by Cara Bristol
Her eyes were still closed. Figuratively and literally. Her throat moved as she swallowed. Finally, she looked at me. “You might think that, but it’s only because I’m here, a seemingly available female…I must return to Earth. It’s my home.” She wet her lips. “The ship is still coming, right? You’re still going to help me go, aren’t you?”
Twin pangs like a double-bladed dagger jabbed into my chest. First, that she wouldn’t consider staying, and second, that she would question my honor. Getting her to share my kels seemed unlikely now. I glanced at the bedding I’d divided into two. Two needed to become one.
“I hope to persuade you to stay, but I will help you leave if that is what you desire,” I said.
She puffed out her cheeks. “It is. I’m sorry, Enoki.”
My heartache eased with the conflict I read in her expressive face. Her doubt buoyed my spirit a little. Maybe she required time to mull over what I’d said, to understand and accept her own feelings. I’d been expecting a mate. To her, I’d been a surprise. Instead of pushing, I should retreat.
“Of course, I will follow your wishes,” I said. “Perhaps we could spend the short time we have left focused on friendship and enjoyment of each other’s company.”
She made an angry sound in her throat, and her eyes flashed. “You can do that? Just shift gears?”
Blood pounded in my veins, and my horns throbbed at the fire in her eyes. Treading carefully, I said, “We are friends, are we not? Perhaps before you leave, we could share an ale at the Meeting Place tavern.”
“Two pals having a drink for old times’ sake?”
“That’s a good way to describe it.”
“One minute I’m your Fated mate, and the next I’m your friend?”
“You wish to be friends, we’ll be friends. You wish to leave, I’ll help you leave,” I said in a nonchalant tone, although optimism spread through my veins.
I must have smiled because her face lit up with a fierce, breathtaking fury. “You’re laughing at me now?”
I erased my smile and tried to appear solemn, but I think I failed because her face reddened more, and she clenched her fists.
Interesting. If she cared enough to get angry, then she cared…
She grabbed her kel. “I guess Icha isn’t the only fickle one!” She flung open the door.
“Don’t leave the camp—it’s dangerous,” I said.
She slammed the door.
We’d had our first fight like a mated pair. Progress had been made.
Chapter Fifteen
Madison
“May I have your attention please?” Enoki shouted. He stood on a tree stump so everyone could see him.
The two drummers and three men with wind instruments ceased playing. Parents shushed children. Conversation fell away. Everyone turned in his direction. The camp—which had been raucous with sounds of celebration—fell silent, except for three men, laughing as they tipped back jugs of ale.
“May I have your attention!” Enoki repeated, quieter this time. People motioned and nudged the men. Glowering, they kicked at the snow, but they stopped carousing.
When Enoki spoke, people listened. The tribe respected him. He had an impressive, command presence. I didn’t want to be awed by him. It pissed me off that I was.
The bonfire snapped and crackled. The smell of roasting meat wafted on the crisp air.
“On behalf of the entire tribe, I’d like to welcome the new females. Would you please stand?”
Garnet and the seven other women from the SS Masquerade stood up. They’d discarded whatever clothing they’d brought from Earth in favor of buckskins and kels. Hoods up, they were as furry and bulky as Dakonians, unrecognizable as my fellow Earthlings, except for their prom-queen waves and ditzy grins—Garnet being the exception, of course. Their Dakonian partners beamed.
“Welcome, females! Congratulations, men!” Enoki boomed.
“Obah! Obah!” tribe members shouted.
Garnet and Kellian sank onto the bench beside me, ogling each other with the suggestive grins of a couple in a newly consummated relationship who had more canoodling planned. They weren’t the only ones. Other pairs wore the same loopy, satisfied-not-quite-satisfied expressions.
Dakonians get serious fast.
Except Enoki. After issuing a potentially life-changing pronouncement—you’re my mate—he’d shrugged off my rejection like it scarcely mattered. He didn’t fight for me or try to change my mind or anything. Once I’d returned to the hut after stomping out, he’d acted like nothing had happened. Like we were just friends. His easy acceptance showed he hadn’t truly cared for me. It was like I’d always suspected—to a Dakonian, any woman would suffice, so therefore, no woman was special. But I’d believed Enoki was different.
What was wrong with him? I glowered.
What was wrong with me? Leaving Dakon should be a no-brainer with no regrets. Only someone desperate for a man, any man, would consider trading the technological and cushy comforts of Earth and the potential for love and marriage with a human man for a primitive, subsistence life on a frozen planet. With an alien.
Enoki’s not just any alien. Not just any man.
Although other women—including my best friend—had chosen to make a life here, I could not. I didn’t know what my future held, but this wasn’t it. So, damn him! I’d suffered enough heartache. Leaving shouldn’t feel like breaking up.
Except, it would. And he would forget me like I’d never existed. It appeared he was halfway there already. So much for him desiring a mate. I scowled.
“What’s wrong?” Garnet whispered. “You’re glaring at him like you could kill him.” She held hands with Kellian.
Their relaxed affection caused my heart to ache—with happiness for them—not jealousy or longing. “Nothing.” I lifted a shoulder. “I’ll tell you later.”
After leaving Enoki’s hut, I’d made a beeline for Garnet’s cabin then remembered three counted as a crowd on a honeymoon or matingmoon or whatever they called the introductory sexual festivities on this planet. So, I’d stalked around the compound, getting in the way of the feast preparations, until someone asked me if I wanted to help by plucking a few phea. It was smelly and gross, but satisfying as I pretended every feather I pulled out of the bird was a handful of Enoki’s hair.
One minute he’s telling me I’m his Fated mate and he’s on the verge of confessing his undying love, and the next he gives me the infamous “let’s-be-friends” speech.
I ought to be relieved he’d given up the whole mating idea. Being stuck in a cabin the size of my tiny living room on Earth would be awkward if we couldn’t get along. That we could shake hands with no hard feelings and return to the friendship zone should be good. I didn’t want him to love me. It would be terrible if I broke his heart.
Couldn’t he have protested a little?
“You’ve made eight men very happy and have brought joy and hope to the entire tribe,” Enoki was telling the women. “Because of you, Dakon has a future. Our climate and conditions can be…challenging—”
What an understatement. Even the crowd tittered. Dakon proved hell could freeze over. As soon as the SS Masquerade touched down, I was outta here.
The cold caused a tear to slide down my cheek.
“Your mates will do anything they can to help you acclimatize and make life as easy as possible for you.” Enoki scanned the crowd, then his gaze settled on me. “I speak for everyone when I say you are the best thing that has happened to us.”
“He doesn’t speak for me!” muttered one of the three men who’d been slow to give Enoki his attention. On a planet where the men grew big, he stood out as freakishly huge. Like a mutant or something. In contrast to his fellow Dakonians, all ruggedly handsome, this one had been waiting in the wrong line when they’d handed out beauty genes.
“Me, either,” chimed his buddy.
“Someone else getting a female doesn’t benefit me.�
�� A third friend, a one-horned dude, kicked at the snow.
Enoki snapped his gaze in their direction, and they adopted a sullen silence.
“Please partake of the food and drink and sample the delicacies. A feast symbolizes abundance—and we are planning for an abundant, long future.” He held up his hand. “Another spot of bright news I’d like to share. This hasn’t been finalized yet—I never count my phea until they’re in the pot—but I have it on good authority the next shipment of females will be doubled. There should be two hundred females arriving.”
“Obah! Obah!” The men cheered and slapped each other. “Obah! Obah!”
Enoki’s tribe had received eight females in the latest group. If a double shipment arrived, that still meant only sixteen men would get a mate, but the men cheered with exuberance, and maybe a little inebriation. Everyone had been drinking that nasty ale.
The three malcontents glanced at each other with sour expressions.
The cheers subsided, and Enoki spoke again. “One final announcement before I step down.” He cleared his throat. “Some of you know we have an unexpected visitor. When the SS Masquerade departed, Madison Altman was left behind.”
I felt like a kel in the headlights of a skimmer as everyone gawked at me.
A couple of women from the ship who hadn’t been there when I’d first arrived rolled their eyes. Conscious of the tribe’s scrutiny, I stifled a fuck-you scowl and forced myself to wave with all five fingers.
“Obah!” The tribe welcomed me.
“What you don’t know is…Madison is my Fated mate.”
My jaw dropped along with everyone else’s. What the hell…
The fire snapped in the silence.
“But…but…Madison is a man,” said one of the women from the ship.
“No. Madison is female. My female. The Fates chose her for me.”
And here, I’d thought we’d gotten past that.
“Son of a bitch!” an Earth woman muttered.
Exactly. Son of a bitch. Earthers and Dakonians gaped at me like they’d discovered a new species. The atmosphere electrified, shimmering with invisible energy, a portend that knotted my stomach.
“Have you asked her?” Hulk the Ugly, the ginormous Dakonian malcontent, pushed his way to the front. “Has she agreed to be your mate?”
I leaped to my feet. “No, I haven’t,” I announced before Enoki could say another word. He had some freaking nerve. Okay, he’d bruised my ego by giving up so easily, but now he’d gone too far in the other direction.
Horns twitching, Hulk glanced at me then at Enoki. “Then she is available to the tribe.”
Whoa, whoa, what?
“We can have our own tribe lottery.” One of Hulk’s wingmen took his side.
“Obah!” shouted the tribe. “Obah!”
No, obah. This was not an obah. I glanced at Ardu, seated a couple of logs away. His features folded into an I-told-you-so expression.
I started to settle this by yelling there were no extra females—I was leaving, but Enoki beat me to a punch.
“There will be no lottery,” he said. “Madison is my Fated mate; she cannot belong to another.”
“Then ask her!” Malcontent number two demanded. “Ask her right now.”
The challenge hung in the air.
No. Don’t do that. I shook my head. I felt like the ball in a tennis match, batted between Enoki and the three men who hoped to get lucky.
Hulk the Ugly crossed arms the size of small trees. “I bet you did ask her. And I think she said no—so she is available to the entire tribe. We should have a chance to ask her.”
“No.” Enoki stepped off the stump.
“You had information you didn’t share. You used your position as leader to try to gain special favor,” Hulk accused.
“This has gone on long enough. I’m going up there,” I muttered to Garnet and Kellian. They were no longer holding hands. His brow had furrowed into worry lines. “I have something to say.” I marched forward.
Hulk the Ugly jabbed Enoki twice in the upper chest. “I challenge you to a muta!”
The tribe gasped.
I glanced at Kellian. “What’s a muta?”
“It’s what you Terrans might call a duel. Utak has challenged Enoki for leadership of the tribe. They will fight it out. The last man standing will lead the tribe; the loser will be banished.”
Enoki would tell this loser to go chip ice.
“According to our tradition, a muta must be completed by sundown of the next day,” Enoki said. “If you’re in accord, we’ll do it now.”
“I agree,” Hulk said.
“I, too, challenge you to a muta!” Hulk’s buddy punched Enoki twice in the shoulder.
“I, also.” The single-horned dude aimed two punches at Enoki’s chest.
“No. Stop it. You don’t have to do this!” I yelled.
Enoki glanced at me. “Yes, I do.” He stripped off his kel and flung it onto an empty bench. The other three men followed suit. People were backing up, rearranging the logs they’d been sitting on. Good galaxy! It was starting?
“Stop! This is crazy.” I ran and grabbed Enoki’s arm. “Please, don’t fight.” I was leaving, but I couldn’t publicly humiliate him by saying so in front of everybody.
“My leadership and my honor have been challenged,” he said.
I glared at the three men. “You’re fighting for nothing! I would never pick any of you!” I swept my gaze to encompass all the unmated men. “I am not available.”
Ardu rushed over.
“Tell him he doesn’t have to do this!” I said.
“You must get out of the way so you don’t get injured—or distract Enoki,” he said.
“Go with Ardu, Madison.” Enoki drew his brows together.
“No! I won’t.” If I had to plant myself in the middle of the ring to prevent the fight, I’d do it.
Enoki motioned, and Ardu bent, and before I guessed what was happening, flung me over his shoulder, and stalked to where I’d been sitting.
“Stop it! No!” I shouted. “Put me down, damn, you!”
He hauled me to the bench, blocking my path when I tried to dart around him. “This is our way,” he said.
“It’s a stupid way. Why is he doing this? He doesn’t have to! You know I’m not staying,” I hissed.
“A leader cannot retreat from a muta. Once called, it must be completed. The only other option is to forfeit his leadership to the challenger,” Ardu said.
“You mean anybody can challenge the tribe chief?”
“Yes, but not everybody can win. They don’t challenge unless they believe they have a good chance.”
“So he has to fight all of them? Three against one?” I shuddered. Enoki couldn’t win.
“Not at the same time. He will fight in the order the challenges were issued.”
Enoki didn’t get to be leader by being a lightweight, mentally or physically. Over seven feet of toned muscle, he could decimate any Earth man, but Hulk the Ugly was built like an ice shithouse with fists like battering rams. If Enoki managed to take down Hulk, he’d be worn out and then would have to fight the other two. No way could he win three fights.
Fury boiled inside me. I was mad at Ardu for coercing a confession, mad at Enoki for making something private public, mad at myself because…because I didn’t know why.
Yes, I did.
I was scared.
I could kick Enoki’s ass for putting me through this, but I had a horrible feeling the three men were going to do it for me.
Chapter Sixteen
Enoki
Madison was spitting mad, and got madder still when Ardu carried her off to safety. I hope her anger indicated she’d come to care for me. I stripped off my tunic and tossed it atop my kel; the frigid air stung like needles jabbing into my skin, but the battle would warm me.
A formidable adversary, Utak was the biggest man in cam
p. The results of gluttonous portions of kel and too many sweetened macha cakes hung over the band of his leggings. In all of Dakon, I knew of only one man larger, and Utak had fast, heavy fists and a quick temper that had led him to employ those fists.
He’d been warded more than any other man in camp and on a couple of occasions, I’d considered banishing him. No one was less suitable to be leader than Utak. If he won, the camp would fall into dissension and chaos.
For one with such quick fists and temper, he was slow-witted, lacking foresight, and strategy. In battle, he relied on size rather than cunning. All I needed to do was pace myself and wait for an opening. However, the fight would be long and wearying, and I would take a few hits before it ended. Then I would fight the others.
I hadn’t expected to be directly challenged, and certainly not by these three. I had to win the muta to reassert my authority and deter potential future challenges, but right now, I cared only about Madison. Fighting the men would be worth it if she came to realize she did have mating feelings for me and would reconsider her decision to leave.
“Who volunteers to be muteer?” I called. The muteer refereed the fight, ensured fairness, and pronounced the winner. I would have asked Ardu to do the honors, but I counted on him to keep Madison safe and prevent her from trying to stop the muta.
“I’ll do it.” Kellian leaped up from the bench.
“Kellian—wait a minute.” Garnet grabbed his arm.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m in no danger.”
Generally true, but not always. Occasionally, a muteer got too close to the fight and got knocked unconscious by a hit meant for one of the combatants.
The bonfire snapped and crackled in the pit. The smell of roasting kel and phea pervaded the air. The strong odor of ale wafted off Utak. No doubt overindulgence in fermented macha had fueled his reckless challenge.
Kellian bounded to the perimeter of the fight zone. “Begin!” he announced.
