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She is gone.
I put the plate of food down, cursing inwardly.
I should have followed my instincts. I should have pinned her over my lap and thrashed her insolent, disrespectful, and most of all, disobedient human ass until she understood the stakes.
It does not take a genius to work out where she has gone. I leave the ship and head back toward the pride fire where the cubs are being fed. Nyan has one, but of course Ava has relieved him of the other.
She gives me a defiant look as I approach, which does not soften my mood one bit. She thinks because she is feeding a cub, I will not intervene. She is right on that score, but the baby will not eat forever, and I am capable of great patience.
Eventually, the little guy has had his fill and falls asleep in her arms.
“Don’t you dare use that cub as a shield,” I tell her. “Give him to Nyan and come with me.”
She narrows her eyes at me. She knows she is in trouble now. I can hear her stomach growling audibly, and I know for a fact it has been more than ten hours since she ate.
Ava
I am in trouble, but I don’t care. I wanted to make sure that the cubs were being fed properly. It’s not always easy to feed a baby, and Nyan, sweet as he is, has never fed one before, let alone two at the same time.
I slide the sleeping cub over and into Nyan’s lap and sigh. “Fine.”
Azlan looks seriously pissed right now. When he first took me into the ship, he had a slight gentleness to his demeanor. He doesn’t have that anymore. He is entirely grim and absolutely serious.
“Come with me,” he says, curt.
I really don’t want to, but the energy has shifted and it feels like disobeying him in any way would be an incredibly bad idea right now. So why is there some part of my mind that just wants to lean into it?
“Where are we going?”
He stops and turns around to look at me.
I cross my arms over my chest, an old defensive stance. It’s not going to help me one bit against Azlan.
He seems to think for a moment, or perhaps not think. Maybe it’s more that he’s fighting down several instincts, none of which would be good for me.
In the end, he crosses the distance between us and grabs me. Once again, I find myself tipped over his broad shoulder, feeling so incredibly small and so very much in trouble.
Azlan doesn’t say a word. He just carries me back into the ship, back to our chamber, and sits me down in front of a cooling bowl of soup.
“Eat,” he says.
“I don’t think I am hungry,” I say. “Your vibe right now is really killing my hunger. Plus, honestly, death doesn’t make me want to eat, and there has been a lot of death today.”
Azlan softens slightly.
“I know,” he says. “But you need your strength. Eat what you can, and then I will thrash you.”
I splutter into the spoon I had raised to my mouth.
“Don’t act surprised. You have to know you have earned my ire. The price of disobedience is pain.”
I suppose I can’t argue I didn’t know, because yeah, I knew. But my desire to make sure the cubs were okay overrode any desire to eat food or save my ass.
“I have to look after them, Azlan. You wanted me to be a mother, and I might not be their mother, but they need me. So you can do what you want to me, but I’m always going to do what they need first.”
“Very brave,” he says. “And very laudable. Finish your soup.”
He’s actually made quite a good broth. There’s a lot of soft potato chunks and a smooth pumpkin texture, along with carrots and good amount of my homemade vegetable stock. Once I start eating, I discover to my surprise that I was actually starving all along. Soup is good because it’s a solid and a liquid, so I get to drink as well as eat, and by the time I finish the bowl I am feeling much better in spite of the fact I wasn’t really registering that I felt bad.
