Barbarian's Taming: A SciFi Alien Romance (Ice Planet Barbarians Book 9) (19 page)

Her words make no sense. “Your weight is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Isn’t it?”

I look down at her face. Is she mad? “You are sturdy. You are strong. You are healthy. Why should I care?”

“Um, because it takes more to feed me? Because I require more leather than Josie for a new tunic?”

She
is
mad. “Jo-see eats more than two humans. Does that mean we should get rid of her?”

“Well, no—”

“And Farli will soon be taller than all of the human females. Should we get rid of her?”

“Now you’re just splitting hairs—”

“I love your sturdy human body,” I tell her, leaning down to kiss her pink mouth. “I love your soft thighs that wobble when I sink into you. I love your big teats that bounce when my cock is inside you. These things change nothing. If you were Jo-see’s size, I would care for you in the same way I do now.”

“That’s good, because I’m pretty sure I’ll never be Josie’s size.” She is smiling as she looks up at me. “I’m pretty sure one of my boobs is bigger than her head.”

“It just means you will be able to feed our kit much milk.”

“I’m pretty sure boob size doesn’t have anything to do with milk production, but okay.” Her arms go around my neck, and she looks up at me with big, worried eyes. “I’m still not sure how I feel about being a parent. Half the time I’m not even sure I can take care of myself.”

“I will be with you,” I tell her. “We will do it together.”

“We’d freaking better!”

I roll her onto her back again, parting her thighs. Her khui begins to sing louder. The question in her gaze is silenced as I rub the head of my cock along her drenched cunt and then push into her.

“Again?” she asks weakly, and I can feel her body quiver deep.

“Again,” I agree. “Over and over again, for the rest of our days.”

Then she says something about
Jay-sus
and a wheel before her legs go around my hips once more.

I
’m
kind of an impulsive girl at heart, but after four rounds in the snow, I pat my new ‘mate’ on the back and tell him we need to get moving. My leathers are wet from the snow, I’m cold, and I’m getting hungry. I’m still horny—thanks, cootie—but I’d also like a fire before nightfall.

Hassen helps me fix my clothing and takes an extra fur out of his pack, bundling it tight around me. He steals a few kisses as he does, and I can’t get mad. I’m a little worried about the future, sure, but mad? No. It’s strange, but everything feels…right. Like this was meant to happen. Maybe the reason I’ve been drawn to Hassen all along is because we’ve always been meant to be together.

Great, now I sound like one of the aliens.

I press a hand over the purring in my breast. It’s so strange. I thought it might feel weird, but it’s kind of comforting, actually. And the sex? Okay, the sex is off the charts. Maybe the timing on the whole resonance thing could have been better, but I don’t think I’d ever be one of those who sit down and say “Yes, I’m ready to be a mom.”

Then again, resonating to each other when we’re in danger and homeless? Still could be improved.

“You are quiet,” Hassen says, bending down to fix my boots. “Do you have regrets?”

He keeps asking me things like that, and it makes my heart ache every time. Does he think he’s such a terrible person to be mated to? That I’m going to wish I wasn’t mated to him? “Not a one. I’d choose you over anyone else in the tribe any day.”

Hassen rises to his feet, a hint of worry on his face. “And your sister?”

“She’ll deal. I don’t think she hates you, big guy. I just think she didn’t want to be your girlfriend.” I smile up at him. “Which is good, because this would be kind of gross otherwise.”

“The thought of mating with your sister makes me ill.”

“Good.”

“To think I came so close to making a mistake…” He pulls me against him in a swift hug. “I am glad it is you, Mah-dee.”

“I’m glad it’s me, too.” I squeeze him back and then peer down the winding path in the crevasse. “You think we’ll find a way out down this way? Or are we going to have to go back?”

“There is one way to check.” He pauses and looks at me. “Do I need to carry you?”

“What? Why?”

“Because you are weak from mating? I have felt your legs trembling each time I pushed into you.”

“Oh my god. No dirty talk while I’m trying to be serious, please.” I press my knees tight together because just hearing that is turning me on. “And I can walk. I’ll let you know if that changes.”

He takes my hand in his and holds me tight. He does take my pack from my back, and I let him, because I am a little tired, if I’m admitting it to myself. Being boned within an inch of your life by a seven-foot-tall blue dude taxes the stamina, all right. But I’m not complaining.

The gorge we’re in widens the farther in we go. The area we dropped in was maybe twenty feet across. Here, it could be a hundred. “And all of this has never been here before?” I ask him.

Hassen shakes his head. “The earth-shake has opened the land.”

“Or maybe this was under the ice all this time and the ice was just too thick?” There’s very little snow dusting the path down here, and it feels weird to imagine all of this just magically appearing.

“Perhaps.” He steps ahead of me, just a little, and grips his spear in his other hand. “We will be cautious in case there is more ice.”

Oh, I don’t like to think about that. If we fall through a second layer of ice even deeper, I don’t know how we’re ever going to get out. I gaze up at the steep canyon walls. I’m not exactly sure how we’re going to get out of here as it is if the metlaks are still back there, but one thing at a time. Hassen won’t let anything happen to me…or our baby.

I touch my stomach. A baby. Holy crapping balls. I’m terrified and excited at the same time. Even more immediate and wonderful, though, is that I have Hassen. We’re mated—both at a physical and spiritual level. Our bodies know we’re meant to be together. I’m not alone anymore, and neither is he. I’m in awe.

I might also be a little high on endorphins, but whatever.

“So do you want a boy or a girl?” I ask him as we walk. I have to admit I’m not paying attention to our surroundings—snow and rock, rock and snow—as much as I am watching his profile like some sort of dreamy teen girl. He’s really the handsomest guy on the planet. My cootie is smart.

“I would be happy with either. All I want is for our kit to be healthy…and to look like you,” he adds after a moment. “But if I choose, I would choose a girl.”

“Oh? Don’t most guys want a son that takes after them?”

His thumb strokes my knuckles as we walk, distracting me. I can hear the purring in his chest almost as loud as mine, and I’m wondering if this means we’re about to have round number five in the snow. I doubt we’ve even walked a mile yet…but I’m kinda okay with that. “I would like a girl,” he tells me, pulling me from my dirty thoughts. “Because our tribe has had so few for so long. I would like others to experience the joy I am feeling at this moment.” He glances over at me. “And I would like for her to have your yellow mane.”

“I’m both flattered and a little appalled that you want our baby to look like me and yet you’re ready to give her away to some guy before she’s even a cell in my womb.”

“Not just anyone,” he tells me, footsteps crunching in the snow as we walk. “He would have to prove himself worthy of her. And if he is half as lazy as Taushen, I will knock him upside the head with my spear.”

I giggle. That’s more like it. “Is Taushen lazy, then?”

He scowls. “He is young and would rather spend time talking to Farli than check his nets.”

So basically he’s like every other teenage boy. I smile to myself. “Let’s get back to our baby. What kind of names do you like?”

“Whatever you want to call her. Since the human females have arrived, my people have been combining names.” He pauses in his steps, a frown on his face.

I pause, too, content to be at his side while we take a small break. I’m thinking about names, mentally twining them. “Like Madsen? Or Hassie? I gotta admit that I’m not a big fan of Hassie, and my real name is Madeline, not Maddie, so I guess that changes things—”

“A ship.”

It takes me a moment to realize he’s not suggesting we name our daughter Ass-hip but is saying
a ship
. “What do you mean, a ship?”

He points ahead, an incredulous look on his face. “There is a ship down here.”

The hairs on my neck prickle. I still don’t know what he’s talking about, so I look to where he’s pointing. I see nothing but rocks up ahead, and there’s no sign of alien spacecraft. All I see is more stone, a fine layer of ice covering the portion of the cliff that he is pointing at.

Then, I see it.

Not a ship, of course. I think his barbarian mind hears the word ‘ship’ and assumes ‘cave’ or ‘place where people live’ because it’s not a ship. It’s stone, but it’s neatly stacked, square stone that curves along the cliff wall and more trailing along the curve in the path ahead. It reminds me of one of those
Indiana Jones
movies where the hero looks up and sees the entrance to a forgotten city in the jungle.

Except this isn’t a jungle. It’s an alien planet. And I didn’t think anyone lived here but us.

I
t’s so
weird to round the corner in what is an uninhabited crevasse on a deserted, icy planet populated with nothing but other crash-landed aliens…and realize that there was someone else here before you.

Long, long before you.

I reach out and touch one of the even, neatly stacked stones that make up the crumbled wall. At my feet are more even stones, covered by a thin layer of ice and debris. Cobblestones. These stones stretch ahead, and as I let my gaze move, I see more stones, more cobbled road…and then ahead, I see buildings.

Tucked against the walls of the crevasse are a bunch of squat, stone buildings. They’re square and even, lining a street, and if I ever had any doubt that this stuff was man-(or alien-)made, those have been firmly put aside. Someone lived here. Someone lived here a long time ago…or is living here now.

“This isn’t a ship,” I tell Hassen. “It’s a city.”

He frowns, trying to digest this word. “It is a place that people live? Like a tribal cave, but in the open?”

“Right.”

A tribal cave in the open is right on the money. It’s not a city like I know of, with skyscrapers and suburbs. This is a Paleolithic city of some kind, tucked along the walls of the rocky canyon. The cobbled road underneath my feet stretches out and leads to neat rows of small, squatty-looking brick buildings with no roofs. They’re square and set in neat rows along the streets, almost as if someone took a grid and placed them all exactly where they needed to be. The size of each one is uniform, about as big as a bedroom back at home, and farther down the street, the buildings get bigger, one the size of a house. Still no roof, though.

It’s all very strange. It’s like all the roofs disappeared and so…everyone left? But that makes no sense.

“I don’t know that anyone is here.” I don’t see anyone moving around, and the feeling I get is one of…stillness. Quiet. Emptiness. In a place this big, surely it would have some noise. I stop in my tracks and start counting buildings.

I stop when I get to forty, because, okay, that’s a lot of buildings. There’s more than that, but it tells me plenty—this was a settlement of some kind. Is a settlement. “Could it be…metlaks?”

At my side, Hassen makes a sound of disgust. “They do not create things. They do not live in ships.”

“Cities.”

“Cities,” he amends.

“And your people didn’t build this?”

“If they did, would they not live here?”

Yeah, I guess they would. It doesn’t seem natural to leave behind a perfectly good city. “So where did they go? Unless they’re here and we can’t see them.” I think of the metlaks that were stalking us earlier, and draw a little closer to Hassen, spooked.

“There are no tracks,” he tells me, gesturing at the path before us, then turning and waving a hand at the trail we’ve left behind us. “If there were people, we would see traces of them.”

“I know. Logic says there’s no one here, but…”

He nods. “I feel the same way.” He releases my hand and cups his mouth. “Ho! Is anyone there?”

His shout echoes off the canyon walls. It’s eerie, but effective. After a moment, I’m pretty convinced we’re alone here, too. I get brave enough to take a few steps forward, looking up. Sunlight spills in from above, but the walls are sheer and I don’t see any paths or handholds. No one’s coming down from this direction.

So while this is wild and strange…it also feels a little safer than I expect. “Do you think we should stay here tonight?”

“Here…where?” Hassen looks at me curiously. “In one of the hollows?”

“I think those were houses, though I don’t know where the roofs went.” I shrug. “We could put a skin over a corner and make ourselves a little nest for the night. Explore the place and see what we can find. Maybe there’s a hint as to where these people went.”

“Are they all dead?” he asks.

“Good question.” Eek, I hope not. “One way to find out, though. Shall we go exploring?”

Hassen looks troubled. “I…do not know. This feels like walking into a hunter cave left by a…a stranger. I do not know how I feel.”

I guess strangers are a big concept to a guy that grew up knowing all the people on the planet. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell him, holding my hand out. “We’ll check it out together. I’d rather see what’s down here than go back up and face the metlaks.”

He nods slowly, then takes my hand, his spear gripped tight in his other. “Let us see what we can find, then.”

* * *

W
hatever happened
to the people of this little Stone-Age city, it wasn’t plague or famine or anything like that. We peek in on each house, and they’re all empty. Every single one is completely body- and bone-free, which makes me feel better. I think I’d probably have turned around and faced the metlaks if we’d found a stack of bodies. It’s all very quiet and peaceful, just…empty.

I think it’s old, too, and I tell Hassen that. A few of the small ‘houses’ have rotted bits of what must have been furniture. There’s nothing left but a few frames and piles of dust that suggest stuff was here that didn’t survive the elements. Everything is coated with a thin layer of ice, too. Even the floors. Each of the small houses is made the same, a perfect little square with an ice-covered dugout section that must be a fire pit, and something that looks suspiciously like a kitchen area. There’s a debris-covered cubby connected to each house that has grime and detritus caked into the ice, and I can’t figure out what they’re supposed to be used for…until I find one that has a hole in the floor, and then I get excited.

“These aren’t Stone-Age people,” I tell Hassen. “That’s a motherfucking toilet.” I get down on my hands and knees, leaning over the ice-covered hole. “Give me your spear!”

“What are you doing, Mah-dee?”

“Looking for pipes,” I tell him. He hands me his spear, and I jab the butt of it against the ice, cracking the thick layer after a few stabs and uncovering the hole. I peer into it and then drop a chunk of ice down the hole. I can’t see anything down there, but despite the shadows, it looks like there are pipes of some kind.

Crude pipes are still
pipes
.

“These people had toilets,” I tell him, excited. I get to my feet. The stone walls suddenly look a lot less crude to me. Romans had running water and pipes, didn’t they? Maybe this is the ice planet equivalent of an ancient Roman civilization.

I’m going to ignore the whole Pompeii-Vesuvius equivalent my brain immediately draws. There’s no lava here. The volcano was a jillion miles away. “This place is fantastic, Hassen!”

“Why is it fantastic?” He gazes at me, hard brows draw down.

“Because
toilets
. That means running water somewhere around here. Let’s go find it!”

He’s mystified by my excitement, but takes his spear back and follows me as I dash around the icy remains of the city.

I’m not wrong—in the big house, there’s a bright blue hot spring bubbling, the edges lined with squared pavers. It looks deep and smells stinkier and more sulfurous than the one back at the old cave, but it’s fresh water. I glance around. “Maybe this was a bathhouse. Or a communal gathering spot.” I see lots of benches and another hollow that’s probably a fire pit. “This place is so great!”

“Mmm.”

I turn to look at Hassen. “You don’t like it?”

“I do not like that there are people here, Mah-dee.” He still holds his spear, alert. “How can people have lived here without the tribe knowing?”

“Maybe they’re other sa-khui?” I rub my lip as I think. “Actually, that can’t be right. You guys crashed here about three hundred years ago, and these ruins look way, way older. That means this planet was inhabited before you guys got here.”

His mouth sets in a grim line. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly, rubbing my arms. “It could mean any number of things. It could mean that the people that lived here are long gone and we’re the only ones left on the planet. It could mean that there are people living somewhere else, but far away. Maybe they didn’t like how cold it was here and left.”

“For Jo-see’s island?” He snorts. “If so, they are gone now.”

I wince at the thought of another tribe of people vaporized by a poor living location. “You might not be wrong. But we don’t know. What I do think is that we should stay here tonight, and then we need to tell Vektal about it. This could be a place to live during the brutal season.”

He looks around, clearly not seeing what I see. “Here?”

“Yes, here.” I gesture at the pool of water. “We’ve got water. We’ve got plumbing, however frozen. We’ve got houses. Those are like caves. People live in them.”

“There are no tops!”

“We can make tops,” I tell him. “Roofs, I mean. We can make roofs for each of the houses. And look at this place!” I point to the high canyon walls. “We’re snug here. I bet it doesn’t get much snow. No metlaks are going to wander down here.”

“No sa-khui either. We fell down a hole,” he says in a flat voice.

“Then we can make ladders. My point is, it’s not the worst idea.”

“And if the people that left come back?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re not coming back, big guy.” I look around at the empty, forlorn house, trying to imagine it full of people and furniture, with a bright fire burning in the big hearth. “I’m pretty sure they all left hundreds—or thousands—of years ago.”