A Twitch of Tail by R. E. Butler Page A

words.
     

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 7
     
    Late Friday evening, after a meal of boxed macaroni and cheese and frozen pizza that Melo had put together from Tahlon’s meager kitchen supplies, Tera left Tahlon in the bedroom to pack and found Melo in the second bedroom.  The room was nearly empty, with only a stripped bed and small dresser in one corner.  He was standing in the center of the room and staring at one bare wall.  She could see a faint rectangular outline on the beige wall, showing that something had hung there so long that the sunshine had faded the area around it.
    He looked at her when she walked in and motioned for her to join him, and she slid into his embrace.  After a few moments of silence, he said, “Tahl and I were raised in an ambush in Europe.  Our mother, Cecily, had me when she was only sixteen.  Fifty years ago, a woman didn’t just have a baby out of wedlock, even if she was a tigress, so to keep things proper, her parents forced her and our father, Paul, to get married by human standards and mated within the ambush.  Our father ditched us when I was eight.  I remember the night vividly, because Tahl and I were sitting at the top of the steps and listening to them scream at each other.  Our father accused her of having me and Tahl to keep him tied to her forever, and she accused him of sleeping with every female in the ambush.  He walked out that night and never came back, leaving the ambush and his family behind.
    “A few weeks later, she took us to our grandparent’s house for a long weekend, and she didn’t return.  Our grandparents never said for sure, but I’m certain that she never planned to come back.  They told us that she was just taking a long vacation, and for a few months we bought it.  But eventually it became clear that she’d abandoned us just like our father did.  I still don’t know what happened to her or my father.  She even cut off contact with her parents.”
    Tera’s heart broke.  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
    Melo stroked his thumb along her jaw and shook his head.  “Don’t be sorry.  Tahl and I were raised by our grandparents who love us very much.  We had a crappy start of things, and it was hard as hell knowing that our parents didn’t want us, but we were lucky.  We could have wound up in foster care, living with strangers.”
    He wrapped both arms around her and kissed her forehead.  “Our grandparents want to meet you.  We’ll go to Europe this summer, if you’d like.”
    She smiled.  “I’d love to meet them.”
    “Good.”
    She said, “So you had to break your promise to the Europe ambush?  When did you leave?”
    “We were born into that ambush.  When the time came to oath myself to the king and queen when I turned eighteen, I declined, so there was no promise broken.  I stayed until Tahl turned eighteen, and we came here to the Florida ambush.  At the time, Tiduaron was unmated and the ambush was much larger.  He oversaw our training as warriors for the ambush.  Then he mated Genevieve, and slowly the ambush began to shrink.  I never really noticed it.  It was so gradual, but she chased away the females so she could have all the males in her harem.”
    “She’s selfish,” Tera said irritably.  “She had no idea if those females were possible mates for the males in the ambush.”
    “True, but I don’t guess she cared.  She didn’t like the competition.”
    Tera looked at the wall where Melo had been staring.  “What was on this wall that you were thinking about so seriously?”
    Melo grimaced.  “The place was furnished when we moved in.  Hanging on this wall was a painting of a woman holding hands with two children while they walked along a beach.  I woke up every morning with the picture being the first thing I saw.  After a while, it began to grate on me because I’d never known that kind of affection from my mother.  I gave it away.”  He smiled sadly.  “I was just thinking now that