4
Gleb
What a clever trick of the Fates! I wished for an intelligent mate, but one who was different from the other human doctorates.
With the clan’s seasonal migrations, we rely on the stars to guide our reindeer sleighs.
The other doctorates use their starfinder boxes—called phones—until they lose signal.
What signal? I don’t know, but I’ll be happy to be less dependent on them.
We can return to the old ways of following a star expert like Hannah.
I worry about my little firelight.
With the loss of her human group, she will turn to the stars for comfort.
When she couldn’t figure out I was a Chuchunya, she asked about the stars on my birth date.
Every puzzle seems to be answered with stars.
We are in the days of endless sunlight.
Her stars hide within blue skies.
She won’t have their stabilizing presence to answer her questions or soothe her fears when we visit her former campsite.
“You can rest longer,”
I murmur with my hand on the door-locking matrix.
“We don’t have to do this today.
You just woke up.”
“I’ve overstayed my welcome.
You know what they say about houseguests and fish?”
“No, what do people say about fish and houseguests?”
“They stink up your life when you keep them in your home too long,”
she replies with a fit of giggles.
She steals my words with a sparkly smile and a laugh that sounds like songbirds.
My brain blanks and when it reengages with my mouth, I want to blurt out how much I want her to smile at me until our days end.
The desire for little, red-furred kits with sparkly smiles who know the mysteries in the stars overwhelms me.
Some of me envies Artyom’s adventures—but getting lost on the Tundra is certain death, so I never strayed from Sergei’s side. With Hannah’s ability to track stars, I would never be lost.
With her in my life, I won’t feel lost in the shuffle.
I will have a family to love.
“Well, we can’t have you stinking up my fishy home.”
My chuckle is rough from disuse, but my words make her laugh harder.
She holds her flat belly as she bends over to gulp for air.
Her slender fingers clutch my elbow for support and my heart grows three sizes.
So, this is what it feels like to have someone depend on you.
Yes, the Chuchunya clan relies on trading skills so we all survive the zima months.
As the second youngest, I never had skills comparable to an elder Chuchunya.
I’m the needy one in every trade I negotiate.
Want soap or fragrant teas? Go to Sergei.
Want exotic fruit or the location of the reindeer herds? Try Artyom the Wanderer.
Want mushrooms? Go to Serik and Kaitlyn.
Want moose or big game meat? Patricika is a better huntress than male Chuchunya twice her weight. What do they want from me? Nothing. My soaps are grainy, my fruit dries salty in my seaside home, mushrooms are a mystery, so half of mine are probably poisonous, and I never wander to track herds or big game.
“I must be half-delirious because everything is hilarious.”
The laughter dies in her chest when I throw the door open.
The rocky outcropping over my door protects us from the sun’s scorching rays.
This time of year, it could be morning or evening with these skies.
Fishing boats dot the horizon as they dodge icebergs to fill their trailing nets.
The sea churns with sea mammal activity. Are they narwhals, seals, or beluga whales? They dance beneath the surface, pushing the surf to my doorstep. Water coats my feet, and Hannah’s boots, with each wave.
She makes me feel taller than Sergei when she grabs my arm to steady herself as she climbs over the rocks that help to hide the roof.
I guide her to the sand adjacent to my home before securing the door.
Don’t engage all the locks .
My gut feeling is we will retreat inside in a few moments. The cleanup efforts are finished, aided by Artyom lining up the bodies. The humans took them to have their funeral pyres elsewhere. There’s nothing left for Hannah to see…unless Jack’s body washes ashore.
Oh, no! That’s not how I plan to confess to her…whenever that is…it’s not now.
“Hannah, wait up!”
I yell, not caring if a human hears me.
With a hasty look at the empty beach, I run to her side.
Sand embeds in my fur where my feet kick it higher than my shins.
I can’t worry about my itchy skin—not when my fated mate is about to discover I killed her pleasure mate. What could I use to scare her into stopping? “There are sea snails and sand fleas!”
She pauses to lift each boot waist-high to inspect them for bugs.
With her nose pointed to the ground, I can scan the surf without raising suspicion.
A smart, honest male would tell her the truth.
I didn’t set out to kill the male in their rescue from the iceberg.
When he shoved Hannah and Baby Madison out of my reach, I saw red.
He wanted me to carry him ashore first.
The baby’s purple fist distressed my mate…and his verbal claim over Hannah distressed my soul.
What if I explained I can’t let her be with a male unworthy of her…even if I’m not a prize either?
Confident no errant arms or legs jut out from beneath the sand and a water-bloated corpse doesn’t float along the horizon, I survey the beach for danger.
Oil stains the sand where Sergei fought their generator.
Tire tracks flatten the vegetation on the beach’s inland edge.
Thank goodness the morning tide washed away the bloody imprints of the dead human bodies.
I haven’t had the heart to ask Hannah if she was close to others on the bus tour.
So far, she’s mourned Ms.
Greene, Baby Madison, and Svoloch Jack—the three who climbed the iceberg with her.
What looks like trash to a Chuchunya—papers blowing a foot from the ground, crushed cans hiding in the grass, or piles of plastic shapes with no identifiable use—could have significance to her.
How humbling is a mate! I have no idea what to protect her from…
Her cry of shock pulls me from drowning in my thoughts.
She falls to her knees and claws at the ground.
A glittery red boot—the kit’s boot—shimmers in the niibin sun.
She picks each clump of sand from the lacing and bottom grooves. The tiny kiss she plants on the toe melts my heart. She’s not the kit’s mother by blood, but the bond is unmistakable in the tears that drip from her chin. Her shoulders shake as the sobs consume her.
I promise you, tender-hearted mate, to fill our home with kits.
“Svet Kamina—”
I kneel beside her and wrap my arms around her tiny frame.
She rocks into my embrace, giving me her slight weight to bear.
“Do you swear on your life that Madison made it out of the water? Promise me you saved her first,”
she cries, pulling my chest hair into her fists.
The crazed expression in her eyes matches the pull of her lips and the hole in her heart.
Of course, I would save a kit first—no matter what her chosen male asked.
“I swear on the souls of my dead family, the last time I saw Madison, my clansman’s mate, Vera, carried into a human vehicle her.
Vera is a smart human woman like you, so she knew what to do to help Madison.
Even in danger—in your distressed state—you carried Madison to shore and handed her to Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn is another clanmate’s female, but not as sweet as Vera. I trust Vera.”
The muscles in her face relax.
Her shoulders drop.
She releases my fur, and I miss the sting.
Her forehead falls, hitting muscles over my heart. My hands smooth her back as my fur collects her tears. Will she be miserable in the Chuchunya clan until she has kits of her own? Would helping Patricika and Sydney with their kits—when Sydney births hers—be enough to keep Hannah with me? As much as I want to steal her, keep her, bind her to me, and fill her with kits, I can’t listen to her cry like this.
“The crime scene tape is from the cleanup, right?”
She points to the yellow ribbons tied to the trees.
“Do you know where they took everyone?”
Everyone.
She talks as if she’s alone, separated from the rest of the world.
She’s not happy with just me.
I’m not enough. She cries for her human group. All the symptoms of dushevnayasvyaz flood my bloodstream except the overwhelming love from a mate. Why did I expect her to treat me as more than a solid object? I’m a stranger…but also her soulmate.
“South,”
I reply, because she will discover the sadness in my voice if I say more than one word.
I have the rare gift of my fated mate snuggled in my arms…as she decides to leave me before we start our lives together…before we share our first kiss…before I explain who I am and how I’d give the world to her.
“Will you take me? Can you book travel for me or guide me to a travel-whatever-place to leave the Tundra? Will you help me?”
Her question smashes my heart as if she stomped on it, but the hope shining in her dark, brown eyes is something I can’t ignore.
As much as it will hurt to let her go, I’m helpless.
It’s not in my personality to disappoint her.
Sometimes I wish I was heartless, like Serik, who held Kaitlyn captive for four days against her will until she accepted him. One look at my fragile, delicate Hannah and I know I’ll cross the Tundra on foot just to protect her on her journey.
“We will travel south.”
It’s the best I can do.
She throws her arms around my waist and clings to me with relief.
I’m at war with myself and refuse to lie to her face.
Already, I hide too much. She must accept my promise to take her south…to where I can introduce her to the clan as my mate. I can apologize to Sergei and enlist his help to introduce Hannah to the other human mates. Maybe the human companionship of the other women and their Chuchunya/human hybrid kits will be enough to convince her to stay. Did they have a chase for Kaitlyn and Serik? If not, we can join in and make our union official.
If this season’s chase is over, we are at Timor’s mercy, or worse, Sergei’s mercy.
As the clan splits in half, so do my loyalties, but I can’t get involved in their politics when my mating hangs on a cliff’s edge.
I must prove I am a decent provider, a fierce protector, and a romantic partner to Hannah.
Thank goodness for Manya, my pleasure mate of two seasons, who taught me how to pleasure a female’s body. I owe her an apology for leaving her abruptly for Hannah, but when Manya finds her mate, she will understand.
“Do you have a plane?”
Her pink cheeks, the color of her jacket, shine with tears.
How long have I waited for a female to tip her chin up at me? If I block out her words, Hannah makes one of my fantasies come true.
To have a female look to me for strength, answers, and leadership is more than I dared to ask the heavens to give me.
“Wait, what’s that?”
My eyes bug out as she leaps to her feet and jogs to the water’s edge.
Before I can stand, she’s waded into knee-deep water.
Keeping her out of danger is practice for our kits.
First, she ran onto the open beach and now, steps into the frigid ocean without fur. Her teeth chatter. The tip of her nose grows red as I approach, but her determination carries her beyond the surf. Shells rake the bottom of my feet—thank goodness for her heeled boots to protect her from the same fate. A large fish bumps my calf. What if it’s a whale pup or a shark?! Either one could eat her in a few bites!
“Hannah, please,”
I puff as I struggle against the waves.
How is she moving so fast? My body fights the current that wishes to throw me back to shore.
She’s not strong.
How is she standing? Does the riptide have her in its clutches? She’s too deep for the riptide. Ripples dance over her shoulders and lap at the bottom of her chin.
“Love, please, you must stop!”
I can’t lose her when we just met!
“I found my mug,”
she yells before disappearing under the water.
Nothing.
No bubbles.
No shadow.
She’s gone.