I almost hadn’t reached her in time. It had been far too cursedly close.

And I had to do something with the frenetic friction of that fear. I had to do something before it strangled me.

So I would strangle Fallon instead.

“Silar!”

Clear as a note of music, Cherry’s voice called to me. I held Fallon in place and cranked my head to the side, searching the house’s doorway but not seeing her. But when she called my name again, I found her. She was on the roof, standing atop the flat portion of it at the back of the house and staring over the angled part near the front.

Fallon burbled. My tail burned and bled as he clawed me.

“Silar!” my wife cried for a third time. “You let him go! This instant!”

My body obeyed her immediately. Clearly, it was more devoted to her than it was to me. My tail loosened around Fallon’s throat and then entirely slipped away. The other man coughed and gagged, shooting white-eyed looks my way that I ignored as I watched my wife disappear from the roof only to reappear on the ground at the side of the house a moment later.

“Get inside!” I ordered her, turning my wary attention back to the bracku. Luckily, they had calmed now. They milled aimlessly around the flat pasture Fallon and I had forced them into.

Cherry sucked in a breath, looking like she was going to refuse. But then she, too, looked at the bracku, her face paler than usual. Giving me one of her human head-motions that I’d learned meant that she was in agreement, she hurried into the kitchen and slammed the door.

“Is she alright? Your wife?”

That frantic croak of a voice belonged to Fallon.

“Don’t you even dare to speak of her,” I snapped, rounding on him. “She’s the only reason you’re still breathing, Fallon. Keep her name out of your filthy mouth.”

“I did not even say her name!” he cried. “I do not even know it! I did not even know that she was here!” Fallon rubbed viciously at his throat. “Why did you not tell me? You could have sent me a message on my data tab!”

“Why the blazes should I have told you?” I snarled over his hound’s incessant barking.

“Because then I would have known!” Fallon exploded. “When the stampede started, I knew, or I thought, that you would be the only one potentially affected. No one else has a property this near to mine. And I know that you can ride a shuldu and that you’d know what to do if you were outside! You would not be in any danger. But then-”

His voice broke off and he dragged desperate claws through his pale yellow hair, his tail gesturing to the well-trampled and now-empty road.

“But then, there she was! I saw her fall! I had no warning!” His chest heaved, his eyes flashing white then brown, white then brown, before finally settling into their usual warm umber.

“You have no idea the shock of that, Silar,” he added quietly, sounding sick. “To suddenly see a vulnerable little female in the path of my cattle. And knowing in the deepest parts of myself that I’d never reach her in time.”

“I know exactly what it’s like.”

I’d seen the same thing he had. I’d watched my wife in the road. About to die.

Because of him.

“I need to see her,” Fallon said, his eyes going moon-white. “I need to make sure she’s alright. And apologize and-”

“You need to get off my property before I change my mind and kill you.”

My tail was already itching to find its way to Fallon’s throat again.

He cast a pained look towards the house. But he knew better than to argue with me.

Unfortunately, my wife did not.

Once again, she called to me from the house, shouting that she was “making some food and why don’t you bring your friend inside?”

My friend. My friend.

My fellow convicted murderer whom I’d nearly just killed in front of her.

Fallon, brainless fool that he was, was already ignoring my ire and directing his mount into a trot towards the house. I urged Tarion into a canter, quickly catching up with him.

“Wait,” I growled at him.

“She invited me!” Fallon reminded me defensively.

“Fallon, curse it all, wait.”

Something in my tone caught him up short right after he’d dismounted. He paused, stroking his mount’s black neck as I followed him down to the ground.

“What is it, Silar?” He eyed my bloodied tail with suspicion.

But I’d restrain myself. I’d been so afraid of Cherry finding out about my murderous past and now I’d almost gone ahead and killed Fallon in front of her. She wouldn’t have to wait for me to tell her the truth. I’d practically showed her.

I reined in my rage, the way I would a bucking shuldu, and held it tightly leashed.

“If you go in there… You cannot…”

“Cannot what?” Fallon pressed.

I bit out a sigh.

“She does not know, Fallon.”

“She does not know what?”

“She does not know.”

Fallon glowered at me, dragging his bloody fingers absentmindedly across his throat. Then, all at once, it hit him. I watched understanding, then horror, dawn on his face.

“She does not know? That you… That we…” His voice lowered to a hissing whisper. “She does not know about the convictions?”

“No. And you don’t need to whisper like that. She’ll never hear us through the door.”

Fallon’s head whipped towards the door then back to me in alarm.

“Her hearing isn’t good,” I explained.

“It isn’t?”

“I think it is a human thing.”

“Oh,” Fallon said, his white eyes bouncing back and forth between the door and me. “Oh… Oh my cursed cattle… Alright… So…”

“So,” I cut him off, “you will keep your mouth closed for once. It seems as though my wife wishes to greet you. Therefore, you will sit down, shut up, and take whatever generosity she chooses to bestow upon you because the Empire knows that I have none. And Fallon,” I added on a dangerous growl, “if you breathe one word about my murder conviction to her then I vow to you, that breath will be your last.”

21CHERRY

Silar and Fallon didn’t come in right away. They lingered outside by the door for a minute, and then they went around to side of the house and the hose to get their worn-out mounts some water after all the running the poor creatures had done. I watched through the kitchen’s back window as they eventually brought the two shuldu, one black and one rust-red, towards Silar’s stalls. They’d be able to rest and have a munchy little snack in there.

I used that time to collect myself, trying to keep all my splitting nerves together after today’s lovely little near-death experience. And then there had been the whole Silar trying to strangle Fallon with his tail thing…

The two men finally came into the house just as I was spooning some sort of smoked, mystery meat sausages out of the cast iron pan onto plates.

“Oh!” I said brightly, smothering my nervousness with false cheer. And honestly, it didn’t feel so false after a minute. Because Fallon was just about the friendliest Zabrian a human gal could ever hope to meet.

“Hello!” Fallon bounded into the room with all the energy of an overexcited pet. And then he stopped, his broad, fangy smile going slightly lopsided. His eyes took on a soft white glow as he stared at me. Self-consciously, I brushed a hand over my face and then smoothed my wind-whipped hair.

“Hello. Sorry. Um… Is everything alright?” I asked, unsure what to do about this decidedly dopey and sudden bout of staring.

“Oh. I was just… I was just thinking that…” The whiteness in Fallon’s eyes shone brighter. “I was just thinking that if my bride is half as pretty as you, then I am a luckier male than I’d ever dared to dream.”

“Oh. Wow. Alright. Thank you,” I said with a slight laugh. The guy was laying it on pretty thick, but strangely, it wasn’t creepy or weird. It just sounded… Nice. Genuine.