“I will consider it, Kevos.”
“Well, of course you have to go, Jotahan,” Sarah said that evening when he returned home from the training grounds and told her about his talk with Kevos. “The last thing either of us needs right now is for you to appear to be snubbing Kevos.”
He stroked his claws through her long head fibers, never able to get enough of the feel of them running through his fingers, silky and warm from the heat of her body. “The lodge is only for members and honored guests. No females are permitted. I would have to leave you alone for many sandfalls.” He lowered his head to bump her forehead with his. “I would far rather spend those sandfalls with you lying upon the bed while I—”
She pressed a finger to his lips, just as he caught the scent of her rising arousal. “Stop it, before you torment us both. You know you need to do this, and I can occupy myself tonight with those.” She motioned towards the table where she’d set a sheaf of scrolls and a pot of ink. “I have some things I’m hoping to sketch out, some human tech I think I might be able to explain to those who have never seen its like before. I’m actually looking forward to the challenge. I’ve never been very good at tech writing, but it’s been interesting learning it as I go, and it helps with the homesickness.”
“Sarah, if you are truly homesick—”
“You’re making a new home for us, Jotahan, and I love the changes we’ve made together on that home, but no matter where I am, it is always where I want to be as long as you’re there with me.”
He had never had the heart to tell her that he’d had to remodel the house he’d built with Farona in mind because he couldn’t find a property matchmaker willing to work with him to rehouse a nixir drahi. It still angered him, but ranting at the matchmakers who were only representing the stakeholders themselves wouldn’t help the situation. It was fortunate that he already had a property to work with, otherwise he might have had to get the elders involved just to have a place to settle with his mate. Throwing his title around to get things done against the will of others would only encourage more accusations that he was allowing a nixir to influence him to abuse his position.
He would do whatever was best for Sarah, but he wanted to do so with the least amount of friction against the yan-kanat people and culture. He could only hope that they would learn to put their biases aside once they grew more familiar and comfortable with having Sarah around.
He had considered the solution the mate of the previous nixir drahi had taken. There were good homes in the baselands, and the residents were more spread out and interacted with each other far less often. They also clung to their territorial ways even more than the hunters and sentils. He could protect his family even in that wilderness, and his half-blood nestlings would not face the judgement that he was beginning to fear they would face in Draku Rin, given the reaction of skilev citizens to Sarah’s presence.
Baselanders were already considered strange by skilev standards. Practically wild creatures themselves in some ways, and they had mixed bloods among them, though it had been several generations since that nixir drahi had produced five nestlings for her mate—an astounding number when most yan-kanat females could only wish for more than two. Three was a blessing from Seta Zul. Five was a dream that very few yan-kanat couples could hope to achieve.
Sarah convinced him to attend the lodge celebration, as much as he wanted to remain home with her. She was correct in this, showing wisdom about such things that he’d never had to consider before. He knew the nixirs were familiar with the ugly side of biases. They probably understood such things far more than any yan-kanat. He was disappointed that his people were behaving so much like the nixirs they had always believed to be inferior to them when it came to decency and honor.
The lodge was just as he’d expected it to be after such a successful and impressive hunt. The music was loud, the cheering and chanting even louder, and the boisterous speech the loudest as each hunter tried to outmatch the previous with the tallest of hunting tales. Liquor flowed freely, with not a single drop of yanhiss in sight. No one wanted to be calm and serene during a celebration like this.
Smoke from incense filled the large dining hall as the revelers partied, gorging themselves on meat and blood-based dishes from the kill. Many of them danced wild jigs, some even leaping onto the table.
The inevitable fight broke out, and the combatants were dragged to the small lodge arena to finish the bout to the cheers and hollers of their fellow revelers.
Through it all, Kevos sat in a well of silence at the head of the table, resting his cheek on his fist, his elbow propped on one arm of the giant, carved wooden chair designated for the master of the hunt.
When Jotahan had arrived, the crowd of hunters, sentils, and other Jotahans had cheered in greeting, and Kevos had also greeted him. Jotahan felt the others watching closely as they clasped shoulders and bowed their heads briefly in respect for each other, their spines flattened so that neither appeared to be more dominant than the other.
As soon as the greeting was completed, the tension appeared to ease among the crowd as they cheered again. Then many of the other males came to Jotahan to bow their heads, or slap him on the shoulder in greeting if they were Jotahans as well.
After his friendly and respectful greeting, Kevos had retreated back to the head of the table, seeming wrapped in his own thoughts, and they appeared to be dark ones. Thoughts that put a slight scowl on his lips and drew his brows together. His spines flicked and bristled as if he was agitated by something, and he spoke very little, even though his tale was the one the partiers wanted to hear most.
As the sandfalls passed, the revelers grew more erratic and intoxicated, until it seemed that only Jotahan and Kevos remained sober. Jotahan was studying Kevos, curious about his odd behavior, when the sentil suddenly rose to his feet, barely wincing at the movement despite the fact that it would take time for his wound to heal properly. Without a backward glance or a word to anyone, he left the dining hall, his tall form disappearing into the shadows of the corridor beyond.
39
A quiet evening at home sounded like a good idea at first, but Sarah’s thoughts were in turmoil after recent events made her question if she could ever feel at home here in Draku Rin. She would do whatever it took to be with Jotahan, but she couldn’t forget that she wasn’t truly welcomed here.
Going through the records of the last human drahi to live in these lands only made her feel even less certain she and Jotahan could make a happy home in Draku Rin. Clearly, that woman—whose name she now knew to be Maggie Bennett—had decided she preferred living in the wild lands of heaths and thick forests and rolling hillsides to trying to live among the yan-kanat in the skilev.
She and her mate had been forced to withdraw from the city, perhaps not by any verbally-spoken decree, but simply because the yan-kanat didn’t make her feel welcome. It must have taken great courage for a woman of that time to accept the drastic changes in her life that had happened when she was abducted from Earth by a male that must have seemed like a monster to her at first. Yet she had made a life here, by all accounts, as had some human women before her. Maggie had even given birth to five children—a fact that was noted in the records with great praise and admiration. It was also noted that she had been a fiercely protective mother who clearly cherished her offspring, making Sarah hope that she had ended up loving her mate as well.