenses beneath me. His head snaps up and I don’t even witness the movement, but before we even see the frame of the calling Trixikka in the doorway, Aloryk has a dagger in his hand, pointing toward the entrance.
“Quickly!” the younger male says, spear in hand, skin flustered with excitable stars. “Zarriko’s males approach!”
* * *
I’d been told that there is another Trixikka village within the same territory, and that they consider themselves a completely separate tribe, with a different High Spear. I think it had been Tryk to tell me, way back in the jungle, right after he’d helped Aloryk and I to escape the scary caves with those terrifying chimp-monsters inside. He’d also said there is a certain amount of tension between the two tribes and looking at what I’m witnessing now, man, he wasn’t kidding.
We’re all stood in the clearing at the center of the village. It’s the area where gatherings take place - where I’d been treated to a ‘welcome feast’ of sorts when I got here.
There’s no welcome feast for these new guys, though.
The eating area with the boulders people sit on, and where new bundles of wood and kindling are arranged, ready to be lit into fires, lies between what seems like the whole tribe and three huge, warrior-type Trixikka. They do not look happy. And with them is an elderly looking male and one fidgety-looking human woman.
I watch them, and everyone around us, trying to gauge what the fuck is with all the hostility, when Aloryk shoves me behind his broad frame. “Hey!” I whisper-hiss, getting a face-full of his feathers. I want to playfully whack the over-protective brute in the back, but I come face-to face with his drooping wing andquickly remember his injury. Instead, I reach under his better wing and pinch his side, but the guy is on such high-alert that he doesn’t even flinch. “What is going on?” I ask in a hushed tone.
“Serena said these new guys wouldn’t be happy that this tribe found us first.”
I blink at the person who had sidled on up to me without me even noticing. Then I blink doubly hard and feel my whole face flush when I see that person isDelphi.
She’s looking at me with a sort of grimace-like expression and my stupid brain’s first conclusion is that she’s figured out who we are to one another and she’s wincing at the whole ridiculous awkwardness of it. But no, she’s grimacing because of the tense atmosphere at this meeting, of course.
I shake myself and try to gain some kind of composure. Memories of how a teenage Delphi had practically hissed curse words at me like an alley cat that first time we’d met assault me, and I look forward again, trying to peer around Aloryk’s hulking frame. From the corner of my eye, I see Delphi go up on her tip-toes to try and do the same, her hand blindly reaching forward as if to steady herself on my Aloryk’s bad wing.
“Don’t-”
There’s a hot, uncomfortable feeling rising from my belly as I stare at her outstretched hand. It’s not actually touching him. In fact, I think it was just a reflex of hers for balance, or to just let Aloryk know someone else was close behind him. But no matter how much I tell myself that, I can’t stop that uncomfortable feeling from rising higher and higher up my body.
