Page 21 of The Royal's Bumblebee
I wish…I was normal…normal people don’t find things like this so hard…this is why I’m always left out. I don’t want tobeme. Why would anyone else want to bewithme?
“Billie.” He whispered and it was right in front of me. My eyes were shut and tears were flooding down my cheeks. I reasoned that he must have leaned down into his coil, and his face had to be near mine, as I felt his tongue taste the tears on my right cheek. “I am deeply saddened by my role in your suffering. Trust me when I say it hurts me to know I have played a part in upsetting you. I assumed you wouldn’t want to go to the festival. Then I assumed you didn’t want me to go.Doyou wish to come to the Gcorket festival?” I surprised myself when I sniffled and nodded at him. “Thenof courseyou can come with me. I would be delighted to introduce you to my family. I…have much to warn you of first.” He chuckled and it went a long way to reassuring me. He licked at my cheek, and it wasn’t a flick like he was scenting me. I tensed with my eyes shut as he slowly licked my right cheek clean as he ululated that deep soothing tone. It was a strange sensation. It didn’t feel like a dog’s tongue lapping at me, as it was more precise and left no residue. I mentally tracked his journey as he finished with my right cheek and jaw and made his way over to my left side. “How about I run us a nice warm bath? I’ll tell you all about the festival and answer all your questions, and we can put a plan together so you can enjoy yourself and feel comfortable too.”
“Yes please.” I tipped my head to offer more of my left cheek as he hummed and continued to groom me. It felt like that’s what he was doing. “Thank you.”
“It’s my privilege to take your tears.” He rumbled and made his way along my left jaw towards my chin.
“Oh, not that, I meant thank you for being patient and understanding me. I’m difficult to understand when I’m upset. I-I know that because I’ve been told it’s hard to make sense of what I’m trying to say when—”
“You’re not difficult to understand, Billie.” I felt his breath on my mouth as he paused licking at my chin to answer me with more of an edge than I’d ever heard from him. At least, other than when he defended me in the pairing party chamber when we first met. “Anyone can understand another person, if you give them the time to do so.”
I opened my eyes and hadneverbeen so shocked by something I’d heard in my whole life. And that includes being told AU-417 was actually called Thelia and inhabited by sentient giant reptilian aliens. “Give me the time, and I will know you and understand you, better than you know yourself.” His scaly smile was wide and something warm glinted at me in his yellow eyes. “I hope you will also be able to say the same for me, one day.”
“…yes.” I nod and don’t even mind when he unravels his tail from around me. His hands are braced on the cushions at either side of my loosely bent legs and his face is still level with mine. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. I want him to understand me, but he’s right. I could and should learn to understand him too. With Hannah, it was very one-sided and I didn’t like that she did everything for me. That she gave everything up to me, and for me. I want to be Izule’s equal, not his burden. A figurative fire blossomed in my tummy, and I nodded at him. “…challenge accepted.” His smile revealed his membranes and it spread…to my face. “I’ll have that bath now.” I swung my legs off the nest of cushions and walked matter-of-factly to the stairs. “But first I need to pee. Don’t come down. I don’t like—”
“—people listening to you using the toilet. I know.” He smirked and I raised a brow at his grin. It suddenly felt like he was winning some sort of game. Like there was an imaginary chalkboard and he just scored himself a point.
When I said challenge accepted, I meant it.
“I’m going to learn everything there is to know about you, and then I’m going to understand you the best. First. I’m going to win.” He blinked at me, and then hissed with laughter behind one hand from his sprawled position on the bed.
“Like you said? Challenge accepted. But I warn you?” He sang as I started to walk down the spiral staircase to the hygiene level. “I am an apex predator and an elite warrior. I never lose a challenge, and I am undefeated.” I raise a brow and look over my shoulder at him. The smirk he’s wearing is odd, and I wonder if he’s hungry, but he breaks my stare by sliding off the bed to neaten up the cushions. He likes to do that. Fussing and keeping the entire nest tidy and clean.
“You missed one.” I point to a cushion that fell out of the metal bowl that housed the rest of his sleeping nest, and he pounced quickly to retrieve it.
I grin, and give myself another point on the imaginary chalkboard.Izule is obsessed with neatness. See? One all.
Chapter 16
Izule’s siblings
Izule
I reclined into the steaming sunken bath, tolerating it a tad warmer than usual for me because I know it’s her preference. I watch her as passively as I can as Billie drops out of her sleeping shorts and shirt. Communal bathing is normal for Ucfeni…more so for mating pairs. Dust of the ancestors, did I want to mate with Billie Blac. I wanted to rip my own heart out when I upset her by not thinking to ask her to come to the festival with me. I had assumed-but no I shouldn’t have. I see that now. In future, I will always leave those decisions with her to make, and I will simply support her in whatever her choice is. I think that had she not wanted to go to the festival, she still would have been hurt that I didn’t think to ask her first.
In truth, I am delighted that she wants to come. My siblings can be tiresome, but they have been relentless in asking to meet the human that I finally managed to become sponsored to. The human I am so eager to hunt quick and efficiently, so I don’t have to be parted from her for longer than necessary. The human I go out of my way to find gifts for when hunting. So far, Billie has not been impressed by any of the precious stones, pearls, gems, or vibrant feathers I have brought back for her. My brothers keep teasing me that I ‘struck out again’ when I grumble about needing to try something else.
I can’t help my need to hunt for her. I can’t bring her meat, as she doesn’t eat it alive or raw as we do, but I can bring her fruit. I can bring her fine tokens of my…affection. I watch with a polite smile masking my near-insane desire to launch at her as she walks into the bathtub with me. I donotglance at her soft breasts. They didn’t draw my eye before she revealed to me in our first bath together that they had a secondary sexual purpose as an erogenous zone…but they do now. I certainly don’t pay attention to her exposed slit beneath the neat thatch of fur-no-hairbetween her thighs. She lowers herself to sit beside me, and my right arm rests on the rim of the sunken bath to provide a rest for her shoulders. She comfortably sits beside me and I…don’t know what I’m going to do.
My mating drive is getting the better of me. In my heart, Billie is already mine. I consider us a mated pair, but she hasn’t chosen me yet. I consider myself an honourable man, a Royal with principles, and yet I leapt at the chance to ask her to share in my inner nest. Knowing it would be an intimate request…because of how I feel about her. For, it won’t be like when I shared a nest with my siblings. No, when we nest-down tonight, I will be holding the woman I…love. The woman my biology is pushing me towards claiming as mine. Especially at this time of year, and today of all days.
My tail tip tentatively moves to rest over her toes and she giggles and looks at my mouth. Not my eyes. In normal comfortable moments she stares at my mouth or my hood. She has no idea that looking at my mouth makes me look at hers, and draws my attention to those soft-looking lips. I want to know their taste and feel against mine. Yes, my mating drive is worrying me greatly.
“Izule?”
“Yes Billie.”
“You’re staring at me.”
“Yes I am.” I didn’t know why she was pointing it out. “I enjoy watching you.”
“Oh.” Billie ran her hands back through her hair and water trickled down her back, neck and shoulders…daring me to watch their journey… “I don’t mind, but when I stare or fixate on people, Hannah tells me that people don’t like that.”
“Humans, you mean.” I cant my head and hood to one side. “If an Ucfeni does not wish you to stare, they will tell you so.” I chuckled and didn’t stop looking at her cute round face. Her little freckles made me think of tiny scales teasing beneath the surface. She didn’t tell me to look away either, so I didn’t.
“You said you would tell me about the festival of Gcorket and your family.” Billie declared, and I gave her a wide gummy smile.
“That I did. Let me start with my family.” She nodded with approval and watched my scaly brown and cream lips as I told her of my family. The family I wanted her to join through mating to me-and I had to shake that thought away.
