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Could I simply tell Fiona I wanted her and have that actually work?
I stared at her with Oxriel, claws flexing at my sides, almost as if I wished I could grab a blade and fight off these feelings. I knew how to fight. Knew how to give blows and receive them. I could break, and I could bleed, because I’d done those things countless times before, and somehow all of that was far less painful than this. This – watching Fiona smile at another man and not knowing what to do about it.
Besides kill the other man, that is.
I did not know how to smile winsomely at a tongue-twistingly pretty female in such a way that she would deign to smile back.
I did not know what to do with all this jealousy.
Well, I did know what to do with it. What I should do, anyway. Get rid of it by any means necessary. Uncle Taraken had warned me about it so many times. Jealousy is a burning poison, he often said. It will kill a man and leave him dead even while he’s still walking.
Usually, though, he was talking about boyhood jealousies he observed in me. Anger over another cub besting me at something, for example. Even as I matured, we did not speak much on the topic of females. He’d never had a mate, so in that area he was just as groaningly clueless as I was, I supposed.
How come Warrek was not clueless?
How come Oxriel, clueless male that he most certainly was, could still get those smiles out of Fiona anyway?
Gahn Thaleo’s voice shook me from my seething questions. And for once, I was glad for the words the foul Gahn uttered.
“The ceremonial meal is complete,” he called out, still standing beside Nasrin. “The time for combat has come.”
If I could not fight these feelings, beat them down and make them bleed...
At least I could do it to a man.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Fiona
After we finished our breakfast deliveries (which was how I preferred to think about that act, rather than acknowledge the whole you’re symbolically handing over potential pussy access side of things) we returned to our spots on the benches. We passed the trays around to the rest of the tribe and took some stuff for our own breakfasts, too. I pretty much exclusively stuffed my face with moonbark. I could not get enough of those delightfully fudgy white bars.
As I chowed down, the men below organized themselves. From what I could see, it looked like it would be one-on-one, and that several matches were going to take place at the same time. Pairs of men, including Dalk and a Deep Sky male, moved to different areas of the valley at Warrek’s direction. I watched Dalk, nerves bundled in my belly, and it suddenly became a whole lot harder to swallow the delicious moonbark.
What if he got hurt? I already busted his lip open today, and no matter what he said about it I still felt bad about that.
A horrible thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Zaria,” I said urgently as Dalk and the other man circled each other. “This isn’t a fight to the death, is it?!”
Zaria looked at me with surprise misting through her sight stars.
“Of course not!” she said. She sounded so shocked by the idea that I felt a teensy bit defensive.
“OK. Sorry. It’s just... That taklok thing before, the one between Gahn Errok and Gahn Thaleo, was supposed to be a duel to the death. And I know at least a couple people died in the recent Death Plains baklok. The word vaklok is kind of similar.”
“Ah. I understand,” Zaria said, smiling kindly. “No. The vaklok, while a sacred tradition, is not so serious or severe as something like a taklok, which is meant to kill a man, or a baklok to choose the next Gahn.” Her smile turned wan. “Our tribe is already small. We could not afford to lose half our men in a round of deadly combat just for the vaklok’s sake.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “What about a baklok? Did you guys ever have one of those? Is that how Gahn Thaleo became Gahn?”
For some reason, my voice fell to a whisper, as if I wasn’t allowed to be asking such questions. At least, not with Gahn Thaleo so close by. He was still in his place beside Nasrin at the end of the bench.
“Yes. Although it was an unusual case,” Zaria said. “Gahn Thaleo’s uncle was Gahn before him, and he named Thaleo Gahn with a witness before his death. Usually this would prevent a baklok from taking place. But Gahn Thaleo still called one. He was the strongest, so he won anyway.”
“Interesting,” I said, leaning behind her somewhat to observe the straight-backed, expressionless Gahn. “So that doesn’t typically happen, right?”
“Correct,” Zaria said. “Typically the Gahn names a successor before his death and that is all. The baklok is only called when a Gahn dies without naming the next. Or if someone challenges the old Gahn’s choice and wishes to topple the new leader. Though that is very rare. Nearly taboo.”
“Not if you’re Gahn Fallo,” I said with a slight snort.
