Chapter 2 #2
Something flickered in his expression. Surprise maybe, she wasn’t sure. Then the shutters came down again.
He moved toward the kitchen. “There’s food. I have work.”
“Wait.” He stopped but didn’t turn. “Are there rules?”
He nodded, his hair moving over his broad shoulders. “Stay away from the krulaati unless I’m with you. They’ll kill you.”
Her stomach clenched. “Anything else?”
“Don’t touch my things. Don’t reorganize.” His voice was flat. “This isn’t your house. You’re a guest.”
Her face burned. “Guest. Got it.”
Then he left. Just walked out through the back door, leaving her standing alone in the cold, dark house.
The house was so quiet she could hear her own breathing. She was kilometers from anyone who cared, trapped with a man who couldn’t stand to look at her.
Her vision blurred. She tilted her head back, blinking hard at the ceiling. No. No crying. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.
Moving felt better than standing still. Grabbing her duffel, she headed down the hallway. The first door was the bathing room, small, functional, and cold. The second door was closed. His room probably.
The door at the end stood open so she stepped inside and stopped.
It was clean. Empty. Impersonal.
There was a bed with plain linens, a small chest of drawers, a window that looked out over the valley. Nothing on the walls. Nothing on the surfaces. Just a room stripped of anything that might make it feel lived in.
She set her duffel on the bed and moved to the window. The krulaati enclosures sprawled below. Mountains loomed overhead. The empty valley stretched in every direction. Not another structure visible anywhere.
A sound escaped her throat… half laugh, half sob. This was her life now. She sat on the bed and pressed her hand over her mouth.
Outside, the light faded. Stars started appearing.
Tomorrow she’d try again. She’d smile. Ask questions. Find a way to make this work.
Tonight she sat on the edge of the bed, watching unfamiliar constellations appear, and wondered if she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.
The krulaati youngling favored its left rear leg.
Goraath crouched in the enclosure, running his hand down the limb while the massive creature stood placid under his touch. Six legs meant balance wasn’t compromised, but an injury left untreated could fester. Turn septic. Kill the animal within days.
His fingers found the swelling just above the joint. Heat radiated through the thick hide.
“Easy.” He kept his voice low, soothing. “Just checking.”
The youngling huffed but didn’t move. Smart animal. It knew he was helping.
Unlike the human female currently occupying his guest room.
His jaw tightened, and he forced his attention back to the leg.
Infection. Minor, but it needed treatment.
Standing, he moved to the medical supplies he kept in the equipment shed attached to the enclosure.
The afternoon sun hung low over the mountains, casting long shadows across the valley. He’d been out here for hours.
Good.
Grabbing the antibiotic salve, he headed back to the youngling. The animal shifted its weight, massive body swaying. Each krulaati weighed close to two thousand pounds when grown. This one was maybe half that. Still dangerous. Still capable of crushing a man without effort.
Still easier to deal with than the female in his house.
He applied the salve with efficient movements, coating the swollen area thoroughly. The youngling tolerated it, only shifting once when he pressed too hard on the tender spot.
“Done.” He straightened, and the animal lumbered away to rejoin the herd.
Goraath stood there, surrounded by the familiar smell of hay and musk and animal warmth. Out here, everything made sense. The krulaati needed care, he provided it. The fences needed mending, he mended them. The land required work, he worked it.
Simple. Straightforward. No complications.
No soft curves or hazel-green eyes or questions that filled every moment of silence.
Draanth.
He grabbed the fence post he’d been meaning to replace and carried it to the north pasture.
Physical labor helped. Always had. When his mother died, he’d rebuilt half the ranch.
When his father followed her, he’d cleared three new fields.
Work kept the mind occupied and the body too exhausted to dwell on things that couldn’t be changed.
Should work now.
Except his mind kept circling back to the transport ride. To her… sitting beside him, barely reaching his shoulder even seated. To the way she’d filled the silence with question after question until he’d wanted to roar at her to just be quiet.
What kind of animals do you raise?
Are they dangerous?
How long to get there?
Do you go into town often?
On and on. Like silence was something to be avoided instead of valued.
Exhausting.
He drove the post into the ground. The impact vibrated up his arms.
But worse than the talking, worse than the constant chatter that grated against his need for peace, was the moment she’d stood in front of him on the landing pad.
So small.
He’d known human females were smaller than Latharian females had been. Everyone knew that. But knowing it and seeing it were different things. She’d had to tilt her head all the way back to look at him. And those eyes, huge and expressive, locked onto his with hope.
Which he’d crushed within minutes.
His hands tightened on the post. Good. Better she understood from the start that this arrangement was temporary. That he didn’t want her here. That six weeks would pass and she’d leave and his life would return to normal.
Except his body hadn’t gotten that message.
The protective instinct had hit him as she’d crossed the landing pad toward him and the wind had nearly knocked her over. Every muscle in his body had tensed with the urge to shield her. To step in front of her and block the harsh gusts that she clearly wasn’t equipped to handle.
And right alongside that protective surge had come arousal so sharp it stole his breath.
He drove the post deeper, jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
She was beautiful. Devastatingly beautiful. Soft curves that the standard-issue tunic couldn’t hide, auburn hair that caught the light, and a face that would make most males look twice. But it was the size difference that had really undone him. How delicate she’d seemed standing there. How fragile.
He could span her waist with his hands.
The thought came unbidden and unwelcome.
Undeniable. His hands were bigger than a human’s would be…
scarred and calloused from years of physical labor and before that, his service as a warrior.
Rough hands that could break stone or snap bone.
And she was so small he could wrap his fingers around her waist and probably touch them together.
The image made heat coil low in his gut.
He was massive. Six-ten and built like the mountains that surrounded his ranch. Shoulders broad enough to block doorways, arms thick with muscle earned through constant physical work. Everything about him was rough edges and hard planes and strength that could hurt without meaning to.
She barely came up to his chest.
One wrong move, too much pressure, too tight a grip, and he could break something delicate.
That awareness should have killed the attraction. Should have made him careful and distant and unmoved.
Instead it fed both the need to protect and the need to possess.
He wanted to shield her from the harsh climate and the dangerous animals and every hard edge of this harsh life. Wanted to wrap her in warmth and keep her safe.
And he wanted to strip her out of that ill-fitting tunic and explore every soft curve until she stopped talking and started making entirely different sounds.
The post sank to the correct depth. Releasing it, he stepped back.
Brute. That’s what he was. What he’d always been.
The setting sun painted the valley in shades of orange and purple. Beautiful, but the temperature was already dropping. He’d been out here for hours, and full dark would come fast.
Which meant returning to the house.
To her.
His feet felt heavy as he walked back across the fields. The house sat low against the hillside, windows dark. She was in there somewhere.
In his space.
Disrupting his solitude.
Filling his home with her presence.
He stopped at the equipment shed to store his tools, moving through the familiar motions. Everything in its place. Everything ordered and controlled.
But his thoughts wouldn’t cooperate. They kept circling back to full lips that wouldn’t stop moving, eyes that showed every emotion, and a body that made him hyperaware of his own size and strength.
The back door opened silently. He stepped into the mudroom and removed his boots, lining them up exactly. His jacket went on its hook.
the air smelled different.
Floral. Sweet. Completely out of place in a ranch house that usually smelled like earth and animals.
Her scent.
It was everywhere. In the air, clinging to surfaces, invasive in a way that made his skin feel too tight. It called to instincts he’d buried years ago. Made him want to track it to its source, to find her and—
He cut off the thought and moved into the kitchen.
Then stopped.
She’d been in here. The evidence was subtle but unmistakable. The cleaning cloth he kept on the counter had been moved. The dishes in the drying rack were arranged differently than he’d left them. And there was something on the table.
He frowned and moved closer.
It was a paper garland. Made from what looked like ration wrappers, carefully creased into something that might have been festive if it wasn’t so pathetically makeshift.
His chest tightened.
She’d tried to decorate. To make his house more... what? Cheerful? Welcoming?
It was neither. It was a ranch house on a frontier colony, utilitarian and sparse because that’s all it needed to be.
But she’d tried, anyway.
That draanthing garland sat there, mocking him.
Leaving the garland where it was, he opened the cold storage. Food. He needed food, then he could retreat to his room and pretend she didn’t exist until morning.
The kitchen stayed blessedly quiet while he prepared a meal. He frowned as he looked over his shoulder toward the bedrooms. Maybe she’d gone to sleep early. Exhausted from the long journey and the harsh welcome he’d given her.
Good.
He ate standing at the counter, efficient and quick. Cleaned his dishes and put them away. Everything back in order. Turning off the kitchen light, he headed through the dark house toward his room. The hallway was silent. Her door was closed, no light visible underneath.
Asleep then.
He sighed in relief as he walked into his room.
It was spartan. Functional. The bed took up most of the space, large enough for even his frame.
He had a small chest for clothes and a chair by the window he never sat in but was often decorated by his jacket and pants while he slept. Nothing decorative. Nothing personal.
The way it should be.
Stripping, he climbed into bed, settling onto the right side the way he always did. The left side was empty, untouched.
The house creaked as it settled. Outside, the wind picked up, whistling around the corners. Familiar sounds that usually lulled him to sleep.
Tonight they just made him more aware of the unfamiliar presence down the hall.
He heard her moving. Just small sounds, the female shifting on the bed, maybe adjusting the blankets. Soft sounds that shouldn’t have carried but did in the deep quiet of the house.
His hands fisted in the blanket.
Six weeks with a female who made his pulse jump just by existing. Whose tiny frame made him want both to protect her and take her. Whose mouth he couldn’t stop thinking about even when it wouldn’t stop moving.
Six weeks of being careful, controlled, holding back.
He closed his eyes.
But sleep wouldn’t come.
Instead, he lay awake, listening to the sound of her breathing from down the hall.