“Other males could protect you better-”
He starts to circle back to those troubling thoughts again, and I can’t help it when I cut him off by bending the short way so that I press a feather-light kiss to the lid of his injured eye. I can feel a flitting sensation on the thin skin of Zyntarr’s eyelid beneath my lips, and I didn’t miss the way he’d sucked in a breath as soon as he’d realized what I’d meant to do. “I don’t care about other males, " I murmur between pressing my lips to his other scars - the claw marks slicing down his face, tracing them with my mouth. “You protect me best, Zyn. You protect me fromhere,” I say, pressing my hand to his heart. “That’s all I want.”
Zyntarr’s big, warm hand covers the one I have placed on his scarred chest. “Even without heart-stars that shine bright for you?”
Yes, of course,my heart wants to reply, but my mouth doesn’t cooperate. It…can’t.
My eyes drop to his chest, where both our palms press over his heart. It would be so much simpler if the stars shone bright so that we knew - knew for sure that I’m for him and he’s for me. This decision feels too big to make on my own. I don’t want to fuck it up and hurt us both.
But then I look up to Zyntarr’s eyes again, both stunning blue and ghostly white. How could I ever deny this man and how he makes me feel? That spark between us that he’s done nothingbut nurture this whole time, even when I’ve tried to look the other way - how could I deny its existence?
I can’t.
It’s there.
And right now it shines brighter than those heart-stars hidden by scars.
Maybe that’s enough.
“Zyn-”
I’m about to say it. I’m about to let loose those scary words. I’m about to say that heart-stars or not, I will always be his Bea. No matter what.
But Zyntarr’s big hand had moved swiftly from mine at his chest to completely covering my mouth, smothering the words that the scared part of me didn’t want to let go of in the first place.
At first, I don’t understand it. He’d asked me the question. He must want to know the answer. And so I stand here, practically half my face covered with Zyntarr’s huge, warm palm. But then I notice the way the black feathers on the tips of his folded wings have prickled like hackles raised on a dog, or fur all puffed up on a cat. His tail flicks behind him in the nest and his eyes find the roof above us.
Slowly, Zyntarr stands, only glancing away from the woven palm leaves above us to briefly issue me with a command of silence - a single finger pressed over his lips. I nod my head and look up, too. What’s up there that’s got him so spooked? I strain my ears to hear what it is he’s picked up on, but I hear nothing.
And that’s what makes goosebumps erupt on my skin.
I hearnothing. All the jungle bugs in the forests surrounding us have gone utterly silent.
That’s never good.
One of the wooden roof beams creaks ever so slightly, and it’s then that Zyntarr moves so fast it steals my breath. Seeminglyfaster than I can blink, he’s reached for his spear, thrusting it directly up, through the leaf-woven roof of his hut, causing dried segments of palm fronds and dust to dislodge and drift down.
Someonechucklesabove us.
Zyntarr jerks his spear out of his roof with an annoyed grunt and we both peer up into the hole he’d just created.
There’s nothing but the evening sky at first, but then a pair of dark eyes appear, staring right back at us. “Your aim is a little off, brother,” comes an amused voice.
“Tryk,” Zyntarr growls, the wooden shaft of his spear creaking with how his hands grip it so tightly.
Chapter 15 - Zyntarr
It is not what I had wanted to hear at that moment - the ever so faint presence of something on the roof of my hut. No, I had wanted to hear my Bea’s answer to the question that seemed to float in the air like a moonfly.
Instead, I am escorting the damn Shadow-Wing to my High Spear, with Bea staying safely behind at my hut with Protectors nearby.
Tryk apparently has news he must deliver to Rynn, and, being that he is cast out from our tribe, he cannot be permitted to just wander about the village unescorted, so I understand why he had needed to call uponsomeoneto see him to his destination, but I have to question the Goddesses when that someone has to be me on this particular evening.
I walk with quick strides. My legs are bulky with muscle, but they are quick - especially when they are keen to take me back to Bea.
“So…” Tryk starts, keeping pace with me. I let loose a low warning growl, clenching and unclenching my fists as we walk past hut and brazier, various tribesmales noticing us as we go. Tryk ignores my unspoken request to keep himself quiet. “I do not think I have ever seen your eye uncovered, brother.”
My steps falter a little. I had forgotten to put the damn leather patch back on. Grunting, we continue to walk, now withTryk a few paces ahead of me, but walking backward so that he faces me as he continues to annoy with more words.
