“Only after Sabine chose me.” Edilk keeps his fingers pointed at the ground.
“I told him not to say anything.” My fingers curl into the dirt as I will myself not to charge my kam. “I asked Mia not to say anything.”
Orik looks at her. “You aren’t his mate? But you shared your blanket with him? You chose him?”
“We made an agreement to pretend to be mates so I wouldn’t need to choose, and he had a reason for being in rut.” Her words become nothing more than a whisper at the end.
I wish I’d never made the arrangement. If Edilk hadn’t been in rut with Sabine… I should have gone, to the colony, not Tiril. My life has been a long tale of mistakes. Each one compounding the last.
“You both disgust me with your lies.” Orik throws down the stick and stalks away.
14
Mia
Edilk is furious.
I can taste the static in the air from the fight. When the fight started, Sabine ran for the river while I stood frozen. Mesmerized by the sparks and the way they fought. The way Sunif moved and snarled. There was something about it that woke something in me.
Now he won’t even look in my direction.
“It is better in the open. Now a solution can be found,” Edilk says.
“There is no solution.” Sunif stands and checks his sword is in place. “I’m going to scout ahead to the ship.”
“You mean run away,” Edilk says. “At least show the woman who has been pretending to be your mate some curtesy and bid her goodbye before you banish yourself.”
Sunif’s head tilts. I don’t know what he says silently to Edilk, but it’s nothing nice from the cruel curve of Edilk’s lip. For a moment, I think they are about to fight again, but Sunif strides away.
“Wait. Please.” I take a step after him, but he doesn’t glance back.
I refuse to run after him. I will not chase and ask for attention. I’d rather be alone. I lift my chin and sniff. It doesn’t matter. I never wanted a mate, and now I don’t even have a fake one.
Sabine places her hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be back.”
I shake my head. She doesn’t know him like I do. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut. To lead him away so he could make me come and then jerk off with my juices slicking his skin.
But he hadn’t told me he was going to leave. I thought he was going to stay, and that everything was fine between us, so perhaps I don’t know him at all.
I swipe at a tear, angry that it is there at all. I draw in a breath and shout as loud as I can, not caring who hears me. “You’re a coward, Sunif.”
Edilk winces. “He never shed his honor the way the rest of us did. He always thought he could return to his tribe. That was all that kept him going.” He gets up. “Now he no longer has that.”
“All of us want to go home,” I snap.
Edilk shakes his head. “No, Mia, we don’t. We want to make a home, and that is something very different.”
“What if the others want to go back across the sea?”
“We will discuss it when we reach the ship. But this land is big enough for your human colony and us. We will leave signs for Aldit and Tiril in case they ever return to where the ship was. But we will sail along the coast until we are far enough from the humans that our paths won’t cross.”
“He wanted to go home.”
Edilk shakes his head. “He did not care…I realize now that is because he planned to leave. If you choose him—”
“Ed, no. You can’t ask that of her,” Sabine says. “He’s your friend. I understand that. And he’s hurting, but it is not Mia’s job to fix it.”
Edilk flexes his fingers before sighing. “I would not expect the same from a woman of the Honey. My apologies, Mia.”
