by Ruby Dixon
It is going to be a long freaking two weeks.
I give him a mournful look as he approaches and, to my chagrin, the waterworks start. I sniff, wiping at my eyes as I juggle the baby.
He pulls me against him, mindful of Kae, and tosses his spear aside so he can wipe away my tears. “My Jo-see. It is a long trip but it is a worthwhile one. Do not weep.”
“Of course I’m going to weep,” I say crankily, leaning into his touch. “I miss you already and you haven’t even gone yet.”
“But I will be back,” he says in a low, husky voice. “And we will start our life together.”
“I suppose I do have reunion sex to look forward to,” I say, trying to make him smile. He looks so somber, like he’s just as bummed to leave me as I am to have him go.
“And lots of frankissing.” He leans close and nips at my ear, then whispers, “All over. Even your ankles.”
I smack at his chest but my cootie, the most obvious cootie on the planet, is purring loud and happily for all to hear. Someone nearby snickers. Screw them. This is my mate, and he’s leaving me for two weeks. I curl my fingers in the front of his vest and press a kiss to his mouth. “You hurry home fast or I’m tossing you aside.”
He snorts. “Bring someone else to your furs and I will ram my spear up his nethers.”
That shouldn’t amuse me nearly as much as it does. His jealousy keeps the smile on my face even when we say our goodbyes and the tribe members left in the cave linger at the entrance to watch them go. The group begins up the snowy hills and finally heads off over the horizon. One big, familiar body remains on the ridge for a long moment after the others disappear. He raises a hand, and I raise mine back.
Then, Haeden’s gone and I’m left in the cave with the rest.
As if on cue, Kae starts to cry, wailing in my arms. Yeah, I know how that feels, Kae.
I turn around and Liz is right there, holding her baby. She takes one look at me and bursts into tears.
My eyes widen. “Liz? You okay?” I’d hold out my arms for Raashel but I’ve got a wailing Kae on my hands already.
She wipes her face with a corner of Raashel’s blanket. “God, I’m glad I held in all the bawling and snot until they left, or I’d never live it down.” She sniffs hard.
I give her a wary look, perching Kae on my hip and giving her a bounce. “Is everything okay?” Liz is normally the cut-up, the wise-ass that nothing gets to. Her mate is leaving with the others, and I admit I’m a little surprised Liz didn’t volunteer to go with them. Sure, she has the baby, but she’s left Raashel with Nora or Stacy before for a day or two. “Are you and Raahosh…you know, good?”
Her face crumples and she swipes at her nose again, then presses a kiss to the baby’s bumpy little forehead. “Yeah, we’re awesome. I’m just…” she sighs and leans in. “If you tell anyone I’m going to skewer you like a quill-beast and roast your ass over the fire.”
“I won’t say anything.”
She wipes at her face again and forces a smile to her lips. “It’s just hormones. I resonated to Raahosh again. Bun number two is officially in the oven.”
21
HAEDEN
As I promised my mate, I set a bruising pace over the mountains. The others do not complain - Raahosh is just as eager to return to his own mate, and the unmated men are eager to see the new human women. The only one that seems displeased is Aehako, who watches his human mate carefully and snarls at me when she needs to rest. Kira never complains, however, and is grimly determined to continue on as fast as she can go.
I miss Jo-see fiercely. As one day crawls into the next, I obsess with thoughts of her smile, her laugh, the soft feel of her skin against mine. The small sounds she makes when her cunt clenches around my cock. My khui is silent for the first time in forever, and I hate it. Now that I have her, there is no going back to the half-dead state I existed in before. Even though we are parted, I know I have her to return home to, and it spurs my steps.
There are signs of both metlaks and sky-claws the closer we get to the abandoned ship. More half-eaten dvisti litter the landscape, and a few metlak carcasses. We see nothing in the skies, but Kira draws closer to her mate for the rest of the day. We are somber that evening as we crowd close to the hunter cave. It is not big enough for most of us to sleep in, so Kira and Aehako sleep inside with a small fire and the rest of us keep watch at the mouth if it.
We sit around the small fire and the talk is constantly that of the women. What color mane do we think they will have? Will they have the attractively dark skin like Salukh’s mate or the strangely speckled skin like Rukh’s mate Har-loh? Will someone resonate immediately or will there be a wait? Over and over, the men ask the same questions. They irritate me, because it makes me miss my sweet Jo-see even more. I realize how lucky I am that my khui chose hers. I picture her back in our cave, taking care of Kira’s kit. My chest aches with pleasure at the thought and I rub it absently.
There is a long pause around the fire as the conversation dies.
Then, one speaks up.
“Do you suppose there are more than two humans?” Taushen asks, eagerness in his voice. When the group is silent, he continues. “I hope that one will resonate to me.”
“I am your elder,” Harrec protests yet again. They have had the same argument for days. “If anyone is to resonate to a human female, it is me.”
“But I am a good provider,” Taushen retorts. “What do you think, Haeden?”
“I do not care.”
“But—“
With a snarl, I get up from the campfire and stalk away. It is the same questions, over and over again, and they look to me for answers. I have none, but it does not stop them from asking. Do they not realize that I do not care a thing for new females? That I would gladly abandon them for season after season if it meant more time with my mate? The only thing that keeps me on this journey is the knowledge that Jo-see wants them rescued.
“What has crawled up his tail?” Harrec grumbles as I grab my spear and decide to patrol the area.
“Resonance,” says Taushen.
“He misses his mate,” cuts in Raahosh. “He is not the only one. The longer this goes on, the longer we are all away from home.” I glance back in time to see him give a sour look to the men. “I expect you all to hike a little faster tomorrow.”
I snort with amusement and go off to patrol the area.
* * *
The next day, the weather is blustery and colder than usual. Kira shivers despite the number of furs piled on her, and I can see the displeasure on Aehako’s normally smiling face. His mate has risked her safety to come see this done. Snowflakes fly on the wind, and the drifting snow grows deeper by the hour, the skies grayer. Raahosh, always ahead of the group scouting the trail, comes back to meet us mid-morning. He heads straight to me. “There is something you should see.”
The others remain with Kira and I jog ahead through the snow with him, over the next ridge. There, half-buried in new snow, is the strange cave. The blinking red light has burned a cave into the snow around it.
Scattered bodies of sky-claws litter the ground before it.
I frown down at the sight, an uneasy feeling churning in my gut. “Dead?”
“Freshly dead. The snow is falling thick, but there are many small hills on the ground.” He gestures at the area near the cave. “Those might be more.” He looks over at me. “What are your thoughts?”
I rub my jaw, gazing down at the dead sky-claws. They litter the ground like dung chips after a dvisti herd. “I am thinking I am glad I did not bring my mate on this journey.”
He nods. “And I, the same. I do not like this. Are they drawn to the scent of the humans?”
“I did not smell anything and I was there for many days with Jo-see.”
“Metlaks, then?”
I squint at the dead corpses. Their wings are spread in the snow, and there is very little blood. Most of the bodies seem to be piled close to the red blinking light.
“I do not think so? They do not seem smart enough to kill so many sky-claw. How do they pull them down to the earth?”
He shrugs. “It is not normal. I do not like it.”
I do not like it either, but we are wasting time. “The sooner we get the human females, the sooner we leave this place and return to our mates.”
Raahosh grunts agreement, and we return to the others to tell them of the strange discovery. Aehako pulls his mate under his arm, clearly worried. But we are close, and I will not allow us to stop now, not when it means we are this much closer to returning home. I grip my spear and shake it at the hunters. “Follow me. Everyone watch the skies and remain alert.”
It is a short walk to the strange cave, but it feels much longer. Our group, normally full of trail conversation and the musings of the excited unmated hunters, is silent. Raahosh pokes at a few of the sky-claws as we pass, but they are frozen with cold, the bodies unmoving. There is very little blood, which is strange. If metlaks were truly hunting something as large as the sky-claws, there would be blood everywhere. They are not clean hunters. It all adds to the worry I see on all faces.
But when we get inside the cave, it is just as I left it. The remains of the fire Jo-see and I left are undisturbed, and the hides I had intended to scrape sit in frozen bundles by the cave mouth. There is a fine scatter of snow that has blown in, and no tracks.
“No metlaks,” Rokan says, and sniffs the air. “Storm will get worse before it gets better, though.”
“Where are the females?” Hassen demands, looking around the cave-like room. He turns to look at Kira. “Can you find them?”
“My mate needs a fire and to rest,” Aehako says, the look on his face protective. He keeps his arm locked around Kira’s shoulders. “Once she is warm again, then we will look for the human females.”
Taushen moves forward to protest. “But—“
“They have been here for seasons,” Raahosh bites out. “What is one more day? One more hour? Calm yourselves.”
“It’s okay,” Kira says, but the word comes out shivering, her jaw clacking. “I c-can look. B-but it’s really c-cold and I think they will n-need a f-f-fire to warm up, too.”
Immediately, the hunters scramble to build the fire.
Raahosh gives me a sour look.
I just shake my head.
A short time later, Kira has warmed up by the fire, the snow on the floors has melted, and we watch as she runs her mittens along the back of the cave. It is the strange, flat-black stone like the other walls, but small lights are flashing in patterns. Two of them are green, the rest are red. Kira studies them and then presses her forehead against one, her shoulders sagging.
“What is it?” Hassen demands, frowning fiercely.
Aehako hovers by his mate, stroking her hair and murmuring. After a few words, he looks up and glances over at the nervous hunters. “Two pods,” he says. “There are only two. The ones marked with red are empty.”
“How does she know?” Taushen asks. “Maybe they are marked wrong?”
“I learned the language back on the other ship - the elder’s cave.” Kira’s soft voice fills the tense cavern. She points at one of the bubbles, with red scribbles across the top. “They all say they’re empty. All but these two.” And she swipes at her cheek.
I remember my Jo-see’s worry that Kira would be upset that more girls were in the ship and did not live. It is good that there are only two. I will tell her and she will smile with relief, much like Kira is now.
“Are the others well?” Rokan asks. “Will there be a problem freeing them?”
“I can do it,” Kira says after a moment, and runs her hands over one of the dark, hard bubbles. “It’s just finding the releez hatsh.”
“What—” someone says, but then a hissing noise fills the cave.
We grab our spears. Two rush forward while I watch the entrance. The hiss happens again and I realize it’s behind me. I turn again and the cave wall is moving. Steam fills the air and then a form appears to fall forward. Kira extends her arms to catch the female, and Aehako rushes to help her.
The female looks like nothing but a blur of dark mane and pale, pale skin. She twitches and shivers, and her thin clothing sticks to her skin, outlining her form. I suppose she looks healthy enough, but she does not appeal to me. Not compared to my Jo-see. But one of the unmated hunters groans at the sight of her.
I snatch one of the furs from the fireside and move to cover the female up even as Kira pats her cheek and tries to wake her. I push the fur over her body and glare at the other hunters who are watching her like, I imagine, the sky-claw watched my Jo-see before snatching her away. I do not like the desperate look in their eyes, especially Hassen. I recognize that feeling of despair; how many times did I go to sleep feeling the same?
The human females will need watching. “Is this one well?” I ask Kira.
“I think so,” she says, and pats the human’s cheek again. “Wake up. You are with friends.”
The female’s eyes flutter open and they are green circles floating in a sea of white. I shudder at the sight. She has no khui and it is a repulsive thing to see. The female whimpers at the sight of us, her gaze flicking with confusion and horror as she looks between us.
“Hold her, Aehako,” Kira tells her mate. “Let us get the other girl out, too.”
As they switch positions and the female continues to make frightened whimpers, I stand guard so the unmated males do not rush her and try to force resonance. Raahosh hands me a second fur and we stand guard as Kira opens the second pod and the other female falls forward. This one is pale-haired, like Leezh, and thicker and stronger-seeming than the other, though her movements are equally feeble.
She has the same dead eyes, though.
As I see them, I realize that returning back to my mate will be a longer journey than I imagined. The females cannot live long without a khui, which means tracking and hunting a sa-kohtsk. The enormous creatures are rare this far out of the valleys, so we must drag the sickly humans along with us, which will make things slow. Even then, I do not know if they will travel fast. They have been in the cave wall for a long time and they seem weak.
I exchange a look with Raahosh and it seems we are thinking the same thing, judging from the grim look on his face. Two frightened, squealing human females in need of a khui, sky-claws and metlaks in the area, and our band of hunters looking as if they would steal one of the females for themselves at any time?
It is going to be a long journey back.
22
JOSIE
Three weeks later
I raise a knee and a fist in the air at the same time, then switch them, and begin to do the ‘Single Ladies’ dance while humming the song under my breath. It doesn’t matter that Kae is too young to know the lyrics - she’s a fussy little turd of a baby and nothing quiets her other than a bit of singing. And since she watches me dancing with big, fascinated eyes while she sucks on her fist? Well, she’s getting a little Beyonce today. Sometimes I wish the dang kid liked Adele or something.
As I start into the second verse, Kae’s face crumples and she begins to wail louder.
Well, shit. No singing today, it seems. “I know,” I tell her, abandoning my song and scooping her up into my arms. “I miss your mommy, too. I miss my hunny-bunny. But crying doesn’t bring him back faster. Trust me, I tried that.”
I’ve been a shitstorm of weeping for the last few weeks, me and Liz both. Even with Kae to distract me, though, it’s not enough. I miss my mate. I miss Haeden.
I want to tell him that I’m pregnant. I want to see the joy on his face when I tell him. I want him to hold me close and stroke my hair.
I want him to hold me down and fuck the daylights out of me.
I sigh and hitch Kae onto my hip, abandoning my cave in search of Stacy. Maybe a meal will calm the crying baby down.
But Stacy isn’t in her cave. Nora isn’t in hers. We’re the three at the back of the new tunnel and they’
re normally at ‘home’ due to the fact that they have small children and there’s always more chores to be done. It’s weird. “Hello?” I call out, curious, and head down toward the main cave with Kae wailing in my ear. When I get there, though, the fire is unattended and the cave is mostly empty, except for Farli who’s dashing across the cave. “Where is everyone?”
She skids to a stop at the sight of me, her eyes wide. Bouncing behind her ankles is her pet, Chompy, and he grabs at her leather tunic and tugs on it. “You did not hear?”
“Hear what?” I ask, cranky. I move forward with Kae, rubbing the baby’s back patiently. It’s not Kae’s fault she misses her mommy. “I can’t hear anything over—“
I stop, because a familiar hum starts in my breast.
I’m resonating. That means…
I look up at Farli in wonder. “They’re home?”
She nods eagerly and waves me forward. “Come! They are heading down the ridge!”
I trot after her, trying not to jostle Kae, but with a squealing, angry baby in my arms, I can’t move very fast. I settle for a power walk and head outside after Farli. It’s brutally cold and I pull the blankets tighter over Kae’s head, even though I doubt the cold bothers her as much as it does me.
Sure enough, there are a ton of people outside, and several shapes on the horizon. I push through the crowd, looking for a familiar pair of horns, pale-blue velvet skin, and a long, long braid. One smaller form breaks off from the group and races forward, but it’s too small to be my mate. I realize a few seconds later that it’s Kira, her arms out, and I hold Kae up for her.