“According to your story, youboughther and then she robbed you at gunpoint.”
“All amounts to the same thing.”
Arcanthus licked his lips, sighed, and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You really need to try to consider this from her perspective.”
Drakkal drew in a steadying breath, struggling to contain his once again growing anger. “I haven’t exactly had the opportunity to ask her about her perspective, Arc.”
“I have fantasized about having the chance to say this to you for a long time, Drakkal—don’t be stupid.”
Having the words he’d so often said to Arcanthus thrownback at him should’ve annoyed Drakkal. He was the careful one, the alert one, the half of their partnership who took the bigger picture and the long term into account. But he wasn’t annoyed, or angry, or upset. Though he’d been unable to control it, Drakkal had recognized for weeks that his decision making was reckless while the terran was on his mind.
Don’t even know her name, but she has all this power over me.
“The way she robbed you, the way she’s evaded you, the way she took a deliberately convoluted path home, even the way she was checking for pursuit…to me, that speaks of experience.” Arcanthus eased into his seat, slipping his long, powerful tail through the opening at the base of the backrest. “Criminal, law enforcement, or military. Maybe some combination of the three.”
Drakkal almost disagreed, almost called it a stretch to draw such a conclusion, but his mind returned to the moment when she’d taken his blaster in the maintenance tunnel. Her hand had been steady—deadly steady—and she fired a shot that struck between his feet with speed and precision that few people could manage without experience.
Arcanthus leaned back and locked his hands together over his abdomen. “She’s assessed you as a threat, Drakkal, and can you blame her?”
“I’ve only tried to help her.”
One of Arc’s eyebrows rose.
The next words that came out of Drakkal’s mouth were a surprise even to him. “That’s not fair, sedhi. Samantha says you look like a demon, an evil, corrupted spirit from old terran stories, but she still finds you attractive. I look like a cat—cute, warm, and cuddly. Familiar.”
Arcanthus’s eyes widened, and a slow grin spread across his lips. “Firstly, no. You don’t look cute and cuddly. You put outthe exact opposite of a welcoming air during your every waking moment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Was that not clear enough? You look angry and unpleasant, Drak. It’s your natural state.”
“Kraasz ka’val,Arcanthus, I will?—”
“Secondly, old friend, you can guarantee that you’ll never live down having compared yourself to a cute, cuddly cat.”
Drakkal clenched his jaw for several seconds, breathing heavily. “Don’t see how this is meant to be helpful.”
“Because you’re still not listening. Let meshowyou.” Arcanthus spun his chair toward his desk and manipulated the controls.
The recordings sped by in reverse, rapidly retracing the terran’s path until she had just emerged from that first crowd on Orcus Street, no more than a minute or two after she’d thrown her flyers into Drakkal’s face. The feed paused as the terran looked back over her shoulder. When Arcanthus spun the view angle around to face the same direction as her, a pang of loss and longing struck Drakkal.
Arc settled the viewpoint on the outside edge of the main cluster of pedestrians and advanced the recording at a greatly reduced speed.
Drakkal narrowed his eyes as a bulky figure burst from the crowd, knocking aside several startled bystanders—at least three of whom fell to the ground. Arcanthus paused the recording again and zoomed in on the figure’s face.
Those features were at once alien and familiar; Drakkal was looking at his own face. But his eyes were ablaze with a predatory light, his fangs were bared in a snarl, and his mane was nearly standing on end. There was little evidence of conscious thought in his expression. That snarl, those flaringnostrils, and those hot, hungry eyes would’ve been perfectly suited to the face of a bloodthirsty wild animal.
“Fuck,” Drakkal said with a huff.
“Mmhmm.” Arcanthus pulled in tighter on Drakkal’s face. “This is what she saw. Can you understand why she might’ve fled in fear for her life?”
Much of the directionless anger that had been brimming in Drakkal vanished. How had he not realized this before now? How had he managed to push his mate into thinking he was the biggest threat to her safety when he was supposed to be her fiercest protector?
“So…what should I do?” Drakkal asked.
Arcanthus lifted a hand, palm up, and shrugged. “Have you ever just tried to be…cool?”
“I’m usually the calm and collected one here, Arcanthus.”