Barbarian's Mate (13 page)

Her thighs part eagerly, and I bury my face between her legs, pleased.

I
wake
up the next morning with Haeden’s head between my legs as he licks me into another rippling, shivering orgasm. God, the man does have a strong, amazing tongue. And apparently he loves giving as well as receiving.

Clearly I’ve been giving this resonance thing too hard a knock.

“Good morning, my mate,” he murmurs between licks, then goes straight for my clit.

I moan something that might be a response, and my hands go to his horns. I hold them like handlebars as he goes to town on my pussy, feasting like he’s starving and licking as if I’m the center of a Tootsie Pop or something. What girl could hold out against such enthusiasm? No one – and I come within a matter of minutes.

Once my body is reduced to nothing but a quivering mess, he licks me one last, lingering time, and then nuzzles the inside of my thigh. “We must start our journey soon.”

“Right. Journey.” I pant. “Got it.” I’m pretty boneless at the moment, my cootie purring pleasantly. It seems to be eating up all the endorphins I’ve been sending its way, because the need has been less urgent in the last few days – or maybe it realizes I’m inches away from giving in to this whole resonance thing.

Heck, after a morning greeting like that, I’m having a real hard time remembering why I’ve ever fought against this. Haeden’s caring and sweet and devoted. Sometimes cranky, yes. Sometimes surly and overbearing, but when it comes to me? I’m his world and he lets me know it.

Which…I’m not hating. I’m not sure if I’m ready to bend yet. I’m not ready to say no, but I feel like I need a little bit more of a push in the ‘yes’ direction, and I want to see where things take us. I’m having fun with him right now and while the resonance feels inevitable, I also just want to enjoy the moment.

He gives my thighs one last nuzzle and teasing lick, then gets up and moves toward the dead coals of our fire. “Do you require fresh tea this morning, my mate, or shall we drink cold water and move out earlier?”

Mate? Eeep. I want to tell him to ix-nay the ate-may thing because I’m terrified of jinxing it. But he seems…so happy this morning. So pleased with himself. And as he glances over at me, he gives me another fierce, possessive look of pride.

Yeah, I can’t deflate that right now. I slide my tunic lower over my splayed, naked legs and stretch a little. “Cold water’s fine. I want to get to Harlow’s cave. The sooner the better, I think.”

Because there, I think we’ll seal the deal.

W
e’re maybe
an hour out from the cave when Haeden stops abruptly, and I run into his back and then nearly fall over in my snowshoes. “What the fuck—“

“Hsst,” he says, waving a hand in the air to indicate silence.

I cling to his back and try to peer around his shoulder.

To my surprise, he grabs my arm and half-steers, half-drags me away to the nearest cliff. “Haeden,” I protest, trying to walk as fast as I can in the snowshoes. “What’s going on?”

“Quiet!” The asshole is back in play. He pushes me against the rock wall of the cliff and pulls my small bone knife from its sheath and shoves it into my hand. His eyes are narrow, his face tight with wariness. “Wait here and do not move.”

“What is it?”

“With luck, it is nothing.” He gives me one of those devouring looks and then turns away, holding his spear at the ready.

I clutch my knife in my fur-mittened hand, blinking. He’s crouching low in the snow, his movements slinking. It’s almost like he’s hunting something, but I don’t see any game. He didn’t hunt yesterday when we were traveling, and said it was because he wants me to be safe, and even a wounded dvisti can be dangerous. So why is he hunting now? I gaze up ahead of him and see something dark splashed in the snow. A short distance away, there’s a lump that seems to be out of sync with the rest of the environment, like a pimple on one of the snowy hills.

Haeden crouches low near the darker splashes and touches one, then lifts his fingers and sniffs them. I realize what I’m looking at. “Is that blood?” I call out.

He turns and gives me a furious shake of his head, indicating I should be silent.

Oh crap. I’m annoyed at his mood but I’m also not stupid. If he’s freaking out, this is bad. I clutch my little knife tighter and wait for him to come back.

His tail thrashes against the snow as he studies the whatever-the-hell-it-is and then gets to his feet. Instead of heading back toward me, he moves toward the lump up ahead. I realize when he picks up something long and stiff and turns the thing over that it’s a body. It’s gray and furry and…I think it’s a metlak.

Oh, shit. What killed it? Who else is out here? I rack my brain, trying to think of any sorts of predators big enough to eat one of the tall, skinny metlaks. The snowcats are fierce but not much bigger than bobcats. The dvisti are grass eaters, and the sa-kohtsk? Well, I don’t know what they eat but they’re too slow to be predators. I rack my brain as Haeden studies the carcass, and then returns to my side, a grim expression on his face.

“What is it?” I ask, worried. The look on his face could freeze icicles. “What killed it?”

“I do not know.” His mouth is drawn into a grim line. “There are no tracks, only blood.”

I swallow hard. “Maybe…maybe it snowed?” But I’ve been here long enough to recognize fresh powder and the snow we’re walking in is slightly crusty. That means it’s been on the ground long enough to melt slightly in the sunlight and then ice back over again. More than that, the weather is clear, with barely a breeze.

He grunts acknowledgment, though we both know I’m wrong. “We must be careful. Stay on alert as we walk and keep safely behind me.” He takes my pack from my shoulders and slings it over his front. “If you get tired, let me know and I will carry you.”

“I’ll be fine.” If things are as bad as they seem, I don’t want him to be weighed down by carrying my sorry human ass.

Haeden nods and starts walking again, his strides big and ground-eating. “Stay close.”

Oh sure. The tiny human woman in snowshoes will somehow manage to ‘stay close’ to the seven-foot-tall alien who walks like it’s a spring day. Sure. No problem. But I don’t protest because it’s clear he wants to get out of this area. Whatever it is that happened to that metlak, it’s rattled him.

I take a gander at it as we pass by. The blood spray is everywhere and the thing…well, I’m surprised I can tell it was a metlak. It looks as if it’s been chewed up and spit back out again.

I shiver and pick up the pace behind Haeden.

W
e keep
a murderous pace through the day, and I do my best to keep up. It’s clear to me that the easy-but-brisk travel of yesterday is gone and in its place, we’re marching at a breakneck pace. It sucks. It sucks even more that he’s picking a twisty trail instead of an obvious one, keeping us near the trees or walking in the shadow of a rocky cliff instead of out in the open. That means the drifts are higher, the wind is colder, and all of the travel is just garbage and a half. Even though it’s taking everything I have, I manage to keep up (well, relatively) and Haeden doesn’t carry me.

By the time the twin moons are directly overhead and the snow is lit up with the night, Haeden steers me toward a rocky outcropping. “Hunter cave in there.”

Thank God. My legs feel ready to fall off and my toes went numb with cold hours ago. My cootie’s too tired to sing, even, and all it manages is a half-assed purr when he gets near.

So not scoring tonight.

The cave is clean of any occupants and by the time Haeden strikes up a fire, I’ve barely managed to peel my wet furs off my body. Exhausted, I let him help me undress but I don’t have the energy to do more than crawl into the freshly-unrolled bed furs and collapse.

When I wake up the next morning, he’s holding me against him, his cootie purring happily, and his finger strokes my cheek. I yawn and raise my head to look at the entrance of the cave. There’s sunlight pouring in, which means I’ve slept a good long while.

Doesn’t feel like it. I’m still exhausted.

“Sorry,” I mumble at him, and then set my head back down on his warm shoulder. “Guess I passed out.”

“You are tired.” He traces my jaw lightly. “It is understandable.”

He seems more relaxed today, and I’m too tired to think about sexytimes, so I broach the subject of yesterday’s ‘problem’. “What killed that metlak?”

“Stop asking, Jo-see.”

I ignore his sourness. It’s a ploy to shut me down and I’m wise to him, now. He gets cranky when he doesn’t want to answer. “That’s not an ‘I don’t know’. That’s an ‘I know but I don’t want to tell you’.”

He snorts.

“But you do know, don’t you?”

His hand slides to my arm and he brushes tickling little circles on my bare skin. I’m naked. Oh. So is he. Didn’t realize that until just now, but weirdly enough, it doesn’t feel sexual. I suspect he just wants to hold me. “There are…stories.”

Doesn’t sound like a good start to me. “I’m listening.”

“My father used to say that when it grew too cold, it was a bad thing. That the sky-claws would appear and hunt in sa-khui territory.”

“Sky…claw? I haven’t heard of that.” The words sound strange in the sa-khui tongue.

“There are many reasons why the sa-khui do not live near the great salt waters. The creatures in those waters are very large and aggressive, with many fangs.”

“So I’ve heard.” Harlow has shared some hair-raising stories of the stuff she’s seen. Makes me think of all the documentaries I watched on dinosaurs as a kid - the ocean here is experiencing some primordial soup or something. “And the sky-claw things live in the water?”

“No. They come from above. They snatch their prey from the ground and swallow them whole. And they are big enough to eat a kit the size of Farli.”

I feel sick. I’m the same size as Farli. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have one of her old tunics. “You don’t say.”

“I do not know for sure if it is the sky-claws,” he says, rubbing my arm as if to comfort me. “But if they are, we would do best to keep an eye on the skies.”

Weirdly enough, I think of the big shadow I’d seen flying overhead a few days ago, when I had my spyglass and was scoping out the island. I hadn’t been able to find out what it was. The thought that it could have been some sort of gigantic flying predator that eats people for breakfast fills me with fear. “So the sky-claws hang out on the coast? How come Rukh and Harlow never said anything?”

“They come down when it is cold.”

“It’s always cold!”

“Ah, but this bitter season is much colder than the last one.”

Well, goody. “Do you think they’re coming from the island?”

“Eye-land?”

I sit up and look at him. “There’s something out in the water. If you stare out at it far enough, you can see a smear of green. I think it’s an island. With trees.”

He snorts derision. “Trees are pink. Like you.” His hand smooths down my arm and he gives me a hungry look.

My nipples harden and I remember that I’m naked and giving him some full frontal action. I tap his chest with my hand, because he’s starting to look distracted. “Pay attention, Haeden. Trees are green on my planet. Chlorophyll or some shit. Anyhow, I took this glass thing from the elders’ space ship and it lets you see long distances. I promise I saw a bunch of green and I’m pretty sure it’s an island. Do you think the sky-claw things are coming from there?”

He shrugs. “Does it matter? This area is not safe. We need to avoid the coast and head inland, toward the tribal caves.”

“All right.”

“Which means we should leave soon.”

I groan and flop on the blankets, face down. I’m a heavy sleeper and I need my rest, and I feel like I need a heck of a lot more of it. “How soon is soon?”

He chuckles. “
Very
soon.”

And then the bastard rips the blankets off of me, leaving me bare-assed in the cold.

I
’m dragging
.

I can’t help it. I’m exhausted. Haeden’s trying to be understanding, but he wants to go faster. He’s set another bruising pace today and I’m doing my best to keep up. But every time he wants me to walk nearer the trees, I find myself edging out a bit further. I can’t march like a soldier and somehow plow through the thick drifts
and
somehow keep up with him. Something’s got to give.

As the day wears on, Haeden’s temper grows shorter. “Hurry,” he snaps at me. “Do I need to carry you?”

“I’m hurrying!” I yell back at him, doing my best to drag my happy ass through the snow. The suns are high in the bleary sky which means we won’t be stopping anytime soon. Harlow and Rukh’s cozy seaside cave is no longer an option - Haeden’s taking me deep into the mountains…which means more snow. Which means it’s even more difficult to keep up. And do I bitch? No. I shut my mouth and walk faster, or try to. I’m covered in sweat, though, and my furs are freezing against my skin. My poor cootie is thrumming, but I’m pretty sure it’s expending most of its energy trying to keep me from being a human Popsicle instead of getting me pregnant. Priorities and all. Meanwhile, Haeden just storms through the snow ahead of me, faster and faster, like it’s nothing.

I glare at his back and his twitching tail. He’s carrying my pack and his, and I should be grateful, but I’m so stinking tired. I just want to rest for a day or three. There’s no rush, I tell myself. There’s no clock to beat. The girls in the tubes are safe for another week or three or even a year. We can camp out in the next little cave for a while and relax. The idea sounds like heaven, and my frozen feet slow even more. I’m exhausted. Maybe he does need to carry me for a bit this afternoon, because I don’t know—

A shadow moves over the ground and glides over me.

I freeze. “Haeden?” My voice is a mere whisper. I clutch my stupid little knife - the one he tells me I need to keep out at all times - tight in my hand. “I think I just saw something.”

He doesn’t turn, too far ahead of me to hear my words.

“Haeden,” I call, louder. This time, he turns. “I think I saw—“

A screech.