by Dixon, Ruby
And now I'm thinking of home again and growing sad.
Five things, I remind myself. I'm grateful I had an afternoon to chat with Mari. I'm grateful the sleet stopped and I don't have to hide inside the caves all day. I'm grateful—
As I cut through the camp towards the women's cave, a figure steps into my path.
Fucking M'tok.
Even as he stands in front of me, I hate that my cootie lights up with excitement. My chest throbs and purrs with the excited sound, and every nerve ending in my body seems to catch on fire with his nearness. Instantly, I ache all over—especially between my thighs—and my nipples press against the thick leather of my tunic. I hate this reaction almost as much as I hate him.
M'tok's cold, hard face is as unyielding as ever. He gazes at me, waiting. "Well?"
"Well what?" I stop short and let out a gusty, exasperated sigh. "What do you want?"
He lifts his chin, looking more arrogant than I thought possible, his hands on his hips. "You know what I want, C'lie."
"Ain't happening."
"How long will you let these foolish games go on? You know resonance has chosen. Why do you fight against the inevitable?"
"Because I'd rather wither away and die than end up with you?" I smile brightly at him. "So do me a favor and get out of my way."
"Why are humans such fools?"
"Oh, so now I'm a fool? Man, the compliments just never stop flowing with you."
"You are a fool," he reinforces. "For thinking you can fight resonance." M'tok gestures at the beach. "I have made you a hut, just as J'shel made H'nah a hut and she came to him. The time for this silly independence is over. You belong in my furs and in my hut."
"I belong to you? Is that it?" I keep my tone sweet.
"Of course."
Wow, he just keeps digging the hole deeper. "You want me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?"
He shrugs. "If you wish to go barefoot in the hut, you can. I have made a good floor with fine wood." He watches me closely. "It is the best hut on the beach. You should be grateful."
Grateful. The word sticks in my throat and I resist the urge to punch his smug face. "The only thing I'd be grateful for is if you left me alone."
"I will not leave you alone." He takes another step closer to me. "You are destroying both of us with this insistence of yours. How long do you think you can go without answering to resonance?" He points a finger at me, since my khui sings louder as he approaches, the thrumming more insistent. "Even your khui knows that your fight is useless."
Your fight is useless. The words strike me like blows, and for a moment I'm filled with despair. I've been holding onto the idea that maybe I would get Veronica to shut down my khui like she did for Mari, but Mari's confession has changed everything. I don't have a choice…in any of this. I'm trapped.
And like a caged animal, I continually lash out.
I fold my arms tightly across my chest. "I hate you," I tell him. "I hate everything that comes out of your mouth. You're never going to get anywhere with me, so just stop trying." M'tok reaches out, trying to grab my arm, and I jerk away. "If you try to force me to come to your tent again," I warn, because it's a move he's tried a few times now, "I'm going to tell R'jaal and Raahosh and your ass is gonna be toast."
"They will understand," he says flatly. "They know we must answer resonance's call soon or it will destroy us both."
"I doubt that. I feel pretty fucking fine."
"You lie." He steps closer again, his hands at his side, and I hate how my body practically quivers with hungry need. "You do not have sleepless nights? You do not ache with a need that cannot be fulfilled? Your thoughts are not constantly consumed with hunger?"
Oh god. He's not wrong—I'm going nuts from all those things. I also visit the healer on days that I’m feeling the worst. But I don't want him to know it. So I just smile sweetly. "Nope."
"Lies." His eyes narrow. "You know I will be good in the furs—"
"Here we go again," I snap. "Maybe you spend a little less time trying to convince me that you're not the worst person on this beach and a little more time trying to find a cure, huh?" I put my hands on my hips, furious. "In the meantime, I'm sick of hearing about your dick. I'm sick of hearing about how miserable you are. If you're so miserable, do something about it and shut up, okay?"
I know I'm snapping at him in a stupid fashion. It's the resonance. It's drumming in my ears, so loud I can scarcely think. M'tok's nearness isn't helping—and neither is his shitty attitude. It just gets my back up.
"Very well." He scowls at me one last time and then storms away.
Even as he goes, I feel an aching sense of loss, and that sucks. I don't want to miss him. I don't want to need him.
I don't want any of this.
6
M’TOK
Do something about it.
C’lie’s angry words repeat in my head, over and over again. Have I not tried to “do something about it” many times? I have shown her my body. I have been a good provider and hunter.
And I have been patient. I have allowed her to have these temper tantrums at the thought of resonance because I know she does not like me…yet. She will in time. That is always how resonance works.
But she will not even give it a chance.
All of my clan-mates agree with me that she is being ridiculous. That I have been patient in all these long weeks waiting for her to acknowledge that we are mates. Instead, my human is stubborn beyond all reasoning. C’lie is angry at me as if I chose this.
And I am tired of it all. This is a slow, torturous death, not being able to touch her, not being able to fulfill resonance.
There are rules to how the world works. The suns rise and set every day. The waves of the great water crash upon the shore. And resonance always has the final say. That is how it is to be.
I like rules. I like order. I like knowing what to expect from one day to the next. I like routine, and tidiness.
C’lie is none of these things. She is chaos. She plays by no rules but her own and it makes me crazed.
Do something about it.
Her voice taunts in my ears. What am I supposed to do? She will not have a conversation with me. She will not talk to me when I approach. She rejects any food I hunt for her and she will not take the skins I provide. I have tried to take her to my tent before to have a private conversation, and she acted as if I would force her to mate. The thought is appalling, no matter how badly my body aches or how crazed resonance makes me.
I would never, ever hurt her.
Even now, just thinking about her makes my skin itch with unsatisfied need. I picture her rounded face, which once seemed so alien to me. I picture her plump, short frame and generous teats. I think of all of this and with a groan, I stumble my way to my new hut, the one I built on the beach in the hopes that she would like it and come dwell there with me.
It remains empty of my mate, so I crash inside of it and clutch at my cock, jerking it until an unsatisfying release shudders through me. I watch my seed spit onto the coals of the fire and my lip curls at how pathetic I am. My seed should be filling my mate, not splattering uselessly on the coals.
I must do something. With every day that passes, my need for her grows more intense. I am at the point now that I cannot speak to her clearly, with a calm head. Instead, I shout at her and demand when I know it only makes her angrier. But how can I be calm when I want to touch her? To bury my face in the soft fall of her mane and breathe in her scent as she moves under me?
When I want to taste her more than I want air?
Frustrated, I clean myself and fix my leathers, then head for the beach. My brother S’bren is tossing nets into the turbulent, cold waters, dressed only in a loincloth and a short cloak over his shoulders. The beach here is very different from the one back on the island, but Tall Horn have always been great fishermen. Strong Arm and Shadow Cat have taken to hunting in the cold mountains, and while I have gone out on many trips, I pref
er the great waters. They remind me of home, for all that they are chilled with ice and the creatures here are not the same as the ones that swam in the warm reefs of the island.
It is another unfulfilled ache inside me—home. And it is one that can never be replaced, because my home is gone, destroyed by the Great Smoking Mountain as it died a second time. This is the only place left for us, and while I was eager at first because there were females here…nothing has turned out like I imagined.
S’bren tosses his net far into the waves and then begins to wade after it. Another sits on a large rock on the shore—V’za. He is one of the elders of the sa-khui tribe here, and a friendly sort if not the most clever. But he always has good stories, and I raise a hand in greeting at the sight of him. “Do you fish this day, V’za?”
“Soon,” V’za says, nodding at me. “Z’hren will be up from a nap soon and then I will take him until the evening meal so my mate can have some quiet time.” He smiles proudly, straightening. “My son loves to fish with me. You would think he is part fish himself! Until he awakens, I am sharing stories with S’bren.”
I move toward the rock, watching as my brother wades through the crashing, icy waves. “What sorts of stories?” I ask, not really interested. I am still thinking of C’lie and the disdain on her face even as her khui resonated and hungered for me. I know she is aching like I am. She has to be.
Has to.
“Oh, I tell him of how Raahosh stole his mate when she arrived.” V’za chuckles. “Leezh was quite angry until Raahosh won her over. I thought they would either come back a good mated couple or she would bring his head back on a spear.”
S’bren pauses and looks at me.
I stare up at V’za, who now has my attention. “What do you mean, he stole his mate?”
V’za’s eyes light up at our interest in his story. “You did not know? Oh, it was quite a thing with the human females when they first came to our world. Many of them were not sure if they liked a male and Leezh was very sure she did not like Raahosh. He would not take no for an answer, though, and the moment she had her khui safely in her chest, he stole her away to a distant hunter cave and kept her there until she shared his furs. When they came back?” He twines his fingers. “You could not tear the two of them apart. After that, it seemed that every hunter in our tribe stole his human for a time to get her attention. Always worked, too.” He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “And then, of course, Hassen stole a female and ended up resonating to her sister many moons later, but that is another tale.”
Stealing your female.
Forcing her to be around you by taking her away from the tribe.
Of course.
It is a brilliant plan, I realize, for all its simplicity. I think of the hunter caves tucked into the mountains, caves I have visited a few times as Cashol, Hassen and the others familiarized us with this land and how to hunt it. The caves are designed to be shelters for hunters trapped out in the wild in bad weather—each cave is full of furs, herbs, and food and fuel supplies. I could coax C’lie to go hunting with me and take her there and then simply not take her back until she agrees to be mine. She is not as eager to hunt as some of the other females and would be dependent on me.
I like this idea. I like it very much.
The only problem is how to convince C’lie to go with me. So I lean on the rock that V’za sits on. “Tell me more of R’hosh and his courtship of his mate.”
* * *
I am still thinking of all I have learned even as the suns go down and the tribe gathers around the fire. I do not join them this night. Normally I would go to try and speak to C’lie, but I do not need to this night.
Not when I have a new plan.
So I gesture for S’bren to join me in my hut instead of sitting with the tribe. I expect him to protest—the female P’nee is by the fire and he has been fixated on her as of late—but to my surprise he comes immediately and slides the privacy flap shut behind him.
“Did you hear what V’za said?” he asks, his thoughts as focused as my own. “R’hosh stole his mate.”
“Funny how that story has never come up in all the stories they tell around the fire,” I say sourly. I get a leather pack from a peg and start to pack it with necessary supplies. “They have been keeping that from us.”
“Do you think so?” My brother looks surprised, but S’bren has always been very trusting. I am the suspicious one. “Why?”
“So we would not get ideas to steal the females, too,” I say. It makes perfect sense. There are many unmated males on the beach, all who hungrily watch the unmated females. We all hope for resonance.
And some of us resonate and our female still ignores us.
“Humans must be stubborn creatures by nature,” I say to my brother.
S’bren grunts. “P’nee has been very stubborn as of late. She argues with me and will not listen to what I say. She was very gentle at first but now…I do not know what to make of it.”
“Do you think she resonates to another?”
S’bren’s broad face is furious for a moment. “To one of Shadow Cat? I will tear their throats out if they touch her.” He gives me a grim look. “I want her.”
I pick up a bone knife and wrap it in leather, and then tuck it into my pack. “Then we do not wait for the females to be sensible,” I say to him. “It is clear that human females are many things, but practicality and good sense are not traits they possess. So we must be the sensible ones.”
S’bren crouches next to where I sit on the floor of my hut. His eyes gleam bright with interest. “What do you have in mind, brother?”
“We must keep this just between us,” I caution him. S’bren is trusting and would tell others of our plan all too quickly. “If you want P’nee, I think you should steal her…because I am going to steal C’lie.”
My brother’s expression grows intense. “I am listening…”
* * *
S’bren and I work on our plan for the next few days. We each stuff a pack full of survival supplies—dried meats, knives, rope, nets, extra tunics—and stash them in the surrounding hills at night when the rest of the encampment is asleep. If anyone sees us leaving with a female and a giant pack they will surely get suspicious. With our supplies stashed in the hills, we will make better time getting away from camp as well and by the time the others realize P’nee and C’lie are gone, it will be too late for them to chase after us.
Once our packs and supplies are readied, we plan which caves we will go to. We cannot go to the same ones—it will be smarter to split up and allow us both time to win our mates over.
Both females will likely be angry, because they are not sensible about such things. But hopefully by then we will have them so far away from the others that they will have no choice but to stay at our sides.
If C’lie is alone with me and unable to walk away, she will give in, I know it. She will see I am not such a bad male to be mated to after all, and then she will fall into my arms with sweet caresses and welcoming smiles.
The thought makes me so hungry for her that I jerk my cock to it. Repeatedly.
There is a flaw in our plan, of course. Neither C’lie nor P’nee will leave the camp with us willingly. Both S’bren and I have played out many scenarios in our minds, but the females are incredibly stubborn. We will need to use trickery of some kind.
It is when a bundle of visshek root washes up on shore, the leaves curled and wilted from being in the salt waters for so long, that I get the perfect idea.
We will drug them.
The visshek root is used by my people when sleep will not come. A few curls of the root into a cup of tea and eyelids grow tired, limbs heavy.
It is perfect, I tell S’bren, who is far more skeptical.
“I do not think P’nee will like it if I put something in her tea without her knowing.”
“Does it matter what she likes?” I slap the root against his shoulder. “Do you want to be nice to P’nee or do you want to be mated to h
er?”
S’bren thinks for a moment and then sighs. “Mated.”
“It will not hurt them,” I insist. “Only make them sleepy. Then they will not protest when we take them out of camp and into the hills. It is the perfect answer.”
“How do we get it into their tea without the females noticing?” my brother asks.
We will need a distraction, I decide. I am not yet sure what, but I am confident something will come along. So we are patient, and wait, and watch the camp.
And the perfect moment comes along when a few days later, Old Grandfather is killed by A’tar—the flying golden shapeshifter. Then, N’deen and T’rand resonate to one another. They spend the day in their hut, celebrating one another, and the tribe decides to throw a feast in celebration. I do my best to ignore my own gnawing, aching need for C’lie, who refuses to even look in my direction.
Tonight is the night, I decide, and bring a few curls of the root with me to the celebration by the fire.
7
CALLIE
Another resonance.
Yippee.
I look around the camp, but I can’t find it in me to be excited. Nadine and Thrand are happy—if the sounds coming out of their hut are any indication. It’s all anyone can talk about. Well, that and how Ashtar single-handedly took down the gigantic man-eating bird, but to me that’s less impressive given that he’s a massive fire-breathing dragon. It’s a given. I mean, I’m happy about it but…
Oh, hell. I fully admit I’m just cranky as fuck because the whole resonance thing has me rattled. Everyone can’t stop talking about Nadine and Thrand. Thrand and Nadine. Resonance. Matings. Babies.
