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Dalk was quiet again for a long moment before uttering, “That is stupid.” “Um, and that is rude,” I fired back, scowling at him. “It is not rude. It is the truth. It is stupid to rely on a hollow vegetable to protect you against something malevolent,” Dalk said. “Especially someone as small and defenceless as you.”
alone ate about fourteen of them and it was only by the grace of the stealth gifted to me by my father and his father before him that I managed to wrangle one from the fray for you.”
the centre of my chest. Whenever Fiona popped up around me my heart did stupid things. Like... beating. Too hard.
“You don’t fight Father Christmas. Are you insane?” I frowned.
“It seems rather more insane not to fight an unknown male who wanders unbidden into your dwelling. And I’m not talking about the krizzmas father. I’m talking about Zanta Claws. The red one. With the chin hairs.” “Father Christmas is Santa Claus. Same bloke, different names. And he doesn’t wander in unbidden! He comes in to deliver gifts!”
“It’s the countdown to New Year’s!” Fiona said quickly. “Fuck me, I’m supposed to kiss somebody.” She looked around wildly while I stared, hard, hard, hard at her.
“Five!” Her eyes reluctantly met mine. “Four!” She was supposed to kiss somebody. She’d said so herself. I may not have been somebody to her but I was somebody. And I was closest.
tribes. So if it were to happen, if Fiona were to be paired with another male, of course I would stand aside. I had no claim on her. I would let her go. Let her go to him, and... and... And probably throw the male in question from the top of his very own mountain home. Or stab him.
Or maybe both. Stab, then throw. Yes, that would work.
“But I helped make them for the others, too!” she said quickly. “I also made Oxriel’s. And cards for other people in the tribe.” I sent Oxriel a stare so hateful and heated he physically flinched.
“Did you draw flowers on all of them too?” I asked, more softly this time. Her answer was hushed. “No. I didn’t.”
I sent a triumphant look over at Oxriel. He did not have a flower from Fiona on his pay-pur. No other male did. No other male but me.
“Well,” I said gruffly, carefully folding my card, “if you remember any more traditions like that... any that require the participation of a male... I suppose that I would not mind... obliging you.” “How very generous of you,” she said, her voice oddly breathy. My blood felt hot in my veins. I wanted to tell her that it had nothing to do with generosity and everything to do with the slow constriction of desire I felt for her, winding tighter and tighter every day, until it felt as if my ribs were not large enough to house my lungs. I wanted to tell her that I’d thought of that little,
Dalk was looking at the Valentine’s Day card I made him like it was a fucking kitten or something. A kitten he didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with but that he wanted to keep anyways. Seriously, he was petting the thing. And...
“What are boobz?” Of course, that lovely little word had come out in English. There weren’t always equivalents in the Sea Sand language to colloquial human phrases.
“I want you,” he echoed back at me. “I have wanted you for so long I have forgotten what it’s like not to want you.”
“It was me, you know. That first day you were here. I was the one who saved you from the zeelk. I was the one who carried you back on my irkdu.” “You were?” I whispered. He didn’t look hurt, but he didn’t exactly look happy, either. It was like I’d confirmed his suspicions. “You do not remember.” “I remember that day,” I said quickly. How the hell could I not? How could I forget the moment we’d landed in the Zaphrinax desert, only to have zeelk tear our ship apart and kill every single crew member except Chapman? We’d all scattered onto the open sands in pure, animal terror, running this way
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“It’s a shame that you must hurt for all that beauty.” He paused,
