by Ruby Dixon
J’shel finishes making the fire and sets up a tripod of water atop it, adding leaves. Taushen and Brooke eventually detangle from their impromptu makeout session, and she returns to her spot on the boulder next to me. When the tea is ready, Taushen produces two cups and then Brooke and I sip the hot tea on our perch while the hunters head a short distance away to what looks like a stick with markings poking up from the ground. The cache, I imagine.
I look at J’shel’s bulging pack and Taushen and Brooke’s full packs as well and realize for the first time that I’m an idiot. I’ve ran off half-cocked without a pack of my own. I was just so anxious to get away I didn’t even think about it until I was handed a teacup made from the carved bone that they utilize for everything. “I didn’t bring a pack,” I admit to Brooke. “I just…ran out of camp with J’shel when he suggested it. I’m an idiot.”
“It looks like your friend brought enough stuff for the two of you,” she says, raising her foot and pointing her boot at J’shel’s overstuffed pack. “While it’s not the smartest decision, don’t worry. We won’t let you starve.”
“I really do have a lot to learn about survival,” I admit, chagrined. If this was Raahosh or R’jaal, they would be furious at me…and rightly so. Only a doofus goes out into the wild without any sort of preparation. And doofuses don’t live long in these sorts of situations, I imagine.
“Then learn what you can while we’re out here,” Brooke says easily. She sips her tea and then glances over at me. “I’m surprised you talked him into things.”
J’shel? I glance up where the two men are. It looks as if they’re digging up the first layer of snow on the cache and are heavily into discussion, with Taushen being the one to do most of the talking. I know J’shel has spent a lot of time at camp, too, so I wonder if this is a learning trip for him as well. That makes me feel better. “I’m surprised I talked him into it, too. All I seem to do is argue with him.”
“It’s all those resonance hormones,” Brooke agrees cheerily. “They’re both fun and awful.”
I haven’t encountered the “fun” part yet. My face gets red and I pretend to sip my tea as I study J’shel. He’s taken his cloak off and now there’s nothing obscuring my sight of intensely broad shoulders and thick, muscular arms. I don’t even mind that he’s got four of them. He just looks…delicious. Oh man.
My cootie pounds a drumbeat of agreement in my chest. It’s so loud and distracting that it practically sends ripples through my tea and I worry that Taushen and J’shel will hear it despite the fact that they’re a good distance away.
“Soooo…” Brooke says. “I’m being nosy, I know. But are you two going to give resonance a go?”
I can feel my face flush. So I wasn’t the only one that noticed just how loud my cootie is. “I don’t get a choice, remember?”
“I know. I’ve been there. But as a friend, I’m just going to point out that there are far worse things than hooking up with a hot guy.”
“To him it’s not just a hookup,” I point out. “To him, it’s forever.”
“But it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be anything long term, really. The society that all these guys are used to? It’s changing because of humans, and because there’s no more island. Everything’s changing on a daily basis. Why not the whole ‘resonance means permanent’ thing? We can rewrite the rules as we go. J’shel seems like a nice guy. Maybe talk to him, figure out what you both want and see if you can meet somewhere in the middle.”
I don’t point out that resonance also means a baby. Brooke knows that. Heck, she’s pregnant by her own mate. But I do need to talk to J’shel and come to some sort of understanding. Maybe now without an entire tribe of people around us to make me feel like we’re on center stage it’ll be easier to talk.
I watch J’shel’s broad shoulders ripple as he digs, and think about the time he touched me. How he pressed his mouth to my skin and nipped at my ear. Hot shivers race up my body. The few times I’ve had a boyfriend—and even fewer times I’ve slept with someone—I was never very good at things. I tend to get bossy when I get nervous or worried, and that usually makes the men in my life run for the hills.
But maybe he and I can work something out…
I shake my head. I don’t even know why I’m thinking that. Haven’t I said to myself all along that I’m going to find a way to get home, somehow? That I’m not staying here because I have book tours and a movie deal and a million other exciting things going on at home and I can’t stay?
As more time passes, though, I get more and more worried that I’m accepting the reality of my situation—that I really am stranded here—and that worries me. If I give up on my life back on Earth, what’s the point in fighting any of this?
We set off again a short time later, and Taushen has a small, dead, frozen animal hanging from his belt, fresh from the cache. “We will not reach the cave tonight,” he tells Brooke. “Best to ensure we have food if we cannot reach the nearest hunter cave before it gets dark.”
“We’ll do our best to keep up,” she tells him, and glances at me.
I nod. “I won’t slow you down.”
God, I hope I’m not lying.
So we set off again, and the afternoon is utterly miserable. The snow is just deep enough to make walking a chore, but not so deep that we need to stop and make snowshoes. The valley itself isn’t fun to walk, but then we have to go over a series of hills that are challenging, to say the least. Then there’s another valley, and more hills, and I huff and puff my way with every step, regretting every cheeseburger that ever settled on my wide hips and every time I skipped doing cardio at my halfhearted attempts to go to the gym. It’s miserable, and I’m so out of shape I can’t even make conversation with the others, just trot along after them.
J’shel remains at my side, and if he notices how out of shape I am or how far behind we fall from Brooke and Taushen, he doesn’t comment. He also doesn’t try to hurry me along, which I’m grateful for. I’m doing the best that I can, and I think if he nagged me I’d use the last of my energy to punch him in the face.
Well, probably not. But I’d think about it extra hard.
The one good thing about expending so much effort? My cootie dies down. It’s no longer pounding an angry song between my breasts and only gives a slow, steady purr. It’s like it realizes I’m expending all my energy just trying to keep up and won’t give me additional things to worry about.
So that’s something, at least.
When the suns start to disappear behind the mountains, the weather goes from oh-shit-it’s-cold to painful cold. Each breath that rasps into my lungs feels like it’s freezing me from the inside, and the sweaty leathers pressing to my skin don’t feel warm enough. I knew this would happen since it’s the brutal season, the time when winter is that much more awful, but I didn’t realize the change would be so swift the moment the suns disappeared.
Brooke and Taushen pause in their walking, waiting for us to catch up.
“We can stay here tonight,” Taushen says, his gaze on his mate even as he addresses all of us.
“Here?” I squeak out, surprised. I look around. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Sure, there are rocks and some scraggly bushes, but other than that, I don’t see anything that looks like a shelter in the slightest. “Is there a shelter I’m not seeing?”
Taushen shrugs. “We can build a fire near the cliffs to escape the worst of the wind, or we can keep going. There is a hunter cave not too far from here, but…”
“But?” Brooke asks, and then winces, answering her own question. “You’re going to have to carry me, aren’t you?” She groans and mock-stamps her feet like a child. “I haaaate that. It gives me the barfs.”
“It is either that or sleeping out here,” he says, his voice reasonable.
Brooke looks at me. “What do you want to do?”
Me? I look around at the white-bleached wilderness that’s getting colder by the moment. I really don’t want to
stay out here. “If you guys want to go on until we hit the cave, I’ll try to keep up.”
“I will carry you,” J’shel says.
I was afraid he’d offer. “Um, I’m kind of a chunk. You’d probably hurt your back. I can run—”
J’shel snorts and before I can say anything else, the world tilts and he hauls me off my feet. In the next moment, I’m over his shoulder, cavegirl style.
It feels unbalanced and scary and I clutch at his braid, a little terrified. “Put me down!”
“So you want to stay here tonight?” he asks, not putting me down.
“No,” I protest, and he starts walking. I notice out of the corner of my eye that Taushen’s picked up Brooke and he’s carrying her, too, and then the men really pick up speed. Taushen zips ahead and I make a squeal of protest as J’shel races after him. “I’m going to break your shoulder!”
He laughs, not pausing. He’s not even breathing hard, the jerk. “I have carried N’dek for many turns of the moon now. You think he weighs nothing? You are light compared to him.” And he locks an arm around my waist and another other around my hips, and we keep going.
Brooke’s right, though. Traveling like this makes me want to barf. My stomach bounces against his shoulder, and the world tilts woozily. I want to ask why he won’t give me a piggyback ride instead of carrying me like this, but the big, heavy pack is on his other shoulder and he’s carrying a spear, so maybe it’s not feasible. Either way, it’s not my favorite way to travel. It also seems to last forever. I bounce against his shoulder as he sprints through the snow behind J’shel, and try not to vomit.
Eventually, the men slow and I realize how dark it’s gotten. Taushen speaks up. “The cave is just ahead. We will need to check it to ensure nothing has taken shelter inside.”
The world tilts again, and then J’shel is putting my feet down to the ground once more. I wobble, trying to get my balance, and he carefully touches my face, holding me until he’s sure I won’t fall over, and then moves to join Taushen.
Brooke bends over in the snow, retching and coughing. She finishes as I go to stand near her and makes a face. “That’s the worst. Well, no, staying out without shelter overnight is the worst. That’s just unpleasant.” She takes a swig from her waterskin and rinses her mouth out. “You okay?”
“I’ll live.” My stomach’s a little upset, but it isn’t the worst time I’ve ever had. I eye the cave mouth that J’shel is disappearing into, spear in hand, while Taushen waits at the entrance. “So this is one of the supply caves, right?”
“Hunter caves, yeah,” Brooke says, taking another sip of water. “We’ll be good for the night. Then tomorrow, fruit sweet fruit.” She sighs and rubs her belly. “I have had such a craving, you have no idea. This little one is gonna have a sweet tooth from hell.”
I smile awkwardly, reminded that even though Brooke’s belly is completely flat, she’s definitely pregnant because of resonance. That means that if I get together with J’shel, it’s not just a hookup, it’s a baby. I have to remind myself of that every time he starts to look sexy and attractive, or when he touches my face so tenderly.
It means a baby.
It means giving up on going home, ever.
It means everything changes.
There’s nothing that I’ve ever wanted more than my book career. I’ve dreamed of it ever since I was a little girl, writing my first stories in a pink notebook. I’ve worked so hard to get here, writing and rewriting my book a dozen times before sending out dozens of query letters. Getting an agent. The book going to auction and then a flurry of foreign and movie rights selling as the project picked up steam.
All my dreams were coming true, and I was ripped away from them just before I got to experience them. It’s the cruelest joke ever, and I’d give anything, anything to go back.
But then J’shel emerges from the cave, and his gaze immediately searches me out. A smile crosses his broad, handsome features and he looks so delighted to see me—as if I wouldn’t be standing here—that I feel…strange.
And I wonder if book tours and movies and success are worth more than being someone’s everything.
I don’t know the answer to any of this. I just know I’m confused.
9
HANNAH
A fire is built and the cave is made cozy for four people. It’s a tiny cave, barely more than the size of my bedroom back home, but the ceiling is low enough that both Taushen and J’shel have to crouch so their horns don’t scrape the top. There are baskets of dried food in the back, all securely lidded, and rolls of furs, and just seeing all that carefully stashed away makes me feel better about the supply situation overall. Of course no one worries. They have caves full of supplies. They’ve lived through hundreds and hundreds of these winters as a people. Of course they know how to survive.
It’s just my inexperience with all of it that makes me such a pain in the ass.
The dead animal from the cache is spitted and cooked, and we eat. The rest of the meat is smoked for travel tomorrow, and Taushen scrapes the hide and talks of past hunts with J’shel while Brooke yawns and I drowse near the fire. We’re both too tired to be chatty, far more tired than either of the guys are. I don’t mind. Sometimes it’s nice to just be alone with your thoughts. So I stare into the fire and wonder what this fruit cave will be like.
My eyelids are heavy and I’m half asleep while sitting upright when Taushen moves and helps Brooke to her feet. “Come to the furs, my mate. You are tired.”
“I’m cold,” she says, yawning. “Can I put my feet on your leg?”
He chuckles. “You will anyhow.”
“True.” She yawns again and I watch as she stumbles into bed, her eyes closed, and Taushen removes her boots for her, then piles the furs atop her and crawls in next to her.
I glance over at J’shel and notice that he’s busy making a bed with the furs he brought, unrolling them and carefully laying them out on the other side of the firepit. He looks up at me and then gestures at them. “These are for you,” he says. “I will sit and keep watch by the fire.”
He has to be tired. I consider the furs and then him. Even with furs, it’s going to be cold tonight. My backside is facing away from the fire and it feels downright chilly, so I can only imagine what it’s going to feel like lying on cold stone. Plus, there’s not a ton of room in the cave. He could unroll a few more blankets from the stores in the back, but where would he put them? It isn’t a huge cave.
I gesture at the furs. “We can share.”
He stiffens, giving me a curious look.
“To sleep,” I say quickly. “Just sleep. I’m too tired to think about anything else anyhow.”
“Sleep.” He nods. “Of course.”
“We can be mature adults about this,” I whisper as I move toward the blankets. They’re calling my name, every tired muscle in my body screaming for a good night’s sleep. “We’ll share body heat, get some rest, and be ready to go in the morning.”
“Mature adults, yes,” he agrees. “I will bank the fire.”
He puts a large, slow-burning clod of fuel atop the heap, muting out the biggest flames, and pokes at things while I take off my boots and get under the blankets. The heap of them is warm and delicious, and I snuggle under. The cold is pervasive, though, and within moments, I can feel it leaching through the fur underneath me. Definitely a cold night.
J’shel hesitates beside the furs. “Are you sure, H’nah? I do not wish to make you uncomfortable.”
“We’re being adults,” I remind him. “Mature, logical, responsible adults.” And I pat the furs. “So hop in.”
He lifts the corner of the blankets and then slides in next to me. His leg brushes against mine, and then he lies flat on his back, propping a hand under his head. Immediately, the heat under the blankets changes, and it becomes warm and delicious. I want to burrow closer to him, but I’m all too aware of his nearness, and the way his foot touched my leg.
My cootie’s done
playing nice, it seems, because it immediately fires up, filling the cave with the sound of heavy purring. A moment later, J’shel’s joins in, and I stare up at the ceiling, feeling awkward and noisy and obvious.
I should say something to J’shel. Crack a joke about how uncomfortable this is for both of us, but my mind is a blank. All I can think about is the hard vibration of my cootie between my breasts, practically making me jiggle like Jell-o, and his utter nearness.
I wish he would touch me. Just reach over and grab me and kiss the shit out of me and take the decision out of my hands.
The moment I think that, I hate myself for it. He’d never force me into a relationship with him. That’s one of the things I like about J’shel. For all that I’ve done my best to avoid him, I know he’s a good guy. He’s thoughtful and kind and unselfish. He takes care of others, and he’s not pushy or demanding. I know M’tok got super aggressive with Callie and that’s why she hates his guts. But J’shel’s never been like that.
He’s been patient. Polite. Nice.
He nibbled on my neck, and I can’t stop thinking about that, either.
I look over at him. He’s staring up at the ceiling of the cave, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, but his tail is flicking under the covers, and I’m guessing that his calm is a ruse. His cootie’s just as noisy as mine, and I’m guessing his mind is probably racing with all kinds of nonsense like mine is.
Is he…thinking about touching me?
My body flushes with heat, my nipples pricking with arousal. I shouldn’t be so turned on by that thought. I really, really shouldn’t. After all, I’m not giving in to resonance, am I?
As if he can sense my thoughts, J’shel looks over at me.
I stare back at him, our eyes locked, and my breathing quickens. Heat pours through my body, and my pulse seems to throb right between my thighs. Even though I’m tired, not all of me is ready for sleep. And his eyes are so beautiful in the dark, all glowing and bright that I can’t stop staring at him.