by Ruby Dixon
Salukh moves to my side, scooping up my daughter in his arms even as his mouth twitches with amusement. Off to the side, Mar-lenn continues to shout obscenities at the metlaks, who scurry away from our fire and the noise she makes. “What is your mate saying?” my brother asks.
“Nothing polite,” I tell him, and gaze at them with relief. “I am glad you came.”
Mar-lenn marches to my side, torch held in her hand. Her eyes are ablaze and full of tears at the same time. “Are you all right?” Her hand trembles as she touches my cheek. “Zalene?”
“Fine,” I reassure her. “Just pinned to one spot and unable to leave.”
“Good,” she declares, and grabs my braid, dragging my face down to hers for a hard, fierce kiss.
I can hear my father and the others chuckle.
“Maman,” Zalene says, and then I take the torch from my mate’s hands as she reaches for our daughter. Salukh hands her over, and then Mar-lenn kisses Zalene’s face over and over, and she sobs with relief, holding onto our daughter and my leg, too.
“You scared your Maman,” she tells Zalene between sniffed tears. “You and your Papa both.”
“We were going to come back,” Zalene says sweetly.
“Always,” I agree, and then my legs grow seemingly weak. I stagger, my torch falling, and Vadren is there to hold me up.
“Zennek?” Mar-lenn cries, and then her hands move all over me, looking for injuries. “Where are you hurt?”
“Just tired,” I admit.
“Papa hasn’t slept the entire time,” Zalene says excitedly. “His eyes look like holes, don’t they Maman?”
“Here,” Salukh says, and loops my arm over his shoulders. “Lean against me, brother. We need to get back to the village before night, and we’ve a long way to go.”
“Yes, it is time to go home,” I agree, and then topple over.
MARLENE
I kiss Zalene’s little face over and over again as she sits in my lap. I could kiss her a hundred times and never grow tired of it. I cuddle her close and keep looking over at my mate, who sleeps in a nest of furs in his parents’ hut. The healer has seen him and proclaimed that there is nothing wrong, just a need for sleep, and so he naps while I smother my little girl with kisses and Kemli fusses over all of us.
“Maman, stop,” Zalene giggles, pushing at my face as I go in for another round of kisses.
“Never.” I smooch her again, just because I’m her mother. “I am making up for all the kisses you missed while you were out with your father and I was here alone and scared.”
“No need to be scared,” she tells me, all authority. “I watched over Papa for you.”
“Did you, now?” Even the arrogant way she says that is adorable. I tweak one of her little horns as Zennek stirs in the furs. “Go see Grand-mère and check on the food, hmm?”
She hops out of my lap but doesn’t head right over to Kemli. Borran snags her instead, and she immediately sits on his knee while he tells her a story about the time he met a metlak as a boy. Vadren sits across from me at the fire, sewing fringe onto a hood that looks to be about Zalene’s size, and in her kitchen area, I can hear Kemli chopping roots to go into a stew. Salukh returned home to get Tiffany and Lukti, who will be bringing along old Drenol. Stacy and her babies will come by too, judging by the amount of food Kemli is making. Everyone will be crowding into the hut tonight because they’re family.
I don’t mind it. We’re spoiled by their love. I watch my daughter laughing in her grand-père’s arms, and Kemli shakes her head at their actions. I didn’t even have to ask them to go help me find Zennek this day—they were ready to go. Salukh carried him home when Zennek was too tired to walk. No one expected any less, because they are simply family, and family does that for one another.
I turn to my mate, to check him as he sleeps, and to my surprise, he is watching me, a relaxed smile on his mouth. He reaches for my hand and presses a kiss to my palm, and all the need and heat and worry feels as if it’s going to explode out of me. I jerk to my feet and tug at his hand. “We need to go home,” I announce to the others.
“You do?” Kemli asks. When she sees my face, her eyes go round. “Of course. Zalene, will you help Grand-mère with the chopping?”
“You can use my knife,” Vadren offers, and Zalene practically flings herself off of Borran’s lap at the offer. She scrambles to get the sheathed blade, and I’m pleased to see that she keeps it sheathed until she moves to stand next to Kemli at the countertop.
“Will you be back?” Borran asks, amused.
My mate’s big hands clasp my shoulders before I can answer, and he nuzzles my neck. “Perhaps,” is all he says, and I feel his tail curl around my boot. It’s surprisingly demonstrative for my Zennek, and all it does is fuel the fire of need in my belly.
“We are just down the path,” I say, hesitating. Part of me is burning with need for my mate, but part of me wants to grab my little girl again and never let her out of my sight once more.
“Bye, Maman,” Zalene says without looking up, and chops a large hunk of root.
“Partons,” Zennek murmurs in my ear, and that decides me. I grab his hand again and drag him behind me, heading out the door and down the path to our hut. I can hear Vadren and Borran laughing with amusement at us, but I don’t care. I have my mate back. They understand the urgency racing through my body right now.
My Zennek is in my arms again and I plan on showing him just how I feel about that.
We get to our hut, and the fire is out again, the interior so cold I can see my breath puff before my face. I don’t care. I continue to pull Zennek after me until we are before our furs, and I push him down toward the bed.
He falls backward onto the furs, a chuckle escaping. “I see you missed me, my mate?”
I don’t respond. I can’t say the words that describe how I feel, how lost and afraid and alone I felt, how terrified that I’d never see him again. I pounce on him instead, sliding my hips over his and leaning over his big body to kiss his mouth so fiercely our teeth clash.
Zennek groans against my lips. His hands clamp down on my hips and he grinds me against the hard length of his cock, driving between my legs.
“Now,” I tell him in French. “Quick. I need you inside me, mon couer.” I pull layers off of my body, tugging at the belted furs that hold the thick, warm clothing close to my skin. He grabs at my belt, too, loosening the knot of it and then flinging it aside.
A moment later, he rips the crotch of my leggings, just like he did in the days we first met, and it sends a hot surge of need through me. I lift up off of his hips and he tears his loincloth off, and then he thrusts deep into me.
I cry out, my fingers clenching against his chest. “Zennek!”
“Here,” he growls out. “Right here inside your wet cunt.” And he thrusts deep again, his spur dragging against my clit as he pumps into me. “Do you feel that? Me claiming you?”
“Oui,” I moan. “Oui. Oui. Je t’aime, Zennek,” I tell him with every hard thrust into my body. “Love you. Love you.”
His movements are savage as he pounds into me, our bodies locked in a primal embrace. Each thrust is as erratic as it is rough, but I love all of it. I love that he’s taking me so damned hard, determined to drive all the fear and worry out of my body and leave me with nothing but a delicious release. The orgasm curls up through my spine, rising and building inside my body, and I welcome it.
“My bold little mate,” he says, clenching my hips and grinding me down against him so the next thrust feels even deeper. “My fierce Mar-lenn. You came after me, didn’t you? You needed your mate.”
I come with a hard rush—and a burst of tears. All of the emotion of the last few days pours out of me with my release, and then it feels as if all of me is losing control. I’m sobbing as he expertly flips me over and drives into me, pushing deep even as he holds my jaw and whispers filthy words into my lips before kissing them.
He comes a moment later, shudde
ring over me, and then we grow quiet, no sound but his panting and my sniffling. Zennek holds me against him, practically smothering me with his heavy weight, but I like the feel of him there and don’t complain. “I needed that,” I tell him, and hate the hiccup that rises in my throat.
Zennek chuckles and kisses my jaw, my cheek, my nose, peppering his mouth over my skin in repeated little nips. “You were very worried and tense. I could feel it every time you touched me.”
“I thought I lost everything,” I confess. “Just like when Maman died. And all the signs were bad, over and over again, but I ignored them. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“We are here,” he tells me, pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose. “Did I not bring back our fierce little daughter safe and whole?”
I smile at that, because Zalene did wonderfully for one so young. “She will be an amazing hunter,” I admit. “And you took care of her. I knew you would. I just…I didn’t know what to think.”
He touches my cheek in a simple caress, and then begins to undo the laces on my tunic, exposing my neck so he can press kisses there as well. “I must leave for hunting sometimes, and the weather might be bad. It will keep us apart, but only for so long. I will always come back to you, my mate. You think I could leave your side forever? Impossible. I am not whole without you.”
I run my hands along his beloved body, touching his head, his shoulders, caressing his horns. “I was being silly, was I not?”
“No,” he tells me, and kisses even more skin as he exposes it. He moves lower, his cock sliding free from my body even as he pushes the furs aside and reveals my breasts. I am used to my Zennek’s stamina after turns and turns of mating, and I know he needs to come twice before he must take a break, and that the first orgasm is only the start.
“I just…I thought Maman would watch over me like she normally does, but I have seen nothing for days.” I shift on the furs. “Perhaps it is all just in my head after all.”
Zennek is quiet. I moan when he teases my nipple with his tongue, rolling it gently and then licking it. “Shall I tell you something?”
“What?”
“When we were in our cave, I kept Zalene busy.”
“Mmm.” His mouth is doing wonderful things to my nipple, teasing the underside just how I like it.
“We played the games you have showed me—tic tac toe and I spy.”
Two of his favorite pastimes for cold nights. Zalene loves to play both games with us, and I smile to think of them doing that together. “You’re a good papa.”
“Do not distract me,” he says, chuckling as he kisses lower on my belly. “I am telling you this because it is important.”
“Apologies.” I’m not all that sorry, though. Talking after a round of violent reunion sex is just as important as the sex.
“We played I spy many, many times,” he tells me, lapping at my navel and sending ticklish little sensations all through my body.
I laugh at the inflection in his voice. Zalene is at an age where a game is fun, but twenty rounds of the same game is even more fun, and it gets tiresome for a parent. I can tell it was an exhausting time for him. “My poor mate.” I slide my fingers through his thick hair. “And what did you spy in such a small cave?”
He lifts his head, hovering over my pussy. “That is what I am trying to tell you, Mar-lenn. We played I spy and every time we played, I would see hearts.”
My own heart clenches in surprise. “What?”
Zennek nods. “Zalene saw them, too. She pointed them out to me. One of the kah cakes was shaped like a heart. The stones we used for tic tac toe. There was even a heart shape in the rock of the cave itself. There were hearts in the snow. Hearts in the coals. Everywhere. And then Zalene worked on her hides, and she kept seeing hearts in the edges of every hide.”
My eyes flood with tears. I manage to whisper, “What are you saying?”
“I am saying perhaps you had no signs from your Maman because she was with us, watching over us.”
I choke back another little sob, this one of joy and wonder. He moves up to kiss me and I fling my arms around his neck, needing to just hold him close for a while. “You’re not saying that just to please me?”
“I do not lie,” he says, stroking my cheek. “It was Zalene who pointed them out to me. So do not worry, my mate. All is as it should be.”
Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps Maman has been silent this week because she was looking out for my mate and my little one. I’m filled with such painful love that I cry silent tears against his chest, sending a quiet thank you to my mother’s spirit, and to any other spirits that might be listening.
Thank you for bringing my family back to me. Merci de m’avoir rapporter ma famille.
“You have my heart, my sweet Mar-lenn,” Zennek tells me, wiping away my tears. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I whisper to him, and then put a hand atop his head, my mischievous side returning. “Now go lower and do your duty to your mate’s pussy, because we do not have long before we have to return.”
Zennek chuckles, letting me push on his head to lower him. “Ah, my mate. We have all night.” He presses a kiss to my hip. “We have longer than that, as well. We have forever.”
Perhaps we do.
* * *
Thank you for visiting Ice Planet Barbarians and the ‘OG’ original tribe with me! For the author’s note and links on more books in this series, flip to the next page!
Author’s Note
Hello there!
Thank you for making it to the end of yet ANOTHER Ruby Dixon book. I know there are a bajillion authors out there and I sincerely appreciate each and every one of my readers. You guys make me keep going, and I mean that with all sincerity. If you weren’t as enthusiastic about the dragons and barbarians as I am, I’d have hung up poor Ruby’s hat long ago. :) So before I launch into anything else, I just want to say thanks. In a world full of Candy Crush (which is awesome) and Desperate Housewives (also awesome), I’m happy you chose to spend a few hours with me and the blue guys.
Marlene’s story has been hanging around in the background for forever, hasn’t it? When I originally wrote her in, she was a background character that was never going to get her own story. Dare I say it, she might have been a red shirt…aka, cannon fodder. I actually had plans once upon a time for a GREAT BIG PLAGUE to revisit and kill off a lot of the tribe, but as each story progressed and we saw more people get their happy ever afters, it became harder and harder for me to get rid of well…anyone. I liked seeing everyone happy. If I was a truly edgy author that wanted to make you sweat, I’d kill off more people…but everyone grieved at Eklan’s death (including me) to the point that I abandoned that idea and revisited the concept of giving happy ever afters to everyone I’d neglected for a while.
So Ariana got a story. Marlene gets a story. Soon, Nora and Megan will get their own stories. So…yay no plague? :)
Another reason that I never tackled Marlene was that she was always so very settled in. I knew no big crazy events happened between her resonance and when they returned to the tribe, and I wasn’t sure that was enough story for anyone…but there’s something comforting about a nice, cozy little story about a man-eater of a heroine who seduces her big virginal barbarian, right? There doesn’t have to be anything ground shaking. It just has to be fun to read. It’s nice to revisit old friends and say hello, and that’s what writing this book felt like. No cave-ins, no metlak uprisings, no plagues - just sweetness and sexy times.
I’ll save the plagues for Icehome.
I’m kidding.
FOR REAL, I’M KIDDING. PLEASE DON’T SEND ME HATE MAIL. :)
(I just had a plague in Fireblood Dragons anyhow!)
Marlene’s always been a very independent character to pin down, too. Zennek as well. Some people in the tribe, like Stacy or Maylak or Georgie, absolutely thrive on being around people and being in the thick of things. From the get-go, I knew Marlene wasn’t like that. She’s very much he
r own creature and does whatever-the-fuck-she-wants and doesn’t much care if she says hello to the tribe that day or not. Zennek’s shy, too, so that adds into part of why they keep to themselves. They’re just…happiest with Marlene and Zennek. :)
Of course, there’s also family. Extended family - mothers and brothers and sisters - are something I haven’t played with too much as a tribe. After the big khui sickness (man, you can tell I really love me some plague, can’t you?) fifteen ice planet years before the humans arrived, a huge chunk of the tribe died, leaving a lot of orphans and fragments of families. In addition, it’s a hard place to live, so we already have families fractured from hunts gone bad or times that there were no healers to help out with severe injuries. Everyone’s lost someone. But…Zennek has brothers AND a sister. Marlene just had her mother, and she’s having to adjust to Zennek’s large family, and I wanted to shine a light on that, too. It was fun to have them be part of the adventure!
(Speaking of, ahem, family dynamics, Vadren hanging out and joining Borran and Kemli in their furs? I wanted him to have a little happy, too. Like Marlene says, if everyone’s happy, who cares if it’s a little unusual? I actually really love the loose triad of them because it shows that love changes but there’s always room in the heart for more.)
Also - Zennek. My blushing, sweet, thick Zennek. What a sweetheart. I loved writing him - and his flustered dynamic with Marlene. I also loved that he was secretly a bit of a dirty talker and took charge once he got over his initial shyness. He quickly became one of my favorite heroes to write, and I hope you agree!
I’ve rattled on for a while now, so I’ll wrap my character discussion with a French discussion. Gah. SO. MUCH. FRENCH. I’ve tried to only use just enough French that I hope it’s clear in context what they’re discussing. If not, I either restated it in the text or opted to have Marlene speak in English, because I don’t want you to run out and have to get a translator just to read my book. I had some INCREDIBLE help with Marlene’s story. Sophie L. — a reader and French teacher — offered to read through and correct me, and she did such an amazing job at helping me authenticate Marlene that I’m humbled at Sophie’s awesomeness and now need to name a character after her or something. Sophie, thank you SO much. Any mistakes at this point are mine, of course. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and along the same lines, you can direct an author to correct her bad French, but you can’t slap her hand away from the keyboard if she makes new mistakes. I hope everything reads all right. :)
