by Dixon, Ruby
“I love you as well, my Liz.”
“You know what I love best, though?”
“What is that?”
“I love that I can be me around you. I love you for who you are. I don’t want you to be anyone but Raahosh—my Raahosh. You can be as grumpy as you want, because I know I can be a pain in the ass.” I ignore his snort and continue, because I’m having a sappy moment, dammit. “I know I can go on far too long about Star Wars and I’ve never met a cussword I didn’t like, and I know I can be bossy. But I feel like that’s all okay with you and I love that. I don’t have to try to be someone else.” I snuggle up against him from behind, pleased. “And I’m not alone. You have no idea how alone I felt for so, so long.”
He wraps his arms around mine, as if hugging me in that small way. “I no longer feel alone, either. It is the best feeling. Thank you, my mate. You know you have my heart.”
“You have mine, too,” I tell him…and then add, “But not my butthole. That’s off limits without prior discussion.”
He snorts with amusement.
8
RAAHOSH
Liz sleeps next to me, curled up. Her bottom is pressed against my groin and my tail is between her legs, the tufted end gripped in her hand. Her head is propped up on my upper arm and her mouth is open, which means she is drooling a small river, but I do not wake her. Instead, I pull her closer to me and press my mouth to her pale shoulder.
My fierce, determined mate.
When I felt foolish, she did not let me retreat. She will not let us walk away from each other in anger, but keeps talking until I must acknowledge why I am angry or upset. When I first met Liz, I thought she would never cease her endless conversations, and it annoyed me. Now, I am glad for it. I kiss her skin again, thinking of all the bold things she said to me as she sat and rode my tail and stroked my cock from behind.
I worried I would not be interesting enough for her. Now I am starting to think there is no one that can keep up with her wild, creative mind, and that pleases me.
She can be the bold one. I will be the rock, the protector, the shield. She can be the arrow, launching itself forward. I will be the bow—the brace, the stability that the arrow needs to speed ahead.
In this, we are a good pair.
Liz smacks her lips and rolls onto her belly, releasing my numb, drool-covered arm and presenting me with her backside. I ease out of bed, though I am reluctant to leave her side. I want to curl up in the furs with her forever, but that will not stoke the fire or make warm tea for my frequently cold, thin-skinned female who needs heat. It will not put food in our bellies, and so I get up and tend to the fire, putting on a pouch of fresh snow to melt and heating cubes of frozen meat on a skewer until they sizzle and blacken at the edges, the way Liz likes them. She does not mind raw, but her favorite is the crispy bits, so I make sure she has the best bites of food.
Once it is all ready and prepared, I pour a cup of tea, put the food in a bowl, and approach my mate where she is still curled in the furs of the storage area. She did not leave my side after I retreated last night, and we spent the nighttime hours mating with all the feverish intensity of first resonance.
I move quietly into the storage area and then crouch by her side. I flick my tail against her hand to wake her, and she blinks up at me with a sleepy expression.
“I made you food.” I set it down next to her and wait, feeling awkward. She is beaming up at me as if I am all good things in the world and it is…pleasurable. I do not know how to handle that.
“Breakfast in bed? This honeymoon’s just getting better and better,” Liz says, sitting up and taking the bowl. “Oooh, and you crisped my meat. You are so getting laid again.”
I snort, amused at her words. “There is a thick snowstorm today. You cannot see past your hand.”
She nibbles on a chunk of meat with her small teeth. “So…does that mean no travel for you and me today?”
I reach over and touch a lock of her soft yellow mane. “We stay here this day. Perhaps we will stay in the furs by the fire and you can tell me all about a Star War.”
Liz giggles. “Oh my god, you are so cute.”
The base of my horns grows hot. “I am a hunter. We are not cute. We are strong. Brave. Fearless. We—” I pause as she lifts her small foot into the air. “What are you doing?”
“Can you rub my foot? It’s cold and your hands are warm.”
I take her foot and begin to rub it, caressing the small whitish-pink toes and kneading the sole. “As I was saying—”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “This is awesome. Just like this. You can rub my feet, I’ll eat in bed, and it’ll be the best honeymoon ever.”
“It is already the best of honeymoon ever because I am here with you,” I admit to her. “I am thankful you are my mate and no one else’s.”
Liz grins at me, wiggling her other foot into the air and I hold them both, massaging as she pops another piece of meat into her mouth. “I was going to give you bow lessons, though. I guess we can’t do that while it’s a blizzard outside. Are you disappointed? You’re not getting much out of this honeymoon and here I’m getting a massage and breakfast in bed.” She props her arm behind her head and looks up at me. “Is there something you want to do?”
Other than drag her into the furs and rut into her like a wild beast? But Liz is always as eager for playing in the furs as I am. She means something else. I think in silence as I rub her feet, considering. “Are there certain things that are done while honeymoon?”
Her lips twitch as if she wants to laugh again. “Most people go on a trip and do sightseeing. They look at old places, visit ruins, or just hang out at the beach and swim.”
I consider this. “I guess we can go to the beach, but I do not think you will like it. It is on the far side of the mountains, in the opposite direction of where we are headed and you cannot swim. These pink toes will freeze.” And I nip at one, because I like seeing her eyes light up.
“I will pass on the frozen beach, thank you.” Liz eats another piece of meat and gives me a hot look that tells me she is not thinking about beaches much at all. “It’s bonding time. What do you want to do? What would make this special for you? Something you wouldn’t want to do with anyone else?”
Immediately, an idea springs to mind. I almost discard it, because it feels too open, too vulnerable. But she is looking at me with eager eyes, and I can refuse her nothing. “I would,” I say carefully, “like to go fishing.”
“Fishing?” She gives me a look of confusion. “We’ve fished before, Raahosh.”
I shake my head. “There is a place my father used to take me, back when he was alive. I remember that spot, and I would sit on the banks of the shore with him and we would wait for the fish to creep close. And we would just talk. It is my best memory I have with my father.”
Her expression grows soft. “Then of course we’ll do that. I’d love to. Do you know how to get to the place?”
“I do.” I have passed it many times since my father’s death, but I never approached. I never wanted to, because I wanted to keep those memories as they were. I wanted to see the place in my mind’s eye as a kit holding my father’s hand as we headed toward the lake with nets and fishing poles.
But I want to share this with Liz. I want to make new memories with her. I am tired of living in the past.
“I can’t wait,” she says, and puts her bowl aside, licking her lips. I offer her the cup but she shakes her head. “Not thirsty. Ok, so we’ll go fishing once the weather clears up, yes?”
“Not today,” I agree. “Today is a day for staying in the furs.”
“I’m glad you said that,” my mate tells me, breathless. “Because I’m totally thinking about sex right now. Raw, raunchy sex with you on top of me and my ankles on your shoulders.”
Now I am thinking of this, too. I stop massaging her feet and place them on my shoulders even as I move into the furs to join her. “I think that is a fine id
ea.”
* * *
It snows for two days straight, and I spend those days curled up in the furs with my mate. We mate. We play foolish word games. We discuss names for our kit. We talk of others in the tribe and who we think will resonate next. Sometimes we talk of nothing more than the weather, and even that is enjoyable. I like sharing everything with Liz, and I have never shared so much with another person before. Vektal is as a brother to me, and yet there are things I have never confessed to him that I readily tell my mate because I feel safe in telling her even the smallest of things.
I am almost sad when the snows let up and the suns peek out from the thick cloud cover, because it means we must move on once more.
“Fishing day!” Liz announces happily as we pack.
Her excitement makes me less sad. With her, all things are enjoyable, and when we leave the cave behind, it is hand in hand, talking of the best kinds of birds to eat and what herbs to use when stuffing the cavity before roasting it. Silly things, but I just like hearing Liz talk.
It takes maybe half a day of walking off of the familiar path before I see a familiar mountain peak, and a familiar purple-edged rock cliff. We are close. I hold Liz’s hand tightly as we head into the valley, and nestled amongst the cliffs I can see the lake. Warm water bubbles out of the rocky cliffs above and trickles down to the surface, but because it is so cold, it freezes before it makes it into the pond. The result is a glassy cascade of frozen strands that tumble down the rocks in a frozen waterfall to the tepid lake below. The edges of it are crusted with ice, but the interior is warm. And near the frozen waterfall itself, I spy my father’s favorite perch.
“It’s all so pretty,” Liz breathes, clapping her gloved hands. “I’m glad we came here.”
I point to the small overhang of rock. “My father and I would sit there. This is not a good lake for spear fishing, because the ice on the edges will not hold weight. So we would use something called a ‘pole’ and put a bit of meat on a barb to trap the fish into biting…why are you looking at me like that?” I scowl down at her, because as I speak, a mischievous grin crosses her face.
She reaches up as high as she can and taps my chin. “You are so cute. Humans fish with poles, too, silly.”
“Do they?” I grunt. “Perhaps you are not as primitive as I thought.” I keep my voice gruff, and love when she makes an outraged squawk.
“We are not primitive!”
“Says the people that burn their perfectly good meat.”
Liz laughs and gives me a hard nudge. “You suck!”
I smirk at her. “Come. Let us climb up and claim our seat.”
I remember scaling the steep, icy cliffs as a young kit and the ease my father climbed with. It is different with my human mate at my side, though. She does not have the size I do, and her hands are covered to protect them from the cold so she cannot grip as she should. My heart thunders in my chest when she slips once, and I decide that I will carry her down.
My hands go to her waist to help her to the top, but she slaps my grip away. “I can do it. I’m not fragile, Raahosh.”
She thinks she is not fragile. I snort and keep my hands on her anyhow.
Up at the top of the ridge, Liz puts her hands on her hips and draws a deep breath. “Wow, this is beautiful. I love the view.”
I keep my hand on her arm and my tail wrapped around her leg. “Do not lean so close to the edge.”
“You’ll catch me,” she says, and leans over the lip of the cliff. “Wow, we’re right above the water.”
I pull her backward gently. “Sit. Let us prepare our fishing poles.”
She sits obediently and I move closer to her than I probably should, and I keep my tail latched tightly to her leg, just in case. We are higher up than I remember as a kit, or perhaps I am just worrying about Liz and the kit in her belly. Either way, I will not get comfortable this day.
Even so, it soothes my spirit to be here with her. She watches as I tie a long length of sinewed cord to one end of my spear and tie a bone hook on the other. Liz takes the hook and baits it with ease, making sure to work the barbs through the meat so it will not fall off once it hits the water, and it shows me she has done this before.
“I used to go hunting with my dad,” she says when I glance over at her. “And sometimes fishing, though we mostly just caught turtles or snakes instead of actual fish. Do we need a weight of some kind attached to the line?”
I toss the hunk of meat down into the water below and sure enough, it bobs on the surface and does not go further. “We can use a rock.” It is not a bad idea, and I am pleased she is so clever. “You are smart, Liz.”
“Nah, just something I remember from before.”
We adjust the lines with weights, tying a small oblong stone near the bait on the line to keep it under the water, and then drop one line into the water. I hand the “pole” to Liz while I work on my own. I watch her as I work on the line, the easy happiness in her face. I think of the other human females and try to imagine them out here with their mates and I cannot picture it. They do not like the wild. They would not be thrilled to be exiled with me.
Truly, I am the luckiest to have Liz. She is perfect in every way.
“You’re watching me,” she says, gazing down at the water.
“I am thinking how happy I am,” I admit.
Liz glances over at me and a shy smile curves her mouth. “Me too. This place is perfect…and you’re awesome. I didn’t think I could be so happy on an ice planet like this but…it’s amazing and I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I’m looking forward to the rest of our lives together.” Her hand brushes over her stomach, and I know she is thinking of our kit.
Impulsively, I lean over and kiss the top of her head, then hold her closer to me, pulling her into my lap. I have a sudden vision of one of the large fish biting down and then pulling my mate off the ledge and into the water. “Perhaps we will fish together.”
She chuckles. “All right, if you want.”
“I do.” I settle her on my thighs as she holds the pole. “You can tell me another Star War.”
“There’s only one,” Liz says, exasperated. “And I’ve told it to you already.”
“But you love it, so tell it again.”
Her eyes flare with pleasure as she glances back at me. “You want to hear it again? Really?”
“I like the things you like,” I tell her simply, and hold her tight.
“All right,” Liz says, leaning back against my chest. Her head fits just under my chin. Perfect, really. “A long time ago, there was this guy named Anakin, and he was the chosen one…”
Part III
Ice Planet Honeymoon: Aehako & Kira
Kira and Aehako are happily mated and waiting for their baby’s arrival. Everything is great…or is it? Because carefree Aehako has turned into the most hovering of spouses, and he’s making everyone at the cave crazy.
Kira thinks it’s time for a vacation…of sorts.
This story is an extended epilogue for book 3 of Ice Planet Barbarians — Barbarian Lover — and is for readers who want a little more of their favorite couple. Don’t start here! You’ll be missing out on so much story. Start at the beginning with Ice Planet Barbarians.
9
KIRA
I wake up to the sensation of the baby kicking my bladder. With a grimace, I get out of my warm bed, next to my sleeping mate, and make my way out to the designated “bathroom” area for the South Cave. The set-up here isn’t as nice as the main tribal cave, but we make do. It doesn’t bother me most times…just when I have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee.
Which happens a lot more lately, come to think of it.
My toes curl on the cold stone floor and I get my business done as quickly as possible, then pour a bit of water into a bowl used for washing hands. It’s cold this time of night and the water is turning into icy sludge, so I’m shivering by the time I make it back to the cave I share with Aehako. We had chamber po
ts in the cave for a while, but the concept makes my stomach turn, and with being pregnant, I can’t have one in the living area. I just can’t. I’ll endure cold feet.
And so will my mate, I think impishly as I slide back under the covers and immediately stick my cold feet on him.
Aehako groans and immediately grabs me, tucking me against his bigger body. “Cruel female.”
“Don’t you want to warm my toes for me?” I tease, snuggling up against him. Aehako is massive—bigger than a lot of the other sa-khui, who aren’t a small people. I have to be the little spoon every time, but he’s a sprawler and sometimes I wake up with him stealing all the blankets in his sleep. So he gets to warm my cold feet. Those are the rules.
He tucks me against him, brushing a hand on one of my cold feet as I curl it against his thigh and lie on my side once more. He tucks his arm around my waist, his lips against the top of my head.
The baby kicks again, this time doing an impressive kick instead of a slight flutter. I suck in a breath, surprised at the ferocity of it.
Aehako loses all of his drowsiness. He immediately stiffens against me, his hand splaying over my belly. “Are you well?”
“I’m fine,” I promise him. “It was just a kick.”
“But you drew in breath. Does it hurt?”
“It was just surprising. That’s all. Go back to sleep.” I cover his hand with mine and close my eyes, pretending to go back to sleep myself. All the while, the baby in my stomach has decided that it is most definitely not sleep time. It flips and kicks and moves around, and I can feel the tension brimming in Aehako’s big body. He doesn’t go back to sleep. I know he doesn’t, because I know him. And so I wait.
It doesn’t take long.
“Kira?”
“Mmm?”
“Are you asleep, my mate?” His lips brush over my hair, pressing a kiss there.