by Ruby Dixon
She sighs and reaches back for my hair. “I love you, Rukh.”
“I love you, my mate,” I tell her and nip at her soft ear. My hands slide to the front of her tunic, to her sensitive, swollen teats. Breasts, she calls them. I touch one and she moans, tugging at her clothing. That tells me she wants my touch as much as I want her. I help her undo the laces at the front of her tunic until it falls open, and her ripe breasts are free for my hands. I gently brush over the nipples, because I know they’re too tender for much more.
She pushes back against me, whimpering, and her hand knots in my mane. I push her skirt down her thighs and she kicks it off even as I rip my breechcloth off my body. Then we are pressed against each other, flesh to flesh, body to body. Her khui hums loudly in her chest, and mine answers.
I murmur her name as I push her thighs apart and enter her from behind. She gives a soft little cry and holds tight to my hands as I begin to thrust into her, my spur prodding against the tiny bud of her backside with each pump.
We are perfection like this, me and my Har-loh.
• • •
The next morning, Har-loh wakes up and moves the small arrowhead from the first notch in her kahl-un-dur to the second one. “Dee-sem-burr second,” she announces. She rubs her side and winces. “This baby has to be coming soon, right?”
“I do not know.” I wish I had answers for her. She has so many questions and I do, too. The hollows under her eyes seem to be worse today, despite the fact that she slept heavily through the night. But there is no one to ask, and I do not know if this is normal. My memories of my father are so faint and growing dimmer with every day. Instead of his face in my dreams, I see Har-loh’s smile, her freckled skin, her soft body. “Come eat,” I tell my mate and gesture at her stool by the fire. I’ve even put one of her fluffy puffs on it to ease her bottom.
She sits down and gives me a grateful smile. “The baby’s active today.”
I put a hand on her belly and feel the flutters there, the gentle movement. I grin up at her, and then jerk my hand away as the kit kicks hard.
Har-loh winces. “Pissy today, too.”
“He is hungry. He need eat. You eat, too.” I get a chunk of dried, smoked meat and offer it to her.
She wrinkles her nose at the sight and looks unhappy. “Is that all we have?”
“No.” I pull out one of the baskets she’s woven and take out additional chunks of meat she has salted and smoked. “This one is raptor, and this one is spagayteemawnster, and this one is…” I hold it to my nose, sniffing. Burned dvisti. “Dvisti.”
“Maybe just water,” she says, and rubs her belly again.
“Eat,” I tell her, and ignore the gnawing worry that creeps up. I give her a bit of smoked dvisti since it is the tenderest, and she takes it from my hand and gamely nibbles on it. I notice she drinks more water than anything and eats slowly.
My worry threatens to consume me, and so I stay by the cave with her that morning. I tell her I have hides to cure, but we have more hides than two people can use. She stuffs feathers into one of her leather puffs for the baby, and then sews the edge shut. When I take a break, she pulls out her boots and smiles brightly at me. “Can we go get clams? I’m hungry for those.”
Our cave is bursting with dried meats, and it seems wasteful to hunt more. But I will do anything for my Har-loh. I nod and help her put her boots on, lacing them for her while she comments about being unable to see her feet. I tell her they are swollen and fluffy like one of her puffs.
She snorts.
Then we are off to the beach, and the weather is nice. I can see Har-loh improving as we walk. Her face has the pink color in it that tells me she is healthy, and she smiles when the two suns come out from behind the clouds.
I am worrying over nothing, I tell myself. I give her belly a small pat as we get to the edge of the water. “Clams?” I have my spear to use as a digging stick.
“Yes, please.” She clasps her hands in front of her and looks excited. “The big dark ones, hopefully.”
She has told me before that her home place has something very similar to the clams, but they are smaller. I watch the surf, looking for a small spout of water to surface from the sand once the tide rolls out.
I spot one and jam the end of my spear into the sand, then push the end up, trying to dig it out. I catch a glimpse of dark shell before it burrows deeper into the sand. Growling in frustration, I forget all about the spear and dig my hands through the sand, determined to get this for my mate and to make her smile. Harlow laughs as I try to shovel faster than the creature can dig, and sand flies everywhere.
At last, success. I grip the thing in my hand and hold it aloft. “For you!”
“Yay!” she claps her hands. “That’s one! Let’s get more and then we’ll go home and boil them.”
I nod at her belly, as if speaking to it. “Your mother is hungry today.”
“She’s starving,” Har-loh answers warmly, and rubs her stomach.
“Then your father feed you,” I declare to her belly, and get to my feet.
There is sand all over my arms and chest, and my legs. It’s even in the tangle of woven braids that Har-loh has made out of my mane. She steps forward and dusts me off with her small fingers.
And then she stops. Her fingers twitch on my arm, and then her nails dig in to my skin.
I look up into her face. She is pale, her freckles dark against her cheeks.
“What is it?”
Her mouth thins into a line, and she nods over my shoulder. She casts me a worried look and then squeezes my arm. “Don’t freekowt.”
She slips into her language when she is worried, sometimes, and when I don’t recognize the word, my senses tingle with alarm. I turn, determined not to ‘freek’ and look.
Our beach is surrounded by rocky, high cliffs. High up a distant one, there are things moving. At first I think they are metlak, the lanky, hairy creatures of the mountains. But this is not their territory, and as I watch them move, my heart fills with dread. One is carrying a spear, and I can see horns on another. There are many of them.
The bad ones.
They’ve found us.
Chapter Seven
HARLOW
The sight of the people on the ridge fills me more annoyance than worry. Why do they have to show up now? I don’t want company. I’m pregnant, cranky, swollen, and the last thing I want is the careful nest we’ve been building for so long interrupted by unexpected visitors.
Rukh, however, reacts very differently than I do.
The breath hisses out of his throat and he grabs my hand. He hauls me forward, dropping spear and clam on the sand, forgotten, and races toward our cave. I put a hand to my belly and try to follow after him, but running with a baby belly? Not that easy. I take a few steps and then pull my hand from his, wheezing. My lower back feels like it’s on fire and that horrible cramp on the right side of my abdomen is returning. “Rukh, wait,” I gasp. “I can’t run—“
Instead of calming down, he grabs me and lifts me into his arms, and continues to race toward the cave as if the beach were on fire.
I cling to his neck, worried he’s going to drop me. I want to reason with him, but I’ve seen this wild look in his eyes once before. When he sees the other aliens, there is no reasoning with him. He loses control.
Thank goodness we make it back to the cave in one piece. I release the breath I’m holding as he gently sets me down on the floor onto my feet. Rukh touches my cheek. “Stay here, Har-loh. If the bad ones come, hide.”
The ‘bad ones’ is his name for the tribe. I have no idea why they’re bad in his eyes. He has memories of his father telling him to avoid them, to hide from them, because they were ‘bad’, and that is the only knowledge he has of them. Other than me, and worrying they’re going to take me away. My own experience with them was good, but then I remember Aehako, Haeden, and Kira, all dead. They won’t like to see me alive after all this time and with their tribemates dead. It wor
ries me.
But I don’t want Rukh going after them, either. There’s more of them than us. I hold on to his arm to try and stop him. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“I go try lead away from you. Will trick. Hide path to cave.” He pulls his bone knife from the sheath on the wall and looks around for his spear, except it’s still on the beach. I move forward and give him mine, because the thought of him leaving with little to defend himself scares me more than being here without a weapon.
They’re not our enemies, I remind myself. But a year has passed, and a lot can happen in a year. My belly and Rukh’s language skills are a testament to that.
He gazes down at me, and there’s such softness and love in his eyes that my lower lip trembles.
Everything’s going to change after this moment. We’ve been so happy…I’m afraid it’s going to be ruined.
“Don’t cry, beebee,” he says, breaking into English in an imitation of my words.
“Please be careful.” I want to grab handfuls of his hair and hold him back, but I can’t. The tribe is here, and they must be here for a reason. “Just…whatever you do, stay calm, okay? Listen to what they say and don’t attack first. Promise me.”
He nods and gives me a quick, fierce kiss. “I will be as the shadows. They will not see me.”
“Mmm.” I’m not sure I believe that, but I trust him, and I feel better when he moves to one of the storage baskets I have neatly lining our cave and pulls out his white fur cloak. It will hide him amongst the snow like camouflage.
Then he’s gone, heading out the cave entrance, and I fight the urge to panic. Instead, I stay busy. I put out the fire (lest the tendrils of smoke bring curious wanderers), straighten the cave, sharpen my small knife, eat a bit of meat, rub my belly, and wait.
The waiting seems endless.
After what feels like forever, I head to the front of the cave, peeking out. I scan the snow-capped hills in the distance for a flash of blue skin or dark hair, but I don’t see him. That’s both good and bad. I pace at the mouth of the cave, worried.
What if they find him and he attacks them? What if something bad happens?
What if my Rukh doesn’t come back?
Hot terror clenches through me and my hands grip my belly. The baby kicks, hard, as if sensing my worry.
They won’t kill him. They’re not murderers. Vektal and his people are kind.
But Rukh is an unknown warrior, and he wants to defend me. I worry my lower lip with my teeth, my mind spiraling through all the things that can go wrong. I’m so focused on my thoughts that I’m not paying as much attention as I should be. I’m staring at the ground and when a shadow moves, it catches my attention. I look up, but the ridge nearby is empty.
Goosebumps prickle my skin. I rub my arms and head deeper into my cave, remembering Rukh’s words. I need to hide if someone comes. I stare helplessly at our comfortable cave. There’s clearly a fire pit, and a nest of furs. My hand-woven baskets made from dried sea-reeds are neatly placed along the walls. It’s going to be obvious that someone lives here.
But I don’t want to be found. I don’t want to be found and blamed for the deaths of three others.
More than anything, I don’t want to be taken from my mate. I love Rukh and I’m happy with him. I don’t care that I have to brush my teeth with a hard twig or my panties are made from leather instead of silk. I love my man and I don’t want to leave him. So I head back, deeper into the cave than I normally go. There’s a hiding spot back here that Rukh and I have commented on before, a sliver of jutting rock that’s big enough to conceal someone through optical illusion, as long as the viewer stays a few feet away. I slide in to the spot, wincing as the jagged rocks tear at my skin.
And then I sigh and give up, because my belly is sticking out a lot further than the wall can conceal. This nook would have been useful about eight months and twenty pounds ago. Grimacing, I pull myself back out, and then rub my back again. It hurts worse than usual today. Stress, likely.
“Hello?” A voice – high and female and human – calls out. It’s coming from the front of the cave. “Harlow? Are you in here?”
I straighten in surprise, my hand protectively going to my stomach. That sounds like Liz. I recognize her Oklahoma twang. How did she find me? Then I think of the shadow on the ridge. Of course. I’m so stupid. She must have seen me come in.
No sense in hiding now, is there? I cautiously move forward into the main room of the cave.
It’s Liz, all right, and she looks incredible. Beautiful. Not-Hoth obviously agrees with her. Her cheeks are ruddy and pink, her face rounded and full. Her blonde hair cascades over her shoulders, pulled back from her face by a few decorative braids. She wears a long dress made of ornately dyed leather that makes my own patchwork tunic look downright shameful. A furry hood is pushed off her face and frames her shoulders. She looks like a Viking princess, right down to the bow slung over her shoulder. And she’s peering around my cave with surprise.
I say nothing, waiting for her to notice me. It takes a moment, as she’s assessing my cave, and then she turns and her gaze lands on me.
Instead of the mistrust I expect, her eyes light up and she flings her arms wide, rushing forward to hug me. “Oh my God! It is you! Harlow! Holy shitballs, girl. We thought you were dead!”
I hug her back, and for some reason, I start to cry. It’s part nerves, part relief, part loneliness. I didn’t realize until now how good it is to see another human. I love and adore Rukh, but seeing another woman takes away some of the anxiety of being out here alone.
She squeals and hops up and down as she hugs me, and then pulls back when she realizes my belly’s poking into her. “Ohmigod! Look at you!” Her gaze flicks from my belly to my face with shock. “You’re fucking pregnant!”
“I am,” I say, wiping away some of my tears. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” She sputters. “Girl, what are you doing here, you bitch? We thought you were dead!”
I laugh. Liz is so crass but she’s open and loving. I’ve missed her. I squeeze her hand. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ll say,” she agrees, and pats my distended belly. “You look ready to pop. I’m not carrying quite the same.”
I digest her confusing words for a moment, and then realize that Liz’s belly is gently rounded under her flowing, colorful leather tunic. Of course she’s pregnant, too. She and Raahosh were mated for only a short time before Rukh stole me from the ship. It’s like I’ve forgotten everything.
I bet there are a lot of pregnant girls back at the tribal caves now. I bite my lip, hating the wistful envy that rises in me. I love Rukh and I want to stay here, but…the thought of having girlfriends again? Girlfriends who are going through the same scary, unknown pregnancy I am? It fills me with longing. “Pregnancy is hard,” I say with a smile and rub my lower back again.
Her brows go down, as if she wants to disagree with me. Then, she takes me by the elbow and steers me toward one of the plump leather pillows I’ve made. “Here. Why don’t you sit down? You look like hell, girl.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say dryly. Good ol’ Liz. But I do want to sit, so I let her steer me toward one of the stuffed pillows. She grabs another and pulls it close, then flops down. Her eyes light up. “Oh wow. Why haven’t I thought about freaking pillows in the last year? This thing is awesome!” She wiggles her butt on it. “Raahosh tried to make me a hammock but I fell out of it and that was the end of that.”
I smile at her. “So you and Raahosh are well?”
“If by ‘well’, you mean ‘shagging like bunnies’ and me arguing when he tries to mansplain at me about how to hunt, and then me proving to him I’m just as capable as he is without a pair of balls? And then make-up sex and cuddling? Yup, we’re great.” She looks cheerful at the thought. “We’re supposed to be in at least a two year exile, but everyone’s pregnancies are moving along a lot faster than Maylak thought, so I imagine we’ll have to stay home this winter
. Last one was cold as the tits on a snowman.” She mock shivers and then looks around my cave again. “This place is real nice, though. Weather’s a lot milder.”
I nod. “There’re these scorpion things on the beach that look ugly as hell but they taste like lobster.”
She gasps and pretends to wipe her chin. “My mouth is watering, seriously. We totally have to get some of those.”
I grin and brace my hands on my aching lower back. “Yeah, I like to tell—” I pause, not sure I want to say Rukh’s name to Liz. “Um.”
She tilts her head, waiting for me to continue.
I hesitate. I don’t know what to do. Confess what happened? It feels disloyal to Rukh. Sure, he clubbed me over the head and stole me away when I was sent out to get help, thus ensuring the deaths of three others, but…he didn’t know what to do. He’s grown up wild. I don’t hold that against him, and I worry others will.
So I give Liz a thin smile. “I look like hell, huh?”
She gives me an uneasy look and clasps her hands in her lap. “You just look really tired. And really pregnant. Like, more than me.” She gazes down at my belly and her hand goes to her own stomach. “I’m glad I found you,” she says. “You can come home and get checked out by the healer when we get back.”
I hesitate again.
“Oh, come on,” Liz says with a groan. “I know you didn’t get yourself pregnant. A guy’s obviously here with you. And judging from the lack of a plasma TV and sofa, I’m guessing that he’s an alien, right? Who is it?” She leans forward. “One of the hunters, right? I can’t believe some bastard squirreled you away and hasn’t said a thing to anyone. That is seriously not right, keeping you here.”
I pull back, a bit alarmed by the venom in her voice. “It’s not one of the tribe.”
She sits up and frowns. “It’s not? Is he not sa-khui?”
Oh jeez, now I’m really painting myself into a corner. “I didn’t say that.”