Barbarian’s Treat (Ice Planet Barbarians)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

CLAIRE

I tug the new fur coat tighter around Relvi's shoulders. "Hold still, baby. I want to see how this fits."

"Why can't I have a cloak?" my daughter complains. "I don't like this!"

"A coat is cute," I reassure her, fastening the leather frogs I've made in the front of the little coat. I've spent weeks working on this coat, off and on between other chores. The sleeves were a real devil to figure out, but I finally got them on correctly. I finish fastening the front of the coat and then pull the little hood with the ears I've made over my daughter's head, and then step back to look at the results.

It's...not good.

My sweet Relvi is a stout little girl and she's short for her age compared to the other kits. The coat hangs low on her, the sleeves too long, and the hood sags, making the charming ears I've spent so much time creating sag backward instead of standing jaunty atop her head. The body of the coat is too tight, too, and Relvi stands stiff and miserable before me.

She looks like an offended teddy bear.

I smother a laugh behind my hand and look over at my mate. "What do you think?"

Ereven pauses from stirring the stew. He eyes our daughter, then looks back at me. "I think you worked very hard and it looks very warm."

That means it's ugly as sin. Biting back another giggle, I gesture for Relvi to come here. "Maybe I'll take the sleeves off. Let me play with it some more."

My daughter happily removes the coat and hands it back to me. She trots across the house, flips on her favorite ratty cloak, and then races out the front door.

"The meal will be ready soon," Ereven calls back at her retreating back. "Tell your brother!"

I sit on my stool and smooth the soft fur coat with my fingers. This particular fur makes for a pretty cloak but it's too puffy for a fitted garment. I think of Relvi and her stuffed bear look and finally let my giggles out. "God, I'm such a bad mother."

"You are the best mother," my mate says mildly, tasting the stew. He adds a bit of spicy herbs to it and pulls out a chunk of root, carving it into disks over the hearth and dropping them, one by one, into the stewing pouch. "You worked very hard on that coat. I have seen the time you put in on it. I am just sorry you did not like how it fit upon her."

I get the giggles again. "Did you see her expression? She looked like a miserable teddy bear."

Ereven gives me a blank stare. "A what?"

"Oh, uh, kinda like a snow cat but they are bigger and eat everything. Sorta. Or maybe like a really, really big quill-beast. Except no quills."

"So nothing like a quill-beast," he teases.

"She doesn't really look like a bear, anyhow. It just reminded me of a horrible costume I had when I was a kid. My mom made me go as a teddy bear every Halloween because she thought it was cute. I was a really small kid until puberty, so there was no need for a new costume, but I remember how much I hated it because it itched." Even now I feel the phantom tag scraping against the back of my neck, and I scratch at it. "I really wanted to be something cool for Halloween, and instead I was just a stupid bear."

Ereven eats a disk of raw root, then carves a bit more into the stew. "You realize I do not know any of the things you just said?"

"Oh, sorry!" I tend to ramble about home sometimes. I no longer miss it, now that I have a mate and two adorable children and an entire village of friends, but it's hard not to dream of coffee or even a nice fat novel to read every now and then. Ereven likes hearing me talk of home, but he makes me pause to describe things to him frequently. I think back to my rambling about the bear costume. "Which part do I need to go over again?"

"You wished to be something cold for hollow ween. And you were a horrible caw-toom as a kid."

That...makes no sense. I parse back through my words mentally. " Costume . And oh—okay, I wished to be something cool . That means I wanted to be something exciting looking."

"You are exciting looking to me." He eats another disk of root. "I find all of you very exciting to look at."

Pleasure curls in my belly at his words. It's been over ten years now since we mated, and touching him still makes me absolutely crazed with need. I thought marriages were supposed to slow down at some point? Yet I'm in love with my sweet, easygoing barbarian more than ever. "Behave yourself or the kids are going to come back and find dinner cold and their parents in the furs."

"Again?" He lifts the stirring spoon and licks it, his playful gaze on me. "Would that not indeed be terrible."

He makes it sound like it wouldn't be terrible at all, and I agree, but I also don't want to have to answer more questions about why “Mommy and Daddy were wrestling naked again.” Erevair's old enough that he's getting a clue, but Relvi is little and gets distressed when she catches us doing something she doesn't understand. Because our house is small and privacy is tricky, they've caught us in the past. I guess it's not as bad as poor Marlene. She told me a story of playing kinky games with her mate and thought her daughter was sleeping, only for Zalene (then very little) to tell her to “spank Papa again.”

I move to my mate's side and lean in for a kiss. "Maybe once the kids are asleep, hm?"

"You will sit on my face and I will lick you like this spoon? I look forward to it." And his tongue snakes out and drags over the spoon again, making me all flushed. Goodness.

"Yes. Um. Where were we. Oh. Costumes. Halloween. It's a tradition back home, another holiday. It's one focused around children, really, though there are a lot of adults who enjoy it, too." Summing up all of Halloween suddenly feels very overwhelming. Where to begin?

"You do love your howl-days," Ereven tells me, his tone indulgent. "Is this another one we will celebrate?"

"Oh. I...I don't know. I didn't bring it up because of that..." Yet now the idea unfurls in my head. I do love a holiday. I love something special to celebrate, to see the kids' eyes light up at the thought of a big festival of some kind. No-Poison Day has become an annual experience, and a few couples have celebrated Valentine’s Day but not regularly. It would be nice to have another holiday to break up the long, dull brutal season. The sa-khui don't have official holidays but they celebrate births, matings and anything else they can.

We could certainly do a watered-down ice planet version of Halloween. Cute costumes, treats for the kids, maybe a festival for the adults of some kind...the idea has been toyed with before, but when the kits were very little, it seemed like a bad idea to introduce a holiday full of scares. But now a lot of the kits are older...

"Is this another holiday about poison?" my mate asks, expression skeptical. "Is that why you are reluctant?"

"No, this is the one about ghosts. Goblins. Scary things that go bump in the night."

He winces. "Relvi is already afraid of the dark."

"I know. The human version of the holiday loves to play up scary things, but maybe our version can just be about fun. It doesn't have to be about ghosts or spookiness." I brighten. "We could call it a fall festival!"

"A fall festival. Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do we fall? Why is it being celebrated?"

I giggle and lean in to kiss my mate again, because he's so cute and his misunderstandings just give me fuel. We need a holiday that's kid-safe but fun for the adults, too. Trick or treating and dressing up, absolutely. Maybe carnival games. Maybe a fun maze...

Ereven's lips linger on mine. He tastes like spices, and when he nibbles on my lower lip, I forget about holidays for a brief moment. The kiss deepens and he pulls away, giving me a wicked stare. "Are you sure we do not have time for you to sit on my face?"

I bite my lip. "Well, maybe just a quickie."

We grab hands and all but race to the furs.