Page 70 of The Hunger
“Fenris, cut it out. You’re making Oanen uncomfortable, and I never agreed to anything.”
“It’s fine,” Oanen said, wrapping his arms around Fenris. “There. We’re hugging. Now, let go.”
Megan gave up trying to hide her laughter.
Fenris released Oanen, turned to her, and opened his arms wide.
“There’s some ‘good boy, Fenris’ scratching on the line, Megan. Help me out.”
“I am not scratching you,” I said as Megan chuckled her way into Fenris’s arms.
Oanen strolled over by me.
“Say the word, and I can toss him in a sack and fly him to a river.”
“Where’s the love?” Fenris asked, releasing Megan.
“I dunno,” she said. “But he better find it or he won’t have any tonight.”
The sudden burst of lust sent me scurrying to Fenris. He welcomed me with open arms and didn’t seem to mind when I burrowed my nose into his chest.
“Sorry, Eliana,” Oanen said.
“Don’t be sorry,” Megan said. “High five her. She didn’t run away. Oh, I made brownies, the good kind, not the kind that tries to bitch-slap you for calling her a horrible mom. Want some?”
I lifted my head.
“Dewy?”
“Yep. She was something.”
While Oanen and Fenris went to the living room to check out Oanen’s new gaming console, I stayed in the kitchen with Megan and helped her prep dinner.
“Has Elbner been back?” I asked.
“No. And it’s a good thing, too. We had a brief run-in at the marshes, and I felt an unhealthy amount of wickedness from the little blight. Unhealthy for him. Just goes to show how messed up my mojo was back when I first met him.”
“But everything is okay with you now?”
“Yep. Most people have a certain amount of wickedness that I can easily overlook. It’s the ones who are really bad that I can’t ignore. Gran says that the older I get, the more I’ll become sensitive to the wickedness. I’ll be able to feel people around the world and know who needs harvesting next.”
“That doesn’t sound very fun.”
Megan shrugged. “It is what it is. Honestly, I don’t think it’ll be any worse than dealing with the brownies this morning.”
“Did you meet with their leaders?”
“They don’t really have any. It’s like a free-for-all orgy out there. Even the ones who are married stray, and it’s completely normal.”
We both made a face.
“But I think they’re going to start taking their role in how Uttira treats them more seriously. I gotta say, Piepen surprised me. He’s a lot more responsible and mature than I remember him, and it’s only been a few weeks.”
“They mature faster than we do.”
“I know. But he seemed more grounded than a lot of the older brownies. He’s the reason they’re going to put together their own brownie council and start making up rules and keeping track of each other. I warned him about how critically my kind views and holds to the rules created by any species, and he seemed to understand. He even asked if I’d come back to listen to a proposal in a few days.”
“Wow. That doesn’t sound like the Piepen who’s been tormenting me.”
