Zirene was an Aldawi—and it was true that Aldawi weren’t used to being in a relationship. In his own way, he was trying to protect me the best ways he knew how—as flawed as they might have been. His heart was in the right place, he just failed at the execution.
Eventually, he would need to stop watching the cubs at night and purposely avoiding our shared time. It would be awkward at first, but I didn’t want to be attacked again just because we couldn’t get over our differences.
Why did things have to be so difficult?
I sighed and sipped my glass of water. I wouldn’t be drinking anything else for a while. Nope, that was for sure. I had enough to deal with and didn’t need another incident from being drugged or drinking something alcoholic that would alter my logic. Perhaps, once things settled down, and there wasn’t something looming in the near future, I would be able to enjoy myself without fear or guilt. Until then, I needed to remain level-headed to tackle what would come.
And then there was Kaede…
He’d left in a huff and hadn’t come back. If it wasn’t forwhat I had done to him, I would’ve dismissed it as him acting normal—we argued, he got mad, then stormed off.
Sometimes, I wondered why he stayed. For a man with so many kills on his record, it would be better to use his abilities and resources elsewhere.
It didn’t seem he enjoyed being assigned to guard me, yet he stayed.
“What ails you?” Odelm asked, brushing my hair away from my face. “I can tell by the swirl of emotions coming from you, something is bothering you.”
“I just want to spend time alone with my clan, away from all the drama, so we can finally relax,” I replied, leaning into his hand, feeling the cool smoothness as he cupped my cheek.
One of Odelm’s tentacles wrapped itself around my glass, gently lifting it out of my hands, and placed it on the nearby table.
“Soon enough. We just need to get through today, and by tonight, we will be on Zirene’s ship on our way toDestima.”
I scooted closer and tucked myself into his side. Odelm wrapped an arm around my torso, holding me against him as one of his tentacles placed his shelled ocarina onto the table, setting it next to my glass.
Pavryn wore a royal purple and black loincloth with silver details as he battled my cubs. His matching crisscross bandolier lay folded on a table with his wristband sitting on top. He was leaner and shorter than his full-blooded brothers with a shorter fur coat. Instead of their striped pattern, he was solid black with pewter paws and a thin tail. As if he felt the weight of my gaze on him, he looked up from his crouched position, his lapis eyes burning into mine.
A silver and black blur landed on top of him and attacked his ear.
Giggles escaped me as a shocked expression crossed his face.
“I win! I win!” Meti cheered as she flicked his ear with her front paws. “Ma. Look! I won! I beat Pav!”
“Good job! Show him who is in charge.”
The twins also took the opportunity of Pavryn’s distraction and attacked him. My silver eye-patched Noctez tackled his tail and grabbed on, preventing Pavyrn from getting free while my silver nose-lined Neazzos jumped on his back and held on tight with his tiny nails.
Pavyrn smiled and shook his head at me.
“What? It’s not my problem my three cubs defeated you,” I said, smiling sweetly.
“They may think I am defeated, but they are wrong,” he growled playfully and slowly rolled over, dropping both Meti and Neazzos to the ground as he yanked his tail away.
The cubs protested when his body disappeared as he shadowwalked to the other side of the room.
“I would call that cheating.” I shook my head. “You would think a warrior such as yourself wouldn’t need to use such abilities to beat mere cubs. Should I be worried?”
“You questioning my skills?”
“I wasn’t the one who needed to shadowwalk away from a trio of young cubs.”
“It was three against one!”
“And?”
He was too busy staring at me, flustered in silence with his tail flipping wildly behind him, to notice the cubs slowly crawling their way to him.
In reality, I didn’t doubt his abilities and was teasing him for using an ability they wouldn’t get until they fully matured. Supposedly, that was when a Nova bond was formed—when both Nova and Shadow were fully matured. Before that, neither would know anything different about themselves—hence, why Zirene didn’t feel his bond with me until I wasreleased from my tube and born into the world at sixteen years of age.
