by Ruby Dixon
Shit. “That sounds terrible. I’m so sorry.” I don’t even ask what a ta-li is, even though I’m curious. It’s not something I want to prod him over. “Who raised you after that?”
“Everyone in the tribe. Warrek’s father, Eklan, took me in, and when I was old enough to learn to hunt, Warrek taught me. They were good to me, but I still remember my parents. I remember my father’s laugh and the way my mother would smell before she went out to hunt. She would rub quill-beast fat on her boots before every journey, and I always think of her when I scent it.”
His story makes me sad for him. Maybe that’s why Harrec isn’t quiet or subtle. Maybe he likes to be noticed because he’s lonely. “Your mother was a hunter?”
“Oh yes. She loved to hunt. I think she enjoyed it more than my father.” I can hear his chuckle wafting up from the gorge, the sound hollow. “After she was killed with a kit in her belly, the chief—Vektal’s father—decided that no more females were to go hunting. It was far too dangerous for life-bearers.”
“But they hunt now,” I point out, braiding away.
“Yes. Leezh and a few of the other humans were quite forceful in their opinions, and Vektal changed his mind. Most of the humans that still hunt stay close to the caves or go out with their mates. Small kits make it difficult to leave for long periods of time.”
I imagine it does. I add another strip to my rope and continue, spreading it out before me. It looks thick, but I don’t know if it’s long enough. I bite back my worries and keep him talking. “And what about you—if you had a mate, would you let her hunt?”
“If she wished. Do you wish to hunt, pretty Kate?”
“Nice try, slick,” I tease, amused. “You never give up, do you?”
“Never,” he agrees. Before I can think of another thing to talk about, he continues. “If I die here, Kate—”
“Don’t say that!”
“—If I die,” he continues firmly. “You must go to the edge of the glacier, and when you see the rocks that look like fingers, go between them. There is a small valley full of trees there, and a cave. There are supplies there. Go there and wait for the others to come find you.”
“You’re not going to die,” I say firmly, and I hope I’m right.
HARREC
The pain in my leg is intense. The pain in my chest is intense. Even though I am tired and hurting, I do not sleep. I cannot. Kate is up there, alone and scared. I will not abandon her, just like she has not abandoned me.
This is a fine mess I have brought upon us.
Somehow, when I imagined that I would steal my mate away, I did not imagine her pushing me into a gorge in the ice and being a breath away from death. This is not how I thought our journey would go at all. In my mind, I pictured many more mouth-matings and fewer worries about death.
But I am so proud of my Kate. I have encouraged her to leave me, and she will not. Instead, she waits above, crafting a rope to save me. I am filled with pride and affection for her—and fear that she will not be safe while I am down here, unable to protect her.
I shift in place, pressing my arms against the ice that traps me in place, my chest wedged tight. I cannot think about the fact that I cannot draw a full breath or that my ribs ache as if they are being crushed. I cannot think about the leg that pains me so greatly that it throbs with every breath I take.
Most of all, I do not look down.
I focus on Kate, instead. The light sound of her voice in the night, the calmness as she works up above me. She must be cold, and frightened, but she does not voice such things. Instead, she tries to keep my mind occupied. She is strong and brave, and already she has my heart. She has knotted it between her fingers as surely as she has knotted her rope above.
It is near dawn when our conversation lulls, and I fight to stay awake. I am tired, and in pain, and even though I struggle, my eyes seem to wish to slide shut. Up above, Kate makes a small worried sound, and I instantly jolt awake again.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I…I think I’m done with the rope.” I hear her moving near the edge of the ice. “I don’t know if it’s long enough. It doesn’t look long enough, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“You have done well,” I call encouragingly up to her. “Can you find something to anchor it on?”
Her head peeps over the edge of the chasm, haloed by sunlight, and I cannot make out her expression. “I’m going to toss one end down to you so we can see what we have to work with, all right?”
“Very well.” It is smart. She is clever, and I am filled with a surge of gratitude that I have set my sights on strong, capable Kate instead of the tiny Suh-mer or the pink-maned Buh-brukh. We can do this. I have trust in her.
“Here it comes,” Kate calls out, and a few moments later, the braided cord slithers down to me. I put a hand out and grasp it, wrapping the cord around my forearm. It is made well enough, and thick. I grab it and loop it through my weapons belt and then twine it around my arm. This will use more length, but I do not trust my own strength right now, not with waves of pain crashing through me every few breaths.
“I am ready,” I call out to her. I close my eyes and hope she will return swiftly.
A few moments later, I hear her voice, faint. “I have it anchored. Can you try and pull yourself up?”
“Trying,” I bellow, and wrap more of the length around my arm until it goes taut. Not much room there, no more than two loops, but it is enough. I use my other arm to haul my body upward, trying to surge forward. The ice trapping me makes it difficult, and my body is wedged tight. I automatically move one foot, trying to brace against the ice, and bite back a hiss of pain when I realize it is my bad foot. I did not even think I could move it. I suppose that is a good sign. Panting, sweating, I anchor my good foot and heave forward.
The ice creaks and groans, and it feels as if the front of my chest is scraped raw, but I am able to climb up the rope by a hand’s length.
And it is…exhausting.
My arms shake with fatigue, but I do not have a choice. I pull myself up with my other hand, then the other, moving slowly. Sweat pours down my face, and my leg is in agony. “Do not look down, Harrec,” I caution myself. “You know if you see something, it will be the end of you.”
“You’re doing great,” Kate calls out, and her sweet, encouraging voice gives me strength. I must get out of here, if nothing else but to protect my female, my mate.
I climb up another handful, then another. One more, I tell myself. Just one more. It is many more than that, but one at a time is all I need.
“Take my hand,” Kate calls out. “You’re so close, Harrec! I promise!”
One more handful, and then I feel her fingers brush against mine. Her bare arm is flung over the edge of the chasm, and I grip it, testing her strength. I do not want to pull her in after me. But she is strong, her arm flexing, and she helps pull me up to the ledge. I crawl forward, and my bad leg knocks against the edge of the ice. A bellow of pain escapes me, and I nearly black out.
“No!” Kate cries, her hands tighter on mine. “You have to be all the way up. Don’t stop now.”
“No stopping,” I pant, breathing ragged. I belly-crawl forward, digging my fingers into the ice for purchase. They will be bruised and painful, and I can feel my nails break as I haul myself forward, but I do not care. Safety. A few more arm lengths, and then my feet are on the ice, along with all of me.
I flop forward, on my stomach, exhausted. The movement hurts my aching, bruised ribs, and I roll onto my back with the last of my strength so I can breathe without pain.
Safe.
“Oh, thank god,” Kate cries out, and then she’s bent over me, her fingers touching my cheek. “Harrec, are you all right?”
I open my eyes, gazing up at her. Kate’s pale face is ruddy with cold, her braid disheveled, white curls floating like the cloud they remind me of. Her tunic is gone, and she wears only a band across her teats. She must have used her leathers to save me.
I want to make a joke about it, but I do not have the strength.
My bad leg throbs again, and I sit up and automatically glance down to check it. I cannot see much, but my leg looks dark, the lower half completely slicked with blood. Something sharp and white pokes out near the middle of my shin, and the angle looks…wrong.
Red. So much red.
So much blood.
I feel sick. “Oh, that looks very bad,” I say, surprised at the calm in my own voice. My head spins, and the bile rises in my throat. A moment later, the world goes black around me.
KATE
The man has fainted on me.
I stare down at him in shock, but it’s true. Harrec has fainted dead away. He’s pale but breathing. That’s something, at least. And he’s on solid ground. Again, that’s something.
I’ll take the small wins, because right now, they’re all I’ve got.
I flop down on the ground next to him, exhausted mentally and physically from the harrowing night. “One step at a time, Kate,” I remind myself, rubbing a weary hand over my face. I want to go to sleep. I want to pull the blankets over my head and forget about the world for a few hours. That would be nice. Problem is, we’re nowhere near to safety, and I don’t know that staying here on the glacier for the rest of the morning is a wise idea. What if more ice cracks open? I already feel wholly unsafe being here.
I’m also topless, since I had to use my tunic for the rope, and I’m cold.
Even though my body protests the movement, I sit up and nudge Harrec. “Wake up.”
He doesn’t wake up, though, and I realize there’s a long, smeared trail of blood on the ice. I suck in a breath and scramble to my knees to examine his leg. God, how did I not realize he was injured? His leg is soaked with blood, and I nearly puke in my mouth at the sight of the broken bone jutting from his shin. “Oh gross,” I whisper aloud.
Maybe it’s a good thing he’s unconscious. I glance up at his face. He’s pale and unmoving, his breathing shallow but regular.
This is not good. I remember Georgie and the other humans telling us that broken bones have to be set right away, because the cootie gives us a super-zippy healing factor, and a bone set too late has to be rebroken.
God, and there’s no one else around to do this. I blanch and press my fingers to my mouth to stifle the rising nausea.
I can do this. I can do this. It has to be done, and there’s no one else to do it, so that leaves me. Harrec would do the same for me. At least, I tell myself this is the case. I’m not sure I know Harrec well enough to think that he’d stick a broken bone back in my body.
I’m breathing hard as I retrieve my new braided rope and use it to fashion a tourniquet above his knee. I hope that’s the right spot and the movies didn’t lie to me, because this is all new territory. There’s no other choice, though. I rinse my hands with a bit of water, rinse some of the blood off of his leg, and then lean in.
“This is going to hurt you worse than it’s going to hurt me,” I tell him. “But I reserve the right to puke repeatedly.”
To my relief, I don’t puke at all, though I do get nauseous a few times. I do the best I can to set the leg as straight as possible, pushing the bone back into place into flesh that doesn’t seem to want to give. Harrec makes a few groans of pain but doesn’t wake up from unconsciousness, which is probably lucky. This seems extremely painful, but when I’m done, I know it was the right thing to do—his leg is already bleeding less, healing kicking in. I’ve done what I can. I push the jagged cut tightly together and bind it with leather cut from my own pants.
With that done, I press a shaking hand to my forehead, trying to collect my thoughts. Did I think I was emotionally exhausted before? Clearly this planet has decided that I haven’t seen anything yet. I squint up at the sky. It’s daylight, but it’s also overcast and gray, darker than it should be. That might mean snow soon, and that means that the glacier is going to have all of its deadly cracks and thin ice covered up by a new layer of powder.
I want to kick Harrec’s unconscious body. Glacier as a shortcut. Man, I am a doofus for falling for that one. I simply went with him because I was flattered he wanted to be alone with me, that he wanted to show me something pretty.
I’m such an idiot.
I get to my feet, swiping helplessly at the blood I seem to be covered in. I can worry about that later, I guess. I’m so tired, but I can’t stop now. Not with Harrec hurt and the possibility of a snowstorm coming on. I try to think back about what he told me earlier.
There’s a cave by the rocks that look like fingers. I just need to find those rocks. Right.
I grab Harrec by the shoulders of his vest, but the fabric is torn, and when I try to pull him along, he makes a moan of pain as his bad leg scrapes over the ice. I can’t do that to him. I think for a moment and then grab his torso and haul his limp body up against mine as best I can. I’m sweating like crazy despite the cold, but I manage to get him semi-upright long enough to grab one arm and then sling his weight over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
I groan at his weight, because he’s heavy as the dickens, and I can’t stand up straight with his two-hundred-something pounds on my shoulders. I’ve done weight training in the past, so I know I’m strong, but Jesus. “Lay off the fries,” I tell Harrec’s unconscious body as I hobble forward a few feet, then rest, panting.
I catch my breath and then start up again a minute later. His weight is distributed evenly over my shoulders, so it isn’t so bad, I realize, just bulky and unwieldy.
I can do this.
I can do this.
I…don’t have a choice.
“And cake,” I add, wheezing as I inch my way forward some more. “Definitely lay off the cake.”
6
HARREC
The painful throbbing in my leg is what awakens me from a deep slumber. I ache all over, one arm full of prickles thanks to a soft weight resting on it. There is a rock poking into my back, but it is the pain in my calf that makes me stir. I vaguely remember climbing out of the gorge and landing at a near-naked Kate’s feet. And blood. So much blood. I feel queasy just thinking about the memory of it and make a low sound in my throat.
“Mmm,” comes a soft voice at my ear. It is Kate, and she sounds sleepy.
I…was not expecting that. I open one eye and peer around me. The soft weight on my arm causing me to fall asleep? It is Kate’s warm body, tucked against my side under the furs. The white, curly cloud of her hair rests against my shoulder, and she nestles closer to me in her sleep.
Well, this? This is not so bad.
I glance around me and notice we are in the hunter cave, just like I told her about. The air smells like snow, and it is cold, and there is no fire in the pit. I debate getting up to test the ache in my leg, but Kate’s thigh is pressed up against my hip, and I would not move her for all of the sah-sah in Borran’s stores.
I do not understand how we are here, though. Did one of the others turn back and discover us on the glacier? Did someone carry me all the way here? Or have I been asleep for days without realizing it?
And am I still bleeding?
I have to know. Just the thought makes me break into a cold sweat. I touch the female nestled at my side. “Kate?”
“Harrec?”
She says my name so sleepy and soft that my cock immediately grows hard. I am suddenly very aware of her scent, the nearness of her body, and the knee that presses a mere finger-length away from my cock and spur. My injured leg suddenly seems less important than touching the female I have decided belongs to me. I move my hand and caress her cheek. She is soft, so soft. My hand slides down her arm, and I realize she has no tunic. Need surges through me, hot and fierce. I have never mated with a female before. I have been content to wait for resonance.
But in this moment, if Kate opened her legs for me, I would slide between them happily.
Kate’s eyes open, and she gives me a confused look, then bolts upright. She blinks rapidly, then adju
sts the band across her teats, hiking it up. “Are you okay?”
I groan, because now I have no warm, pleasant female at my side and she is reminding me that my body hurts. I put a hand over my eyes to shield them. “Am I bleeding?”
“Are you what?” she asks, yawning.
“Bleeding? I cannot look at it if I am.”
“Oh. Uh.” She sounds adorably sleepy and confused. Kate peels back the blankets, and I feel a rush of cold air over my body, withering my now-painful erection slightly. I keep my hand pressed over my eyes as she touches my leg, her fingers icy against my skin. “No, you’re not bleeding. It’s healed up pretty well.”
I peek out from between my fingers. “You are certain?”
Her brow furrows as she looks over at me. “What, are you scared of blood?”
“Not scared,” I boast, sitting up slowly. “Bah. You make me sound as if I am not a fierce hunter.”
“Well, fierce hunter, what is it, then?”
I risk a glance down at my leg. It’s wrapped tight in leather with a hint of fringe along the seam, a fringe that seems very familiar. I look over at Kate, and she is missing one legging in addition to her tunic. She is all white skin, everywhere I look.
She re-ties the knots at the top and bottom of my leg, then glances over at me, still waiting for me to explain why I passed out.
My leg looks…good. Whole. “How long have I been asleep?” I ask, deciding to change the topic.
“Most of the day?” She glances at the front of the cave. “It’s almost night.” Kate rubs her pale arms absently. “And now that you’re up, you can tell me how to start a fire, because I couldn’t figure it out earlier. That’s why I crawled in with you.”
I give her my best cocky grin, though I’m still not quite feeling like myself. “I thought it was simply that you wished to be near me.”