Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
TIA
A few days later
“Oh my god. You’re back!” Angie rushes in to give me a hug, juggling a toddler as she does. Glory holds onto her mother’s leg, sucking her thumb and giving me an uncertain look as we embrace. “I was so worried! We all were!”
“We had help escaping,” I reassure Angie, surprised and pleased at our return welcome.
She makes a terrified sound. “Escaping? Escaping what?”
Another person gives me an encouraging pat on the back as they walk past. One of Strong-Arm. Huh. This is nothing like when I came back from Croatoan over a week ago. Then, I’d gotten off the dragon’s back, flung myself dramatically into I’rec’s arms (because I do love a good entrance) only to find out that I’d just kissed someone else’s mate.
Fucking awful. Fucking nightmare.
But this time it’s different. This time I’m hugged by everyone. They’re so relieved to see me and R’jaal return, and they’re not even all that fazed by the fact that we’ve brought several of the ancestors with us—Noj’me the Attendant, Tal’nef the Swiftest, Set’nef the Wanderer, and my poor, sweet Rem’eb the Fist, standing at the back of the group and resonating to me. That his chest sings for me even as he marvels at the ocean roaring in the background, and even more at the suns that shine overhead.
Angie squeezes me tightly again as the tribe of leather-and-fur-wearing Icehome families surge around us. I’m patted on the shoulder and welcomed home by people that rarely talked to me before, and it’s obvious that everyone’s relieved we’re back safe. “Everyone was so worried,” Angie says again. “And to think you brought back more people! Are they more clones?”
I pull out of her embrace. “ More clones?”
“Oh, yes. It’s been a heck of a time,” Angie says, beaming. A moment later she’s pushed aside by Nadine, my closest friend on the beach.
Nadine squeals and hugs me long and hard, laughing, and it’s impossible not to get caught up in her excitement. “I swear I’m fine,” I reassure her, pulling free. It does feel good to be missed, though. I sure didn’t get this kind of reception when I came back a few weeks ago. Then, everyone didn’t know how to greet me. But I’m trying not to think about that. I fix a bright smile on my face. “What’s this about clones? More clones?”
Nadine makes a face. “Girl. Where do we start?”
“At the beginning,” I joke. “Clones? Like more a’ani?” I think of Nadine’s mate Thrand and his “brother” Vordis, both of them clones of an alien race.
“Like human clones,” Nadine corrects, and beside her, Angie nods. Nadine continues on, studying my face, “We acquired a bunch of humans that are clones, and some more gladiator splices. Mardok’s old friend dropped them off and they were found just as you guys disappeared.”
Dropped off more strangers without asking anyone first? Just plopped strangers on our doorstep to live with us? At least it explains the mystery of Rosalind, who I’d never seen before. “Gee, Niri shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, be nice,” Angie says. “They didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I am being nice,” I protest. “That’s just as unfair to them as it is to us. You can’t just fling a bunch of strangers on us and hope we adopt them.”
Of course, even as I say it, I’m thinking of Rem’eb and how I want him to live up here with us…I glance over at him. He meets my gaze and quickly looks away again, his jaw set. I guess I deserve his resentment, but it hurts.
“I don’t know, that’s kinda what we do on this planet,” Nadine says with a chuckle. “People show up and we teach them how to survive and welcome them into our families.”
She’s got a point. Maybe I’m just sensitive because I don’t feel all that welcome.
I pin a smile to my face, because I’m not sure anyone else would agree. If I confessed that I feel like an outsider amongst the same people I was originally stranded with, I’d be told that I’m imagining things, that I’m crazy, that they do love me…
But I was the only one sent away. It’s hard not to feel a bit unwanted and resentful of that fact, even when I’m surrounded by smiling faces.
Nadine brushes my hair back from my face, tsking at the mess of my curls. “You look like they ran you ragged. Did they treat you well? Can we trust these newcomers?”
“That’s a loaded question and probably needs a story with it,” I state, letting her fuss over me. “But as for if we can trust them? If they’re on the beach with us right now, we can trust them.”
“That is an interesting answer, and I can’t wait to hear more about this story, now that I know it has a happy ending.” Nadine beams at me and inclines her head. “Flor and I’rec will probably introduce you to the other newcomers later, but for now, why don’t you come sit with us by the fire?”
“Oh, yes!” Angie says, trying to hand me her toddler. “I should be cooking right now! I just got distracted at the sight of you all emerging. Can you take Violet for a moment?”
Just the sight of the baby I would normally love to hold makes me a bit panicky. I glance over at Rem’eb and immediately my khui starts singing loudly, as if it remembers that we’re in the throes of resonance. It’s been singing this whole time, but with everyone talking over each other, it was also impossible to hear.
Until now. Nadine’s eyes go wide and Angie gasps, pulling her baby back against her.
I rub my chest and give my friends a rueful smile. “I should sit with someone else. This is all going to be overwhelming to him. He’s never been above ground before now.”
“Which one?” Angie asks, scanning the ancestors who cluster together just behind R’jaal and Rosalind.
The one that doesn’t want to stay , I want to blurt out, but it won’t be true for long. I’m going to make him want to stay with me. It won’t do any good to be wounded and mopey, even if I’m hurting on the inside. “His name is Rem’eb. Rem’eb the Fist.”
“He better be Rem’eb the Friendly Handshake while he’s here,” Nadine warns.
“It’s just a name,” I say, defending him. My khui hums even louder, and the needy feeling inside me grows. “He’s been nothing but kind and protective of me.”
“I’m protective of you, too,” Nadine says, giving my face a searching look. Then she hugs me again. “But go on. I know how resonance is. Should we keep it a secret?”
“I don’t think it’s possible to keep it a secret,” I admit. “Might as well tell everyone. I’ll come and find you later to talk, I promise.”
Nadine nods, then exchanges a look with Angie. I have a feeling Rem’eb and I are going to be the source of a lot of gossip tonight, but it’s to be expected. I leave my friends and cross through the group of people, all stopping me to tell me how relieved they are that we’re back safe and have I met the taters and am I still not speaking to Flor because she stole my man and do I know what sort of alien the ancestors are? Everyone’s nosy in that family sort of way, but the longer I get pulled away, the more antsy Rem’eb looks. He remains on the fringes of the group by Set’nef’s side. Set’nef looks uncomfortable at being in a crowd. Rem’eb just looks flat out overwhelmed. He keeps eyeing his surroundings as if he doesn’t quite believe they’re real. I get it. The realization that I was stranded on an ice planet in outer space was a real rough one when I first arrived.
So I manage to extricate myself out of a conversation with Bek and Elly (well, mostly Bek) and head over to Rem’eb’s side. Set’nef shoots me a look of relief and peels off the moment I approach, as if he was simply remaining behind so as not to abandon Rem’eb. I’m left alone with my new mate, and as I move closer, our khuis sing louder and louder. It’s a fascinating feeling, that intense humming in my chest that surges as we near each other.
I reach a hand out for Rem’eb, and it suddenly feels as if the entire beach is watching us move together, so intense is this moment.
He takes my hand and instead of stepping forward to join me, he tugs on it, pulling me toward him. I bite back a little yelp of surprise and fall against his chest. His arms wrap around me, and then I’m enveloped in a warm, protective embrace. Rem’eb leans in, pushing my hair aside, and whispers in my ear.
“Are we safe from the great golden beast?”
I bite my lip to hold back a giggle. To say that Rem’eb was shocked when Ashtar appeared is a gross understatement. I’ve explained twice that Ashtar is both a dragon and a man, but since Rem’eb didn’t see him change, I don’t think it’s quite registered. All of them panicked when Ashtar appeared after hunting for us. Is that why Rem’eb looks so uneasy on the beach? Because the skies are wide open and he thinks another dragon could swoop down on us?
“It’s all right,” I reassure him. “You’re safe here.” I touch my chin and then give him a thumbs up, another signal that he’s learning means “all good.”
He lifts one of his four hands and gives me a thumbs up, too.
“Are you hungry? Should we eat?” I mimic eating with a hand gesture, and he nods. He’s gone quiet, my Rem’eb. I lead him over by the fire, keeping his hand tightly clasped in mine. He keeps another on my shoulder, and it feels both possessive and very welcome to have him hovering over me. Maybe I’m a weirdo, but I like that he wants to be so close to me at all times.
We get two bowls of food handed to us by Angie and move to the fringes of the group to eat. We sip from our bowls and listen quietly while Flor moves to the center of the group and starts introducing all the “taters” and “newbies” to R’jaal and Rosalind, who are in the center of the group by the fire. Poor Rosalind looks totally overwhelmed, but R’jaal’s chest is puffed out and so proud of his woman. Good for him.
I watch Flor take one of the women by the hand and introduces her in front of the group. Searching through my feelings, I wonder if I’m still resentful of her for resonating to I’rec. It’s only been maybe two weeks, but it feels like a million years have passed since that moment. I honestly haven’t thought about I’rec—or his new resonance mate—in days. So no, I’m no longer upset by them, just envious that it was so easy for them to just fall together. Just resonance, boom, end of story. No drama, everyone’s happy.
Must be nice.
Flor loves attention and jokes, and when she makes the crowd laugh as she introduces someone named Dawn, I’m not surprised. Flor is always good at ingratiating herself and she’s a great person to be a welcome wagon for the new clones, who look almost as shell-shocked as Rem’eb. I should probably introduce myself to them at some point.
But right now, all I can think about is Rem’eb and how overwhelming this all must be. It’s a new world, new weather, and all kinds of new people. He stares at one of the newcomers who has skin like a green lizard and a long, thick tail, and his hand tightens on my shoulder. He probably needs time to process all of this, and the longer we hang out around the fire, the more it’s probably going to seem like “too much” all at once.
So when he finishes his bowl of stew, I grab my waterskin and gesture that Rem’eb should come with me. His hand never leaves my shoulder, and we walk away from the group as another surge of laughter echoes on the beach. They’ll probably notice we’re missing, but since we’re resonating, no one’s going to try and stop us.
I lead him through the maze of huts, noticing that there’s a few new places being built farther down the shore, no doubt to make homes for the newcomers. Hopefully no one is occupying my personal hut, the one that I’rec gave to me just before I left with R’jaal and the rest of Tall Horn to the fruit cave. I’rec had built it in the hopes that we’d resonate, and when he mated with Flor instead, she didn’t want to live in a house built for someone else. I can’t say I blame her, but I’m also profoundly glad that I have a place to call my own.
I point at the hut, glancing over at him. “That one’s supposed to be mine.” It sits in the midst of the Shadow Cat Clan’s little huddle of dwellings, but I don’t care. I like them all well enough. “Follow me.”
When I hop up onto the platform and pull the privacy screen away from the door, a little sand shakes free from the screen. I’m happy to see that my stuff has been undisturbed since I left, my bed just as I last made it. The firepit is cold, but that’s an easy enough fix. I indicate that Rem’eb should sit down and then I get to work on building the fire.
He doesn’t sit, though. As I break up a dung cake to fuel my fire, I watch him. He moves around the hut, touching my things—and touching the walls. This isn’t the perfect stonework of their people. The huts are made with crude rocks to act as bricks, held together by sandy mortar and shell mixtures. The walls go up to about seven feet before a lashed-down pyramid of waterproofed skins makes a roof and a smoke hole at the top. The floor is driftwood salvaged from several years ago, when all of it washed up in a flood from the now-destroyed island, and an open stone-lined pit in the center of the hut is the firepit and cooking hearth. Maybe he thinks all of this is rudimentary compared to his people. It’s just another strike against us.
“I don’t suppose it would help if I point out that back on Earth, we had really elite technology,” I say as I finish crumbling fuel into my firepit and reach for the tinder I keep nearby. “We tried introducing some more advanced stuff here but it’s hard to leap forward like that with a hunter-gatherer society. They don’t trust most of it and there’s no sense in depending on computers when we can’t fix the ones that are here, right? So we’re all Clan of the Cave Bear and shit. Most of the time you just roll with the flow but sometimes I miss the stuff we had back home. Like coffee. And razors. And movies. And…here I am rambling and you won’t know what I’m talking about.”
“This is so unusual,” Rem’eb says, touching a thickly braided rope that is anchored to the flooring and crosses all the way up to the ceiling supports. “So many skins. We do not have this in our tunnels. And you have tops upon your houses.”
“So it doesn’t snow on you, yes.” I give him a wry smile and smack the strikers until I get a spark. I blow on it until it becomes a baby flame and then I feed it tiny bits of fluff. “Guess you don’t have that problem below.”
“It feels nice in here…without the fierce air.”
I glance over at him. “Fierce air?”
He mimes it striking his face and blowing his hair back.
A giggle escapes me. “That’s wind . And yes, here, it’s pretty fierce and cold.”
“Weeeend,” he repeats in English. “I do not like it much. It hurts my face.”
Well now, I can do something about that. Once the fire is going, I rinse my hands clean and wipe them on a towel, then get to my feet. “You’ve got the right woman, because I love me some lotions.” I put my hands on him and sit him down on my furs, then dig through a carved bone box that Aehako made for me. It’s crafted from pieces of bone fitted and carved together, much like a puzzle, and I keep my toiletries in there. A small bone pot with a thick leather ‘cork’ over the top holds my favorite homemade lotion, and I show it to him with a smile. “Here we go.”
Rem’eb takes it from me and sniffs it, and then eyes me cautiously. “Am I…to eat this?”
I laugh. “Okay, that’s my fault. It does look a bit like a cup, doesn’t it?” I take it from him and dab my fingers into the viscous, herbal-scented lotion. “It’s to make your skin stay soft because the wind will absolutely dry you out.”
I tap a little onto the tip of his nose, and when he recoils, I dollop a bit onto mine, too.
His eyes narrow. “It is for wearing?”
I shake my head again and dab a bit more on my cheekbones, then move to add a layer to his face. Rubbing it in with my fingertips, I spread it all over his skin. For a big hairy alien, he’s got rather soft, delightfully touchable skin. Once I finish lotioning his face, I take his hands and rub lotion all over them, too. “Soft. It’s to keep your skin soft.”
“Soft,” he murmurs, though his pronunciation of it is choppy at best. Then he reaches out and touches my arm, dragging a finger along my skin. “Soft Tia.”
My nipples prick at that. Wait, I’m supposed to be the one seducing him. Our eyes meet, and his are filled with liquid heat and there’s a hint of a smile on his face. “Are you turning the tables on me?” I ask. “Because I’m the best at the flirting game.”
He just continues to stroke my lotion-slick hands with his, and another reaches up to caress my jaw. “Soft.”
For a man with a limited vocabulary of English words, he’s dangerous with them.
I want to be the one in control of things, though. I know resonance means we’re destined for each other, but I need more than a bang and nothing else. I want him to swear that he’ll stay with me. So I can’t let him seduce me .
I need to win this battle of wills.
With a throaty little hum of pleasure, I cover his mouth with mine. Each of his kisses seems better than the last. He seems to know instinctively just how to meld his mouth with mine, just how to use his tongue, just how to move his lips. It’s like he’s made for me, and the realization that our khuis think the same thing makes a hurt pierce my heart.
No time to ache, I remind myself. Seduce now, cry later.
So I put on my flirtiest smile and tug at the collar of the crude, makeshift tunic I stitched together for him in one of the hunter caves when we first escaped back into the cold. It comes apart easily, the furs falling from his big body and revealing his strong, incredibly broad torso to my gaze. His beaded necklace hangs there under his clothing against his skin, and I flick the long tooth with a fingertip, and then drag my fingertip directly over to his nipple, toying with it.
“It has been far too long since I looked at your lovely body, Tia,” Rem’eb murmurs, pulling at my clothing. “Do I get to undress you, too?”
Right, because he’s used to seeing me in a breast-band and short skirt, the clothing I normally wear only for excursions to the humid, overly warm fruit cave atmosphere. He probably thinks I look like a teddy bear with all the leathers covering me. Well, he can unwrap me like a present…after I get my way.
I need to remember that I’m seducing him to get him to stay with me. This isn’t about my pleasure. This is about making myself so irresistible to him that he can’t bear the thought of abandoning me…and our future child.