Ben looked between him and Sin, then back again.
Zai didn’t answer, but Sin undulated his tufted tail to and fro.
Zai knew the male enough by now to interpret it as a happy wag.
No, he supposed.
Whatever they were, they were no longer enemies.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
“So, what now?”
Ben thought that was the most pertinent question at the moment.
In more ways than one.
First, because the tension between the Hunter and the Beast was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Second, because Zai’s plan that he shared with Ben went only as far as freeing the liger then meeting up with the Queen’s borrowed steeds in tow.
Were they meant to cover up the liger’s tracks now? Each go his separate way?
Honestly, Ben found it odd that they were still together.
He expected that Zai would have ditched the liger at the first opportunity, because his enemy would likely want to kill him. But based on the scene before him now, Ben was pretty sure murder wasn’t on the forefront of their minds.
At least, not the kill-you-dead type of “murder.”
Third, what about Ben’s quest?
Well, not a formal quest at the Jade Emperor’s behest, per se, but whatever it was that sent him here. Whatever he was supposed to accomplish in this time and place.
“I’m taking you to a safe place,” Zai said, turning his back on the liger as if purposely ignoring him.
The feline wasn’t having it.
He slinked up to Zai and forcefully butted his head against Zai’s leg, almost unbalancing the Hunter. Then, as Zai staggered before bracing his legs wider apart to steady his stance, the liger rubbed his entire side up along the Hunter, purring sonorously, tufted tail whipping hard against Zai’s ass in a loudthwack.
“Cease,” Zai bit out through a clenched jaw, glaring down at the Beast.
The powerful liger looked up at the Hunter with a smirking grin. And…
Did he just bat his lashes at Zai?
Ben felt a startled laugh burble up his throat.
At the fulminating look Zai threw his way, he swallowed the sound down and cleared his throat.
“Actually,” Ben said, pretending he didn’t witness the interplay between the two males, “did you mean it when you said you know how to find the Beast Kings? I’d like to meet either Goya or…Sol, right? He must be Sol in this time.”
As if talking out loud had triggered a lever in his brain, setting it in motion, Ben’s eyes lit with a revelation.
“Yeah, I need to see Sol.”
Maybe meeting Sorin’s past incarnation would give him a clue what to do about his present self. The moment the thought crossed Ben’s mind, he knew he was on to something.
This was what he was sent here to do.