by Ruby Dixon
She scoots forward again. “Harlow, I’m not the enemy here. What’s going on? Why are you being so weird?”
I lick my dry lips, worried. My side chooses that moment to send a sharp pain across my belly and I bite back a wince. “It’s been a year, Liz. I just need some time to adjust to things.”
Her eyes widen. “This is Stockholm Syndrome, isn’t it? I don’t want you to worry, okay? I’ll keep you safe from him.”
“Wait, what? No, that’s not how things are at all.” She reaches for my hands but I pull away from her and get to my feet. My side is aching painfully and I rub it as I pace. “I’m happy here. I love…my guy. I don’t want to go back to the tribal caves, okay?”
“I guess I don’t understand,” Liz says slowly. “Did you run away? Is that what happened when you abandoned Aehako and Haeden and Kira?”
Abandoned. God, I guess I did, didn’t I? Because I was so dazed and caught up with my own mess that I never went back to even bury the bodies. “They were dead, Liz. There was nothing I could do.”
Silence. Then, “Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Willis?”
I snort-giggle at the saying. It reminds me of home and another wave of longing spirals through me, followed by another ache in my belly. I rub it, trying to massage away the hurt. “It’s not funny, Liz. I didn’t leave them of my own volition, but I didn’t abandon them.” I swallow hard. “I hate that I cost them their lives. I think about it all the time.”
“Uh, I hate to break up your martyr-trip and all, but no one’s dead.” Her dry voice cuts through me like a knife.
I turn so fast I get dizzy. “What?”
Liz’s brows are drawn together, her expressive face confused. “Yeah, I don’t know where you got the idea that everyone was dead? But Aehako and Haeden are fine. I mean, Aehako’s great, and Haeden’s his usual pissy self, so I guess that qualifies as ‘fine’.”
I don’t know what to think. I want to laugh with relief, but I have too many questions. “Kira — the space ship—“
“Oh, yeah.” Liz gets to her feet, ungainly for once, and as she moves, I see the swell of her belly through her clothing. “Kira went all badass on them. Crashed the damn thing into the side of a mountain and got out in an escape pod. Who knew that Eeyore had it in her, eh?” She looks proud.
“I don’t understand.”
Liz, always happy to have an opening to talk, takes the opportunity to chatter my ear off, telling me all about what happened after I was kidnapped by Rukh. Apparently somber Kira’s dashing rescue is a popular story around fires, and she embellishes the tale, going on about how Kira saved the day and took down the bad guys by her lonesome. I’m impressed, but more than anything, I’m relieved.
I’m not the cause of three deaths. No one in the tribe hates me.
I…can go back if I need to. For some reason that fills me with relief. I’ve hated the thought of being on the run, hiding from the world as if everyone will kill me if they see me. Knowing I still have friends out there? It’s a wonderful feeling.
I pace slowly as she finishes the story. I can’t get over it. Not dead. None of them. Aehako and Kira are apparently expecting a child, too. They must have resonated after I was gone.
“Now,” Liz says, moving to my side. She steers me toward the cushions again. “Why don’t you fill me in on you? What happened to you? From what Aehako said, he sent you out to get poles for a travois and you never came back. They thought a wild animal got you or something. I mean, clearly something got you,” she pats my belly. “But there are some major holes in this story that need filling in, and I’m not leaving until I get answers.”
“Isn’t someone going to come looking for you?” I ask.
“Oh, I told Raahosh I had to pee. Pregnant ladies always have to pee.” She waves a hand in the air. “He’ll think I got lost and lecture me about following tracks and blah blah.” A fond smile curves her mouth. “I’ll let him talk for a bit just to make him feel better, of course. Now tell me about you.”
“Me?” All this news must be getting to me. I feel weak and dizzy, and it’s difficult to concentrate.
“Yeah, how’d you end up on the beach? We’re a long way from the mountains, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Why are you guys here?” I can’t help but ask.
“People are bored after the long winter and wanted a big hunt. Plus, salt stores are low, so someone suggested heading to the ocean, and we got together a party of hunters. It’s a salt-hunt,” she teases. “I told Raahosh if I don’t have salt on my morning root-potatoes, heads are gonna roll.”
I try to chuckle, but nothing comes out. I’m still overwhelmed.
“Did you come here for the salt?” she leads gently. “You and your mate?” She frowns at me and her movement turns into a blur out of the corner of my eye. “Harlow? You okay, girl? You just got really pale.”
“Just a little dizzy.” Which is weird, considering I’m sitting. But I am dizzy. I’m in a cold sweat, and nausea is creeping up my throat.
“No touch her!” Rukh’s snarled voice breaks through my muddied thoughts.
My head jerks up and I stare as my gorgeous, wild mate storms into our cave, holding a spear aimed for Liz.
“You must be the mister,” Liz says as he comes in. And then she gasps when he nears. “Holy fucking shit.”
What? I want to ask, but I press my fingers to my mouth. I feel…awful. Something’s wrong. The baby kicks hard, and this time it doesn’t make me feel happy. It worries me. Blackness creeps in on the edges of my vision.
“No touch my mate,” Rukh snarls, and the spear gets closer, edges under Liz’s chin. “Har-loh, come to me.”
I try to get up, but Liz jerks me back down.
“She’s sick, you jerk. Look at her. Does she look well to you?”
“I’m okay,” I breathe, but the blackness creeps in heavier, and I’m really, really not okay. My head suddenly feels like it weighs a million pounds and I wobble on the cushion I’m seated on. It’s only Liz’s supporting arms that keep me from falling backward.
Then Rukh’s there, and he touches my face. I feel clammy but sweaty at the same time, and the nausea in the back of my throat won’t go away. His face swims into my blurry vision, and he looks so handsome and so worried that it makes me want to cry. I want to comfort him, but I just feel…awful.
“I’m fine,” I tell him again, but his tormented expression is the last thing I see before the world blacks out.
RUKH
My heart thumps in my chest, frightened like a stalked quill-beast. Har-loh is limp in my arms, unconscious. Her skin is covered with a sheen of sweat, like she is hot, but her hands and her cheek are cold.
Another human scurries around my cave, a female. I want to snarl at her to leave, to go back to the bad ones, but she’s got a bladder of water and she dampens a square of leather and brushes it over Har-loh’s face. She looks upset, too. She wants to help.
It’s only because of that I let her stay.
My Har-loh is sick. I hold her close, stroking her jaw and neck, waiting for her to wake up. At her side, the female dabs the wet square on her cheek.
“Has she done this before?” the female asks.
I want to snarl at her to go away, but I don’t know what to do to help. Maybe she does. So I shake my head in answer.
“Has she had problems with the baby? Spotting? Nausea?”
I don’t know some of these words and bare my teeth, holding her closer. “She is fine.”
“Bullshit.” She doesn’t stop to explain the word. “Look at her face. Her eyes are like hollows. She looks tired and even I can tell she’s hurting. She rubs her side constantly.”
“She is carrying a kit,” I snarl.
“So am I! And I’m not sick like her. Something is wrong.” The female all but yells at me. She gestures at her belly and I see a rounded bump there for the first time. She’s right – her face doesn’t have the same exhausted look that my Har-loh does.
I cradle Har-loh closer to me, worried. She…is pale. And she has difficulty waking some mornings. I’ve noticed that she struggles, but I don’t know how to fix it. It concerns me that this female sees it right away. Have I been turning a blind eye to my mate because I am afraid of what I will see? Of losing her?
I hold her closer, agonizing. I will die if I lose her. She is the only thing worth living for. Now that I have Har-loh, I can’t go back to the loneliness of before. I cannot bear the thought of a day without her smile, her touch, her scent. Her small, cold hands on my skin as I wake up.
“What do I do?” The words escape me before I can bite them back.
The female purses her lips, and for a moment she looks so strangely similar to Har-loh that it fills me with longing. I stroke my mate’s sweaty face again. “She needs to come back to the tribe.”
Leave me? Leave here and go with the bad ones? I bare my teeth at the female for suggesting it. “No!”
“You think it’s safe to be out here in the middle of nowhere with her?” The small female smacks my arm as if trying to beat her words into me. “What are you going to do if the baby comes early? What are you going to do if she starts bleeding and doesn’t stop? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s not a lot of sa-khui and human interbreeding going on around here, buddy. This shit is all new and we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
I stroke Har-loh’s soft cheek. We are different peoples. I didn’t think that it could hurt my mate, but now my heart clenches with worry. Survival instinct wars with the need to keep Har-loh safe. All my life, I have been warned never to approach the bad ones. Now this small female that has the same flat features as Har-loh is telling me I need to take her to their den?
I cannot comprehend the thought.
The woman’s voice gentles after a moment. “Who are you, anyhow? Where are your people?”
“I have no people.”
“You had to come from somewhere.” She tilts her head and studies me. “Do you have a brother? Because you look really familiar to me.”
I say nothing, because she is asking too many questions. Instead, I snatch the cloth from her hand and press it to Har-loh’s face. “Bring your healer here,” I tell the female after a moment. I will endure the presence of a healer if it means Har-loh will be taken care of, but no one else.
The female makes an exasperated sound. “The healer isn’t here. She’s back home with the others because there are several pregnant women and not all of them are having an easy time.”
There are others in their tribe that might be suffering like my Har-loh? They would know what to do? I look up at her, torn.
She holds a flat, five-fingered hand in the air. “Okay. I can tell you’re not big into trust. Can I bring someone down here? My mate?”
I crouch over Har-loh defensively and reach for my knife. “No one come!” I loathe the thought of even one of the bad ones finding our cave home. Bad enough that this female knows. We will have to leave if she says anything. We must avoid the bad ones—
Except the bad ones have a healer.
I’m torn.
“My mate will be worried over me like you are over Harlow” she says, casting a concerned glance down at my unconscious woman again. “Please. Let me bring him and I think if you talk to him, you’ll feel more comfortable.”
“I not trust bad ones,” I grit out.
“Bad ones?” She sounds taken aback. “O-kay. That’s unexpected. I promise he’s not bad, though. He…actually reminds me a lot of you.” Her expression turns up in a smile. “I will tell him no weapons, all right?”
I hesitate, but Har-loh moans and stirs in my arms at that moment. If these people know how to get Har-loh to a healer, I must do whatever it takes to protect my woman and the kit she carries.
My mind flashes with memories of my father, pointing at distant hunters. You must always avoid the bad ones, my son. Do not trust. Do not approach them.
But Har-loh’s people live with them. And Har-loh is good and kind. And this human seems to want to help.
“One only,” I say, my voice flat with distrust. “No weapon.”
She nods and gets to her feet, then slips out of the cave.
I don’t trust her, but what choice do I have?
A few moments after the female leaves, Har-loh’s eyes flutter open and she focuses on my face, dazed. “Rukh?”
“I am here,” I murmur, my voice husky with worry. I gently caress her face. “Are you sick, my Har-loh?”
“No, I’m fine,” she says, but her voice sounds shaky. She pushes against my arms, but I refuse to let go of her. “I just got dizzy for a moment.”
“The other female says the kit is making you sick.”
Her reddish brows furrow together. “Liz?”
I nod. “Do you hurt right now?”
Her hands smooth over her belly, and she licks her dry lips, hesitating. That strikes worry into my heart. Leezh is not wrong. “My back hurts, of course, and my side aches all the time. But these are normal things, aren’t they?”
“I not know. She go get mate. Want to talk to me.”
“Raahosh?” Again, Har-loh’s brow furrows. “About me? I promise I’m fine.”
“You are not.” I help her sit up and give her a water skin to drink. I notice her hand trembles as she does, and it’s like a spear through my guts. Leezh’s accusing words run through my mind, over and over again. You think it’s safe to be out here?
I moved Har-loh here because I knew no one came here. I knew, and I took her away from the healer that could make her well. Guilt threatens to swallow me.
Her small hands flutter over my arm. “Rukh…you won’t hurt them, will you? I know you don’t like…strangers.”
“You not wish me harm the bad ones?”
For a moment, Har-loh looks unhappy. Troubled. “I love our life here. You know that. But the others…some of them are my friends. I don’t want them hurt.”
I say nothing.
“Liz is just looking out for me,” Har-loh continues in a soft voice between sips of water. “I thought…well, it’s not important.”
“Say it.”
She looks troubled. “One reason why I never went back to them is because I thought they blamed me for the deaths of three others. Liz tells me they are alive. No one hates me.”
The sick feeling in my gut returns. So she came with me because she felt she had no other choice? It never occurred to me until now to question why Har-loh did not attempt to run away again. I foolishly thought it was because we were mates, that she felt the same way about me as I do her. Maybe I have imagined this all along.
Maybe Har-loh wants to return to the bad ones. If she does, what will I do?
“Could you get me something to eat?” Har-loh asks, putting a hand to her forehead. “Maybe that will help with the dizziness.”
My unhappiness is immediately pushed aside. My mate needs me. It doesn’t matter what I want. “Stay here,” I tell her, and move to one of the baskets of dried, salted meat. I choose a few strips of the blandest flavor, the one she has on mornings when her stomach is troubled, and bring them back to her. I watch as she eats and make sure she drinks plenty of water. When she is done, I pick her up and carry her – protesting – to our nest of furs so she can lie down and relax comfortably.
I realize for the first time that we can’t stay here. Not if Har-loh is sick. I cannot imagine how things will be with a kit if Har-loh is not well. I can take care of her, but I do not know how to take care of a kit. The knot in my stomach increases.
We must go back.
HARLOW
I’m worried about Rukh. He’s unnaturally quiet, and I know he has to have questions. He says nothing, though, simply hovers nearby and feeds me small bits of dried meat and makes sure I have plenty of water in my skin. I’m tired and just want to take a nap, but Liz and her mate are coming, and I worry how Rukh is going to react. I can tell he’s on edge.
I pat the side
of the bed and invite him to come lie down with me. I hate how this day is turning out. Finding out that Kira and the others are alive is wonderful, but weirdly enough, I’m a little resentful that Liz and the hunting party have shown up and upended my life. I like it here with Rukh. I like our little nest beside the ocean.
The baby kicks in my stomach, as if agreeing.
“Hellooo,” Liz calls at the entrance of the cave, and Rukh immediately jumps to his feet. All thought of lying down with me is forgotten in the presence of invaders. His long bone knife comes out, the blade wicked-looking as he clenches the handle tight.
My heart thumps loudly. Rukh moves in front of me, shielding me, and even as he does, I’m filled with love for the big guy. My khui starts purring, and I hear his respond. For some reason, it comforts me. Whatever else happens, we have each other.
Liz tiptoes in and I notice her bow is gone. Behind her is a larger shadow, and the way the man stalks in…for a moment, it reminds me of Rukh. Then I see the one twisted horn remaining, the stub of the other, and the scars on Raahosh’s face as he comes into view. He’s taller than Rukh, and leaner, but for a moment, there’s a striking resemblance between the two.
I’m not the only one that sees it. The cave falls silent as the two men stare at each other.
Raahosh’s eyes narrow and his gaze flicks from me to Rukh. “Who are you? Why do you have Harlow?”
“Har-loh is mine,” Rukh says, a rough edge in his voice. I see his hand tighten on the knife and he moves closer to me, trying to block me out of Raahosh’s sight. I think he’s going to pounce, he’s practically vibrating with tension. Then a moment later, he blurts out, “You look like father.”
“So do you.” Raahosh’s nostrils flare and his body tenses. “My younger brother was Maarukh. Is that your name? Are you Vaashan’s son?”
I gasp. Maarukh? Rukh?
Liz gasps, too. “Oh shit,” she breathes and her gaze meets mine. “I thought you guys looked similar.”
But neither man is moving. They both look stiff and uncomfortable. After a moment, Raahosh speaks. “My father left me with the tribe after you were born.” His hand goes to his face and touches his scars in memory. “I went back to look for him after many seasons, when I was old enough to join the ranks of hunters, and his cave was destroyed. There was no sign of life. I assumed both you and he were dead. This is a difficult land for a small kit and a man alone.”