by Loki Renard
My father is gone. But there is one man I still have a quarrel with. Ice.
I turn to him and I look him dead in his silver eyes.
“Now do I get the tattoo?”
Ice shakes his head. “No.”
“No?” I cannot believe he is denying me again.
“You summoned the bear who marked your face. She came to you in your hour of need. It is a rare talent and a great feat, but it does not earn you the mark of our tribe.”
I stare at him, my jaw dropping. I have done the undoable. I helped run off the corrupt chief. I called forth an army of ghost bears. And still it is not enough.
“I guess bears are easier to impress than you,” I say bitterly, turning away from him.
If he says something, I don’t hear it.
Chapter Thirteen
The village is celebrating their new chief. Maverick will rule them all, with Ice as his shaman, Stryker as medicine man, Hans as resident brute. It’s all so perfect for them, and now that Conan is gone, the women are not so reluctant to show their ardor for my handsome mates.
This does not please me. At all. The only saving grace is that no woman dares cross a lady with a reputation for being able to summon a bear if she is angry. There are whispers everywhere I go, and the story has already been told and retold so many times that it has been blown out of all proportion.
Fortunately, my men are not the only ones in the village anymore. The warriors who survived the bear encounter have been permitted to stay. Our tribe needs fresh blood and strong warriors, and several of the West Winds warriors fit that bill. They seem to have voracious sexual appetites, and they have been moving from bed to bed to sate and pleasure the women who used to have to wait their turn for Conan’s attentions.
There is order coming out of chaos, celebrations running deep into the night, day after day. There is so much going on, so much change, so much for my men to pay attention to that suddenly I feel I am the least of their concerns.
I am not as happy as everyone else seems to be. My father is gone. Not just the man himself, but the illusion I manufactured for all those years. And I am still being denied the mark of the tribe, the final endorsement only Ice can give.
I want the marks. I want them because I have earned them. I want them because they would show me as separate from the other women, it would show me as their mate. But Ice will not give them, not even after I called down an army of bears upon those who would harm us. I don’t know how I will ever please him, and now that my men have access to many young women who are fertile and eager to mate, I don’t know that they will have use for me for much longer.
As night falls, I withdraw from them all. They don’t seem to care, or notice. They have known one another a very long time and once they begin chattering, they can drink the night away without paying any attention to me.
We no longer eat and drink alone. Meals are taken at the central fire, where several dozen men, women, and children all eat together. As the meal goes on, I slip into the bushes that run from one side of the village down to the river.
As soon as I clear the village boundary, I run. I don’t even care where I am going. Tears fill my eyes as my heart is filled with what feels like rejection. Branches whip past me in the dark, slapping my legs, my arms, my face. I don’t know where I’m running. I just have to get away from them. From everything.
I skid to a halt, my muscles stopping me before I even realize why I’ve stopped. The survival part of my brain has kicked in and a split second later I see why. A large cat is standing in my path. Another beast of these wilds and this time I am sure I am alone. The beast is about the same size as me, but it has golden flashing eyes and when it lifts its lip in a snarl, I see long canines lit by the moonlight.
It is awe-inspiring, frightening, and dangerous. But I am not in the mood for this. My fists clench by my side, and all my anger and sadness erupts in a shout.
“Go to hell!”
The cat startles and disappears into the bushes.
Behind me, I hear a burst of laughter.
I whirl around to see Ice emerging from the brush.
“What are you doing?” My question is more of a demand.
“Making sure you don’t kill yourself,” he says. “I don’t think that cat has ever seen anything like you in its life.”
I have never seen Ice laugh before. He looks incredibly handsome doing it, his eyes lit with humor, his lips curled up in a smile that isn’t cruel or condescending.
“You are a scourge on the wilds,” he says. “Now come here. You have run long and far enough.”
“You followed me?”
“Of course I followed you,” he said. “If you think you take so much as a breath without me noticing, you are very much mistaken.”
His words fill me with warmth. I don’t really know why, but I feel better almost instantly. Maybe it’s because it shows he cares. He won’t let me get hurt, even when he is angry with me and refusing me the things I ask for.
“I thought you would let me go if you saw me leave.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t like me?”
“Why would you think I don’t like you?”
“Because you growl and you lecture and you tell me I’m not doing the right things and…”
“You never had a father,” he says. “It shows. You don’t know how to hear a refusal as anything other than rejection. You don’t know how to take a correction without taking it personally, because in your world it was always given to hurt your feelings. I don’t tell you that you are behaving badly to hurt you. I tell you to correct you. I will not allow a drop of ink to enter your skin before you are ready, and you will just have to accept that.”
“How will you know I’m ready?”
“I’ll know because you’ll be able to heard the word ‘no’ and not act as though a dagger has just gone through your spoiled little heart.”
“It’s not the word ‘no.’ It’s what you say no to, which is everything.”
He cocks his head and looks at me with that wicked gaze. “Do you expect me to take pity on you because you pout and sulk?”
“I expect you to hate me, just like you have from the beginning. I’m never going to please you, Mr. Ice, and there is no point trying.”
“You can please me by doing your duty.”
“Letting you knock me up? What a duty.”
“Bringing new life into the world, an act only a woman can perform,” he says. He doesn’t seem angry. He strikes me as serious. “We can do many things, but we cannot send our seed into the world without a mate. You are that mate. Our progeny would form a new line. A new tribe. But you think these little petulant thoughts. You worry for your body. Bodies break and eventually are burned. We will all turn to ash in the end.”
I don’t know what to say to that. His words are twisting my mind, showing me the world through his eyes. I consider things I haven’t considered before. I am the only one of the five of us who is capable of bearing life. Maybe that isn’t a burden. Maybe that is a gift.
“You are adored.”
“I am?”
“You are the womb at the core of our world,” he says. “You don’t understand that.”
“I’ve been told my whole life that…” I stop talking. There’s no way to explain what I’ve been taught because so much of it was never said at all. It was in the water and the air, it was in the housing too small to hold a family, in the difficulty meeting others. What he is talking about so naturally doesn’t happen at all without a permit.
Ice’s view of me is not as enlightened or as advanced as it could be. He reduces me to my parts—because out here, those parts matter. In the city, a man is the same as a woman because we have no need to protect ourselves from wild beasts, no need to ensure that the tribe grows. Out here, masculine and feminine come into their own in a way no city dweller could ever understand. One is not lesser than another, they are both absolutely essential.
&nb
sp; “I would worship you, if you would let me,” Ice says, his words uncharacteristically gentle. “We all would.”
“It’s hard for me.”
“I see that,” he says, his voice softer than ever.
I understand him in a way I did not before. He doesn’t want to use me for selfish reasons. He wants me to fulfill the potential inside me. He wants me to bear his children so there will be a new tribe, one made of him and me and the others.
He reaches out and pulls me into a hug, a close embrace that makes tears rise to my eyes. He is so tall my head just barely comes up to his chest, and pressing my face against his hard pectoral plane comforts me.
“I am not going to make things easy for you, little rabbit,” he says. “I can’t do that. But I can look after you whether you understand or not. Let’s get back to the tribe. It is late and you need sleep.”
Chapter Fourteen
Things are different after our conversation. True to his word, Ice isn’t any less demanding of me. He’s still the strictest, perhaps barring Maverick, who makes all the decisions for the group and expects them to be followed. Now that he has an entire tribe to boss around, he is less strict with me, but after being followed by Ice into the night, I know one of my mates is always watching over me. They take turns, and some are more obvious about it than others, but I am never truly alone.
A few days after my attempt to run away, the men call me to them. I am surprised that they have the time to speak with me, given how many things must now be attended to. Changing the structure of the tribe has not been easy. There are those who were favored who have lost position, and those who were less well regarded who are now experiencing some power. There is bickering and arguing, and Maverick has spent most of the day handing down judgements on matters great and small.
He makes time for me at the end of the day, along with the others who have been drawn from their duties, apparently to deal with me. I feel guilty and small, called before these four brawny savages, each of whom now has so much more responsibility than just me.
“Ice told us what happened the other night. Seems you think we’re going to lose interest in you now we have the tribe to worry about,” Maverick says, taking my chin and looking down into my eyes in that way he has of ensuring he has my total focus. He is so handsome it hurts, the lines of his face hard and yet the gaze in his eye caring.
“There’s four of you and one of me,” I say, trying to stay practical. “And there’s lots of women who would love to have you and bear your young.”
“There’s one of you,” Maverick agrees initially, before telling me exactly how I am wrong. “One we want. One we own. We are guardians of the tribe, but we are the masters of you, and you will not forget that, little rabbit.”
Hans wraps his big, burly arms around me. “Why would I want another woman when I can have a temperamental little redhead who can call down an army of bears?”
I allow myself to smile.
“My city girl, who knows where I come from in a way no other woman ever could,” Stryker says, his amber eyes on mine. He and I have not spoken of the city at all, but we do share an understanding of the world, and he has been my ally many times over—even when he sliced the implant from my arm and made me fertile again. I hated him for it at the time, but now I am starting to see that he restored my birthright.
I don’t expect Ice to have kind words for me. He’s not a kind words sort of man.
“You are an exceptional creature and a rare soul,” Ice speaks against my expectations. “I will have you, Riley, and when you are ready, I will mark you and fill you with my seed so you never again wonder whose you are, or where you belong.”
“I’m ready,” I say softly. “Please. I am ready. I truly am.”
I’m not the only one imploring him. Hans, Stryker, even Maverick are looking toward Ice, he who makes the final decision. It is not typical for women of the tribe to wear the marks. I would be the only one. But I am also their only mate. And I have earned them.
“Give her what she deserves,” Maverick says. “She has lost enough. It’s time she receives what she is due. We could have none of this without her. Would have done none of this without her.”
Ice looks at me with that unholy silver gaze and I fear his refusal and rejection again.
“We will do the ceremony tonight, here in the roundhouse,” he says. “We will drink the brew, mate her properly, and she will receive the marks she deserves.”
I let out a squeal of joy and throw my arms around him. He embraces me back, leaning down to murmur in my ear, “They hurt, little rabbit, and you will not be the same afterward.”
“I know.”
* * *
Dark falls, and the ritual begins as the rest of the tribe sleeps. I present myself naked to my men who are sitting in the middle of the roundhouse, where a small bed has been prepared for me. There are four posts staked out at each corner of it.
I look at Ice and Maverick for reassurance first, knowing Stryker and Hans are already on my side. Maverick smiles with pride, and Ice, well, he’s always hard to read, but I don’t feel chills running through me when I meet his silver eyes—at least not the same chills I usually feel.
He has a set of tools before him, a bowl of bright cobalt blue ink, and a row of little chisels and hammers. They are meant for me.
I feel a moment’s hesitation, but I don’t let it show in case it means I am refused the marks.
“Come and sit.”
I do so in the middle of the bed, cross-legged.
“These marks are not superficial images,” Ice begins to speak, his gravelly voice low as firelight flickers from several torches lighting the roundhouse. “These are a binding between us all. They are reserved for warriors, for those whose kinship runs deeper than mere blood. Blood is nothing compared to the bonds that are formed between those who share marks.”
I listen, enthralled as he speaks. This ritual has meaning to all of us. It is a marriage of sorts, though there will be no white dresses or flowers. I will not traipse down an aisle and smile at my friends and hope they think I look thin in my dress. This is a ceremony that goes back before the rituals of the old world, all the way to the time before history.
“I have given these marks three times,” Ice says. “First to Maverick, then to Hans, and finally to Stryker. We are as one. Now you will join us, little rabbit. You will wear our marks across your back and all who see them will know who you are.”
I feel a welling of pride, and little tears of joy begin to sting my eyes as I sit on the brink of full acceptance into their lives. After this, there will be no distinction between them and me. We will be the same thing. Five bodies. One soul.
“You have earned these marks many times over,” Maverick picks up the words. “First, when you had the courage to leave the city. Then, when you were found by the bear, and again when she sacrificed herself on your spear. Just days ago, you proved that you have her soul, and that your protection extends to us as ours does to you. You are unique in all the world, Riley. And you will forever be ours.”
I can barely contain the tears now.
“You were so soft when we met,” Hans says, continuing on. “So innocent you didn’t even know what your body was for. But you learned swiftly and you proved your bravery to us, and to yourself. You have grown many years in several weeks. The cowering girl has flowered into a woman. And you are our mate.”
I smile at him, so grateful. In the beginning, he was the one who understood me best, who showed me mercy and gentleness when I needed it and who unlocked the pleasure between my thighs. He was my first kiss, my first cock, and I will never let him go.
“I know more than most what it takes to leave the city,” Stryker begins the end of their vows. “I know the desperation it takes to go. To leave the walls of that world is to accept death. I think you understood that when you left, even if you didn’t think you did. Since then, you have faced your end, you have told your truth, you have fought us
every inch of the way when you did not agree—and you took the punishments that are the wages of that kind of disobedience. You didn’t like them one bit, but you took them. And you grew from them. You have earned your place with us.”
Stryker’s words hold special weight. A tear traces down my cheek as I nod just a little. I did risk everything in leaving the city. It was an impulsive act to throw myself into the wilds, and I didn’t fully consciously understand what I was doing on that day I left, but some part of me did. The wild part of me, the truly human part of me knew what I was risking, and that risk has paid off four times over in the form of each of these men, any single one of whom would be more than enough for me and who together represent my personal heaven—and occasionally, a well-deserved hell.
Ice picks up a bowl of brew and presents it to me.
“Drink deeply,” he says. “All of it.”
It smells like the brew they gave me after the bear died, but stronger. Drinking it all down is not easy. The taste of fungus threatens to make me gag, but I drain it to the last drop, knowing that these brews serve great purposes.
“Now lie down on your stomach,” Ice says. “Stretch out your arms and your legs.”
I do as I am told, lying face down on the furs. As soon as I am in place, each of the four men takes one of my limbs and wraps a leather cuff snugly around it. Each cuff is then tied to one of the four posts hammered into the ground.
“We can’t have you moving as I give you the marks,” Ice murmurs by way of explanation. “And you are a wriggly little rabbit at the best of times.”
I give a little giggle. There is new warmth in his voice, and I love it.
“You will not just be marked,” Maverick says, as Ice prepares his tools and my skin. I feel cool strong-smelling alcohol daubed over my back. The brew is not yet taking effect, but I am starting to feel a little dreamy. “You will also be mated.”