AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shakes her head, stopping herself from saying what? It doesn’t matter. I’ll wait. When she finally shares it, I have a feeling I’m going to like what she says.
Less than two hours later, we’ve eaten our weight in buffet food, traveled to the zoo in a hover bus, and are hurrying toward the gates.
“I haven’t been to an animal refuge in ages.” Delia looks so kissable when her enthusiasm overflows like this. I don’t know how she manages it, but the tiny human is pulling me and all my bulk through the ornate metal gates.
Planet Equitarn is known for this refuge, but now that we’re here I regret I didn’t do my research. The computer pads they hand us, loaded with maps of every exhibit and pathway in the enormous park, indicate this place is bigger than the city I grew up in.
“Can we see theblemmerels, Jarrn? Please?”
I press my lips together, controlling my urge to tease her and ask her how old she is. She’s like an adorable child.
“How could I deny youblemmerels?” I ask, though I have no idea what they are.
I bite back my urge to warn her that she’ll run out of energy if she continues to pull a huge ogre through the humongous park. Instead, I trail along as I listen to her excited chatter. What seems like a mile later, we arrive at theblemmerelhabitat. Because the round structure is domed, I wonder if we’ve traveled all this way to see birds. Frankly, I wouldn’t have imagined avians would catch Delia’s interest.
The building is made completely of windows and when we cross the threshold, we’re met with a thick wall of humidity. It’s the perfect environment for all the green vegetation, from trees and vines that touch the windowed ceiling, to the ground cover and bushes that dot the floor.
It’s not the plants that catch my attention, though, it’s the fabulous patches of vivid blue that dot branches, flowers, and are flying through the air.
“Pretty, huh?” Delia’s attention is just as captured as mine as we stand near the threshold getting our bearings. “Let’s find the den. I assume it’s somewhere in the middle.”
“Den? Do they have large screen vids? Are they pepball fans?” I quip.
She laughs and playfully swats my ass, something she seems to be making a habit of. “No, silly. Theblemmerelden. Where they trade.”
I’ll admit, she’s piqued my interest. We wend our way through the thick foliage, getting close enough to touch some of the birds along the way.
Delia came prepared. Every time ablemmerelshows an interest in her, she reaches into her pocket and offers a shiny object from her cupped palm. Most are coins, some are bottle caps from the fancy Sillerian whisky we sell in the Monster venue, some are shiny candy wrappers.
“You’re slacking off, Jarrn. Why didn’t you bring anything?.” She slashes me a happy smile as one of the biggest birds in the habitat swoops in to steal a metal washer she must have found on the floor of the bus.
“Someone forgot to share.”
“Because someone else was too big a distraction.” She winks, then points. “There’s the den.” She tugs me farther into the structure.
Now that we’re close, it’s hard to miss our destination because there must be hundreds of the cobalt, azure, and royal blue birds crammed into a circular area that’s devoid of foliage. The birds are in groups of varying sizes. Some as few as two, to one group with almost twenty.
A Pluvian docent in her khaki uniform is whispering as she gestures with all four hands. Although we’re not part of her tour, we lean closer to hear her explanation.
“Scientists from all over the galaxy continue to debate whether these birds are sentient or not. I’ll let you make up your own mind. These birds are bartering for all these shiny objects. It’s uncanny. It’s almost as if they know the worth of the coins tourists give them. They turn up their beaks at the ones worth fewer credits and vie for the expensive ones.”
Delia leans over the rail, and I snug up behind her, bracketing her with my arms, making certain she feels my cock rub against her back. Hey, there’s no harm in combining this educational experience with a little foreplay, right?
We watch as the birds engage in serious bidding and negotiations. It doesn’t take too much imagination to believe that their expressions show that each participant in the exchange feels they got the better of the other bird.
After a while, Delia speaks for one of them. “Oh, you think your bottle cap is better than mine because it’s shiny? You lose Mr. Azurefeather. My bottle cap weighs more and is clearly the better prize.”
I get into the act, arguing back with her. “I’ll have you know, Mr. Longbeak, that altimont caps are universally coveted because of the rarity of their brew. You’d need ten of those to equal one.”
We’re laughing so loudly, the docent puts all four of her pointer fingers against her lips in the universal signal to shut up.
Finally, we exit the habitat, holding hands and still chuckling. Once we’re out of the humid enclosure and back in the streaming sunlight, Delia gazes up at me with so much affection on her pretty face, my heart squeezes in my chest.
I’ve probably known for months, but I can’t hide it from myself anymore.
I’ve fallen in love with my little human.
Chapter14
