Tribe Protector

by Stacy Jones

  Drrak grumbled but reluctantly went. He reverently brushed his fingertips over Lily’s hair, then moved away, laying down with a pain-filled groan he couldn’t quite hide. Srrka followed with her pouches of medicine.

  Arruk noticed she moved with a hesitance he wasn’t used to seeing from her, and caught her glancing repeatedly at Drrak’s face. She opened her mouth more than once, as though she wanted to say something to the son she’d let be outcast, but whatever she wanted to express remained unspoken.

  She began her chanting and treated Drrak’s shoulder first, using a paste to draw the poison out, then started cleaning and dressing his other wounds.

  Arruk turned back to gazing at his Pasha, but he kept an ear pointed at his Mother and twin. He knew she’d had no choice in Drrak being outcast when they were young. That was a decision left entirely up to the Tribe Mother, Akksha, and they all knew how cold Tor’s Mother’s heart had become after the death of her favorite mates and two of her younglings during the same pantari attack that had taken Frrar’s parents’ lives, but that didn’t mean Arruk had ever forgiven Srrka for allowing it to happen, either.

  Arruk knew that, as a Healer, Srrka was not awarded with the natural dominance of most females. That was the price to receive the Gift of Healing from the Goddess. Srrka was softer, quieter, gentler. Those traits made her a great Healer, the best in the tribe by far, though not as good as his Lily. But, that also meant she did not have the natural fighting spirit of females. So when Akksha decreed that Drrak was not suitable as a Chosen and classed him as Iztarka, Srrka had keened, but didn’t fight.

  Arruk knew exactly how much her lack of action had hurt Drrak.

  Mother and Healer or not, Arruk would not hold his tongue if she said something to upset his twin, so he listened to them with one ear and monitored Lily’s breaths with the other.

  Delicately lifting Lily’s hand, Arruk held it between two of his, unable to deny his need to touch her any longer. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and pleaded with the Goddess to save his mate.

  He felt Tor, Frrar, and Trrak close in around her prone body on either side of him and heard their whispered prayers as they, too, beseeched the Goddess to save their Pasha.

  Come back to us, my Lily. Please, come back.

  L ily pried her eyes open, but the view above her was confusing. The last thing she remembered was pain and terror. The calm scene above her didn’t match that memory at all. The sun was bright and beautiful, dappled and flickering as it shined through the thick black branches and pure white leaves. The surface under her was padded and soft, not the rough, painful ground she last recalled.

  “Pretty,” she whispered sleepily, gazing at the shifting light above.

  Her body hurt, but the pain was distant, muted. She could sense it waiting to wash back over her, lurking beneath the surface, but for that moment she felt tired and serene… right up until a strange face entered her line of sight, hovering over her.

  Sucking in a sharp breath, coughing and choking when she inhaled saliva, Lily scuttled backward, trying to get away from the stranger. Visions of being stalked through the dark forest crashed back over her. Fear replaced the startled face in front of her with the leering face of her attacker, annihilating any feelings of peace and calm.

  Lily was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack when familiar bodies suddenly surrounded her, blocking her view of the strange woman gawking at her.

  Tor, Arruk, Drrak, and Frrar were all there, murmuring soft words to calm her down, stroking the uninjured parts of her skin with gentle hands, bringing her back to the present and out of the nightmare playing out in her mind. They were all beaming down at her, grins stretched across their faces and fierce joy shining in their eyes.

  Relief that they were all alive, that she was alive, filled her. Tears immediately overflowed and streamed down her cheeks as she gazed up at them.

  Lily couldn’t recall ever being as thankful as she was at that moment. She’d been so sure she was going to die, thought she’d be forced to watch as her mates were slaughtered before the monsters came back for her. Seeing her guys alive, feeling their touch, was something she didn’t think she’d ever get to experience again.

  “You’re okay, you’re all okay,” she whispered happily through her tears.

  She returned their caresses, a watery laugh bubbling past her lips, and threw herself at Arruk sitting directly in front of her. It wasn’t until her fingers brushed through something sticky on Arruk’s side that she leaned back and thought to examine their bodies.

  Lily gasped when she took him in, snatching her hands back so she didn’t accidentally hurt him. Turning her head to scan Tor, Frrar, and Drrak, she catalogued their numerous injuries with wide eyes. They were all smeared with sharp-smelling, white salve, telling her someone had taken care of their wounds while she’d been unconscious .

  “What happened? Who fixed y’all up?” she questioned, pointing at the leaves and stickiness covering them.

  “Mek Shevak, ” Arruk answered, glancing over his shoulder at the shevari woman who’d scared the hell out of her.

  “Oh, umm, hi there… ” she paused, trying to bring up Arruk’s and Drrak’s mom’s name.

  “Srrka,” Drrak supplied, his voice gravelly and low.

  Arruk leaned to the side a bit so Lily could look at her. The woman was watching her warily, but she returned Lily’s greeting with a dip of her chin. Srrka murmured something, her voice soft and kind, then peered at first Arruk, then Drrak with an expression Lily was having a hard time deciphering.

  Something about the woman’s disposition struck Lily as odd. All the females she’d met were fierce, dominance wafting off of them in tangible waves. Srrka was different. She seemed gentler.

  As Lily stared at her, she had the sudden thought that being a healer among the shevari might be about more than just treating wounds, but about having the required disposition. Perhaps it was that personality trait, uncommon among their women, that denoted someone as a healer. So, to explain that shift from the norm, they decided the quiet, soft women were that way because their goddess wanted them to be.

  Lily knew males weren’t allowed to be healers—which she thought was ridiculous—and she couldn’t imagine the stern Amazonian-esque women of the tribe having the gentleness and patience needed to take care of injured people. Maybe that was unfair of her, but when she tried to visualize Akksha, Tor’s mom, tending to the sick and infirm, she couldn’t picture it.

  Yet, even with the serenity emanating from Srrka, she looked at her sons with a kind of detachment. Lily could read the hesitance and regret in her eyes—assumed that stemmed from the resentment she knew both Arruk and Drrak held for the woman that allowed them to be outcasts—but the motherly love Lily expected from human women was missing, or at least not as intense as she was used to.

  Shevari females seemed to be closer in likeness to the majority of human men: they loved their kids, sure, but most didn’t have that singular connection mothers traditionally shared with their children. Shevari men better compared to most human mothers: they cared for and raised the children, forming deep attachments with their young.

  The females kept order and protected the tribe as a whole, but in order to think of the needs of the many, shevari women sacrificed the soul-deep bond most human mothers had with their children.

  Lily felt like she understood the shevari people better after that epiphany.

  Maybe the tribe leader, Akksha, isn’t a heartless mother, she’s just… alien.

  Realizing she’d been staring at Srrka like she was a puzzle to be dissected, Lily cleared her throat uncomfortably and looked back at her guys.

  She had so many questions for them, but before she could release the volley on the tip of her tongue, Trrak squeezed his way in between the guys’ big bodies. The oversized cub tried to climb into her lap, warbling happily, his jaw open in a puppy grin, displaying his saber teeth and pointed black tongue .

  His sharp c
laws digging painfully into the skin of her thighs was what made her realize she was butt-assed naked and covered in the same stinky salve the guys were sporting.

  I’ve just been staring at Srrka with my bits in the breeze. Awesome.

  “Why am I naked? What happened to my clothes?”

  She gently pushed Trrak off of her and covered herself with her arms. She was careful not to bump the top of her hand and the shredded skin there from when the second attacker had bitten her, but she needed to do something to shield herself against potential onlookers.

  Hunching in on herself, she darted a look around to make sure no one could see her through the wall of her guys’ hulking forms. Tor, in answer to her question, lifted the cardigan she hadn’t noticed him clutching, showing her that the back of it was cut up, shredded by the crocodile alien’s claws when it had been chasing her through the forest.

  The sight of it sent a shiver down her spine, making the torn skin on her back sting with the movement even through the numbing concoction she assumed Srrka had applied to it.

  Drrak made an ah-ha kind of grunt, having not understood her words but catching on once Tor held up her clothes, pulling her attention from the tattered garment to him. He twisted to dig around in their pile of vines and pouches on the nest beside him, where they’d obviously been placed so they could have their wounds tended to. Facing her again, he held up… a fistful of leaves?

  Lily tilted her head and scrunched up her nose, not sure how he thought a bunch of leaves were going fix her current state of au naturale. Seeing her confusion, he stretched the bundle between his two upper hands, showing her it was the skirt she’d found on his nest when she’d been caught rifling through his things. She’d found its existence confusing since the shevari didn’t dress. It wasn’t until that moment that she understood he’d made it specifically for her.

  For no logical reason, seeing it now made a fresh flood of tears fill her eyes. Lily took the offered skirt delicately, ignoring the concerned rumbles coming from her guys. She didn’t know why she was crying so couldn’t explain it to them. Instead of trying, she shifted to her knees with a groan, and more than one wince of pain, but she was smiling when she tied it on.

  She still needed to figure out something for her upper half, but the thoughtfulness behind such a gift was enough to let her ignore her bare breasts. For a second, anyway. Thankfully, Tor was clutching more than her cardigan. Before she could do more than glance around for ideas to craft some kind of top, Frrar elbowed Tor, giving her mischievous mate a pointed look.

  With his eyes on her chest and a comical amount of reluctance, Tor grudgingly passed over her only remaining top—the black cami that had definitely seen better days. He didn’t let go right away when she went to take it from him, holding on a moment longer than necessary, making her snort a laugh and shake her head.

  When she was dressed and feeling a little steadier, Lily asked the question that had been battering at the back of her mind.

  “Is it over? Are they all dead?”

  Barely daring to breathe, she searched each of their faces as she waited for an answer .

  “They dead. We safe, you safe, mek Lily,” Frrar answered, reaching out to cup her cheek as he gazed down at her reassuringly.

  The somber tone in his voice and the tender smile on his lips, that was sadder than any smile ought to be, told her they hadn’t made it through the battle without losses. Lily had known it was likely they would lose some people in the fight, but having it confirmed was a blow.

  “How many?” she questioned softly, morbidly needing to know how many people her traps had failed to keep safe.

  Tor answered, knowing immediately what she was asking, by showing her his fingers, his thumb tucked into his palm.

  Three people.

  Lily selfishly hoped they weren’t people she’d met, which made her feel even worse, because the guys were sure to know them. There were under one hundred people in the tribe, including children. There was no way they wouldn’t know the people who’d died. It was the thought of children that brought to mind the little girl she’d gone off to save .

  “Sahas?” she asked urgently, gripping the wrist of Frrar’s hand still cupping her cheek. “Is Sahas okay? Is she at the Shevak Sha ?”

  Frrar looked confused, as if he didn’t understand why Lily was asking so anxiously about the whereabouts of a child she barely knew. Realizing he didn’t understand because she hadn’t been conscious to tell them, she rushed to explain.

  “Sahas thought Skaa was with the raasha , the enemies. She left the Shevak Sha to go look for her. That’s why I was out there. I had to find her before she got hurt. But one of them found us,” she paused at that, remembering the panic and fear she’d felt.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bring Sahas back, not without the raasha following us, and she wouldn’t go on her own. But this… man—not shevari but not raasha— appeared. I know it sounds crazy, but I sent Sahas back to the sha with him. I stayed to fight the bad guy off.”

  All her guys were staring at her wide-eyed, even Drrak. She’d used enough hand movements with her words that her big wildling had understood enough of what she was saying to be just as appalled as the rest of her men.

  “Nobody saw a big winged man drop off a little girl?” Lily asked desperately, flapping her arms like wings, ignoring that pain that caused her, as the beginnings of horror started to flutter at the edges of her mind.

  Before she could descend into an all-out anxiety attack, Frrar yelled over his shoulder.

  “Atuk!”

  He didn’t yell like she would’ve if she was trying to reach someone an unknown distance away, but rather like he was in a living room and was calling to someone in the kitchen.

  Superhero hearing. Think about that, and not about the fact that I may have sent off a defenseless child with a man who may very well be a killer.

  What the fuck have I done?

  A handful of seconds passed before a thud sounded behind her mates’ backs. Lily jumped but immediately stretched up, trying to see over her guys. Atuk appeared, walking up to stand behind them. He appeared exhausted but curious… until he spotted her sitting in the center of her guys.

  “Shh! Skar, skar. Ua yrrta raasha,” he said in a rush, waving her to him like he wanted her to follow him.

  He spoke almost too rapidly for her to understand, but she caught enough to gather he was telling her they’d trapped the enemy. There was only one enemy she knew of that had made it to the center of tribe territory. Granted, she didn’t know everything that happened while she was away from the main tree or while she was unconscious, but thought her guys would have included news of intruders making it that far past the borders. Not to mention, she thought their losses would be higher if those monsters got that close to the children, especially since they’d only had six males to protect them.

  “But Sahas? She’s there? At the Shevak Sha ?” Lily pressed, needing to know if she’d made a horrible mistake in trusting the winged man.

  “Ak, Sahas sehr. Krarr tul roaer mek venarii, ” he answered gratefully, telling her the little girl was safe and thanking her for protecting his youngling.

  Lily released a whoosh of breath, relief making her feel dizzy, but Atuk was still waving her to him, none of his urgency abating.

  Pushing to her feet with a hiss of pain, Lily hurried to pull on her vine and boots. It took a bit of coaxing and more than a bit of demanding before her guys could be persuaded to take her to where Atuk wanted them to go. They didn’t want her to leave Srrka’s nest in case she needed more care, but Lily metaphorically put her foot down until they caved. Atuk had already gone ahead, too keyed up to wait for her to argue with her guys, and she was anxious to follow.

  If the winged man was being held prisoner after doing what Lily had asked of him—flying Sahas back to safety—she needed to get to him before they inadvertently made themselves another enemy.

  Let’s just hope he’s not to
o mad.

  L ily gaped at what she saw when they arrived in the hollow of the main tree. She hadn’t expected to see so many people there, thought they’d be passed out from the long, exhausting night fighting off the invaders.

  The majority of the tribe was present and gathered in a tight circle around what she could only assume was the winged man. She couldn’t actually see anything past their bodies, but she could hear an angry-sounding, guttural voice speaking in a language that was very clearly not shevari.

  This was another one of those moments where being the shortest adult on the planet was brought home to her in irritating clarity. All she could glimpse were a bunch of naked, furry asses and too many twitching tails to count.

  Tor set her on her feet gingerly, but stayed so close he was nearly bumping into her with every step she took to the knot of people in the center of the hollow. When she reached the outer edge of the circle, she tried to politely move them out of her way, but her shoulder tapping and throat clearing wasn’t doing the trick. They moved, but no more than a half-step to the side, making it near impossible to pass between them without having every single one of her injuries bumped and bashed by swinging arms and big bodies.

  At her first hiss of pain when someone accidentally hit her in the side, right over the massive bruise from being thrown across the forest floor, Drrak growled angrily behind her, reminding her that her big wildling was only civil when it suited him.

  Before she could turn around to soothe him, Lily felt the heat coming off his towering form against her back right before he ever so gently picked her up with his upper hands around her waist, just under the numerous claw wounds on her back.

  Drrak lifted her higher, pressed a tender kiss to the side of her neck, gave her a loving nuzzle and a soft purr that brought a rush of goosebumps to her arms, then passed her bodily back to Arruk, who was waiting with open arms.

  Lily was already cringing in anticipation and tried to snag Drrak’s half missing tail before he could do exactly what she knew he was going to do.