“Am not,” Stiller grunted. He paused, glancing at Jax’s scowl. “Okay, maybe a little. Calm down.”
“Argh!” I shouted, wiggling fiercely inside my captor’s hold. “Let me down, damn you!”
“And there she goes talking about ‘cows’ again,” Pluma Creo muttered. He merely tossed me into the air, where I landed bent over his shoulder with my stomach smashed against it. He even whapped me on the ass when I started squirming again. “And she was doing so well there.” He paused, clasping a well-muscled arm around the back of my thighs, holding me tightly in place. “Phila, what do you think?”
Pluma Moir replied in an amused tone, “Our old pet’s cage?”
Pluma Creo chuckled softly. “That could be fun.”
“Wait,” Jax growled. “You aren’t going to hurt her, are you?”
Pluma Moir answered vaguely, “Only when she misbehaves.”
I gulped for oxygen right before my head was thrust under water again. Two strong pairs of hands held me under once more until I was almost depleted of oxygen, then pulled me back up. I sputtered and coughed, and glared as Pluma Creo grabbed for the foaming shampoo and sprayed it all over my head – all over again. It made the fourth time these Plumas had taken it upon themselves to wash my hair in a tub that all three of us were now in. This ‘bath’ had started with just me in it, when they had tossed me in – with my clothes on - but then I had fought their demands so hard that they had landed in the tub too to keep me contained.
My wrists no longer bound, I rubbed water from my eyes. I growled, “I can do this myself.”
Both sets of glowing eyes glared.
I had said this once before…and almost made it out of the bathtub when they had released me. Their expressions were warranted, I supposed, since I had made one of them bleed that time. But this time, I was serious. I lifted my black brows, and stated, “I’m being honest. I would rather not drown in this bathtub. If I’m going to die, it should be doing something worthwhile.” Not fighting a damned bath because they thought I smelled too bad.
Ever so gradually, they removed their hands.
I waved toward the door. “If you two would leave, I can finish this. There are no windows in here so I can’t escape.” I pulled the edge of my shirt away from wrist before it suctioned back to my skin. “To bath properly, I can’t have these on.” I shooed again toward the door. “And no matter how ass-backward your planet is, the two of you are not seeing me naked.”
Pluma Creo grunted. “As if we would want to see that.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Like I hadn’t noticed both of them staring at my breasts that were in full view - thanks to my wet shirt. I now knew what those expressions meant after watching the Mian on the streets of Vlymun. It was attraction, the type that led to sexual contact. I had viewed that enough in darkened alleyways to blind me. “Just give me five minutes alone, and I’ll be done.”
Pluma Moir raised one brow, and then laughed softly. “Make it twenty, and you have a deal.” His nose crinkled as he stepped out of the bathtub. “Your stench is overwhelming, Ms. Valorn.”
Pluma Creo grunted again – this time in agreement – as he jumped out of the bathtub with ease.
Both left the posh bathroom without another word, shutting the door quietly behind them.
I could still hear them outside talking in quiet whispers, but at least I had some damned privacy. Standing up, I started tugging my clothes off. With my initial anger ebbed from finding out Jax was now half of a Vaq – my best friend was part of them and he liked it - I called loudly out of pure curiosity, “I thought you were taking me to your pet’s cage? Or was that just a lie so Jax wouldn’t know where I am?” As I got my shirt over my head, I almost had to hold my breath from the foul stench. They were right. Living in a sewer hadn’t done my hygiene any favors.
Pluma Moir chuckled, and asked through the door, “What do you think, Ms. Valorn?”
I grunted, and almost fell when I tried taking off my boots while standing. I quickly sat on the edge of the tub, and thought that through as I yanked them off. My pants came next. When they were discarded with a wet plop on the black tiling, and I had started on my underwear, I grumbled, “You’ll keep me close.” It was the wise option.
“Very good,” Pluma Creo murmured. It sounded like he ran his knuckles down the door, as if he were choosing his next words carefully. “If we don’t kill you, that is.”
I snickered this time, sinking back down into the warm water. “If you were going to kill me, you would have done so by now.” I started scrubbing my arms in the wake of their silence. My brows lifted as a thought occurred. “Are you afraid of what my Vaq will do if-”
“No,” Pluma Moir snorted, cutting me off. He paused an extended moment, and then asked, “Did they tell you nothing about what being a Soul means?”
My head teetered in thought. “I know my Vaq can feel me, like I can feel them. It’s like a pull to be together. I also know that if they die, I will also die.” I stopped washing, and my brows puckered. “That’s all I know.” It wasn’t much really, now that I was thinking about it.
“For all that is holy, they didn’t tell her shit,” Pluma Creo muttered, but it was still loud enough that I heard. “She’s as blind as a damn babe in the dark.”
Interesting. Apparently, their young couldn’t see well in the dark. Our books on Joyal had never mentioned that. I asked as calmly as I could, “What else is there to know about a Soul?”
Pluma Moir hummed softly in contemplation, and then finally deigned to speak. “Once a Soul is found, that person is what holds a Vaq pair together - instead of their bond. The farther away a Soul is, the less a Vaq is unified. If their Soul is too far away, they are no longer able to feel each other’s emotions or hear each other’s thoughts or easily know where the other person is. It would be akin to having a piece of your mind ripped away. That is how deeply linked a Vaq pair is.” He paused, and his next words were soft. “That is how your Vaq feel right now.”
Thank Joyal they couldn’t see me. With this new twist of information, my jaw was bobbing up and down but no sound was coming out. I managed to mumble, “Keep going.” There had to be more with his pregnant pause.
He did. There was. “It’s not just you who dies if they are killed. If any one of you three are killed, the other two also perish. Instantly.”