Zhari’s hands squeezed my shoulder softly as her mother stopped talking, dipping a thick piece of fabric in the water to wipe the blood off my arm.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
Ghauro’s mother sighed. “I had an eye on Jerakeh. I was worried about her after she decided to leave. I am ashamed to admit that I was rooting for her and hoping she would win Ghauro’s heart, she seemed like a good match. I never thought she would go to such…extremes to try and get him.” Oh…So I had been right, after all. “I do not condone her behavior, and will make sure no one threatens your union ever again,” she said, resolute.
She handed the blood-soaked fabric to Zahri and stood, bowing to me at the waist before turning around without another word.
“That was…odd,” I said as Zhari took over the cleaning of my wound.
“She is accepting you,” she answered. “As the former clan leader’s mate, she never bows first to anyone. It is a great honor.”
I nodded, but she was too focused on my wound to even look. She wouldn’t have understood anyway. “What is her name?” I asked, confused and thinking back to the twosimilar but different words I heard both Zhari and Eletie call her.
“Ulhani,” Zhari answered. “But you will call hermatoriti.”
Matoriti…Like Eletie did. “What does it mean?”
Zhari stilled to look at me. “It did not translate?”
I went to shake my head but didn’t, remembering it would have been pointless. “No.”
She thought about it for a while, the touch of the wet fabric on my skin now less precise and distracted. “It is what you would call your mate’s mother. Like a—mother of the heart. I call hermatorise, because she is my mother of the blood.”
Oh…My cheeks flushed. “And…sakhati?” I asked next.
Zhari smiled, her eyes creasing at the corners. “She called you ‘daughter of her heart’. It does not mean she will not be a bit hard and wary of you at first, but it is a big step. It took her almost a full year to call Eletiesakhati.”
Acceptance. It was the first step. I thought back to the flowers I gifted Ghauro at the stall in the late morning. At my hand hovering over the light pink one that meant love. At how my heart nowachedat the thought that, if it didn’t go as well as Ulhani had predicted, he would die without the damn flower on him. Without people knowing what I tried not to feel, in vain.
As Zhari dipped the fabric in the water one more time, the bushes at the edge of the forest shook and my heart leaped at the sight of Ghauro emerging, frantically looking around. I stood, ignoring Zhari’s objections, and slowlywalked toward him, hoping my body wouldn’t give out before he saw me.
And he did. Instantly.
The moment his strong body collided with mine, my feet left the ground. Two bands of steel wrapped around my waist and I hooked my own arms around his neck, ignoring the pain.
“Assa perti…” he whispered in the crook of my neck, breathing me in. “Are you okay?”
I nodded silently, holding him as tight as I could. “She is hurt, you need to apply some healing salve on her arm as soon as possible.”
Ghauro let go of me suddenly with a growl and turned me to inspect every visible inch, stopping quickly when he spotted my arm. “I wish to kill him again.”
My throat dried out. “Kill?”
“Did it not translate?” my husband asked between his clenched teeth.
“It did…”
“That male committed treason,” Zhari explained as she stood up. “You do not mess with someone’s mate…By trying to steal you, he brought this upon himself, and Ghauro had every right to intervene—tokillhim if the male gave any indication of reiterating.”
Ghauro had killed him. For trying to take me away.For wanting to breed me in his place, the voice in my head whispered.
“We are claiming an available shed, I will not be carrying her back to the mating house in her state,” he growled.
Zhari’s eyes drifted to my hair before her throat bobbed. “Thebaraghushed. I am sure Eletie and Khaju will not mind sleeping under the stars for the night.”
“Wait, we don’t need to steal their house, we—”
“Thank you,” Ghauro said, throwing me over his shoulder. “Tell Thanato to summon the dead male’s second and deal with it.”
