Page 19

Chuckling quietly to himself, Agrel stretched his wings for a moment before turning toward him with a patient smile, his arms crossing his chest. “And why is that?”

Why?

Gehj gaped at him. “It is revolting. We cannot present this thing to our mate. It will reflect badly on us and our ability to take care of her. I?—”

“—need to calm down,” Agrel interrupted. “Or else you are going to have another repeat of when you were asked to present your report to Chieftain Dengal. Do you not recall what happened?”

“It is not the same.” Gehj’s wings twitched with embarrassment.

He had wanted it perfect. He had gone over his report a dozen times and then went personally to see the producers and visit the storehouse managers to recalculate their numbers with them. It had been a lot of work that had not left him much time for sleeping and eating and he?—

“You dropped to the ground in exhaustion right in front of the chieftain,” Agrel reminded him drolly. “I had to carry you back to our nest and was forced to take care of you for three days because you were as weak as little Nimh.” He hissed with quietlaughter. “Not the same, you say, but it is exactly that. You are panicking now, just as you did then.”

Gehj grimaced, perhaps his ahaku was right, but it still didn’t hurt to—his train of thought was interrupted as Lily came sailing out of the house as if she had sprouted wings. She ran to them, her face lit up with excitement.

“A wagon! I can’t believe you found a wagon!” she shrieked as she stopped in front of them and bounced in place on her small feet. Spinning around, she shouted back to the house. “Momma, they brought a wagon!”

He groaned inwardly. So much for his attempt to abandon the smelly box…wagon… somewhere.

“A wagon?” Delilah’s head popped out the door curiously and she smiled as a look of relief swept over her face. “Oh, thank the Blessed Mother.” Her smile widened as she headed for them. “I thought for sure we would have to carry everything. That would have required us to abandon almost everything.”

He was so fixated on his mate as he tried to think of a way out of their current situation that he failed to see Lily scooting close to his side until she let out a loud giggle.

“It stinks,” she declared loudly and giggled again, her nose wrinkling.

Shamed filled him. He should have thought of that when he found it. He could not believe he brought something with such a foul smell for his mate.

“Don’t be silly, Lily,” Delilah countered in a light voice, startling him as she moved to the side of the wagon. Her eyes gleamed happily as she looked it over. “As the wood isn’t rotting and seems to be in good condition, it has probably sat in a barn somewhere. That’s just the normal smell, since animals tend to hole up in there to get out of the weather. We will sweep it out good and mop it down with vinegar. Once it’s dry, we can tie down some herbal sachets in the corners. It won’t be perfect,but it will do just fine.” Turning to Gehj, she stood on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, shocking him into silence, before doing the same to Agrel. “Thank you, this must have taken you some effort to find.”

“It was Gehj. I helped pull it, but he is the one who found it and suggested that we bring it to you,” Agrel replied as he turned a smug smile on Gehj.

“I… it is nothing,” he stammered, caught off-guard.

“It is perfect,” his mate assured him as she drew his head down and placed her lips directly over his.

He froze, his crests rising and tail feathers fanning in response to the desire that shot through him with the meeting of their mouths. His eyes slid shut, and he kissed her back. The contact was brief, and her cheeks were red when she quickly pulled away from him again, but his heart still thudded in his chest, its pulse filling his ears. Lily giggled from where she stood, her small hands pressed against her mouth, until her mother drew away with a quiet admonishment.

“Don’t gawk at adults, Lily. Staring is rude. Come on, let’s go get the vinegar. We may need all of it, but that’s okay, we won’t be taking it with us, anyway. Do you know where I have the lavender stored?”

“Yes, momma,” the nestling replied as she began to bounce in a skipping step at her mother’s side.

He watched the pair as they walked back to the dwelling, certain that the emotions filling his heart had to be visible on his face. His ahaku clasped him roughly on the shoulder, his wing wrapping enthusiastically around him in a way that he knew was annoying, so that the bend of the wing thumped Gehj heavily on the chest.

“We should fetch the brooms and get the wagon ready, yes?” Agrel said.

Gehj nodded numbly, still stunned. Yes… they should do that so that the wagon would be ready by the time Delilah returned with the supplies. Gods knew that he would happily do that and more.

He would do anything for her.

Chapter

Fourteen

Delilah shook her head in wonder. How was it that in the flurry of preparing to leave that the cottage looked so good? While she did spot cleaning and did all the regular cooking, she really couldn’t recall when her home was in such good condition. It wasn’t so much the regular cleaning, as she kept up on that as much as she always did. It was how the hard-to-reach places that she always had to chastise Zack about and had been neglected for years since his disappearance were suddenly clean, and the dishes were washed after every meal before she had an opportunity to get to them. And it was thanks to the Atlavan males sharing her home and her bed with her.

She truly had not expected such thoughtfulness. She had figured that they would try to romance her with little meaningless but sweet gestures and had prepared herself for not being swayed by flowers and little tokens… to make her decision rationally. But this she was not prepared for. Males who cleaned and worked to make her life easier, who she didn’t have to follow around with a broom and waste bin on the chance that they may thoughtlessly discard something or leave a mess somewhere. Truthfully, they were cleanly to the point of nearlybeing fastidious with it. She had even caught them carefully grooming each other’s feathers to remove loose or damaged ones and singed them to ash between their fingers. Ash that they, in turn, swept up on their own without having to be asked.

Blessed Mother… was there anything as attractive as a male who kept his home and himself so clean and orderly? Not only that, but when they weren’t cleaning or hunting, they were happy to spend portions of the day playing with Lily or simply spend the evening sprawling with them in front of the fire. They’d fallen into a comfortable rhythm over the span of just a few days while Delilah went through their meager belongings and set aside the most important things to go with them.