“How about I bond my fist to the inside of your skull?” Skalla seethed, knuckles cracking with tension at his sides.
“Skalla,” I said, scolding him yet again but much more quietly this time. I placed a calming hand on his back, and watched the muscles of his wings and shoulders jump in response to my touch. As strange as I found Koltar’s question, I wasn’t about to let Skalla actually hurt him because of it. To Koltar, I was an alien, and so was Skalla to an extent. It wasn’t surprising for Koltar to be curious about these things, even if it did make me immensely uncomfortable.
Skalla exhaled roughly and forced his posture to relax.
Koltar said nothing for a moment, as if still expecting one of us to actually answer. I supposed he was used to people jumping to obey him and giving him whatever information he wanted whenever he asked for it. But there was absolutely no way I was going to answer him, and it was obvious that Skalla wouldn’t either. I cringed at what Skalla would even say. Yes, she is my fated mate, but alas, I have not yet been fortunate enough to get a single one of my cocks into her!
Jesus Christ.
“Best wishes to you both,” Koltar said at length. Jolakaia mumbled a respectful goodbye at his back as he walked out of the lab.
“I do not like that male,” Skalla hissed vehemently at the now-empty doorway.
“Do you like any male?” I prodded.
“If I did, it would have been in my past,” he said testily. “All the males among my current acquaintance are decidedly obnoxious and it would not grieve me to see their spines ripped out.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure they feel the same way about you,” I replied with a chuckle and a pat on his tense back.
Skalla was possibly the most dramatic male, alien or human, in the entire span of the universe. But I was slowly learning how to deal with him. I trusted more and more each day that he’d listen to me when it really counted. He wouldn’t hurt someone if I didn’t want him to. At least... I was pretty sure he wouldn’t. As long as I was conscious and able to tell him not to, that is, previous bone-breaking incidents aside.
“Come on,” I said, patting him once more. “Let’s go eat.”
I almost said let’s go home.
CHAPTER FORTY
Suvi
Iconfigured myself into a new position on the two-wheel that was less comfortable but also far less prone to edging me into a near-painful state. I probably looked a bit silly – I was essentially sitting side saddle with my legs pressed together and thrown across Skalla’s lap – but it worked. And this time, I could actually relax a little bit and enjoy the ride.
I wasn’t much one for speed, and that was alright, because the Callabarra streets had just as many pedestrians and slow-rolling wagons as it did two-wheel vehicles. The drive was relaxed, the sun warming me gently as it dipped behind the tall wood-framed buildings at the city’s centre. The further we got from the temple, the more the houses were spaced out, with gardens and small fields and even ponds dotting the properties. One house was even built on stilts above one such pond, and a group of about a dozen Bohnebregg children were playing a game there that involved a flat-looking rock and sticks. Hockey sticks.
“Skalla! Can we stop?” I said, twisting to keep the kids in my sight as we passed them. Skalla yanked back on the steering pole, the rod of it mercifully bumping against my hip instead of my clit this time, and brought us to a stop at the side of the wide, dirt road.
“What is it?” he asked with some tension as I hopped off of his lap.
“I just want to see what those kids are doing. It almost looks like they’re playing hockey!”
Skalla turned his eye back towards the children we’d passed with renewed interest. I’d mentioned hockey to him before, I didn’t think I’d done a great job explaining it.
“Come on,” I said excitedly, grabbing his hand and tugging. “Let’s go see.”
It wasn’t hockey, of course, but there were elements that made it similar enough to slap a sky-wide grin on my face.
There appeared to be two teams, each with six squealing Bohnebregg children. One team stood on one side of the pond, the other opposite them. There were three large hoops on each side of the pond, for a total of six, flat circles on the ground about a metre in diameter each and moving progressively further from the water’s edge. The children took turns, one from the first team, then one from the other, on and on, each of them slapping the flat rock with their long-handled sticks as hard as possible. The goal, it appeared, was to make the rock skip across the pond’s surface and land in one of the hoops on the other side. There must have been some kind of points system, because when one child got the rock into the hoop furthest away on that other side of the pond, their team erupted into cheers and the opposing side howled.
“It’s not exactly like hockey,” I told Skalla, unable to look away from the childhood goodness of the game. “But it’s close enough.” And even though the rules were different, the visceral joy, the thrills and the pain of the game, were instantly recognizable as ones shared in equal measure by human children. All the way across the universe, and here we are, alien children playing the same kinds of games I did.
“Let her have a turn.”
I jumped, realizing Skalla was speaking directly to the children.
“Oh, no, that’s alright,” I said hurriedly, not wanting to encroach on their game. Just watching had been good enough.
But the children were already hopping excitedly at the prospect and rushing to offer me their sticks.
“Yes, yes! Let that pale, ugly boy try it!”
“She’s female, you dolt!”
“Wait... Really?”
“Let the ugly female have a go!”
Skalla bared his fangs and looked like he was about to smack the ones who’d called me ugly. I snorted, barely holding back my laughter, and waved him off.
“Thank you,” I said to them in Bohnebregg, grinning and taking the closest stick offered to me. It was different from a hockey stick. It reminded me more of a lacrosse stick, but with a curved wooden paddle instead of netting at the end. “Alright. Here goes nothing.”
The wide-eyed children stood back and urged each other into breathless silence, as if I was doing some magic trick that required immense concentration instead of simply attempting to hit a rock with a stick. Trying not to lose my nerve under the weight of all those expectant little eyes, I nudged the flat rock into the correct spot and took a deep breath. Then I gripped the stick’s handle and executed the movement with a resounding smack!
The rock skipped over the pond in great, bouncy arches, zooming right past the furthest hoop on the other side. I was fairly certain that going past the hoop wasn’t ideal, but the children lost their minds anyway, jumping and screeching, both sides demanding my points be added to their score.
Skalla watched me from over the children’s heads, giving me a look that made my chest constrict.
He was looking at me like he was proud of me.
He was looking at me like he loved me.
“I guess that was pretty good,” I called to Skalla with a laugh, trying to lighten the moment. “Although I’m way more used to playing on ice.”
Without moving his eye from my face, he lifted his hand out to the side, jabbed a single finger towards the water...