Page 46 of Family Found

I tapped the cap. “I promise. Cross my heart and all that.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I heard you promise.”

“You don’t mess with the healer, kid,” Charles said.

If I’d thought Fellisse’s concern was enough to make me feel a lot of feels, I’d been wrong. Charlie calling me kid rendered me speechless for a good five minutes.

Ten minutes later, Inkiri and I were walking along the paths next to what had been manicured lawns before. On the other side of the former lawn to our left, I spotted Vergis and Sonyo, Vergis explaining something to the kid with big gestures as the smaller bagu nodded with his usual eagerness.

Vergis was turning Sonyo into a killer of pigeons. Oops. Maybe I should’ve worried about that more than the drugs, but if this was only for one day, it was fine. Besides, the Dublin pigeons were smart and not to be messed with. It had cost me most of a fancy donut to learn that lesson.

“Look, I think that might be dorms up there.” I pointed at a building.

When I’d first visited here—before—I’d gotten a little turned around and ended up at the dorms. A friendly student had pointed me in the direction of the Book of Kells though.

Inkiri tilted his head. “Sweet thing, did you want my barb? You can just ask for that, even if there are other bagua around. Or…did you not like that I was busy, back on Aër?”

“What?” My cheeks heated. I hadn’t thought about his barb, but my brain lit up at the mention of it.

Inkiri leaned in close. “Did you feel neglected? On Aër?”

I shook my head. “No. Just… I mean, I wasn’t, erm, you know… Asking for your barb. But if you wanted to give me your barb, I suppose the dorm is a good place. But I don’t know.” I checked in with the land about any beasts nearby, but it shook its metaphorical head, then sort of relaxed out of my mind as if to say, go ahead, get yourself some barb.

Well, if there were no monsters, a dormitory, and a willing Inkiri, I really couldn’t say no, right? I had to say yes, yes, please more, not least because it was important in my quest for trophy mate-dom.

“Any place you feel comfortable is good. Water and power run in most of the city, Hove said. That helps with comfort, doesn’t it?”

I wasn’t sure there were any soaking facilities here, but I nodded, then remembered to practice my eyelash batting. Inkiri growl-purred and brushed the inside of my wrist with the tips of his fingers.

“I’m always comfortable with you,” I told him. “So will you give me your barb? Please?”

His slitted eyes widened. “Yes, sweet thing. Show me where you want to go.”

The dorm room we picked was simple, nothing fancy, but it was cozy and functional. Windows across from the entrance made the single room bright, and a wardrobe divided the room into a tiny kitchen area with a hob and a mini fridge by the door, a desk by the window, and a bed set against the right-hand wall. A door next to the entrance stood half-open to reveal a mini bathroom with only a shower. No soaking here.

It reminded me so much of before the apocalypse, but the overwhelming guilt that had haunted me wasn’t there anymore. Now, it was sadness, a sort of empty feeling. At the same time, a Raiken would be growing here, and I was still figuring out whether it was okay to feel hopeful about that.

Earth and Aër were closer than they had ever been. It had come at a hefty price, but like a wildfire, the sacrificial flames had burned, and all that was left to do was to look into the future and build new things on the ashes of the old.

The land certainly saw it that way. I knew it was delighted to have me as anointed, delighted I had my knights. It had been interested in Sonyo coming with us, but if the kid became a prolific pigeon catcher, I had no idea how the land would feel about him. I should probably make sure that didn’t happen.

I turned just as Inkiri ducked into the room after me in order to avoid ramming his horns into the lintel.

“It’s like I’m a college student again and you’re my hot boyfriend. Monster boyfriend. Visiting steaming-hot monster boyfriend. And getting me naked between classes.”

Inkiri tilted his head, looking at me with concentration. “Is that something you would like? Going to classes and learning more things?”

I grinned at him. “I think I would like to be seduced away from studying.”

The brain’s enthusiastic pleasure center supplied a scenario in which Inkiri was very corporate, some boss person—in a suit!—who stopped by campus during his lunch break and told me he needed to barb me before he started his afternoon meetings. It was weirdly hot.

“Seduce you?”

I shrugged. “You could…tell me what I should do. Because, uh, because you have places to be and important hot monster boyfriend stuff to do.”

That got him smiling. “Ah. I think I know what you need, my sweet human. Come here.”

I closed the distance between us, and he hooked an arm around my back, then lifted my shirt in the front just enough to get his other hand underneath it.