Ice Planet Barbarians: The Complete Series: A SciFi Alien Serial Romance (8 page)

“Come,” I tell Shorshie, hanging my kill from my belt so the meat can freeze in the chill weather. That will keep it until later. I offer her a hand so she can get down off the rock.

She climbs back onto my back, and I realize again just how small and fragile she is. I can carry her as if she weighs nothing. This is not good. Even the daintiest of my tribes-mates could crush her like a twig. It rouses my protective instinct, and I fight the urge to snarl at the thought.

Shorshie will be safe, no matter the cost.

We trek through the snow for some time, and I’m pleased to see that she’s quiet, observing the world around her. She doesn’t call attention to us. She doesn’t complain or demand more things in her strange language. She doesn’t ask questions when I break a tree limb from a nearby sapling and backtrack, sweeping it over our prints to hide our trail. She’s a silent observer.

But I still worry she does not even know the basics of how to fend for herself. Her request for more fire lingers in the back of my mind and worries me. I find an unfrozen stream, heated by the ground itself. It smells of rotten things, but the taste will be pleasant enough and the heat will be nice on weary muscles. It’s also a test to see how much my Shorshie knows. There are things that even the smallest of kits know about the wilds that I worry she does not.

Sure enough, she trots trustingly toward the stream, getting far too close. So much for my test. I grab her by the arm before she can step near the bank, and she hisses in pain.

I’m instantly abashed at my own strength. “Shorshie?” If I’ve hurt my mate, I will be sick with self-loathing. My khui seems to recoil in agreement.

“Sokay,”
she says, breathing heavy. She winces and flexes her wrist.
“Hrtfrmcrash.”

I take her small hand in mine, and she trustingly lets me examine her. She is mottled with bruises on her arm, the flesh swollen. She is hurt, and I never even realized. I am furious with myself for missing something so obvious. “I am sorry, my Shorshie. I will not be so careless again.”

I lead her away from the stream and look around for something to bind her wrist. I pat my clothing, looking for loose fabric, but she laughs and shakes her head. She jabbers something else at me and points at the water, indicating she’d rather drink than fuss with her wrist.

All right, then. I can show her how to drink. I glance around and find a broken stick at the base of a tree. I pick it up and indicate she should observe me. Then, I get as close as I dare and toss it into the water.

For a long moment, there is nothing. Then, the water boils with activity. I watch Shorshie gasp as the mud dwelling fang-fish attack. Her surprise is chilling to me. The land is not hospitable many months out of the year, but even the smallest kits know that the foul-smelling warm streams are crowded with dangerous creatures. A fang-fish can strip the flesh from a full-grown dvisti in a matter of moments. Shorshie would have been dead before I’d blinked.

The thought makes me pull her closer to me. She trembles and pushes closer, terrified.

“Watch,” I tell her.

“Watch,” she agrees, looking up at me with huge, white-rimmed eyes that do not sing with khui-color. It reminds me of her vulnerability. Her fragility. This must be corrected, and soon.

I pull out my traveling pouch. No hunter leaves the tribal caves without one, and in it I have several of the red snow-berries that are so plentiful. I grip two of them, smash them between my fingers, mix the juice with a handful of packed snow at my feet, and then lob the entire thing into the current of the stream. Then I look at Shorshie again. “Watch.”

She watches, her face intent. I see her surprise when the water begins to flick and the fang-fish swim upstream, fleeing the waters and the berry-taint they hate so much. “They do not like the juice,” I tell her. “They will not return here until the moons go down once more. Now we can drink.”

She looks at me curiously, and so I show her by moving toward the water. I dip my waterskin in and fill it, then indicate that she can drink the water directly from the stream.

“Sokay?”
she asks cautiously.
“Noh mnsters?”

I nod to whatever nonsense she’s saying and drink again, then wash my face in a cupped handful of water.

That gets her attention.
“Wash?
” she asks, plucking at my vest. I see she’s now clutching my bone knife in her hand, no doubt frightened of the fang-fish. But her gaze is on my face, and she mimes my gesture from a moment ago.
“Wash?”

“Yes, you can clean yourself,” I say, taking the knife away from her before she can hurt herself. I hand her a few more of the berries, instead. In addition to being a taste the stream-dwelling fish dislike, they make a fine soap. I indicate that she can lather with them, and she looks excited.

“Vektal
wash
?” she asks, then speaks another nonsense stream of syllables before repeating the words and miming bathing. “Vektal
wash
?”

“Are you afraid to get into the stream alone, my resonance?” I tease. “Shall I stand upstream so the fang-fish devour my carcass before yours?”

She gives her head a tiny shake indicating she doesn’t understand, but there’s an excited smile on her face.
“Wash?”
she asks again.

I nod and begin to remove my leathers. I’ll wash my mate gladly. I watch her graceful form as she undresses, stripping out of her own strange leathers. For the first time I realize they’re covered in stains, and they reek of offal. I’ve been so enamored of Shorshie that I haven’t paid the slightest bit of attention to the fact that she’s dirty. No wonder she’s so excited at the thought of washing.

My resonance mate is chattering up a storm, shivering and rubbing her arms as she gets naked. Like her hand, her tiny feet have too many toes and are oddly shaped, but I don’t point this out. I love every ounce of her strange body, even if she is furless and tailless. My khui starts to resonate with pleasure at the sight of her, and I finish stripping off my leathers and then wade into the water.

“Hoboy,”
she breathes, still standing on the bank. She’s staring at my groin. Pleased at her attention, I stretch and rub a hand over my stomach. My cock grows hard at her stare, and my body surges with resonance. Is this Shorshie’s way of encouraging mating?

“Come to me, then, my mate.” I gesture her forward. “I will fill all your needs.”

GEORGIE

“Hung like a horse” really never had much of a meaning until now.

I try not to stare, and fail.

I can handle fangs. The tail. The suede-like bluish-gray skin. Heck. I’m cool with the horns that curl around his head like a badass crown of some kind.

And I tell myself that I should realize that a dude who’s seven feet tall will have an enormous cock. It’s size appropriate. I’m
almost
prepared for that, though the sight of it growing erect still makes my thighs clamp together in trepidation.

I’m not prepared for ridges.

He’s got freaking ridges on his cock.

Just like the upraised texture along his chest, his brows, and his arms, he’s got the bumpy, knotty ridges along the top of his cock. His very big, very thick cock. In addition to those ridges, he has an additional one that almost looks like another horn, except it’s blunted at the tip instead of sharp. Small miracle, that. So, okay. He’s got a textured, huge cock with a bony, protruding knob an inch or so above it.

I feel like there’s an alien bingo card somewhere that just got checked off. Horns? Check. Tail? Check. Crazy-ass cock? Check check check.

And since I’m staring, he’s giving me heated looks with those glowing blue eyes of his. It’s like he’s daring me to touch him.

And . . . okay. I’m a little curious about what all that equipment would feel like on a girl, but I’m more interested in bathing than playing hide the sausage. I eye the water he’s now thigh-deep in, and he crosses his big arms over his chest.

Right. My turn. I’m still scared of the fish from earlier, but if he’s in the water, I assume it’s safe. I move closer to where he’s at, though, just in case. And I am shivering with cold, so I need to either get in the damn water with him or re-dress.

I look at my filthy clothing and decide to get in the water. I can still smell blood and the mess from the hold on me, and I desperately want to get clean. So I take a leap of faith and get into the water.

It smells like rotten eggs, which I’ve heard is what underground hot springs smell like. I don’t care. The water’s warm like a bath, and considering that it’s snowy and bitterly cold, I love it. I moan as it hits my limbs and then I sink deeper, trying to submerge my entire body into the scalding water.

It feels amazing. Right now I could kiss Vektal for bringing me here, scary fish and all. I splash water over my limbs, rubbing at them to get rid of the nasty smells of the last ten days of captivity.

Vektal moves next to me in the water. He says something, then hands me more berries. He motions that I should squeeze them and then rub the juice on me. And maybe I don’t move fast enough for him, because he takes the berries from my hand and squeezes the juice onto my shoulders. Then his big hands start rubbing it into my skin.

I stiffen at first, but his touch is very matter-of-fact. It’s like he realizes I just want to get clean and won’t monkey around, despite the enormous erection he’s sporting that says otherwise. And it’s kind of . . . sweet, I guess. He’s not touching me to be a creep. He’s touching me because he wants to show me how to use the soap. I begin rubbing the strange, fruity-smelling lather over my arms and legs, and when he scoops a handful off my shoulder and begins to wash my hair for me, I moan with pleasure.

Being clean has never felt so amazing.

I hear him inhale sharply. Hear the vibrating purr start in his chest again. He murmurs something, voice thick, but all he does is wash my hair. No demanding touches. No insisting of anything. Just pleasure in touching me. In pleasing me.

Actually, other than the fact that he startled the hell out of me with the oral sex thing, he’s been kinda sweet. Everything he’s done has been designed to please me and give me pleasure. I digest that small bit of information. Maybe it’s the Stockholm syndrome talking. Maybe it’s the fact that with Vektal, I’ve felt safe. Safer than I have in the last two weeks. But I don’t mind his touch. In fact, I kind of like it, probably a lot more than I should.

I can’t look at him while I’m—we’re—bathing. My cheeks feel hot, because every so often, he leans in closer and prods me with that enormous cock of his, and it makes me think of dirty things. Of his mouth on me. The suede-like feel of his skin against mine. His warmth. His intriguing scent.

“Shorshie,” he murmurs, his hands caressing my scalp.

“Gee-or-gee,” I correct him. There must not be any
g
sounds in his language, because he slurs them.

“Shorgee,” he tries.

“Gee,” I prompt.

“Shhhzhee—” he begins, then stops and tries again. “Corgee.”

I giggle. Corgi? Not quite. I turn around and point at my mouth to show him how to move his tongue. “Georgie.”

His fingers brush over my lips in a tender caress. “Zheorzhe.” Then, he tries again. “Geeeeorgie.” His
g
is practically purred.

“Very good,” I say, my voice soft. I’ve just now realized that I’m practically pressed up against him and I’m naked.

“Georgie,” he repeats, purring my name again. Then he takes my hand and places it over his chest, where he rumbles like a cat. “Georgie
sa-akh
Vektal.”

The way he says it, with my hand clasped against his heart, makes me think it has a bigger meaning than I’d like to imagine. His gaze is intense, as if he’s waiting for me to respond.

He’s an alien. I remind myself of that, even as it occurs to me that I can convince him to help me—help us—escape the other aliens. The captors that want to sell us.

This has to be a multi-layered plan, I figure. Vektal’s planet is cold as hell and, judging from his gear, probably isn’t past the Stone Age. But I refuse to give up hope of a way back home. I just know it’s not going to happen with the little green men or the ball-headed aliens. They think we’re cattle.

Vektal’s my best bet.

Maybe I’m using him a little when I rub my fingers on his chest. They’re cold in the frigid, snowy air, and my nipples are hard. I rub up against him deliberately, letting him feel my body. I lick my lips and then look up into those alien, glowing blue eyes.

And I point at the mountainside in the distance, where I know that so many women (half in pods) are waiting for rescue while I play bubble bath with a native. “Take me up the side of the mountain?”

He caresses my face, a question in his gaze. “Moun. . .tain?”

“Yes,” I say and trace my fingers over his skin. “Up there.”

His brows draw together, and he gives a shake of his head indicating that no, he’s not taking me there.

All right then, time to pull out the big guns. “Vektal,” I murmur. “Do you know how to kiss?”

The alien’s blank expression tells me he has no clue what I’m saying. Of course he doesn’t. So I put a hand to the back of his neck and pull him closer to me. He’s warm, and I rather like the feel of him blocking out the chilly wind. “Kiss?” I say again, and then I lean in and brush my lips against his.

The look on his face is stunned. It’s like it never occurred to him that people would put their mouths on each other. I stifle the giggle threatening to erupt and drag a finger down the front of his chest. “I can show you more things . . . if you take me up the mountain.”

I know I’m playing with fire. Offering him sexual favors in exchange for rescue probably isn’t the greatest plan, but I’m working with the weapons I have. As long as he’s fascinated by me, I can use that. It’s mercenary, but people’s lives are at stake. If I have to kiss an alien and flirt with him to get a rescue to my friends, I will.

It’s not exactly a hardship, I have to admit. I’m still thinking about his mouth on my skin from last night. The way he licked me until I came. And the way he is staring at me right now makes me think that sex with him wouldn’t be something terrible to be endured. It’d be slow and full of discovery and oh-so wicked. And I’m not hating the idea. Not by a long shot. Maybe I’m not in the right frame of mind to be entertaining sexy thoughts, but I can’t help it.