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Warol bristled. “Are you looking to challenge me?” he growled.
Kyx flattened his ears submissively but didn’t back down. “Don’t you know anything? Humans can’t eat meat like that. It will get sick. Meat needs be to put over fire for it to eat.”
With a disgusted growl, Warol shoved the meat at him and stomped over to the other side of the rutter, pulling a thick slab off its belly and bolting it down. Rager tossed him the sweet-tasting liver and Warol nodded his thanks. Their triad’s alpha always kept faultless track of whose turn it was to enjoy the sweetmeats of their kill. He licked his muzzle thoughtfully as he watched the human push its way further back from their feast as if there was something wrong with it. His ears flattened back against his skull.
A foul odor of burning meat filled the cave, and eventually Kyx brought the human its share of the feast. The human attempted to retreat and turned its face away from the male, but Rager wasn’t having any of that. He reached behind him and shoved it back on its rear.
“Do not refuse sustenance, human. It is rude,” he barked.
“How is it you speak English?” she asked, her eyes widening, from what he could tell.
Rager snorted disdainfully. “Humans, you believe we are unthinking monsters. We know this, but our ancestors were taught your languages by those who lived nearby and passed down that knowledge through their families, down to us, so that we are never at the disadvantage of not being able to understand you.”
“But when you speak your language, I don’t understand you. Do you consider that fair?” she asked hesitantly, almost cowering when he turned to look at her. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl.
“It hardly is of any concern of mine what you consider fair. Humans never bothered to learn. That was your error, not ours. Now eat.”
The human was smart enough to recognize the authority of his tone and accepted the meat from Kyx. It sniffed it warily, and then a rumbling sound came from its belly, protesting its hunger. Warol watched as it tore into the meat with its dull, useless teeth. He shook his head. It was hard to believe he was looking at any kind of great predator. It had no fangs or claws, no thick fur or spinal plating to protect it. It was also significantly impaired by having only one set of hands and eyes.
Biting off a sound of disgust, he plucked up a fatty glob of meat that had fallen to the ground and flung it out the entrance of the cave. The human skittered back as if he’d been aiming for it. All four of his eyes focused on it disdainfully. Stranger still was that the human was gripping its hood and pulling it down with its pale, bald hand. Warol huffed with impatience. The night was comfortably warm. With a fire so near, surely it had to be uncomfortable with all that covering.
With a muttered oath and no patience for human silliness, he headed for the human and was at its side within a few very short strides. It balked but didn’t have time to react before he leaned forward and ripped off its ridiculous hooded cloak. It shrieked in surprise as the cloth tore and scraps of fabric floated to the ground.
His breath caught as a mass of hair the color of sacred flames spilled out everywhere in wild curls. The face, now that he could better see it, while still oddly flat, had a soft shape to it, rounding out with prominent cheeks before terminating in a pointed chin. Pale pink lips were drawn down into an unhappy look, and fear flashed in the dark blue of its eyes.
His gaze trailed down, taking in the delicate neck that sloped down into round shoulders. He didn’t recall ever seeing such a delicate human, even at a distance where harsher features were less distinguished. The body swelled at the chest and again at the hips in a fashion that triggered a warning of recognition in his mind.
Kyx breathed in awe as he arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously. “It’s a female.”
At that, Rager, who’d begun to doze in a corner of the cave, drew up and came up beside him. The female hunkered defensively down into herself as they surrounded her. Kyx took that moment to lean in and inhale.
“I do not know how I didn’t notice before,” he mumbled aloud to himself. “She definitely has a warm, sweet smell typical of females. It is different from the pheromone markers of a female Ragoru, but distinct from the scent of the human males whose trails we often cross.”
The female squeaked when Rager leaned in to scent her and the male growled a warning in the back of his throat. Warol couldn’t blame her. Rager was a big bastard even among their own kind. To a tiny human female, he was probably terrifying.
Scratching the scruff at his neck, Warol looked at her thoughtfully. “Do you suppose the humans will be out looking for her? We have never seen or caught scent of a human female before. I always presumed they kept them safely sequestered. That is what I would do, with such a fragile creature for a mate,” he observed.
“We should keep her,” Kyx offered, his tail brushing his hindquarters cheerfully.
Warol rolled all four of his eyes. “And what if she has a mate? He could be out there looking for her now with a pack of other males. What do you think they would do if we were caught with her? No, it is better to leave her with the humans,” he said firmly, as he ignored the beacon of her hair.
Rager said nothing, but Kyx glared at him. “There is one way to find out,” he snapped before switching from Ragii to human speech. He inched closer to the female. She stiffened with alarm and her eyes widened, but she didn’t otherwise move. “Female, why are you here alone? Where is your mate?”
The slender arched stripes of hair on her brows pulled down as she frowned. She shook her head, sending her curls flying around her. They caught in the light of the fire as if she were a spirit rather than a creature of flesh. “Mate? I am not joined with anyone.” She paused and then added, “I swear that I am no threat. I didn’t mean to infringe on your territory. I lost the path. I’m traveling through the great woods to get to Old Wayfairer Citadel on the other side. My grandmother is there. If you let me go, I promise I won’t bring any trouble upon you.”
Kyx fell silent. Warol couldn’t tell if it was from disappointment that the female had family waiting for her, or if he was busy strategizing. Warol wagered his next portion of sweetmeat that it was the latter. Rager, however, frowned down at her with distrust. Warol shared the sentiment. The female was a peculiar thing, almost cute once you got past the odd appearance of the species, but something didn’t seem right about her story.
“Humans should not be in the forest alone,” Rager all but growled.
The female ducked down further and pinched her full lips together until they were compressed in a thin line. Warol felt the bizarre urge to tease her lips and lick at the seam with his tongue until she released her iron clamp on them. He shook his head to clear the image from his mind. What was coming over him? His fur stood on end, and he growled low in his throat as he slid a few steps away from her. Maybe she had some skill with enchantment.
She bit her lip—what he guessed was a human show of nerves—before replying. “Usually, most people from the villages do not,” she admitted. “I did not have any other options, and I meant to stay on the merchant’s trail.”
Rager’s ears tilted toward her, and he breathed in deeply as if to ascertain her honesty. His face relaxed only slightly but he nodded at length. “It is a long way through the forest. Several weeks, I believe. You will be safer in our company until we can deposit you there,” he decided.
Warol wanted to groan. They were supposed to be finding their mate and instead they were rescuing and escorting a thankless human. He wanted to be balls deep inside a female, not acting as protector to this one.
Rager barely repressed an irritated growl at his second. Warol was sometimes too impatient for his own good. Rager often found it an amusing contrast given the other male’s spiritual proclivities. Most of their number who were what they called ivorul, the spirit hands, were mild in temperament and as patient as the sun moving on its eternal slow rounds through the heavens.
