Great.
“Who?!” Turning to face her, my incredulity was through the roof.
“Your Kehl!” she burst out.
“Sell what to you?” I knew he did some sort of booth thing but couldn’t bring myself to go to market knowing he’d be there and didn’t want anything to do with me. I mean, I’d told him to leave me alone and got exactly what I’d asked of him, but I hadn’t meant it! I’d been hoping he’d tell me no and we’d argue, then make up, and he’d drag my ass to his hut or something, not completely write me off like we were nothing. It hurt.
It hurt so much there went that pain again just thinking about him.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know!” Daisy was openly crying now. That’s how her mates found her, another male I didn’t know with a bag following not that far behind.
A frustrated snarl left me. It just bubbled up my throat and out. “I’ve had more issues with your human ass than all the beasts here combined!”
“Good to know my Rosie’s not the only one,” the male that strode past Daisy and right up to me joked. Turning to Daisy’s mates as they rushed to her rescue, the male waved them off with a grin. “I was just kidding. Growl all you want but we both know you can’t kill me. I’m Mama’s second favorite son and my Rosie’s favorite.”
“Fat headed No-yell only talk big, think ‘fraid Rosie mates, No-yell bapas,” one of Daisy’s carbon copy mates grumbled at him.
“I don’t know why,” Daisy sniffled out, “Dorothy is scarier than all of them when she gets cross.”
I’m not surprised Daisy sees it that way. It made me wonder if it was just that she’s intimidated by Dorothy.
“Or Joanie,” she added with a shudder.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Joanie was solid in my book. We’ve only met a few times but from what I saw she’s honest. Eccentric in a fun way, blunt in a way that’s not to be an asshole but to spill that truth, and she prefers to mostly keep to herself.
Dorothy has only ever been kind to me. She visits Doogie’s all the time and stops to chat with me. After that day in front of her place, she never said a word about Dace. Dorothy’s distant but polite to her, civil. Considering Mina is her daughter-in-law, I get it. What Dace did was fucked. She knows that, lives with it every day. She accepts the anger towards her.
All that given, I don’t have to sit there while people try to “educate” me like I’m an idiot. Maybe I am. Leave me be. Lump me in with her and let me go.
What Daisy is doing is going out of her way trying to poison the well. I’m about ready to throw her down one if she doesn’t stop.
“I’m fine,” I lied to this No-yell that is apparently one of Rosie, Joanie’s cousin’s mates.
Daisy tried to start in with her nonsense but No-yell looked at her sharply and softly rumbled out, “Enough.”
That shut her up quick.
“I’m fine,” I insisted.
“Say you fell down?” he asked.
“I stumbled.” Waving him off, I tried to thank him for his time and move along but Daisy sold me down the river.
I supposed a part of me should be thanking her for it from the way No-yell was frowning worriedly.
“Kehl’s mate, yes?” he asked.
Debating on how to answer that, I blurted as I realized I was just staring at him with a blank stare, “It’s complicated.”
“It’s not so complicated if he won’t sell to me because he says I was bad to you,” she snifflingly mumbled.
“For fuck’s sake! What do you want, a fucking note? Please sell shit to this goblin of a human being so she’ll leave me the fuck alone?” I snarled. That shut her up.
After the longest moment, No-yell’s gaze ping-ponging back and forth, Daisy mumbled, “Would that help?”
Don’t roar. She’ll just cry more. Don’t thump her into the ground— her two males might jump in and I’m no match for that.
Glaring at her, I bit out with a short look No-yell’s way, “Got something to write on and a pencil or something? A knife to slit my wrist and write it out in my own blood?”
