Chapter 4 #2
Forging ahead anyway, I smiled at the ladies and held up the pouch of berries.
“Can anyone of you tell me why Cosima prefers these over the good meat we hunt? I don’t think she’s eating enough…
” The black-haired one glanced over at Naomi with a grin, asking her a question in their strange, lyrical language.
To me it always sounded like they were singing.
Vera answered, likely translating what I’d said, because Min-Ji, like me, wasn’t mated.
“Krashe!” Naomi called out, and then she pushed the bright green Sleara from her lap.
“Fetchmymate!” The little guy flapped into the air with a little chirp and arrowed straight for the gate and the ruby-red shape I could see beyond it.
Krashe appeared to be berating two former Copper Tooth males, gesturing wildly as he pointed at the long poles of wood lying next to them.
Ah, probably another mistake in what construction parts he wanted fetched.
I wondered what it was this time, not flexible enough? Too flexible?
I met the eyes of Vera, Zathar’s mate, and then Min-Ji again who was bouncing on her toes and grinning from ear to ear.
The other female, Kalani, wasn’t there, but I could hear her voice further away, the tone clearly implying she was instructing someone.
That tone seemed universal, it was an exact, but feminine, match for my old training instructor back at Serqethos.
“What’s wrong, brave heart of mine?” Krashe asked, chasing after Kiwi toward us.
I raised an arm in greeting, quickly glancing over his body to see if I hadn’t done him any damage in our scuffle earlier.
He might not be so willing to help me with this request if I had.
I didn’t notice any obvious marks but Naomi was much more thorough in checking him over when he lifted her in his arms as a greeting.
A pang of jealousy shot through me at the sight but I quickly squashed it and adopted my most easygoing smile.
I had a mate, I was working on winning her over.
I was a lucky male so there was no need to be jealous of what Krashe already had.
I didn’t see my female anywhere but she’d gone through the gate, which meant she was safe, most likely she’d raced for the caves.
“She needs you to translate for her,” I said with a smile, reaching up with a fist to grasp one of the horns rising proudly from my head.
I squeezed it as I waited, worried the male would deny the request but he just nodded at his mate and she babbled rapidly in her language at him, gesturing with one hand in the air as she did.
“Ah,” Krashe said, glaring my way, “The weepy one was a not-meat-eater. She prefers to eat vegetables and fruit only but there is not enough of that so she has no choice.” I tried to imagine never eating any meat and just couldn’t.
Meat was the tastiest part of the whole meal, to never have a big juicy Arazal steak again?
No way! But it was making my female unhappy to eat things she disliked, so I was resolved to find a solution for her.
“Krashe!” Naomi said with a scolding tone, more words following right after she elbowed her mate in the chest. His fierce expression briefly flickered to amused and endeared before he settled a scowl back on his face.
“She cries a lot, she is weepy,” he warned his mate, but his eyes were on me.
He was questioning my sanity for showing any interest in a female he clearly deemed weak.
Well, he was wrong. Just because she cried easily didn’t mean she wasn’t strong in her own way.
I knew it. I recognized her scars even if he didn’t.
More heatedly than was probably wise, I snapped at him, “Maybe she has good reason to cry! Has anyone of you even asked her what is going on? Do any of you know her story?” I knew there was a lot going on, from our strange truce right now with Bitter Storm to the restoring of the ancestral caves and their systems. We were building a new village from the ground up and vetting members who wished to join, a brewing stew of anxious males waiting outside our gates to prove themselves.
It was a lot and Cosima and her struggles had been lost in the midst of all that, but not on my watch.
Vera nodded at me, clearly understanding what I’d said and shocking me by agreeing.
Krashe begrudgingly translated her words for me as well.
“Vera says that Cosima admitted that her fanssssy died. She might be sad about that.” My eyebrow ridges shot up, what in the blazing suns was a fansssy?
I had never heard of such a thing. Naomi giggled and then hurriedly corrected her male and he amended, “Her mate died.”
Those words were like a fire went off inside my chest, pain radiating through me.
Her mate? But she was my mate. No, I should not look at it that way, and I shook myself out of that strange tangle of thoughts.
Humans had no true mates like we Naga did, I had learned that much.
She had loved a male once, and he’d died, that was all that mattered to Cosima.
She had lost the male she loved, no wonder she was not ready to be mine yet.
“When?” was all I asked, narrowing my eyes on Vera who seemed to be the only one who knew.
She shrugged and shook her head, she didn’t know.
My eyes lifted back to the caves where I suspected Cosima had run to hide.
How much time did she need before she could move on from the death of her lover?
I could not compete with a dead male, was I ever going to win her affections now?
I spun around and stalked away without a backward glance. This changed things, but it didn’t change everything. I could still provide for her, so that was what I was going to do.
***
Cosima
“Are you sure about this?” Kalani asked me from where she stood, smack in the center of the training field.
The beautiful and extremely confident woman just radiated exotic beauty and calm.
I wanted to be her so badly that it hurt.
Kalani was the bravest woman here, and if I wanted to make changes, if I wanted to get out of the hole in my head, then I needed to learn from her. Starting with learning how to fight.
“I’m certain. I want to learn how to shoot with a bow, I want to learn how to protect myself. I don’t want to have to rely on rescue ever again, you understand that, don’t you?” I didn’t want to talk more about the reasons why but thankfully, Kalani didn’t press the matter, she just nodded.
“Let’s get you in shape, girl. I can do that!
” she offered me a pleased grin. I wasn’t sure if being in shape was the same thing as learning how to fight but I was willing to find out.
After being on one endless cleaning spree for the past couple of months, I could probably keep up better than she expected me to.
Scrubbing ancient, grime-covered floors was hard work after all.
Two hours later I wasn’t sure if I still agreed with my initial brave thoughts, but I couldn’t regret my choice.
It felt good to use my body as Kalani and I worked out side by side.
She ran me through tons of physical exercises that focused on building my core strength, and she did them all with me.
It felt like a reward when she picked up a bow at the end of the session and showed me how to shoot it.
It felt even better when Min-Ji and Naomi greeted me with excitement when I dropped down on a log by the fire afterward.
“You go, girl! I’m so proud of you,” Min-Ji grinned and she waggled her eyebrows, “You looked hella sexy with that bow in your arms. Trust me!” I was pretty sure that the last thing I needed was to look sexy to anyone, but I still felt a rush of warmth at how included I felt right that moment.
Their happiness was infectious, and I let it touch me instead of shutting it out by feeling guilty.
I was pretty sure that Caleb wouldn’t want me to feel guilty over being happy if he had anything to say about it.
“Someone brought you a gift,” Naomi added, and she pulled another satchel from a basket nearby.
I knew instantly what was in it, but this bag was even bigger, filled to overflowing.
The berries I enjoyed, my favorite part of any meal these days.
I took the bag carefully, and considering how hard I’d worked out, I dug into them like a starving woman.
“Who?” I asked with my mouth full, the fresh and tart tastes hitting me just right.
They eased both my thirst and my hunger at the same time, and these were definitely the juiciest, sweetest berries I’d had so far.
Whoever had gotten these had gone out of their way to pick only the ripest of them all.
Min-Ji and Naomi shared a look with each other before the former pilot finally said mysteriously, “Your secret admirer of course. Naomi and I aren’t spilling the beans, you are going to have to guess.
” She crossed her arms over her chest, sharing a conspiratorial look with Naomi, and mimed zipping her lips.
My eyes flashed from their grinning faces to scan across the purple clearing inside the palisade.
They lingered briefly on the sad remains of the greenhouse ruins next to the entrance, then I skipped over the empty training fields to take in the males working once again on the meat-curing shed they were building.
Zsekhet was right there at the front, seemingly effortlessly holding up a massive wooden beam on his own as the others secured it onto the wooden A-frame.
In my belly, I felt that pesky spark of arousal as I watched his muscles strain.
He was using his arms to hold up one end above his head, a coil of his tail rising at the other end to hold the whole beam level in a horizontal fashion.
Everywhere along his body I could see his muscles bulge as he worked, his expression cheerful as he talked with the others.
Was it him? I really hoped not. But what other options were there?
Plenty, I realized, but were any of them males that Naomi and Min-Ji would stay quiet about?
I tried to remember the names of the two other males who had already been accepted into our new Clan.
A blue one and a purple one, Aks and Xorare.
But there were even more hopefuls down the hill, in the camp.
If it was Corin, Min-Ji wouldn’t be looking so happy so at least he was excluded.
When darkness started falling and my fingers were bruised and bloody from all the garment-making, I was still mulling over who it could be.
I realized as everyone gathered for the evening meal that it had kept me from feeling sad all afternoon.
I hadn’t even felt upset about that asshole grabbing me earlier. I felt… good.
But when I crawled into bed that night alone in my dark apartment, I couldn’t get my mind to quit.
I felt all confused and like I was betraying Caleb for being excited over an admirer.
I felt like I was vain and shallow for liking it so much that someone had noticed how much I liked those berries.
Was this what it meant to start moving on?
Was I ready for that? Was it wrong that it had only been a year since Caleb’s death?
Then my mind got trapped in the memories of my time as a captive with the Scrakoids.
For a year, longer even, I’d been trapped in that hellhole with them, while they tried to bargain with the UAR over my release, demanding the UAR relinquish all claim to their lands.
They had killed Caleb the very first day we were there but they’d kept me in a cell for so long I had covered the wall in scratches that marked the days.
I couldn’t sleep, not with all that swirling through my mind so I rose and left. Maybe proving to myself that I was no longer trapped in that cell would help. I needed fresh air.