“Dace?” I called after her when she would have turned to retake her things from Berkr.
Dace stopped and glanced over her shoulder at me.
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Gripping my bag of wet items, one side of my mouth quirked up into a smirk.
Dace stared at me as if she’d misheard me. She blinked, stared, blinked, stared some more. Understanding now what motivated Cy to sideswipe me with his nonsense, if only to amuse himself with my reaction, I just grinned.
Berkr scowled my way, like he too was trying to understand.
Motioning with my bag, I dipped my head in a nod at Dace. “I’m going to go hang these on chairs, like you suggested.” Jerking my chin at her laundry, I met her gaze. “Maybe you’ll change your mind and come find me for those sandwiches you mentioned.”
“Weird like Jojoknee,” I thought I heard Berkr mutter, but I was already walking away.
I was a bit away from the pair when I heard Dace squeak something out at Berkr and Berkr growlingly answer back.About halfway back to Bia’s, I realized I’d forgotten my lump of soap.
Walking all the way back to the exact spot, retracing my steps, I was beginning to wonder if the search for my soap was futile when I heard a soft snarl followed by a shocked gasp.
Recognizing Dace as the gasper, I hurried over to the hut I thought I heard it near.
Poking my head around the corner cautiously, my eyes widened as I spied Dace’s things strewn all over the ground.
Berkr had Dace pinned up against a hut. Feet dangling in his grasp, his face so close their noses were nearly touching, Berkr muttered something so low it was impossible for me to make out, to which Dace boldly bit out, “I’m not afraid of you-”
Berkr closed the distance between them, his lips molding to Dace’s.
Dace’s hands went from digging into his forearms to hold him off, to burying in his fur, sliding higher, to tug him closer. Berkr growled as she tilted her head and deepened their kiss.
Poking my head right back the way it had popped out, I made myself scarce.
I thought Kehl and I were caught in funky circumstances? How was that one going to work?
Thinking over Berkr’s words, some things were starting to make a little more sense to me.
By the time I’d finished hanging my laundry up, I was so hungry my hands were shaky.
Unsure where to go, wondering if I was even welcome to seek out Dorothy still if my welcome hinged upon who I knew, who I was in with, and who that person I was in with was on the outs with, it was all starting to feel very complicated.
Dace wasn’t kidding. She had done awful things. She had been an awful person. I didn’t see that person she used to be now in her actions, her words. Could she be fooling me? She couldbut why go through all of that effort to put me off, to tell me she’s not worth hanging around with?
When she said she wasn’t that person anymore, I believed her.
Stepping out of my designated hut, I stood in the doorway, one foot out, one foot in, and hesitated.
“Ey!”
With a groan, I gave the approaching lummox lumbering my way a droll stare. “Suzanne,” I huffed out primly, like I had a stick up my butt. I did where he was concerned. He ruined my life!
Frowning at the yellow lump in his hands, a nugget of deliciousness in the raw, I rushed up on him and snatched it right from his hands before he could spit out whatever nonsense he was about to throw at me.
Shaking the potato in his face, I snapped, “Where’s the rest of it?”
Vurhg stared down at me for so long I wondered if he’d fallen into Sleep Mode.
Snapping my fingers in his face, I growled. “It’s mine. All of it. You stole it from me. Where is it? I want all of it. Do you hear me?”
Vurhg’s mouth opened, then closed, and his lips sort of flopped about in a quiet splutter. That seemed to be the norm for the shit popping out of my mouth but my filter had left the building the second this shit went to the crapper. “But Vurhg needs tayed turds,” he finally blurted.
“Like hell you do,” I barked. Fingers curling towards my palm, I made an impatient noise in my throat. “I have no food, I’m starving. Give me what’s mine.”
