Book 3: Chapter 43: Intoxication


    I woke the next morning to a floral fragrance permeating the room.


    It reminded me of Maria and the scents that always drifted up from her hair, never quite the same as the day before. I breathed deep, the thoughts of her making a smilee to my face.


    Someone moved on the bed beside me, so I reached over, reaching to try find Borks and rub his belly. Instead of soft fur, I found warm and even softer skin. I opened my eyes, blinking at Maria’s sleeping form. She must have fallen asleep before heading homest night.


    I knew I should wake her. Should let her get ready and prepare an excuse before her father and mother arrived with our breakfast…


    But I didn’t have the strength.


    Her beauty drew me in, her serenity kept me there. She was usually so animated. So vibrant. Lost in sleep was the only time I could catch her in a frozen moment. Only her rising and falling torso betrayed her stillness, her chest shifting with each shallow breath she took.


    I ran my fingers along the back of her head, making shes ofst night appear unbidden. Her hair draping down around my face and tickling my skin. The softness of her lips, contrasted by her hunger when they pressed into mine. My own hunger. My need.


    Our bodies paired like coffee and croissants. Like butter and flour. And though we wereposed of disparate pieces, we fit together as if built for one another.


    My heart thumped in my chest as I reached over and ran a hand down her slender arm, unable to stop myself despite knowing it was a bad idea. She stirred, making my thin linen sheet hug her intoxicating form.Knowing now was <em>not</em> the time, I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath, doing everything I could to banish the thoughts of her. I failed, of course, but I forged onward regardless.


    “Maria,” I said, my voice gruff with disuse. Clearing my throat and getting up on one elbow, I swept loose strands of hair from her face. “Wakey wakey, beautiful. It’s time to get up.”


    She peered out at me through sleep-filled eyes, giving me a smile that knocked the wind from me. “Good morning.”


    “We have to get ready,” I said. “You fell asleep before you went homest night and your dad could be kicking down my door at any moment.”


    She let out a soft groan as she stretched, arching her back like a cat, making the sheet slide over the lines of her body. “I didn’t.”


    “Huh?” I said, having barely heard her. I furrowed my brow, processing the words. “You didn’t what?”


    “I didn’t fall asleep before going home.”


    “Then… how are you here?”


    “Because, silly.” She pulled back the sheet and leaned onto my chest, pressing herself against me. “I went home after you fell asleep.”


    “Oh,” I replied mechanically, barely able to think past her contact. “You know, you’re making it really difficult to get out of this bed.”


    She ran a hand through my hair, smirking at me. “I told Mom that I’d been…” She moved her hand to my neck, pulled herself up, and pressed her lips into mine. She pulled away a momentter, leaving me breathless. “... missing you ofte,” she continued. “Mom, being the wonderful woman she is, hatched a scheme.”


    I stared at her stunning eyes and the curve of her lips, and when my brain once more caught up with the conversation, I frowned. “Wait, what? You lost me. What scheme?”


    “Well…” She ran her hand along my chest. “As we speak, Mom and Dad are off collecting coffee and croissants for the entire church.” She trailed a finger up and along the side of my neck, making a pleasant shiver run through me. “I’ve been led to believe that there will be a dy with the croissants.”


    She bit her lip and grabbed my arm, pulling me over. Not needing any extra encouragement, I rolled on top of her, bracing myself and staring down into her eyes.


    “And why did you do that?” I asked, my voice heady.


    She stared back up at me, her heart thumping loud enough for me to hear it. “Because I need you, Fischer.”


    It was all I could take. I lowered myself down to meet her, every other thought vanishing like leaves in the wind.


    ***


    As we stood on the river’s shore, the rising sun cast a golden glow over thend, making Maria’s flushed face appear even cuter. I wasn’t aware such a thing was possible, so all I could do was stare at her rosy cheeks.


    She turned my way, her head tilted and hair falling free of her ear. “Did you know that I love you?”


    “You do?” I made a thoughtful face that didn’t quite hide my smile. “It wouldn’t kill you to show it more.”


    She tried to p me, but given how soft her strike was, I easily caught her wrist. She made a startled and somehow-still-cute noise as I pulled her off bnce and into my arms. I lifted her by the waist, and as our lips met, she melted in my grasp. She was so, <em>so </em>warm, and just when I was losing myselfpletely in the moment, something sshed in the shallows nearby.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Corporal ws, my sometimes reliable—<em>ah, who was I kidding?</em> Corporal ws, my <em>rarely </em>reliable otter pal, immediately ruined the moment. She let out an eardrum-splitting wolf-whistle.


    “Okay, ow,” Maria said, flinching as she pulled back.


    “ws,” I chided. “Did you have to—”


    I trailed off as another creature emerged from the depths. Her body was covered in a hard exoskeleton and deadly spikes, and her eyes never once left Corporal ws as she approached. Sergeant Snips crawled through the shallows directly to ws’s side, leaning so close they almost touched. There was a tense moment where nobody made a move, both animal pals content with staring the other down.


    Abruptly, the violence began.


    To the eye of a regr human, it would have been a mere explosion of water, as if both creatures had spontaneously exploded. To my enhanced eyes, I easily saw the perpetrator. Corporal ws had broadcast her intention, the corner of one lip curling up a split millisecond before she sshed river water. Well, sshed might be the wrong word, because the spray of water that hit Snips carapace could have peeled paint. Snips responded immediately, both her ws mming down and shooting arcs of energy through the water. ws went full matrix, leaning backwards with a grin on her face, easily dodging the strikes.


    The initial volley was enough for me to understand who would win this battle; ws was too powerful—too <em>quick</em>—following her recent breakthrough. Snips likely recognized it too.


    But that didn’t stop her from trying.


    As they zipped through the river and engaged in an underwater dogfight, I was reminded of how they’d been all those months ago, back when we’d first encountered the mischievous otter. With those memories ying through my mind, I smiled, feeling an immense amount of love for both of them despite the interruption.


    “Should we go get that coffee?” Maria asked. “This could go on for a while...”


    <em>No!</em> Snips and ws bubbled and hissed respectively, enacting an immediate cease-fire to let us know that was uneptable.


    Iughed, shaking my head. “Tell you what, we’ll go through the forest so you two can finish your little skirmish unwitnessed. Deal?”


    <em>Deal!</em> ws chirped, then head-butted Snips before she could react.


    Maria covered her mouth and giggled as Snips skidded to the far river bank. Wasting not a moment, Snipsunched forward again, spewing a stream of angry bubbles.


    Just before we reached the tree-line, I felt waves of contemtioning from Maria, so strong that I couldn’t help but look her way. “What’s up?”


    She chewed her lip. “It’s odd that ws had a breakthrough the way she did... isn’t it?”


    “Oh, yeah. Completely.”


    She narrowed her eyes at me. “So why are you so chill about it? I know you’re as rxed as theye, but even I’m intrigued by the fact that humans appear to have breakthroughs by realizing something about themselves or admitting an ufortable truth, whereas creatures or spirit beasts or whatever seem to have breakthroughs by... I don’t know. What did ws even do?”


    With perfect timing, ws kicked off the top of Snips’s carapace, wiggling her eyebrows at us as she sailed by.


    “I don’t think that’s correct,” I answered, watching Snips regather her wits in the middle of the river and prepare a counterattack. “You’re forgetting Borks.”


    “What do you mean I’m forgetting Borks? I’d never forget...” She pursed her lips when she realized what I was talking about. “Oh.”


    “Uh-huh. Brigadier Borks had a breakthrough too, or at least a mini version of one, when he unlocked his storage ability. I don’t necessarily—” I ducked the crustaceanunched through the space where my head had been. I shot an unamused re at ws, which only caused her to burst into chitteringughter. “Where was I? I don’t necessarily think it’s one way or the other. I reckon both humans and spirit beasts can have a breakthrough of either kind. That’s my assumption, anyway. Ellis is probably the bloke to ask, though.”


    <em>Stop!</em> Snips hissed, holding up a w.


    Despite her penchant for trickery, Corporal ws skidded to a halt on the grass, having to engage all four legs as brakes to stop before mming into the undefended Snips.


    She may have been getting trounced by ws and her new level of power, but Snips wasn’t the kind of crab to call a stop to things. I raised an eyebrow at her, curious what had caused it.


    Completely ignoring all of us, she watched a lone bee as it zipped around in the canopy above.


    “It’s just a bee, Snips,” I said. “... Isn’t it?


    She blew negative bubbles back, her eye trailing the furiously buzzing insect.


    “What is she seeing that we aren’t?” Maria asked, tapping her chin.


    Its buzzing seemed a little panicked, sure, but they did that sometimes. I just assumed they’d seen a bird or been surprised by an otter zooming past them at Mach 1. Snips was positive though, so I sent my awareness outward, trying to understand.


    I found… nothing.


    A few more bees of the same kind came from the surrounding trees, apparently answering the call. They emitted the same tone, and when they all arrived, the original bee took off, heading through the trees. The others followed, and so did Snips, her steps silent as she crept after them along the forest floor. Maria, ws, and I shared a shrug before trailing after her.


    As we continued moving, I recognized that we were heading toward the hive of bees to the south west of Queen Bee’s and Bumblebro’s abodes. More and more of the insects appeared, the first insect leading the procession back home. Now that there were dozens of them, or perhaps because I’d been listening to it long enough, I understood what had gotten Snips’s attention.


    They were <em>pissed.</em>


    Though it held a touch of panic, it was fervent anger that droned from their wings, the sound only getting more intense as others joined the procession. From low hum to immutable cacophony, the sound built and built, reverberating off the surrounding trunks. There were hundreds now, all charging back home.


    “Smell that?” Maria asked.


    “Huh?” With my hearing being assaulted by what felt like a jet-engine’s worth of buzzing, it took me a moment to parse my sense of smell. The moment I did, I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Honey.”


    It was thick on the air, its scent making my fasted stomach growl.


    Snips was the first to round the trunk ahead and catch sight of the hive’s entrance. The moment she did, she froze. ws was next. Her head jarred backward, her jaw dropping open to reveal her needle-sharp teeth.


    “What has you two so…” Maria said, trailing off as we caught sight of what had the bees in a tizzy.


    Somethingrge, covered in fur, and a little too dangerous for my liking, had broken into the hive.


    “No fracking way…” Maria continued, stealing the words from my mouth.