Page 9 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin
My wristport pinged and I shot upright in my chair. I needed to schedule longer meetings.
If Cameron’s nephew had been there, he would’ve said Makir resembled Glaceon, his all-time favorite Pokémon next to Charizard and Pikachu, whom my dogs were named after. Only Makir was bigger, much bigger, and much more human-like. I smiled. Maybe there would be a picture from Ginger of my puppies’ latest antics today.
A second notification startled me. The next client would be waiting. Back rigid in my chair, I lifted my chin. “I’ll send you an invite for two days from now at seven o’clock.” I cleared my throat and corrected myself, “I mean, seven suns…to review the final drawing before your build proceeds on Monday. Please com me if you need to reschedule. If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter I must attend to.” The prickly sensation deepened to a vibration that rolled through me, and I dug my heels into the floor to combat it.
What’s with the deep voice?
JayJay’s brow ridges scrunched, and Makir locked his eyes on my nose.
JayJay’s gaze bounced from Makir to me. “You mean new week. Right, boss man?”
Makir nodded at my nose and quickly scurried out of the office.
I mumbled, “Yeah, new week.”
“You have another matter you must attend to?” JayJay teased in his rumbly voice. “What stick crawled up your ass?”
“Did you feel that?” I ignored his jab.
“You mean your small male syndrome?” JayJay rumbled at the same time he slapped his knee.
“The tingling. Did you feel the vibrations under your skin?”
He shook his head as he walked to the adjoined kitchen. “Are all people from Earth short and crazy?”
The strange, prickly vibrations that had intensified the whole time Makir was near quieted. With some respite to think, I cringed. Apparently, my haywire brain had turned me into a trumped-up politician who’d dismissed Makir like he was nothing. Maybe I could apologize with an upgrade on the house? Would he like a heated towel bar?
Slumped in my chair after the final appointment of the day, I sipped a glass of water. JayJay passed me a slice of graneth bread smeared with peanut butter-type spread, munching one of his own. The flavor took me back to elementary school, where I could find a version of the same sandwich in my Spiderman lunch kit most days.
“Do you think our plan is too ambitious?”
“Bish, boss man. The crew is solid.” His slow speech helped to unwind my bunched shoulders. “Eight dwellings a month, no problems.”
Before I could finish my food, my head lolled. JayJay’s chortle woke me. “Real food, then bed. Bish, let’s go.”
I blindly followed JayJay to the kitchen we shared with the rest of the crew. They’d been on-site all day, building. While I listened to the loud but happy chatter surrounding me, the first stirrings of friendship took root, spreadingwarmth through my chest.
Convinced that something in the alien air had caused my erratic behavior this morning, I brushed off the warnings my body had sent earlier. Instead, I declared I would act perfectly normal the next time I saw Makir. There would be no skin tingling, no deep voice and no handshaking, no matter how much I wanted to know how soft his fur was.
4
“I’m not going torun,” I chanted quietly, power walking as cold sweat broke out on my forehead. The walk back to my dwelling from the archbuilder’s office took twice as long as it should have, my legs growing stiffer with each innocent sound I flinched at. Squawking woodskies, doors closing… A squelch in the mud behind me revealed a passerby on their way to the bakery. Blanting bad luck. I’d left Lorne to escape alpha assholes—one in particular—and here they were, popping up all around me. First Raz, and now the archbuilder.
The fear of starting somewhere new was nothing like the terror I’d experienced at Reinik’s hands. I thanked the goddess Sola every rotation that our bond had neverbeen completed. Now, it only took the presence of an alpha male to set me on edge—any alpha male.
Small puffs of pink dust kicked up around my feet on the path. The safety of my unfinished dwelling was three steps away. The thrown-together walls barely kept out the rain, but it was home, nonetheless. My drumming heartbeats would slow in a moment, and I’d fall apart where no one could see.
“Hey. Hey, Makir, I’ve finally caught you.”
I jumped. Raz’s toothy grin chilled me. My lungs strained when his hand clamped around my wrist, taloned fingertips clicking together where they circled. I had no recollection of holding my breath until my lungs screamed for air.
“Don’t you think it’s time to take a meal with me as you promis-s-s-ed?”
Promised? Did I promise?
I froze in his grip. In my panic to leave the archbuilder’s, I’d forgotten to try and avoid Raz. I was tired of declining his increasingly less polite offers to provide me with more suitable living quarters. Even if I only had one ration bar left and it rained daily for the rest of my life, I would still not agree to move into Raz’s guestroom. No one would have that kind of control over me again.
My breathing grew shallow and rapid while my mind blurred. My parents had passed my raising to my brother, but they had drilled into me from an early age how serious promise contracts were to Lornians. The thought of breaking a promise sent my stomach spinning.
