“You son of a bitch!” he growled down into the other male’s face. “If you ever go near my Tisa again I’ll fucking kill you! Do you understand?”
“How dare you threaten me, Kindred?” Kikbax blustered, though his face was pale. “I am the High Priest of Thufar!”
“And I am the Potentate!” Ellina’s voice was shaking with anger and her small hands were balled into fists of rage at her sides, Ty saw. “How dare you seek to lay hands on another person’s chewchie?” she stormed at him. “Especially the chewchie of the Goddess in the Flesh? How dare you?”
The High Priest looked taken aback by Ellina’s fury.
“Why…Your Majesty,” he began uneasily. “I was only seeking to remedy a situation which is most…most unfitting. Surely you must see that your own chewchie cannot be mated to the chewchie of an off-worlder who is not your consort!”
“I don’t see why not!” Ellina exclaimed. “Who better to have the mate of my own sweet Lor than the man who saved my life? Than the Lan’Glaver?”
As she spoke, Ty heard a chanting coming from behind the tall glass wall at the end of the hatching area.
“Lan’Glaver…Lan’Glaver…Lan’Glaver…”
Startled, he looked up. In the sheer bliss of meeting Tisa for the first time and the ensuing confusion of defending her, he had forgotten all about the spectators who had been watching the hatching. Now he looked up and saw them pointing at him and at Lor and Tisa, still curled together on top of Ellina’s head.
“He is the Lan’Glaver, isn’t he, Grandmum?” he heard Tutti ask.
“Yes, my sweet girl.” Her grandmother nodded. “For certain he is. You can tell because Thufar gave him a Sacred Blue chewchie—there can’t be a stronger sign than that!”
“Does that mean the Potentate will join with him and make him her consort?” Tutti wanted to know. “That must be what that means, right? Since their chewchies are mated?”
“I don’t know the will of the Potentate, my sweet,” her grandmother replied. “But it does seem likely, now doesn’t it?”
It was clear that the High Priest heard this exchange as plainly as Ty had because he rounded on Ty, an angry light in all three of his eyes.
“You’ll never be consort here, Kindred!” he snapped. “Don’t even think about it!”
“I wasn’t,” Ty said, frowning. “You can’t be pleased, can you, Kikbax? First you choose the smallest, most non-descript egg you can find for me and then you get upset when it hatches a Sacred Blue chewchie even though you’re the one who picked it for me. Then you practically lose it when my chewchie and Ellina’s chewchie seem to like each other. What in the Seven Hells is your problem?”
“How dare you speak to me in such familiar terms?” Kikbax drew himself up in obvious indignation. “How dare you, you common off-worlder scum!”
“That is enough!” Ellina’s voice cracked like a whip, making everyone take notice. Even the Chorkay who had been chanting behind the glass wall went quiet, their eyes wide as they watched the rare altercation between the Potentate and the High Priest.
Ellina seemed to realize they were watching and listening as well, because she dropped her voice and kept her face carefully blank as she spoke.
“Lord Kikbax,” she said icily. “You must not speak in such an insulting manner to the man who saved my life—to the Lan’Glaver.”
“He is not the Lan’Glaver!” The High Priest’s nostrils were flaring with anger as his hands squeezed into fists. “That is a nonsensical old legend and I don’t want to hear another word about it!”
“Are you calling the Ancient Texts nonsense?” Ellina demanded. “I think you’d better watch your tongue, Lord Kikbax.”
“Perhaps you ought to watch yours,” he snapped back. “You are the one in grave danger of breaking our sacred tradition, my dear! I would be perfectly within my rights as High Priest to declare this off-worlder a danger to our planet and have him thrown into deep space.”
Ellina glared at him, rage dancing in her eyes.
“I think you had better remember, Lord Kikbax, that in extreme circumstances a Potentate is authorized to remove and replace a High Priest with a candidate she thinks is more worthy for the post. And right now, I can think of ten such men!”
The shocked silence that followed this statement was as charged as a cloud full of lightning, Ty thought. For a long moment, Kikbax simply stared at her, his mouth a sagging “O” of surprise.
Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and pushed through the heavy stone door which led out of the hatching area.
Ty had a bad feeling that this time the breach between the Potentate and her High Priest couldn’t be healed. And though he didn’t like the old bastard himself, he couldn’t help seeing that the situation wasn’t a good one.
“No, of course it’s not,” Tisa said, jumping back onto his shoulder and nipping his earlobe with her sharp little teeth to get his attention.
“Ouch!” Ty exclaimed, but found that he couldn’t be mad at the fluffy little creature who had claimed his heart so completely. She was now grooming herself contentedly, sitting on him as easily as he might sit on a chair he owned.
“Of course you can’t be mad at me,” Tisa sent, still obviously picking up on his thoughts. “I’m part of your heart now,” she added smugly and spared a moment from her grooming to give him an intent look that was somehow full of satisfaction.
Ty couldn’t deny that she was right. He had gained a companion for life and a creature who could help him communicate with the woman he loved.
But he couldn’t help wondering about the rift between Ellina and Kikbax and
what the implications of the stormy last encounter between the Potentate and the High Priest would be.
