“If we don’t hear that you’ve banished that male soon, there will be trouble,” I throw out, just before I get to the doorway to the High Spear’s hut.
When I turn back to the gathering, Zyntarr is still seated - watching me with those mismatched eyes and a smile carved into his scarred lips.
He leans toward Zarriko, his voice carrying easily through the hut.
“The Goddesses chose your mate for you, High Spear,” he says. “But this female of mine?”
He rises then, walking toward me as his visible stars blaze brighter than ever.
“SheismyGoddess.”
When he reaches my side, he laces his fingers with mine and lifts my hand to his lips, returning the kiss I gave him before.
“AndShe. Chooses. Me.”
EPILOGUE
BEA
It didn’t take long for word from Zarriko’s tribe to follow us home - he did indeed decide to banish Zyryll, the male who had attacked Zyntarr.
Rynn and the others had wanted to know about Zyn’s injuries. We told them that they were from a run in with a mimyckah while Zyn had helped on a hunt. I don’t think the lies were completely believed, but it’s enough to stop any further escalation between the two tribes - for now.
It had been over a small gathering with food on the evening after we’d touched foot on village soil again that Chastity had asked, ‘so, what made you two crazy cats come crawling back?’
Zyntarr and I had locked eyes. ‘We had been banished for our loud and constant making of
Serena, her pregnancy starting to show, had held on to her little baby belly as she cackled and crossed her legs, warning everyone not to make her laugh in case she pees herself. Taking his mate’s warnings seriously, Rynn had swiftly picked her up to take her to the little-girl’s latrine, Alana and Chastity whooping and hollering after them.
My cheeks had ached with how much I’d been smiling. It felt good to be surrounded by the smiling faces of our friends.
And I think, with the way that Zyn and I can’t stop looking at or touching each other - I didn’t need to tell them thatheart-stars or not, he’s my man. They just get it.
ZYNTARR
“Are you sure this is the right path for us?” I ask my mate, palms too warm and moist.
My Bea smiles at me as she lines up the family of carved mountain hounds I had been working on just this last day. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“No. No… I am just…” I sigh, my wings dropping a little. “What if I am not skilled at being a Carer?”
Bea makes a strange noise from her mouth and nose - it is a noise I have heard before, when she thinks I am talking nonsense.
Grabbing me by the hand, she pulls me over to the frame of our hut’s doorway. “If you didn’t care, would you be marking these?” she asks, running her fingertips over the little notches on the wood. Bea had told me that it is a tradition in some tribes in her homelands to mark the growth of their younglings on their hut walls or doors. It was a nice thought, and Tyll had already grown so much since his father passed.
“There is a difference between caring and being a Carer,” I huff. “I am skilled at hunting, the spear and cooking meats-”
“And lovemaking,” she adds, winding her arms around my waist to pull me close as she looks up at me with those beyond-beautiful eyes.
My skin-stars light up, zooming all over my body, trying to avoid my most scarred areas. Leaning down, I press a kees to her delicious lips. “Maybe I could do with some more practice, though…” I tease, walking her back into our hut.
She spins away, leaving me wanting. “Oh no, mister. The stars you gave me this morning have only just faded have onlyjust faded, and I’d rather show up without them when we go to pick up Tyll.”
She was right, of course. Not that it makes me want her any less. But today, we are to become Tyll’s Carers. ‘Adoption’ my Bea calls it. It is a strange-sounding word, but the way she says it holds so much light, I cannot help but like it.
With the youngling’s father gone, and his current Carer aging and wanting to rest more and more, Tyll has spent a lot of time with my mate and I. After we heard talk that Tyll would be taken under wing from another Carer, Bea got it into her head that we should take him in instead. The youngling practically lives by my mate’s side anyway.
And it made me think. A change for me could be a good thing.
