I then spent the night burping up the rancid taste of their juice. It was a lose-lose situation for all, especially when the gas kicked in. I was banished to walk downwind all morning, and let’s just say I no longer judge animals who fear their own farts.
So lesson learned: apparently, chewing the nasty little fuckers makes them a hell of a lot easier to digest, but then you have to suffer with actually tasting them. Either way, I’m fucked, and I hate this place. Maybe some granola, vagina-steaming, health nut might be able to choke them down for the benefits alone, but Gwyneth Paltrow I am not.
I can’t do it. I lie back on my blanket and try to ignore my empty stomach. Maybe tomorrow night when I’m really starving, I can force myself, but tonight it just doesn’t feel worth it. I stare up at the stunning starlit night and once again search for any constellations that exist in the sky I know back home, but I can’t make familiar shapes out of any of these stars. Guess I’ll just have to create my own.
“You should eat, Falon, tomorrow will be another long day,” Ryn tells me, like it’s breaking news.
Every day will be a long day until we find the Ouphe, and that’s if we can find them. I outlined what I could remember of the map the other day for them, and they all kind of looked at me like there was no way I had that right. Something about uninhabitable badlands or whatever, but it’s definitely where I was told to go. Zeph’s now convinced that we’re being led to our deaths for sure, but he was outvoted, and alas here we are, still slowly making our way closer to who the hell knows what.
Either way, Pigeon and I already decided that she is going to walk tomorrow so I can have a break. I’m pretty sure that makes the grot berries officially her problem now.
Treno stands up and gives us his back while he arranges his blanket. He’s off to the side like he’s trying to pretend that he’s not with us. It gets cold at night, but it seems everyone is too pissed and stubborn to huddle together like good sense would encourage.
I watch his back as he flings the blanket out and lays it gently on some bracken. I study the matching black symbols marked high on each of his shoulder blades. I trace the skinny rhombus and the small pearl-like circles that surround the thin diamond. Each mark is identical, and I can feel my shoulder blades itching from where I know the same marks now reside on me.
I want to ask what they are, but now is not the time. Not when he’s still set on hating me.
I think back to the marks I know I used to have on my own body. If I still had them, would Treno have gotten them too after our mating, like I did his?
A rumble of irritation bubbles up in my chest. It seems Pigeon isn’t a huge fan of my line of thought right now. She hasn’t been too keen on thinking about her mates at all lately. I try not to feel boastful about the fact that things aren’t turning out the way Pigeon wanted. I did try to warn her about crushing on assholes.
Pigeon flashes me the memories of me screaming Zeph’s, Ryn’s, and Treno’s names, lost in the ecstasy of incredible orgasms, while they pumped away between my thighs. I roll my eyes and try to dismiss the heat I feel in my stomach at the images.
“That’s just sex,” I tell her dismissively. “Any asshole can give you an orgasm if they’re skilled enough, it doesn’t mean anything.”
To back up what I’m saying, I flash her images of all the other times I hooked up with people, but that just seems to irritate her more. She’s like an ex who wants to get all bent out of shape over who you were with before them.
“You were there for every single one,” I point out to her.
Yeah, I thought I was a latent and she was a wolf back then, but we still had somewhat of a connection. I could feel her when she was very agitated or wanted to exude some good ol’ fashioned dominance. She liked pushing to run the show when it came to my hookups in the past. Aggressive was our middle name.
She flashes me images of Ryn, Treno, and Zeph again, clearly trying to communicate that things are different with them. It seems she doesn’t want to recognize that I was no more attached to them when we fucked than I ever have been to any other guy. The only real difference is that she was attached.
Several images blink through my mind. Pigeon is trying to figure out how to solve the asshole problem occurring in our three mates. I snort in amusement. “Many a woman has tried and failed to suss out the solution to that one, Pidge. I wish you luck, but I’m not holding my breath that there’s a way to fix that. Especially not with these guys,” I tell her, amused.
“What’s so funny?” Ryn asks me. I look over my shoulder to see him settling in next to my blanket.
“Pigeon’s deciding between ripping everyone’s heads off and trying to figure out how we can all be one big happy family,” I tell him, the snark thick enough to cut with a knife.
“Well, that should keep her occupied for the rest of our natural born life,” he replies, and I try not to release an amused snort.
I know Ryn is feeling bad and wants to get on my good side, but it’s going to take a
