by Gabi Moore
The moment the flap was shut, Nemlach pulled her to him. Laova went without protest; without the thickest outer layer of her cold-weather hides, it was a little easier to meld into his arms.
“Laova,” he murmured into her ear. His voice was thick and gravelly, and it was fire. Laova’s body was shot through with heat, and she clutched at his coats almost desperately. He cradled her face as they kissed, wove his fingers through her long, dark hair at the back of her skull.
Laova pulled at the ties of his clothes, and this time Nemlach did not attempt to stop her. Quite the opposite, he helped her. In seconds his outer coat was off, and Laova was able to draw her lips over the corded muscles of his neck, over the bones of his collar and dip where neck and shoulder meet. She could feel his heart beating against her tongue, his rasping breath through her hair, and she ached for more.
Another layer of her clothes went, as the temperature in the tent rose. She saw the need in Nemlach’s eyes as she came closer to bare skin, and a fluttering thrill of partial fear and partial joy made resistance or even rational thought impossible.
A breathy gasp escaped her as Nemlach laid her back on the tent floor. He pulled off the last of the clothing on his upper body; maybe being horizontal was a disadvantage, because her blood flowed blindly into her head and made Laova dizzy. But then, he was close to her again, kissing her, and Laova was finally able to examine and explore every dip and ridge of muscle on his torso with her fingertips. Her hands looked very white against his dark skin, and small.
Nemlach’s hands were larger, and currently sliding under her innermost shirt. The skin of her stomach and waist prickled; his fingers wrapped around her ribcage and back. A man had never touched her this way, and Laova wanted more of it, and dreaded more of it, and wanted more…
His thumbs were rubbing upwards, massaging the softness of her breasts, teasing closer…
Laova gasped in delight as Nemlach finally found the points of her nipples, circling and teasing, leaving her gripping his arms and back without realizing her fingers had turned to claws, digging into his skin. He chuckled against her throat as his lips caressed her.
“Hey,” Khara whispered through the closed tent flap. “I’d get a move on. Taren’s coming back.”
Nemlach started to draw away. Laova took his hands and placed them back under her shirt.
“Rell’s coming back, too.”
The color drained out of Laova’s face and she sat up.
Nemlach kissed her lightly and began to draw his clothes back on; he understood, and Laova loved him more every day for that understanding. “Later.”
Laova nodded and searched for her layers. Later. They would finish this later. Come rain or snow or storm or Taren physically refusing to leave the tent. She’d mate with Nemlach right in front of him, if it came to that.
As she pulled her cold-weather clothes back on and tied them tightly, Laova sincerely hoped it would not come to that.
She and Nemlach climbed out of the tent together; of course, Rell and Taren were both already back, but at least neither had let themselves into the tent during Nemlach and Laova’s intimate and badly needed few moments together. Taren gave Nemlach a simmering, dirty glare, and Rell raised her red eyebrows, but no one commented.
Snow was flurrying downward as they broke camp. Out of guilt, Laova tried to do everything; every time she looked into Khara or Bamet or Ghal’s faces, she was forced to see Khara’s husband, Bamet’s brothers, Ghal’s children. The words she’d be forced to say circled madly in her head. I’m sorry. They died for the clan. It was a wolf. A mountain wolf. I led them there.
She felt half-crazy with the burden of what had almost happened by the time they were packed. The fire was the last piece to be smothered, and Rell stood beside it.
“Laova.”
Dread choked her; Laova turned to face Rell, afraid and feeling cowardly for being afraid, but afraid nonetheless. Rell beckoned her closer.
“Come here.”
There was no refusing, so Laova advanced, standing beside the fire, beside Rell. It was hard to read Rell; her face gave little indication to her mood, one way or the other. Maybe it was because her wild red hair was so distracting; it was difficult to stop looking at it long enough to gauge the expression of the face beneath it.
“Laova, you haven’t told us where we’re going today,” Rell said softly.
Laova stared at her in disbelief.
The tiniest smile curled up the corner of Rell’s lips. “This is still your hunt. You made a terrible mistake. Correct it now—where are we going? What are we hunting?”
Laova looked around at the others. Khara and Bamet were both grinning. Ghal seemed determined, and perhaps a little excited. Even barely healed, Taren was brimming with energy, practically beaming at her. Nemlach met her eyes evenly, without a hint of fear or accusation.
She turned back to Rell, questioning.
Rell rested a hand on the hilt of the Scim. “You’re joining the hunters, Laova, and you should know that we can’t hunt without knowing what we’re hunting. But before it’s too late, we should probably tell you our secret, as well: we all like a challenge from time to time.”
Laova’s disbelief dissolved into understanding, then relief, then anticipation.
“All right, then,” she nodded. “All right.” Laova smiled up at them all over the fire. “We’re headed farther up the mountain. We’re going after a mountain wolf.”
Chapter 7
By their best estimation, it was afternoon when the snow flurries grew heavy. It was deep winter and always cold; still, Laova felt like the temperature was dropping. Young as she was, she didn’t need experience to realize she didn’t like the look of this new development.
The wolf’s tracks meandered over the slopes, inching higher and higher, never in a straight line. Around the same time Laova noticed the snow coming faster, she beckoned the others, partially to confer, partially because she had to rest. The thinning air was becoming difficult to breathe. The rest of the hunting party seemed to gasp as well, taking longer than usual to settle their breath into a normal rhythm.
“The wolf is heading up the mountain,” Laova told them. “It won’t go much higher. The beast is looking for food, not its pack; I don’t believe it has one.”
“Why wouldn’t a wolf have a pack?” Khara asked.
“Eventually, I think this one means to find a nice she-wolf and starts his own pack,” Laova answered. Khara already knew this; it was part of the ritual hunt to ask scores of redundant questions, to keep the initiate on his or her toes. Laova had gotten quite used to it, even between the more dramatic aspects of her first hunt. “He’s mature, but not very old. He probably just outgrew his old pack and is looking to find a better fit.”
Bamet snickered. Ghal frowned at him.
“How far ahead is he?” Taren asked. Laova actually wasn’t sure if this was a redundant question; it was hard to read the wolf’s tracks in the snow, as they didn’t show some common patterns of wolf behavior. He tended to go in a mostly-straight line more often than not, only veering this way or that when an obstacle popped up in his path.
“He seems to have a day’s lead on us,” Laova answered. “We knew where he was five days ago, and the tracks have been constant since.”
Taren nodded; in the five sleeps since his injury, he’d recovered fully, although he seemed to grow more annoyed with Laova and Nemlach’s behavior than ever. Laova’s determination to lay with Nemlach whether Taren liked it or not turned out to be nothing but smoke. When she sat up to watch, Taren sat up with her. When she went to sleep, Taren suddenly felt sleepy, too. He hadn’t let her out of his sight in days, and Laova was beginning to feel harassed.
Nemlach seemed willing to let Laova handle it in her own way; this was a little frustrating. Laova didn’t want to have to spell things out for Taren, but Nemlach clearly couldn’t be expected to take the kid aside and set him straight. It wasn’t fair for Laova to expect this of Ne
mlach—Taren was her problem. Still, it would have made her life easier.
“Why is he going up the mountain for either of these things?”
Laova looked up at Rell. This question was murmured. It seemed as though Rell had not even meant to speak it out loud. She was looking through the trees, toward the slopes that led the peak of Star-Reach.
“I don’t know,” Laova lied.
Rell looked at her, thinking.
“We must be more careful than ever,” Rell told them solemnly. “It’s getting colder, and the snow is falling heavier. If the wind starts, we could be in the midst of a storm by tomorrow.”
“We might catch up to him by then,” Laova replied. “If we catch him in the midst of a storm, do we run or fight?”
Rell grinned at Laova, telling her wordlessly that asking for help was the right move. “It depends on where we find him, and how bad the storm is.” Rell shouldered her pack and tied it on tight. She shrugged to arrange the straps in the right place. “And of course, on what he wants to do.”
***
The wind was picking up, and Laova was trying hard to focus on the trail. Of course, she was following the wolf’s paw-prints through the snow. It would have been impossible to lie to a group of seasoned hunters about that. It was true that he was trekking upwards over the ridges of the mountain base, the area they were now climbing. And he was going in a basically straight line. Not straight up the mountain, but as if he meant to circle it, ascending slowly at a more gradual angle.
What Laova was lying about were his motives. She’d seen the beast in her dreams many times now, close enough to look into the mellow green-gold of his lupine eyes. He’d as good as told her his plan, and it wasn’t to find a mate.
No. The wolf was helping her find her way to the peak of Star-Reach. Without a clear understanding of her human motives, he saw the need to lead her fellows on, and was aiding her. Never in her life did Laova think she might be conspiring with a mountain wolf to pull a trick on the very people she wanted more than anything to accept her—yet here she was.
This was all distressing enough without Taren’s help. If Laova didn’t know better, she’d be sure Taren knew her plan and was trying to drive her insane before she could complete it. Knowing what she did, however, Laova was well aware that it was Nemlach’s arms that Taren was trying to drive her away from. He was blind to all else.
“He’s almost thirty and isn’t married—doesn’t that seem strange?” Taren pecked at her. “You have to admit, that’s strange. What’s he waiting for? How do you know there isn’t something wrong with him?”
Aggravated and nearly at her wit’s end, Laova tried to ignore him. The first six hours of the day had been spent first patiently trying to disillusion his rants, then poking holes in them, and finally bickering back and forth with him until they both were red in the face.
For five days, since Taren’s narrow miss with the wolf, they had ranged across the mountainside. Always, they split into three groups and fanned out. Laova always tracked—it was her hunt, of course, so the task fell to her. Another group of two or three would cross lower on the slope, while the last crossed higher up.
Taren blocked every attempt of hers to be alone with Nemlach. When he could, he partnered himself with her. When Nemlach got there first, he attached himself without invitation and they all spent the day in awkward silence. But even awkward silence might have been preferable to Taren’s constant racket.
“Taren, would you shut up and let me track?” Laova snapped at him.
He scoffed and turned his bow irritably between his fingers. “Well, I know I don’t have Nemlach’s darn pretty voice—”
“Nemlach wouldn’t pester me for six straight hours!” Laova straightened and faced him, clenching her fists at her sides to keep them from striking out. “Nemlach knows when to shut his bloody mouth! For the sake of my sanity, would you stop your whining!”
Taren threw his hands up. “Sure, Laova. I’ll stop my bloody whining.”
“Thank you.”
And stop he did, at least for a few minutes. Laova enjoyed about thirty paces of peace and quiet to track in before Taren started up again. Unfortunately, this time he seemed to decide that the time to pull punches had long since passed.
“He’s slept with Rell, you know.”
Taren had had it coming all day, all of yesterday, and all of the several days preceding. Laova’s restraint snapped, and she spun around. Quick as a cat, she socked him across the nose; her thick gloves cushioned both her knuckles and his facial bones, but something cracked and Taren’s face was smeared with blood in seconds.
He yelped and swore and clutched his nose. Laova wasn’t sorry, not even halfway. The groups ranging upward and down the mountain were too far away to see or hear what was happening, but she knew she only had a little bit of time before their stopping was noticed.
“You’ve gone too far,” she hissed. “You’ve gone too far by days. You need to stop, Taren. I’m not going to take this anymore. From now on, you go with Rell or someone else. I don’t want you with me. I’m not going to put up with your nonsense.”
Taren stared at her like she’d grown another nose.
Laova glared at him, daring him to make her repeat herself. She stood there with her hackles raised, unimpressive in height and stature. Still, he didn’t reply, nor did he make any attempt to refuse. Laova huffed and shook her head at him.
“And I know,” she muttered. “It’s none of my business.”
Taren’s face crumpled.
“Laova, I’m sorry I said that.”
“I’m sorry you’re only now realizing it was terrible thing to say.”
“It was a terrible thing to say—I just—”
“No, don’t ‘I just’ me,” Laova cut him off. “You’re stupid sometimes, Taren. You’re emotional and you let your mouth outrun you. I do too, but at least this time it’s your mistake, not mine.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Taren continued. Laova had started walking again, and he trailed her. His nose was still bleeding a little; Laova was quietly glad she hadn’t shattered it. “I just meant I think she still feels fond of him, and she might—I don’t know, she might not like the two of you together.”
“That is a damn stupid excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse!”
“Yes, it is,” Laova exhaled. At this rate, she was going to end up punching him again. “What, are you afraid she’s going to challenge me to mortal combat over Nemlach? We aren’t southern barbarians, Taren. We don’t fight to the death over people.”
“It’s happened before!”
“Once, and the offender was put to death,” Laova corrected him quietly. She looked at Taren straight. “You know the laws. Murder is punishable by death, no matter the circumstance.”
He released his nose. “Is it still bleeding?”
“I think it froze.”
Taren sighed. “Well, at least it stopped.”
Laova kept walking. “And Rell knows about us, by now. If she had a problem, she would be harassing Nemlach just as much as you’re harassing me. And she’s not. It’s just you.”
“It’s just me?” Taren’s voice hitched again. “Just me? Don’t I matter to you at all, Laova?”
“Of course you do, idiot!” Laova had to stop again and turn back to him. “How can you ask me that? You’ve been like a brother to me since we were children! I love you—like a brother!”
“Well, I don’t love you like a sister!” he hissed back. “I love you as a woman!”
“Well that’s your problem!” Laova shot back. “What can I do about it?”
“You can give me a chance!”
“A chance to what?”
Taren gestured in frustration, mindless, pointless hand waving that really just illustrated how incomprehensible he considered her response.
Laova stopped him with a hand on one arm. “Look, Taren. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
/> He glared at her, and the frozen blood across his nose and cheek made him look slightly insane. Before he could lash out, Laova pushed on.
“Taren, I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember,” she told him. “There was even a time when I thought we could get married and we’d do well together. But then I got older and I realized that I was wrong—no, let me talk.”
Taren had started to interrupt, and lapsed back into sullen silence.
“I realized that we are too alike,” Laova explained gently. “Taren, we’re exactly alike. We’re both hot-headed and we rush things. We make each other angrier and angrier. Just look at how we are now. You’re right: Nemlach would never behave this way, and I’d never behave this way around him. We fit together better.
“But you and I are too alike,” Laova repeated sadly. “And I don’t love you as a husband. Not now. Not ever.”
Taren’s arms dropped to his sides. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
Laova looked at him and realized he might be right. Maybe in some world, in some circumstance, she might have loved him enough to marry him. Maybe if Nemlach had never existed, or if he’d left to marry a woman in another tribe. Perhaps if Taren had been a little older, and had had time to become wise, as Nemlach was.
Or maybe Laova was right, and they weren’t meant to be.
“Please don’t make this a mess, Taren,” Laova pleaded quietly, aware that the time had passed to avoid this becoming a mess.
Instead of answering, Taren held her hands in his.
“Dammit, Taren, don’t make this a mess.” Laova knew what he was going to do. She could have stopped him, and she never could pinpoint exactly why she didn’t. She could have. She should have. But Taren leaned down, bloodied face and all, and kissed her, and Laova let it happen.
His blood was coppery in her mouth; everything about him tasted wrong. The very love she felt for him turned bitter and cold and she desperately wished she had the heart to push him away.