by Cara Bristol
“No, it’s okay. I’d be happy to answer questions.”
He shrugged.
“Terra is much warmer in most places, and we don’t get this much snow,” I said. Not by a long shot. Here, snow weighted the branches and leaves of the tall trees, blanketed the ground, and piled in drifts against the caves. A hunch told me by the time the mild summer could melt it, winter would roll in with more. Probably some snow remained year-round. I supposed the polar regions resembled Dakon, but that was as close as it got.
“Most people live in tall buildings in large cities where there is little space. We move from place to place in solar-cell powered flying vehicles.” I wasn’t sure what they wanted to know.
“Do all females look like you?” another man called out. Side conversations ceased, and everyone stared.
Did he mean, were they all blonde, pale, and “skinny?” Were they seeking reassurance that they wouldn’t be saddled with ugly women? I resisted the urge to touch my hair. Wasn’t it my luck to land on a planet where my weight wasn’t an issue, but my hair—previously my best feature—was? I couldn’t catch a break. I glanced up at Torg. No, I had caught a break. A big hunky alien of a break. “More or less,” I said. “I’m shorter than most women and fairer. Many Terrans have dark-brown hair, darker skin color.”
The questioner nodded, satisfied with my answer. It broke the ice, and questions flew fast and furious. How long was the journey? What is a spaceship like? What is a flying vehicle like? How fast can it go? How many more women would be arriving?
“I don’t know,” I answered the last question honestly. Until I’d been shoved aboard the SS Australia, I hadn’t been aware the program existed.
“Why did you come here?” demanded the scowling man up front in a feminine voice. He was a she!
Torg tensed. Why? Because of how I might answer, or because like me he sensed animosity? She couldn’t possibly view me as a threat. She could have her choice of men. Okay, I had snagged the chief, the most eligible bachelor of the clan, but if she had wanted him, she probably could have had him before I’d arrived.
He’s mine now, lady. So there!
Sheesh! I couldn’t believe I was getting worked up over another woman’s animosity—and I didn’t even know if it was real or misperception.
Curiosity written on their faces, they waited for my answer.
“For a better life.” I slipped my arm through Torg’s. A better life—it could be true, if I didn’t have to return to Terra. What did I have there anyway? If my conviction was overturned, it wouldn’t fully clear my name. My case had been the trial of the century, and some people would always believe me guilty. I had no job, no close relatives who cared about me.
This could be a fresh start. I could do worse than an alien stud.
“You couldn’t get that on Terra?” the woman persisted.
“That’s enough,” Torg said. “There will be more opportunities for questions later. My mate is fatigued from her long journey.”
I wasn’t the least bit tired. Wrapped in kel, curled against Torg’s muscular body beside the fire, I’d slept like a log. He was trying to protect me, and I appreciated it. What was her problem anyway?
The Dakonians started to shuffle away, but Torg raised his hand. “Wait. There is one more announcement.”
They halted, and Torg’s gaze flicked to the surly, masculine woman in the front. His expression hardened for an instant before he focused on the crowd. “By the law of the clan, I banished Armax this morning. He will not be permitted to return.”
A few men nodded while surprise registered on other faces. “What did he do?” somebody asked.
“He attacked and gravely injured Yorgav.”
Heads pivoted in the woman’s direction.
“Icha remains with the clan as she has chosen Yorgav.”
The notorious Icha! This sour woman had been the source of contention between the two men? Dakon was desperate for women if some chick built like a brick shithouse with a face and personality to match was worth fighting over. Even her name. Icha. Pretty darn close to Ick! I was being mean and catty. Especially since the hood obscured much of her features. There could be a raving beauty under all that fur—a beauty who I’d mistaken for a man.
Stop it! What the hell had gotten into me? Given that I’d been the last one chosen in the schoolyard pick, I had no room to talk.
But she’d started it with her scowls.
Take the high road, Starr. I inhaled a deep breath and allowed the icy air to cool my heated thoughts.
The crowd dispersed, and Icha sashayed away. If I’d seen the walk, I would not have mistaken her for a male.
“Thank you for indulging them,” Torg said when we were alone. “I hope they didn’t offend you.”
“Not at all. I understand their curiosity.” Everything about Dakon seemed strange to me, so it made sense my planet would be a mystery to them, too. “Yorgav will be okay, won’t he?” Banishment had seemed extreme, but not if Yorgav’s condition was as serious as it sounded. Torg pressed his lips into a grim line.
“Darq checked with the healer this morning. Yorgav’s injuries are quite severe. He hasn’t regained consciousness.”
Dakon had no hospital. No medical school. What kind of training could the “healer” have? Maybe he was like a witch doctor, chanting and shaking a bouquet of feathers over the patient.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Torg gazed into the distance. “I am, too. We had a lot more, once.”
“Before the asteroid.”
He nodded. “We had hospitals. Buildings. Equipment. Schools. All of it is gone. Fortunately, a few healers survived, and they passed on their knowledge. The current generation can set broken bones, suture wounds, but they diagnose more than they can cure, and even that’s difficult. We have no medicines, only herbal remedies.” He made a wry face. “We can help someone with an upset stomach or a headache feel better, but those ailments aren’t going to kill you.”
“I’m surprised you only expelled Armax.”
“Fault existed on both sides. Stealing another man’s mate is a serious offense, so Yorgav is not blameless. Perhaps, I should have taken stronger measures, but it wasn’t until this morning that Yorgav took a turn for the worse. I had separated the two men in the camp to defuse the situation. However, with Icha involved, problems would continue, so I opted for exile.”
“Doesn’t banishing Armax push the problem off on someone else?”
“Most of our problems are interpersonal disagreements. Separating an individual from the person he has a problem with usually fixes the problem. Without Icha’s influence, I don’t believe Armax poses a danger to anyone else.”
“But Icha will still be here, right?”
He nodded. “This is not the first fight she has caused. She often pits one man against another. She is supposedly quite skilled sexually and, before she chose Armax, she’d stirred much jealousy around the camp.”
“So why not exile her?” I asked, and then answered my own question. “Because she is female.”
Torg nodded. “We need all the females we can get, and when she is between mates, Icha shares her favors. The men would riot if I banished her.”
“She has had more than one partner?”
“Many. She never stays with one man very long.”
“But Yorgav might die.”
“Yes. He might. “
I shivered at the grimness in his tone.
“My apologies!” Torg mistook the reason for my shudder and helped me off the booster. Literally and figuratively, he’d placed me on a pedestal.
What would happen if I fell off?
Dakon guarded their females, protected them, treasured them. Despite the trouble she caused, they kept Icha around. But they condemned violence. Would being female save me if they discovered I’d supposedly killed a man?
“Let’s go to the cave where it’s warm. It’s time for our midday meal.”
“Kel?”
“Phea.” He grinned. “We do eat other food besides kel.”
“Good to know.” The stew Darq had prepared had been quite tasty, but I could foresee getting quite tired of kel, if that was all I ate. “Um, what’s phea?”
“Fowl. Even more birds than animals died, but the phea survived. We eat the eggs, too. Unborn phea are quite a delicacy.”
“Good gods, that’s not what we’re having, is it?” I’d take a chunk of kel any day.
Torg threw back his head and roared.
How wonderful that I could provide such amusement. I glared at him. He chuckled again and hugged me. “No, Starr. We will not have unborn phea.” He picked me up and carried me toward his cave.
“Put me down, I can walk.” I wiggled my feet to prove it.
“I like carrying you.”
I buried my face against his shoulder. I liked it, too, more than I should, but I could worry about that later.
“It’s all about survival for us, Starr.” Torg tromped toward his cave. “We learned how precious life is, and every act is weighed to determine whether it enhances or detracts from our chance of survival. If I make the right decision, I live another day. If I make the wrong one, I perish.”
Torg and I had something in common. That pretty much described my employment with the Carmichaels.
Chapter Ten
Torg
At the sound of a footfall, I sprang up in bed to find Darq entering the chamber. Starr slept beside me, one hand curled under her cheek, her face hidden by that mass of yellow hair. Blonde, she’d called it. It was growing on me. I liked having a mate who was unique, who looked like no one else.
“You have a visitor,” Darq said.
“Who? The healer? Is it about Yorgav?” I whispered so I wouldn’t wake Starr.
“No.”
“Who, then?” I yanked on leggings and a tunic and shoved my feet into boots.
“Icha.”
“What!” I forgot to whisper, and I checked on Starr. Still asleep.
“She brought a mating gift, insisted on handing it to you.”
Since Starr’s introduction to the tribe, members had been delivering kel hides, bone knives, pottery, baskets, beads, wood carvings, and enough food that Darq, Starr, and I could eat for a dozen planetary rotations.
“I told her to leave it with the rest, but she refused.”
Typical Icha. She intended her gifts not to please the recipient but to shine upon herself. She demanded an inordinate amount of attention, and because she was female, she received it. I glanced at my sleeping mate. Thankfully, she wasn’t spoiled like Icha. Though I had ached for a female to call mine, if Starr had never arrived, I would have spent my life in solitude before I would have accepted Icha. My mate gave a cute little snort in her sleep, and I smiled. Yorgav should be so lucky. He would have his hands full if he recovered. Would he think Icha had been worth all the trouble she’d caused him? Would cause him still?
“Any word on Yorgav?” I asked. “How is he doing?”
“Better. The healer says he shows improvement and thinks he might make it after all.”
“That’s good news.”
Darq, the coward, left me to face Icha alone.
As I entered the main chamber, I found her eying the rack where Starr’s clothing hung. They were dry now, but we hadn’t removed them yet. The flimsy garments were near useless on Dakon, but Starr had insisted on keeping them. As Icha faced me, her expression shifted from assessing to coquettish. Nearly as tall as I, she managed to shrink several measures to appear smaller. She fluttered her eyelashes. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
I was quite certain she’d hoped for the opposite.
Icha had shed her outer kel to reveal clothing stretched taut across every ample curve. Cut low, the neckline of her tunic revealed the deep valley between her mountainous breasts. Men joked they could get lost in those mountains.
Her charms held no appeal for me. They never had, and now I had a mate who very much attracted me, who I would have been snuggling with if not for Icha.
“What is it?” I asked, barely covering my irritation.
She held out a covered basket. “I brought you some macha biscuits.”
Macha was a syrup produced by a tree, on its way to extinction, making the syrup a precious commodity. The sap was our only sweetener, and we reserved its use for special occasions.
“You shouldn’t have,” I said. Icha gave nothing without expectation of reciprocity, but to refuse her gift would be an insult. Reluctantly I accepted the proffered basket.
She did not step away as she should have, but remained close. Our gazes locked. I was a hunter. I’d taken down kel many times my size, in addition to other more dangerous animals. I’d fought and defeated other men to win my seat as clan leader. I did not retreat from tough decisions. I survived in a cold, harsh land that killed without mercy.
Handling a predatory female was outside my ken. “Thank you. If that’s all…” I moved toward the cave entrance, hoping she would take the hint.
She didn’t.
I set her dubious gift on a table.
“I came to congratulate our clan leader on his good fortune and wish him well,” she said in a breathy voice. If that was her real intention, then I was a spaceship pilot from Terra.
“The healer says Yorgav is doing better and might recover.” I injected him into the conversation in hopes of warding her off.
“Good.” She shrugged.
“You do not seem as relieved as one would expect.”
“Of course I am happy that an injured man, a member of our tribe will survive. Who wouldn’t be? But if you are implying that I should have a deeper, more personal concern for his welfare…”
“Shouldn’t you? You chose Yorgav over Armax.”
“I did not. I merely wished to no longer be with Armax.”
Anger surged at her manipulation and lack of remorse. “You’d better leave now.” I took a few more steps closer to the entrance. If I had to, I’d pick her up and dump her outside. In a snowdrift.
Icha hesitated then picked up her kel and sashayed toward me. My tribe mates considered Icha to be the most attractive of our females. The sway of her hips, the purr of her voice drew men like insects to a weeping macha tree. I’d never trusted her, never desired to be one of a succession of men she used and discarded, so though she’d approached me in the past and my physical needs had been great, I’d rejected her. I was probably the only one in camp who had. As we had too few women, females like Icha would always have control over the male gender.
The coquettish look returned. “We could have been good, you and I.”
If good meant disastrous. In my personal chamber, Starr slept, oblivious to Icha’s visit. Thankfully.
“And we still can. It’s not too late.” She scraped her finger along my jaw.
I jerked away. “I’m mated now, Icha!”
“I can offer you so much more than the alien can.”
The only thing she could offer me that I wanted was the sight of her backside as she left. “Not interested.”
Her eyes turned flinty, but then she shrugged. “Your loss.” She slipped into her kel and tucked the hood over her face. “Congratulations on your…mating,” she said in a tone laden with condolence.
At last I got the view I wanted: her exiting the corridor. I headed back to my mate.
Starr was awakening. A tiny mound beneath the furs, she stretched. Her soft yellow hair contrasted against the darkness of the kel, stirring my manhood. “I guess I overslept.” She sat up and tucked the furs beneath her armpits, shielding her body from my gaze.
My luck: the female I didn’t care about, flaunted herself, and the one I wanted to see, covered up.
“I have a surprise,” I said.
“What is it?”
“How’d you like to take a bath?”
Her eyes lit up. “Really? How?”
“Get dressed.”
She frowned.
“I have to get dressed to take a bath?”
“You can walk naked through the snow if you prefer, but we have to go to a different cave.”
She scrambled out of the hides and into her clothes in record time. I enjoyed how her flesh jiggled as she rushed. Her breasts, while not as bounteous as Icha’s, were large enough to fill my hands and then some. The memory of her softness stiffened my cock. I loved the wiggle in her walk, the way her buttocks shifted and her hips swayed in a dance all females seemed to know. But my female’s performance was the only one I cared to watch.
“You’re staring at me.” She pulled on her boots.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I woke up, and you were gone.”
“We had a visitor.”
“Oh?”
“Icha,” I answered, loath to mention her. Just invoking the name ushered in an ill wind. “She brought a mating gift.”
She bent over her boots to lace them. “Was that all she wanted?” Her tone held an odd inflection.
“You don’t like Icha.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I don’t like her, either.”
My mate’s head shot up. “You don’t?”
“No. She tries to cause trouble wherever she goes—”
Starr beamed a big smile.
“You find that amusing?” I asked.
“No. I’m just pleased you recognize she causes trouble.”
“Of course, I see that. You’d have to be fool not to.” Which meant the majority of my clan were fools.
Starr sauntered over to me. “Let’s go take that bath, big guy.” She clapped her hands on both sides of my head and planted a kiss against my mouth.
* * * *
Fresh snow had fallen overnight. The absence of tracks around the cave showed no one had been here yet today. Starr and I would be able to bathe in private. As clan leader, I could have shooed everyone from the pools, but I hesitated to employ special privileges very often because doing so invoked resentment among the tribe, as the previous leader had found out.
Males and females bathed in the mineral springs together with no concern for nudity. We had no more reservations about removing our tunic and leggings than we did in flinging off the hoods that covered our heads. However, Starr had explained that Terrans were modest and wore clothing as much to cover up their nakedness as for warmth. Revealing one’s bare body to the wrong person or in the wrong moment embarrassed them. That my mate felt comfortable naked around me pleased me, and, strangely, her reluctance to disrobe in front of others gladdened me, too.
