Wolf Teeth || Book I : Summer {M/M} ❄

Chapter #24

The following day passed in a fugue state, faylan practice bleeding into Kappa training. Oryen's muscles, so accustomed to abuse, had forgotten how to be properly sore. His mind, however, shouldered the weight of his hurts. He craved conversation with his brother, but so far the few they'd had only served to further injure him.

Oryen had prized his memories of their time spent as snot-nosed kids. Gilded by golden nostalgia, they'd remained pristine over the years.

He supposed that was the risk in knowing someone so long. There was a lot of time for them to disappoint you. He missed Ezra, but he wasn't sure Lazro was the same man. Or that Oryen and Taron had much in common, either.

At the mess hall following training, he wanted nothing more than to devour his meal and collapse into his hammock, but Aryeta had other plans.

"You're having dinner with me tonight."

She didn't leave room for argument, and Oryen could never turn down food. So he followed her out of the barracks and up the zigzagging steps set into the canyon walls, past homes carved out of the shale. Aryeta led the way, babbling easily about her day. Oryen avoided lying about his by plying her with questions about setting bones, broken during Kappa sparring. Jezarri, she told him, would be fine—only a minor skull fracture. She said this as if fractured skulls only required a plaster and a kiss from Mum. Oryen hadn't even known Jezarri was injured, but it gave him pause. His healing had accelerated, sure, but broken bones?

Like all his fragmented worries, he buried the thought.

Aryeta's home stood apart from the others in decoration. Boldly patterned fabric draped over the doorway and windows, keeping the sun out. Black-eyed susans and lilacs burst from window boxes, sweetly fragrant.

A man also stood in front of her doorway, and that man was Beau.

Oryen's muscles locked in a rigor that nearly stopped him in his tracks. He had little time to wonder what Beau was doing there, holding a paper bag in his hand. He turned, saw Aryeta, raised a hand to wave. A flash of dimples—nearly a smile of greeting before it snuck away, leaving a far more familiar scowl. Beau's eyes locked with Oryen's, hostile and questioning. The exchange didn't go unnoticed by Aryeta. She opened her mouth, a hello halfway past her lips when she stopped and assessed Beau's stormy glare and Oryen's defensive frown.

"That for me?" she said of the paper bag in Beau's hand. She pitched her voice high, stolidly ignoring the awkwardness.

Beau nodded, handing her the bag.

"Thanks babes," she said. "You sure you don't want payment?"

"No, don't worry about it."

"What would I do without you?"

Beau's eyes flickered to Oryen. "Don't mention it."

Oryen tried not to let the confusion show on his face. Was Beau being kind?

Aryeta soldiered ahead, "I take it I don't need to introduce you two. You already know each other?"

Beau remained stubbornly silent, forcing Oryen to do the honours.

"Beau introduced me to the ways of trading blood for goods and services, which—I'm not gonna lie—isn't the type of commerce I imagined in quarantine."

"You had plenty of funny ideas about quarantine," Aryeta said. Beau remained silent still, to the point where it had gotten very awkward. His gaze kept flicking between them. Finally, Aryeta said, "Well, thanks for dropping this off, Beau. I was almost out."

"Like I said. Don't worry about it." He started to go. A few steps away, he looked over his shoulder and said, "I'll come by again next month as usual."