Chapter 38

"L et me go! Have I done a single thing I'd mentioned since I got here?" I snarled at my jailer as he stood sentry at my door. Waving at the little oven area someone had installed for me while I was out picnicking, I gave him a menacing look. "I haven't even made the fucking cookie dough!"

"Goot. Do that," Celuk grunted out.

"You can't keep me in here! I will find a way out!" I threatened.

"Not to do things Jo will hate self for later," he grumbled churlishly.

"I said I wouldn't do it!" I bellowed.

"Say not want axe to use on Rek after grab axe from Tor," he pointed out. "Want Rek dead, Celuk do it. Jo not hurt no one."

"I'll dead anyone I want to!" I bellowed back, sounding as crazy as I was acting.

"Not dead no one, under Celuk watch. Jo not like self later. Celuk no want see," he kept on in that reasonable, resolute tone.

"Then close your fucking eyes and mind your own business! I don't recall asking what you want," I shot back.

A knock at my door had us shouting, him in Lo denaii, and me in English, for whomever was there to fuck off.

"Not Gopher mates," Gopher called from the other side of the door.

"Riiiight. And Lo denaii males only ever mate one," I snarked.

"Lo denaii mate one," Gopher repeated.

"Tell that to those furry super models you were chumming around with, trying to hide from me!" I railed.

Gopher made a choking sound. "Not- Not-"

Celuk said something to Gopher in beast speak that had Gopher talking at him a mile a minute.

"Don't tell him what to say. Don't get your stories straight!" I snapped at them.

Celuk had turned his head to speak through the door. Gopher said something to him as he glanced up to meet my gaze that gave him pause. As abruptly as he'd followed me home to babysit me so I didn't go supernova, he grumbled, "Celuk trust Jo be goot."

When he opened the door to leave and I spied Gopher standing there, eagerly waiting for him, I snapped. "Go have fun with your new lady friends, assholes!" Slamming the door on them, I locked it.

I was probably out of line somewhere in there. I just wasn't of the right frame of mind to entertain such a notion.

This new development with Gopher and his lady friends just furthered my need to put space between my supposed mates and me.

Maybe most Lo denaii only had one. But mine didn't seem to mind wandering.

I wanted to say things got better. That I spoke with Gopher and Rek at length, listened to their sides, and sorted all of that out, made peace with it all, and moved on.

I absolutely did none of that. Instead, I continued to push them all away, insisting I wasn't anyone's mate, and to my mind became the village crone minus all those fluffy furballs things many Lo denaii seemed to be allergic to running around my hut.

I was going to live alone, be alone unless otherwise with beings that had my absolute trust, and die alone.

The hermit witch of Yetidom, that was me.

This was who I told myself I wanted to be.

This was who I became.