by Ruby Dixon
The cave winds deeper and deeper into the side of the mountain, and then opens up into a large, cavernous room, almost like an atrium. Overhead, there's watery sunlight pouring in amidst the stalactites, and it lights the cave decently, as does the fire blazing in the center. There's a pallet of blankets tucked near the fire, along with a couple of stools. Natural rock shelves off to the side reveal stored supplies in woven baskets along the edges of the cave, safely out of the way of any snow coming in from the overhead opening. It's a large, roomy cave and it'd be perfect to live in if it wasn't so high up the mountain. I can see why Gren picked it to hide away with Willa.
And I notice for the first time since entering that I don't see Gren anywhere. I pause, wondering if there's another chamber when the bed of furs near the fire shifts and moves, ever so slightly.
Oh.
I move closer, and Ashtar remains protectively at my side. "Careful."
Willa pushes past us, returning her torch to the fire. "It's okay," she says in a soft voice. She sits down next to the figure huddled in the blankets. "Gren, friends are here. They're going to help you, all right?"
As I watch, one hand eases from the blankets and grips Willa's tightly. His hand is gray, dark and not as hairy as I thought originally. I study their joined hands, and a prickle moves over me as I realize that his clawed fingertips look familiar. The coloring is all wrong, but…
His claws look a lot like Ashtar's.
Maybe that's common, I tell myself as I move closer. Ashtar tries to block me off again, but I shake my head at him and move to Willa's side. While she's holding Gren's hand, he's not going to do anything. He won't risk her safety.
She gives me a sad look even as he growls a warning, and I put a bright smile on my face, as if this is normal for me. "Hi Gren. I'm Veronica. That guy over there is my mate." I point at Ashtar, who's glowering over the fire. "You can probably hear us resonating, right?" I pat my chest. "That means there's no chance either of us is going to take Willa from you."
"He only knows a little of our language," Willa tells me, stroking his hand. "No one gave him a translation chip." She looks angry on his behalf.
I don't point out that he was probably struggling and thrashing too much for anyone to safely inject anything, but I nod. "Will he attack if I touch him?" My fingertips are beginning to tingle like they do when I sense my healing ramping up. I haven't touched him yet, but it's obvious that he's not well. The little skin I can see is pale gray and the bright cootie-blue eyes are sunken in their sockets. "I want to help, but I have to put my hands on him to heal him."
Willa leans over Gren and caresses his cheek. "Gren, sugar, Veronica's a friend. You trust me, right? Willa friend, Gren friend, Veronica friend."
"Friend," he rasps, and then snarls once more.
"Ignore the snarling," Willa tells me, moving to Gren's other side so she can give me room. "I had an old feral cat back home that would hiss at you even when she showed up for cuddles. I think he thinks it's normal, and no one's ever tried to show him otherwise. He really is a good guy, though. Very sweet. Very caring. He's protected me and kept me safe." She looks ready to cry. "He doesn't deserve to die like this."
"He's not going to," I reassure her, though I don't know if he'll die or not. I'm going to do my best, but…it might not be enough. Not until I see how he's doing. Very carefully, I reach toward the blankets and peel them back. They feel sticky and heavy, and as I do, a smell washes through the cave. Ashtar makes a choking sound, and I know this has to be killing his sensitive nose.
I study the creature—no, man—in front of me. His gray body has patches of fur kind of like the blue guys have the hard, bony plates. He's got it on his horned head, on his shoulders, and like a pelt covering most of his chest and his, ah, nethers. It's also matted to his chest and looks utterly filthy. That's not the problem, though. The problem is the sheer number of animal bites that cover his body. He looks as if he's been bitten everywhere—all up and down each arm, chunks gouged out on his chest, and even his torso and legs have massive wounds.
And the bites are horribly, grossly infected. The skin around each one is puffy, the bites open and leaking all kinds of terrible, smelly things. Ugh. I'm horrified as much as I'm fascinated. "What happened?"
"Snowcats. A lot of them. They were hungry and thought I was dinner. Gren saved me." Willa sniffs hard and presses her lips to Gren's hand. "I was out hunting and didn't even realize that I'd wandered into a den of them. I'd be dead if it wasn't for him. So the others can call him any kind of monster they want, but he's been wonderful to me."
I flex my fingers, hesitating before I put them on Gren. I'm not entirely sure where to touch him that's not been bitten and mauled within an inch of his life. "Is that why he stole you? Because you two resonated?"
"Stole me?" WIlla looks surprised. "Everyone thinks he stole me?"
"He didn't?"
"No! I freed him, and we left. Why would I want to stay with people that treat him so badly? He was scared and they tied him up like he was an animal. I wanted to help him and he didn't want to be alone." She shakes her head. "No one stole me."
Well, this is awkward. "I see. We can tell the others about that. Maybe it'll change their minds. Did you two…have you…" I chew on my lip, trying to think of the best way to ask, then just decide to come right out with it. "Are you guys resonating?"
"No. We're just friends. I think he could use someone that has his back." She gives me a defiant look. "Does it have to be sexual?"
"I don't imagine it does, no. I was just curious." She's awfully defensive for it to be “just friends,” but I'm certainly not going to pry. "Seems like there have been a lot of misunderstandings. We'll do what we can to help and then we'll talk to the others, won't we, Ashtar?"
My dragon-man crosses his arms over his chest and looks defiant. "No one is taking us anywhere we do not want to go. I did not escape one master to have new ones."
Atta boy. I'm filled with a rush of pride for my sexy dragon and want to get up and smother him with kisses. Instead, my cootie just flutters in my chest like the world's loudest butterfly and I beam happily at him, trying not to get affected by his nearness. Now is not the time for my cootie to think about mating. Unfortunately, it does every time I think of Ashtar, and it's getting harder to tune it out…or maybe I feel less and less like actually ignoring how it makes me feel.
Time to focus. I turn to Gren, who I remember as strong and terrifying and see nothing but someone who's been misunderstood and afraid since arriving here. Heck, maybe he's always been misunderstood. I offer him my hand, palm up, and he snarls again, baring saber-tooth-like large fangs at me.
"Gren," Willa says, squeezing his other hand. She shakes her head and puts a hand on his sweaty, gross chest, unafraid of his reaction. "Veronica is a friend. Willa friend, Veronica friend, Gren friend."
He looks at her, nostrils flaring. My god, he's so ugly, but she looks at him with patience and pride…and a lot like how I look at Ashtar.
"Friend," he manages, after a time. And he slowly uncurls one claw-tipped fist and offers me his hand.
I carefully take it…and I'm immediately struck by how “wrong” he feels. It's something more than the infection, which pulses and aches all throughout his physical form. It's different. Fascinated despite myself, I latch onto the healing “feeling” and follow it in, pushing my mind into Gren's body.
There's so much going “wrong” that it takes me a moment to settle in. It's overwhelming, because he's so very alien compared to even my dragon-man Ashtar that I don't know where to begin. It's like Gren's body is a symphony of musical instruments that are all off-key and being played as loudly as possible, each individual hurt trying to out-loud the last. I flail helplessly for a moment, feeling pummeled from all sides by his wrongness. Then, I feel it—one bright, shining thing in the chaos.
His cootie.
I follow it like a beacon, mentally sinking deeper into Gren's body. I let my cootie conne
ct with his, and as they hum to each other, they begin to “speak” and share information. His cootie is strong, surprisingly strong. It beats in time with his heart, fighting like a warrior against the infections that crowd in.
It's strong, but it's tired. It pushes back against one infection, and another rises. Fluid has pooled in his chest and it's like dominoes—one problem is fixed and three more cascade. But they all feel…fixable. Doable. Like they're not the problem, not really. So why is his cootie so tired?
I link my cootie to his and coax it to work on the infections, tackling one piece at a time. Soothe away the pain in this bite right here, with the deepest, most jagged wounds. Mend torn muscle and broken veins. Help blood flow and push out the bad gunk that's determined to crowd in. With my cootie helping along, Gren's cootie grows stronger by the moment, pulsing harder and faster. It wants its host to survive. It wants that more than anything. But the feeling of “wrong” keeps surging forward, and even as I help with the infection, I keep circling around the feeling, trying to figure it out.
For some reason, I think of his claws again. The moment I do, a familiar feeling creeps through me. They're drakoni claws. They don't just look like them, they are them. Fascinated, I dig deeper and find his genetic material, and the “wrong” feeling hits me again. So does the drakoni feeling. I sift through his cells—at least, I think they're his cells—and find all kinds of conflicting information. This part's human, I think. Another part over here is whatever species the blue guys are. There's several bits from aliens I've never seen or heard of. And of course there are drakoni pieces in here. It's like they took bits from a bunch of different species and pushed them together and made a man.
And they did a shitty job with it. Even now, I can feel that, biologically, his systems aren't doing so well. Some of the pieces don't match up and can't function properly together. This is what's overwhelming his cootie. It could handle the bites. It could handle infection. But both of those things added in with the fact that it's got a full-time job just trying to keep his Frankenstein-bits working? It's too much. No wonder he's going under.
So I get to work. I find bits and pieces that feel like jagged edges and smooth them down. I think of Gren like clay and mentally work over the rough bits and the cracks, over and over again, until they disappear, lost in the perfection of the whole. I fix one piece, and then another pops up, demanding attention, and I turn towards it. Over and over, this chain continues, and I lose all sense of time and space. The world begins and ends with Gren's cells and organs, his blood and bone and tissue, and making them all sing together. He can be an orchestra, I tell them, but everyone has to play in tune.
And they don't want to listen, at first. But with enough coaxing and smoothing, my cootie and his cootie are able to pull things together. This time, when his body's systems sing out at me, they're not pretty, but they're not broken, either. They're working together instead of against each other.
The infection's still there. Bites, too. But I'm out of energy and I feel drained right down to my soul. I know I've spent too much effort working on Gren even after I promised Ashtar I'd take care of myself, and now I'm too tired to sink back into myself. It feels like too much effort.
I just want to fade out into nothing, because bodies are work.
My cootie sings and hums at me, though, keeping me from sliding away into nothing. It begins its resonance song and I think about Ashtar. My sweet, protective Ashtar who's both flirty and possessive. I need to go back to him because we haven't really completed resonance yet. Not truly. The thought of him helps me pull my mind free from Gren's body, and as I leave it behind, I hear his cootie start up in a song of its own.
Not a healing song, a mating song. Now that the broken parts are mended, his cootie wants more than just surviving. It wants a mate. And even as I slide back into my own body, I know who the mate is.
Willa.
I can't wait to share the news with Ashtar.
24
VERONICA
When I open my eyes, my dragon's scowling at me as if I've done something wrong, and my body feels like it was beat with a hammer. Uh oh. I lift my head—or try to—and then fall back on the blankets, weak. I lick my lips, but they feel like sandpaper. Ugh. "How long was I out this time?"
"Three days," Ashtar says flatly. "What did you do?"
Damn. He looks furious at me, but that explains why I feel like death warmed over right now. I put a hand on my forehead, because I feel a headache coming on. "Can you help me sit up?"
"I would rather throttle you," he tells me, but moves to my side and tenderly lifts me in his arms, propping me up. Aw. He doesn't want to throttle me after all. He's just mad and worried. I'm filled with a rush of love for the big guy as I rest my head against his chest and he helps me drink sips of water. "These have been the longest three days of my existence. I hated every moment of it."
"I'm sorry. I hate that you were scared. It was just a tough healing."
He caresses my cheek, those dangerous claws dancing over my skin. "They are all tough healings, it seems. You put yourself too far into them and I worry you won't come back to me."
After that last healing, I worry about that, too. It felt too easy to just sink into the nothingness and forget all about my body. That scares me a little. "Maybe after things settle down, I can go study with the healer at the other tribe and she can give me pointers."
"I think that is a very good idea." He caresses my cheek and nuzzles my forehead, still holding me close against him. "You must rest, first."
"Resting is good," I agree, because I don't feel like moving at all. Far too much effort involved. I need to pee, too, but for now I'm just happy to be cuddled by Ashtar. "Are we still in Gren's cave?"
"Mmm. I am sure they would like for us to leave, but I refused to take you anywhere until you recovered."
"They want us to leave? Really?" I'm shocked and more than a little hurt at such ingratitude. "That's rude. I mean, I worked my ass off to heal the guy and…"
And I'm having a hard time concentrating on what I want to say next because there is a hell of a lot of moaning going on somewhere in the background. I go quiet, frowning to myself as I try to figure out what all that noise is. Is someone hurt? Having a nightmare?
Then, I hear Willa cry out something that sounds distinctly like a “yes.” Followed by something that sounds a lot like a “harder.”
Oh. Oh dear.
My cheeks flush as I hear some rather distinctive grunting and moaning, most definitely the sexy kind. They're very loud. Very enthusiastic. Very. "Exactly how long has that been going on?" I whisper to Ashtar. My cootie's picking up speed because it's hard to listen to someone else's enthusiastic (really, really enthusiastic) sex and not get turned on yourself.
"Two days," my poor dragon says grimly. "Over and over again for the last two days."
"How…"
"The moment you passed out," he begins, and gives me a sour look to show just how little he approves of that, "he awoke. His wounds have healed very quickly and by the next morning, the infection was gone. Your friend Will-uh decided to help him bathe and then they were tearing at her clothing. They did not care that I was in the cave watching over you. Nor have they cared every time after." Ashtar shakes his head. "The mating heat has gripped them both quite fiercely."
"I can tell," I manage as Willa's cries fill the air, along with Gren's snarled responses. Wow. They're literally across the cave from us and going to town on each other. Definitely an awkward moment.
"What I wish to know is if you had something to do with that," my dragon murmurs as he brushes his mouth against my forehead again.
Am I causing them to make out like rabid wombats? "I don't think so. I think that's all his cootie. It was so busy trying to hold his janky system together that it couldn't pay attention to anything else. I guess once I fixed that, things kicked into place."
"Jank-ee? What is this? I don't have that word."
"It means he
was held together by paperclips and bubblegum and all the pieces were starting to fail." I look up at my beautiful Ashtar and compare him to Gren. There's just no comparing, not really. Ashtar's like a gorgeous god, and Gren is…well, Gren got the short end of the stick. I'm sure he has a great personality, and then I hate myself just a little for even thinking such a thing. "You know he's got some drakoni in him? I saw it when I saw the claws, and when I was healing him, I felt it. He's got some of the blue guys, too. And some human. He's like a big mishmash of pieces. I don't see how that works."
Ashtar doesn't look surprised to hear that. "The gladiator arenas are…strange places. Sometimes slaves are bred to try and make bigger, stronger slaves for future fights."
"That's not so strange."
"Sometimes they skip the breeding and ask their scientists to 'make' them a fighter."
"Oh, ugh. They're making people? Like in test tubes? Purely so they can fight?"
Ashtar shrugs. "This surprises you? I thought you would have guessed such a thing after seeing Vordis and Thrand."
Now I'm confused. "Because they're twins?"
"Because they are the same. They do not come from the same womb. They come from the same material. They are copies of each other."
"They're clones?" I screech out, and the moaning quiets for a brief second…and then starts up again. Guess Willa and Gren don't care much about clones at the moment.
"They are," Ashtar says. "You are not very observant, my mate."
I narrow my eyes at him. "I've been distracted."
"Is that so?" He chuckles.
"Yeah, see, this big gold goof resonated to me the moment I got a cootie, and he's a bit of an attention hog." I shift in his arms, getting comfortable. It's so nice to lie against him, and I stifle a yawn as he wraps his arms tighter around me. "He's always 'me me me' and demanding I spend time with him. It tires a girl out and makes it hard to notice things like clones."