“My fault?”
Fellisse chuckled, and Nokim clapped his hands. “We’re going to have the best time, all of us.”
“Except for the pigeons,” Vergis said.
He was glaring at me. Fondly? Maybe. Still, I was glad I wasn’t a pigeon.
Chapter 12
The best part about staying with Kinnek and Charles was when no magic happened, when we could all just be and enjoy the monster-free quiet. Honestly, I’d never have thought I’d like living in the countryside, but after everything, boring days with zero excitement were a balm.
The morning after we got there from Donna’s place, I was treated to my guys working out, which meant they did some sparring in the backyard, near the gazebo. When Inkiri came out of the house, all ready to do some sparring of his own, he stopped next to where I was standing and watching Lissir and Fellisse warming up with some gentle combat. That was what it looked like to me, at any rate.
“Sadir, are you going to watch?” Inkiri asked.
I looked up, shielding my eyes against the sun. “Can I? I don’t want to get in the way of anyone. I was just curious.”
He smiled. “You’re never in the way, sweet thing. I’ll be right back.”
He turned on his heel and walked right back to the house. About five minutes later, he came back with a camping chair under one arm and a sun hat in the other hand. He put up the chair in the shade under a tree—apple or cherry maybe, I couldn’t tell from the pretty white blossoms alone—and held out the hat to me with an almost mischievous smile I kind of wanted to kiss, except that might’ve distracted my monster husband, and I wanted him to win at sparring.
I took the hat. It had no holes for horns, so I figured it was Charles’s. “I could’ve sat on the grass.”
Inkiri clicked. “But isn’t a chair nicer? You can see better from a chair.”
Trophy mate, I told myself. Be the trophy mate you were meant to be. “You’re right, of course. Thank you, Ink.”
Was I overacting? Maybe. Inkiri seemed to be okay with it though, judging by how my words made him smile.
“You’re very welcome, Sadir. Let me know if you need anything or want to go back inside.”
I nodded and sat, and he joined the others. Then the sparring really started, and while I did my best to watch, I had to look away several times.
How my guys managed the throws and all the falling and rolling without hurting their horns at all baffled me. Charles walked past me, watched for about three minutes, then asked whether he could have a go. Three minutes later, Kinnek came out with another folding chair and joined me.
“Charles enjoys new challenges,” Kinnek said. “Nice, bulky hangu-na like your mate and Fellisse are a lure he can’t resist.”
The workouts in the mornings were a regular occurrence from that point on, and after, Inkiri unfailingly came to have me kiss him before eventually going to wash up and soak or steam with the others.
The next few days were like a vacation, at least for me and the rest of the guys. Vergis, not so much. With Nokim as his accomplice, he murdered the pigeons and then “accidentally” dropped a pigeon corpse almost on my head when I was coming back into the house from the vegetable patch with some carrots Charles had asked me to dig up for dinner. Vergis had apologized with a shit-eating grin from the roof.
Other than avoiding pigeon corpses, Kinnek thought I needed to learn the Lugarran alphabet and a few words in it. According to him, they’d get used in ko circles and sacrifices, and while I liked neither, I figured it couldn’t hurt to know, if only to make a sacrifice not work and save some poor bunny.
Apart from helping me with my Lugarran writing, Kinnek made me do magic all the time. Either alone—not fun, because it meant I’d have that voice in my head—or with Vergis—also not fun because I’d get sarcastic comments from outside of my head. On the plus side, Vergis, sarcastic though he might be, was easy to work with.
When Kinnek suggested Vergis take me to feed the bunnies, my eyes lit up, and I made some comment about cuddling them. It got me blank stares, followed by Vergis’s suggestion that maybe I stick with learning the alphabet.
“But why?” I asked, crestfallen.
We were sitting at the big round kitchen table in a similarly generous kitchen that saw a lot of use.
Vergis snorted. “They’re not for cuddling. We use them for sacrifices.”
Kinnek nodded happily while correcting some words I’d written in Lugarran. “It’s so Muffin doesn’t have to snare any.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Kinnek looked up, twirling his red pencil. “But you’re my little chocolate chip muffin, Muffin. Ah, all this reminds me of when you were little and we used to homeschool you.”
