by Cara Bristol
Utak and I circled each other. I focused on him, not the crowd watching us, nor Madison.
He jabbed at my face, but I skipped out of reach, and retaliated with a few exploratory strikes to test his reflexes and defenses. He easily deflected the punches. He wasn’t as inebriated as I’d imagined.
His fist grazed my right temple. I heard Madison gasp, but I didn’t dare look. Instead, I followed up with a hook to his jaw that knocked his head back. He spat out a bloody tooth and roared, charging with fists flying. Throwing up my arms to protect my head, I took quite a few blows to my ribs and abdomen. I grunted to expel the pain.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Madison cried.
Ardu spoke to her, his low tone unintelligible, but I guess he’d admonished her because she replied, “You need to shut up.”
Utak’s fist clipped my temple, and blood trickled into my eyes. I tossed my head and raised my arm to wipe my brow, and he swung at me again. I sensed it coming and jerked my head, but he managed to split my lip.
The hard-packed snow had been speckled with illuvian ore sand. Our moving feet had ground the dust into the ice, and it became slippery again. Our blows bounced off each other, and I shoved Utak across the fight zone. He had to weigh as much as a baby kel, but on the ice, he slid easily. I had to be careful. If I slipped and fell, it would be considered a win for Utak.
I needed to end this. I had two more men to fight.
I rained a series of seemingly wild, but calculated blows to Utak’s abdomen, upper chest then feigned a left hook to his shoulder. As he raised a defensive arm, I sneaked in a punch to his jaw, following up with another strike to the other side. He reeled. His feet flew out from under him, and he landed flat on his back.
“Enoki wins the muta over Utak!” Kellian shouted.
“Obah! Obah!” cheered the tribe. There might be a few who wished for a leadership change, but no one would prefer Utak over me. The tribe would be better off without his troublesome, contentious presence. Banishing him would be a joy.
Chest heaving, I stood over him in snow stained red. My knuckles were bruised, cracked, and bleeding. I could feel my eyes and lip swelling.
Utak groaned and started to roll to his feet.
“I banish you from the tribe,” I said. “Get your things and go.”
A roar sounded, and I spun around as Utak’s friend, Coronalo, grabbed me and squeezed. I felt a sharp pain as he cracked a rib previously hit by Utak.
“That’s not fair!” Madison yelled. “He wasn’t ready. Foul!”
Prohibitions in a muta were limited to a few: you couldn’t use a weapon, you couldn’t deliberately attempt to kill someone—although one tribe chief who’d “won” a muta had died later of internal injuries—and you couldn’t hit or kick a man after he went down. Other than that, anything was permitted.
Coronalo pinned my arms so I butted him with my head and broke his nose. He gave a shout of pain, easing his grip, and I broke his hold.
“I can’t watch this anymore!” I heard Madison cry, and I darted my gaze in her direction. “I’m leaving!” She ran from the bonfire area as Coronalo punched me in the face.
I almost fell over Utak, who hadn’t gotten up yet. By the Fates, I retained my footing, and I charged. Coronalo and I pummeled each other.
I caught him in a headlock and squeezed off his air supply. He went limp and dropped to the ground.
“Enoki wins the muta over Coronalo!” Kellian announced.
I pointed at him. “You are banished.”
Winded, my breath came in gasps, and I hurt all over. My torso was sticky with blood, and my hands had begun to swell, but I had more fight in me. I needed to end this so I could get to Madison.
I stalked toward the final man. He had one horn, the other never having sprouted.
He backed away. “I concede the muta,” he said.
“Very well,” I said. “But you are banished.” I could not allow challenges to my leadership on a whim. You couldn’t stir trouble then duck and cover when it boiled over. If we were going to survive, we needed to be cohesive, work together for our common welfare, and not cause dissension and strife.
“Enoki remains our chief!” Kellian announced.
“Obah! Obah!” the tribe cheered, and the drummers pounded a rhythm on their instruments.
“You asshole!” Madison sprang at me. I thought she’d left.
She struck my chest. “Are you proud of yourself? Huh? Was that necessary? What the hell is wrong with you?” she shouted.
Mated men cringed, shooting me looks of sympathy as if they’d been scolded in a similar manner.
“You could have been hurt. Or killed!” She thumped me again.
The tribe let out an audible gasp.
Madison froze. “What is it?”
“Two jabs to the upper chest is the muta challenge,” I explained. “The only thing you omitted was the words. Are you challenging me to a muta?” My split lip hurt as it curled. “Do you wish to lead this tribe?”
Chapter Seventeen
Madison
Not so funny now, is it?
Enoki hissed as Ardu dabbed an unguent on a lacerated eyebrow. I felt no sympathy for his pain. None. Nada. Zippo. It served him right. Why had he revealed my gender to the tribe and claimed I was his Fated mate? Did he believe a stunt like that would convince me to stay? I planted my hands on my hips and glowered.
Enoki had found it hilarious when I’d almost challenged him to a muta. How was I supposed to know striking someone twice on the upper chest meant you were challenging him to a duel? I’d presumed Hulk the Ugly and the other two were being assholes by hitting Enoki.
If he’d been defeated, he would have lost his position as leader and would have been banished. But, he’d won. My heart thudded with relief, and an emotion feeling ridiculously like admiration. After seeing Enoki beat Hulk the Ugly and his friend, the one-horned Dakonian had forfeited rather than fight.
Enoki had been powerful, impressive. Stupid.
He’d risked everything for me.
The healer swiped a graze on his cheek, and Enoki jerked and swore.
I winced. “Don’t be such a baby,” I said.
Enoki’s eyes glinted. “Perhaps you would like to assume the doctoring so you could apply unguent yourself?”
“Maybe I would!” My fury roiled, and I wasn’t even sure who deserved it more. Enoki? The three who’d challenged him? Ardu for forcing my confession? The captain of the SS Masquerade who didn’t bother to verify I’d boarded the ship? Maybe all of them. Maybe myself. What had been so clear and simple before had become cloudy. Resolve had weakened; defenses were crumbling into a rubble of doubt.
I shoved a pitcher of water into the flasher cooker.
What if I stay?
“That ought to do it,” Ardu said. “I’ll leave the unguent with you.” He replaced the lid and set the jar on a shelf. “Keep your face clean and apply the salve at least twice a day until it scabs over.”
Enoki made a face. “I don’t need it.”
Ding! The flash cooker signaled the water had heated. I removed the pitcher. “I’ll ensure he uses it.” With pleasure.
“I’ll be going, then. I’ll send salve with Utak.” He looked at Enoki. “You still intend to banish him?”
“To maintain stability in the tribe and in my leadership—yes. He has been a disruptive influence, and would continue to be one if I let him stay.”
Ardu nodded. “He would create more disruption now. Few, if any, will miss him. As healer, I have a duty to tend to him. After I give him the salve, I’ll return to the feast. If you need further assistance, that’s where I’ll be.”
The healer departed leaving me and Enoki alone. The cabin got quiet, the air weighted with words unspoken. I carried a clay bowl, a wad of kel hide to use as a sponge, and the steaming pitcher of water to the table. I warmed the cold with some hot in a bowl.
“What are
you doing?” he asked.
“You’re a mess. I’m going to clean you up.” I dipped the rag in the warm water and wiped at the reddish-brown stains on his torso. Dakonian blood didn’t smell or look any different than human blood. Our species had to be similar. Obviously—we could reproduce. I’d noticed Dakonian-human toddlers looking like adorable little sausages in their kel coats at the bonfire. The merger of our two species produced beautiful children.
“You never should have risked leadership of the tribe.” I rinsed the rag in the water, squeezed it out, and wiped his chest again.
“The tribe needed to understand you’re my mate.”
“Declaring it doesn’t make it so.” I scrubbed the skin over his pecs. Unlike Hulk the Ugly, who had been built like a refrigerator, Enoki was sculpted and powerful. A toned, hard-muscled chest veed to washboard abs. Massive biceps completed the set.
I clutched the rag, keeping my fingers on the kel hide so I wouldn’t test the tautness of his muscles. Still my fingers grazed his smooth skin as I swept the rag over him.
“The Fates have made it so.”
“Right. The Fates.” I snorted. “Stay there. I’m not done yet.” I emptied the rusty water outside the hut. The muta hadn’t dampened the tribe’s enthusiasm. Laughter and shouts rose over the drumbeats and flute melodies. Children screamed and chased each other around the huge bonfire shooting sparks like fireworks into the night sky. Savory smells of roasted kel and phea mingled with woodsmoke. The joining of two cultures, two planets, two species had created community, family, hope.
I returned inside, plunked the empty bowl on the table, and refilled it with fresh warm water and resumed cleaning him up. Most of the blood was gone now. The water acquired only a slight tint.
“Without the intervention of the Fates, you would not be here,” Enoki said.
“I got here because I submitted a job application to the exchange program. And then the stupid ship left without me.”
He shrugged.
I dropped the rag into the bowl. “Besides, as I understand your customs, a mating isn’t official until the man asks the woman, and she accepts. Isn’t that right?” Why had I said that? I was pretty much daring him to ask me. “You’re done. You can get dressed.” I grabbed the rinse water and almost ran to the door, putting distance between us.
Returning inside, I braced for the question. Let him down easy.
I had to let him down. I couldn’t say yes. Could I?
Still in the chair, Enoki made no move to get dressed, just sat there displaying his muscles. “Do you wish to rejoin the welcome feast?” he asked.
My jaw dropped. You’re not going to ask me? I handed him a lead-in on a silver platter, and he wasn’t going to take it? Of course, I didn’t want him to ask me, but why wasn’t he? He made a grand announcement at a public event, and now…nothing? WTF!
“Is that what you want to do?” I countered.
“I’m asking you. I’ve been to and will attend many feasts. This will be your one and only.”
“People will gawk and point at me as the Earth woman who almost cost the chief his position. No, thank you. I’ll skip it.” I’d been enough of a spectacle for one day.
“They won’t point.” A grin tugged at his swollen lip. Battered and bruised, he was still hot. “They might stare, though.”
Then again, what was the alternative—sitting in his cabin, staring at each other?
He stood and stretched, pecs flexing, biceps bulging. He looked like a fighter after a bout, and it was damned sexy. I didn’t need attraction right now. I needed clarity, a clear head, dispassionate disinterest.
My skin prickled as if each individual hair sensed his slightest movement and vibrated in response. My mouth had dried, and my pulse raced like I’d run a lap around the camp. After a long dormancy, my libido kicked in like a furnace firing up. His near nakedness didn’t help to cool the heat.
“Let’s go to the feast,” I said. “You should put on a shirt. And your kel.” At the very least.
“I’d rather stay here.” He reversed himself again. Now, when I wanted to go, he didn’t. Why couldn’t he make up his mind?
“And do what?” I said. Spend the night ignoring the big kel in the room that he thought I was his mate, but I didn’t want to be? Or that maybe I did? That after believing “the Fates” had fixed us up on a cosmic blind date, he couldn’t bother to close the deal by asking me? I was a breath away from jumping his bones right now. With so many kel, the cabin was getting crowded.
He planted himself in front of me. He didn’t merely invade my personal space, he laid claim to it. “I hoped we could engage in Terran mouth-meshing.”
I blinked. “You mean k-kiss?” I croaked. I cleared my throat. “Kiss?”
“Yes. We should do that.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Heat rolled through me. I focused on his sexy lips, the lower one puffy on the left side, after being punched. Adorably lopsided. Maybe I could kiss it and make it better. “Kissing could hurt. You were hit in the mouth.”
“Be gentle with me, then.” He flashed his teeth. The sneaky Dakonian flirted with me! I didn’t know they knew how. Didn’t think I’d be receptive if they did.
I tried to tuck my nonexistent long hair behind my ears. I fluttered my hands then let them drop.
He reached out and wound a lock of my hair into a short curl around his finger. He cupped my cheek. Insides melted to liquid. He had working man’s hands, raspy and callused, but his touch gentled as he stroked.
“Uh…” Kissing was a terrible idea. But, weren’t the bad ones better for being bad?
He lowered his head in slow motion, or maybe I’d lost the ability to judge time—or make sound decisions. I should have been dousing my libido with a good roll in the snow. Instead, my head reeled with images of a roll in the kels.
Warm breath, scented like a nutmeg alien spice, caressed my face. Pride and temptation forestalled a retreat, while a remnant of self-preservation prevented me from leaning forward and meeting those velvety lips.
You’re killing me. Nerves jittered, senses went haywire. My skin tingled, my ears rang, vision blurred, my nose filled with his exotic musk. Taste. Oh, I wanted a taste so bad.
My eyelids fluttered shut. Soft lips brushed my mouth then retreated. I opened my eyes. His face hovered so close. Spicy, warm breath undermined my willpower. My body trembled; desire dueled with common sense in a muta to determine my future. Just from a peck, hardly more than a social air kiss. I clenched my hands at my sides.
He touched my lips again, lingering for a second longer before pulling away. A hitch of need escaped my throat, and then he pressed his lips to mine and drew me against his hard body. Enoki knew how to throw a punch. Willpower crashed like Hulk the Ugly hitting compacted snow.
I’d been beaten. Not fairly, but squarely. I wound my arms around his neck and abandoned myself to the kiss. Parting my lips, I traced the seam of his mouth with my tongue. He growled and opened his mouth, and then we danced in perfect sync. Raging heat coursed through me, but a thread of conscious thought made me mindful of his injuries, and I managed to rein in a full-on assault.
Enoki cupped my head while caressing my backside. I did what I’d been dying to and kneaded his muscled chest. With the other hand, I combed my fingers through his glossy black hair and rubbed a pebbled, leathery horn.
His rumble shot a trail of fire to my core. My eyes flew open to meet his molten gaze. I swirled my thumb around the horn, and it swelled and pulsed. I recalled the times he’d gazed at me with horns a-twitching. In a blaze of desire, epiphany struck. “Your horns…they’re sexually responsive, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” He drew his finger along my temple in a light, devastating caress. “They react to emotion.” He dove in for another kiss, pulling me tighter against him, so that his hard length pressed to my abdomen.
“Share my kels with me,” he murmured against my
mouth.
My stomach clenched. My knees wobbled. “Are you trying to seduce me into staying?” My joke sounded breathy with longing. His request was underhanded, tantalizing, devastating.
“Would it work?”
Oh galaxy, oh gods, oh fates, it might. His magnetism weakened my self-defense shields. As much as I lov—liked—Enoki, I couldn’t live on Dakon. Be strong. “I’m going to board the ship the day after tomorrow and leave.”
“Then shouldn’t we make the most of the time we have left?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Or myself. Leaving wouldn’t be an easy goodbye, but one of those rip-your-own-heart-out partings. However, not sleeping with him wouldn’t make going easier—it would leave me with regrets for what I might have experienced.
“Let me worry about me.”
I called bullshit, but silently and quickly, so I could pretend we could get out of this with hearts intact, that we could engage in physical intimacy and it wouldn’t cement our emotional bond. Eyes wide shut. I never claimed to be smart—I’d cut my hair, bound my breasts, and stuffed a sock in my pants.
I could stay…
“All right. You worry about you, and I’ll worry about me,” I replied.
Liar. Liar.
His lopsided, lustful grin nearly convinced me he was a better actor than I was, until a glint of resignation and sadness in his eyes shattered the illusion.
I can’t do it. It’s not fair. Sex would lead to anguish for both of us. I planted my hands on his chest. “Enoki—”
He dove in and kissed me. Pleasure and need obliterated future what-ifs. All I could focus on was how good it felt to be in his arms. We scooted and kissed the short distance to the kel bed. Boots flew, and then Enoki shoved his leggings down and kicked them aside to reveal his unabashed arousal.
I pulled my tunic over my head and removed my own leggings. His eyes widened at the sight of my bikini panties then glinted with appreciation as those came off and landed on the clothing pile on the floor.
We embraced, skin to skin, and with sensual pleasure I wiggled against his smooth, hard chest. He roamed his hands over my spine to my butt. He squeezed my cheeks before sliding up the indentation of my waist and around to the front to palm my breasts.
