Once Upon a Caveman (10 page)

The
woman was so damn
bright
she could defeat all who opposed her.

Lucy
would win this battle.  For good or bad, she would change the world.  Nothing
could stop that.  It seemed Rhawn had to either kill her or work with her.  …And
nothing in this world or any other could
ever
make him kill his mate.

The
best he could do was try to mitigate the Destroyer’s destruction.

He
can scent her arousal.

It’s
a heady fragrance and his body responds instantly.  Rhawn’s hand slips between
her legs, wanting to feel the moisture he knows is there.  His fingers press
open the folds of her body, learning her texture and shape.  Slipping deep,
amazed at the heat.  Rubbing at a spot that seems to be straining for his
attention.

She
gasps, her hips thrusting against his hand.

He’s
never seen another woman react as she does
and Rhawn has
seen many couplings.  Clan members often mate within view of each other.  The
men like to show their dominance over the woman and the women vie for the
strongest men.

He
would remember if any of them responded like this one does, though.  She is an
equal partner in their passion.  Her body is flushed and wet and moving over
his fingers like ripples of water.  If any other man had ever accomplished
something like this with a woman, he would still be bragging of it.  Usually
the female silently endures for a few moments as the male finishes.  Until this
woman, Rhawn thought that was the best anyone could hope for from a mating.

He’s
never been so glad to be soooo wrong.

Lucy
and Rhawn’s Dream Eleven Years Ago

Warren
loved being a god.

Half-naked
women fed him a bounty of food, while some strong smelling fermented drink flowed
freely.  He lounged back on a pile of skins, grinning like an ass, as he was
fawned over.  His hands fondled and his smug laughter boomed.  He’d taken over
the community’s largest cave, indolently basking in all the attention. 
Obviously, it beat the car lot all to hell.

Just
when Lucy thought she’d hit rock bottom on her frustration with the guy, he
somehow managed to dig the hole even deeper.

“Warren.” 
She loomed over him, ignoring the terrified looks the Clan members were
shooting her.  “We need to talk.”

“‘Bout
what?”  He asked with his mouth full.  No smelly mammoth for him.  He was
chewing on what looked like a supersized chicken leg.

Lucy
had a brief flash of curiosity about the kind of animal it had come from.  Some
kind of teratorn, probably.  The fearsome birds had wingspans of a dozen feet
and looked like a combination of a California condor and a gigantic vulture. 
They’d been prevalent during the Ice Age, which made sense since everything
around here seemed to be circa the Pleistocene epoch.

Actually,
no.  None of this made any sense, at all.

“About
what?
”  She echoed.  “What do you
think
I want to talk about,
Warren?  We need to get out of here, unless you want to spend the rest of your
life on the set of
One Million Years B.C.
”

“Hey,
it could be worse, ya know?  I mean Raquel Welsh was majorly…”  He trailed off,
his expression darkening as he spotted Rhawn by the cave’s entrance.

The
caveman had followed her to the party.  Lucy wasn’t sure if it was to protect
her or protect the others
from
her.  Everyone else on this island seemed
poised to run the second she murmured “boo!” in their direction.  His
expression remained frustratingly unreadable, so she wasn’t entirely clear
which team he was backing.

She
had the feeling Rhawn was going to be the deciding game piece, though.  He was
the only one here with the brains to screw her over.  If he joined up with
Warren, she was doomed.

“You
know, that Bigfoot stalker of yours is the one we
should
be worried
about.”  Warren muttered.  “You see how he’s the only one here not treating me
like royalty?”

“That’s
because he’s the only one here with an IQ in the positive digits.”  Still, Lucy
glanced over her shoulder and caught Rhawn staring at her.

She
had no idea how anyone could think his eyes were a curse.  They were a deep,
pure, chocolate brown surrounded by incredibly thick lashes.  He had the most
beautiful eyes she’d ever seen. 
Obviously,
he did.  Every single part
of the man was insanely gorgeous, from the shiny length of his blond hair, to
the stunning angles of his masculine face, to the massive expanse of his bare
chest.  Looking at him, though, she felt more than just the punch-in-the-gut
physical attraction.  She felt… a connection.

Like
they somehow belonged together.

Those
dreams weren’t a fluke or a hallucination.  This man’s fate was linked to hers. 
Lucy believed that and she didn’t even believe in fate.  For better or worse,
the two of them were in this together.

…And
Rhawn
clearly
thought it was for worse.

He
watched her with wary confusion, braced for the evilness to start.  Lucy arched
a brow at him and he quickly dropped his gaze.  Because, of
course
, the
big, hot, caveman she’d been having sexual fantasies about for fifteen years would
be socially introverted.  And be certain that she was the antichrist.  And be
planning her losing showdown against Warren.  Because, that was just how things
worked when you were Lucy Meadowcroft: Unluckiest Girl in the Universe.

Un-frigging-believable.

Anger
worked better than fear and Lucy embraced it.  Luckily, being infuriated was
second nature to anyone who worked in retail sales.  Maybe she was stuck in the
past or in another dimension or on a distant planet, but that didn’t mean she
was just going to
accept
it.  Hell no.  She was going home or she’d end
the world trying.

“I
just don’t like that guy.”  Warren muttered, his beady eyes still fixed on
Rhawn.  No doubt he was thinking of all the football recruiters who would’ve
killed to have a six and a half foot caveman on their team.

People
like Rhawn didn’t sell cars.  They collected them.  They didn’t work in
bookshops.  They posed on the covers.  He was like a golden statue come to
life.

That
annoyed her, too.

Lucy
turned back to Warren and made a face as some topless girl fed him pink grapes. 
“I don’t care what you think of Rhawn, he can help us.”  The same instinct that
told her to get off the boat told her that Rhawn was her ticket out of this
mess.  “In case you didn’t notice, Rhawn is helping me.”

She
hoped.

“Well
unless he’s helping you find a freaking sat-phone, I don’t see how anything
that primate does is going to save our asses.”

“Do
you really think there are
satellites
around here?  Really?”

“Well,
there’s gotta be something!”

“Warren,”
Lucy broke it down as simply as she could, “there are only two possible
explanations for where we are, right now.  Either we’re not on Earth or we’re
not in the present.”  She’d spent all last night working it out and, as crazy
as it was, it was the only thing that made sense.  “Personally, I think we’re
in another whole world.  This place has a lot of the same characteristics of
our Ice Age, but it’s not exactly the…”

“You’re
fucking crazy!”  Warren had always been a belligerent drunk, as many a high
school party host found out when he trashed their parents’ house.  “It’s all
crazy
!” 
He staggered to his feet, dislodging a half-naked worshiper with blonde braids.

The
girl was clearly crushed by his desertion.  She looked like one of the waif-y
creatures who frolicked through makeup commercials; all long limbs and
unattainable skin.  Like most of the women here, she wasn’t wearing a top.  Several
stands of shiny stones were draped around her neck, serving as her only chest covering. 
Rather than being sexual though, it just made her seem like some kind of uninhibited
wood nymph.  It was annoying as hell to be around someone so fucking adorable
when Lucy hadn’t even brushed her hair in twenty-four hours.

America’s
Sweetheart turned to Rhawn with weepy blue eyes, saying something sad.

He
sighed and responded in the Clan’s language.

Lucy
looked between them with a frown, not liking their familiarity.  “Who’s that?” 
She demanded.  Damn it, that girl was way too thin and pretty to be near Rhawn.

“Anniah,
our Clan’s healer.  She is Notan’s daughter.  She worries that she’s done
something to displease the Savior.  I’ve told her no.  He’s just an ass.”

Lucy
didn’t really care if Warren hurt Sheena’s feelings, although you’d think a
kinda-doctor would have better taste in men.  Anniah seemed inexplicably smitten
with Warren.  Jesus, that was a prehistoric talk show waiting to happen.  Just
so she stayed away from Rhawn, Lucy didn’t much care, though.

“You
never dreamed about
her
, did you?”  Lucy demanded, worried that this
girl might be more Rhawn’s type.  Hell, she was a shirtless blonde.  She was
every
man’s type.

Rhawn
met Lucy’s eyes and she saw something tender spark in his gaze.  “No,
goddess.”  He whispered.  “You are the only woman in my head.”

“Good.” 
She muttered and relaxed a bit.  Lucy wasn’t sure about a lot right now, but
she was fucking
positive
she didn’t want Rhawn fantasizing about another
girl.  Just the idea had her temper redlining.

Warren
barely noticed the byplay or the mascara model blinking up at him like he was
Zeus.  “We’re not on some other planet!”  He insisted.  “We’re
not
.”

Lucy
didn’t have time for this crap.  “Where are we, then?”  She challenged.

He
made an annoyed sound, as if she was the one being unreasonable.  “I told you,
--like-- maybe Aruba.”

“You
still think we’re on Aruba?!”  She swept a hand around the terrified cave
people.  “Does this look like
Aruba
, you oblivious dickhead!”

“Fine! 
Then, it’s just some flyspeck island that gets left off the maps, ya know?  We’ll
walk around the beach until we find a dock.”

“Did
you ever see
Game of Thrones
, Warren?”

He
blinked at the non sequitur “Yeah.  Why?  Do they get cable here?”

She
ignored that.  “You know the big-ass dire wolves that sometimes eat people? 
The ones that are
literally
the biggest wolves ever born?  Well, they’re
real.  That type of wolf
actually
lived
during the Ice Age and
I’m pretty sure they’re
still
alive on this island.”  Rhawn said there
were wolves here and Lucy believed him.  She was taking an educated guess on
the species, given the other Ice Age animals surrounding them.  “Now do you
really
want to go walking around, with
one hundred and seventy pound wolves
out
there?  After what happened with the sabretooth almost eating you?”

“That
wasn’t a sabretooth!”  Warren sounded like he
really
wanted to believe
that.  “Sabretooths are all dead.  I saw it on TV.”

“Except
we almost got eaten by one yesterday.”  Lucy shot back.  “Do you understand
what kind of creatures lived during the Ice Age?  Wooly rhinoceros covered
Europe.  Armadillos the size of VW bugs were in South America.  There was a
fucking
American camel
roaming around Arizona.  The biggest, weirdest
stuff you can image actually existed back then and some of it’s here on this
island.”

“I
do not know of an insect called a ‘vee-double-u” or what a ‘rhi-noss-er-us’
might be,” Rhawn interjected quietly, “but the camels are no longer here.  We
hunted the last of them several winters ago.”

Warren
shook his head, refusing to believe the truth.  “Bullshit.”

“No,
it’s true.  Their meat was quite a delicacy, so…”

Warren
ignored him.  “
Bullshit,
Lucy!  There aren’t any extinct creatures on
this island.  It’s i
mpossible
.”

“What
animal does that come from, then?”  She pointed to his dino-sized chicken leg. 
“Name
one
possibility.”

“I
don’t fucking
know
, alright?”  He threw it aside.  “But, any minute,
rescue teams will be coming for us and…”

“No
one is coming for us.”  She interrupted.  “We have to get out of here ourselves.”

“You’re
the one who said we couldn’t leave this island, because it’s surrounded by goddamn
Jaws
, remember?”

“I
said we couldn’t
swim for it
, because of the sharks.  I didn’t say we
should start making houses out of coconut shells or something.  We can’t just
sit
here, Warren.”

“You
do what you want.  I’m not going anywhere.”

It
was hard to say if he was refusing to leave just because she’d suggested it or
if he’d actually convinced himself staying put was the best plan.  Seeing as
how the
Clan of the Cave Bear
thought he was some kind of Savior,
though, she needed to get him on board with reality.

“Warren,
there’s a
volcano
out there.  We. Have. To.
Go
.”  She carefully
spaced each word.

Notan
said something to Rhawn, apparently demanding a translation of the bickering.

Rhawn’s
gaze flicked over to Lucy again and then quickly away.  Whatever he told Notan in
the Clan’s language seemed to agitate the guy even more.  The chieftain
gestured towards Lucy and proclaimed something with righteous fury.