Chapter 22 #2
She takes the spear and begins to cut into the drift, carving, scooping, shaping. I watch for a moment, then join her with my hands, widening the opening and throwing the snow aside.
It is slow work, but easier than the glacier. The snow yields, and soon there is a hollow large enough for us to crouch in.
“Deeper,” she says. “And make the walls smooth.”
I do as she asks, though I do not yet see the purpose. My hands grow numb despite the effort and the leather mittens, but the work warms the rest of me.
The light fades as the sun sinks until only a red edge touches the mountains, then slips away entirely. The world turns red, then gray.
Riley crawls in first, pushing further, shaping the floor. “Make it just big enough,” she says. “Too big and it gets cold.”
I follow her inside. At once, the cold changes. It is still there, but sounds are strangely muffled. The icy air cannot reach us, and the walls do not steal heat the way the open air does.
I run a hand along the curved surface. “This is getting warm.”
She smiles, tired but satisfied. “Told you.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Snow that keeps out the cold. I will have many stories to tell our own tribe when we return.”
“We need insulation,” Riley says. “We can take our furs off.”
We do, though it is so cumbersome that I have to crawl back out to get enough room to drop my long, heavy fur, holed and bloodstained. I go back inside and spread it on the ground before we sit on it. Riley pokes three holes with the spear, giving us cool air from outside.
Darkness settles around us, close and complete. Riley lets out a long breath and leans back against the wall. “That’s a lot better. They can’t find our tracks. If we stay in here tomorrow, there’s a good chance the Gar tribe will never find us.”
I lean my head back too, enjoying the first real rest I can remember in I don’t know how long.
“No. They can see our tracks leading to the glacier and the hole we hacked. They will know we’re nearby, and they will search every crack in the ice and every snow drift within half a day’s walk.
Don’t you understand? They think they can have a woman.
That’s worth every risk and every search, regardless of how long it takes. ”
Riley leans into me. “I keep thinking I should feel worse about Prak’ox,” she says at last. “But mostly I just feel relieved it’s over.”
“Prak’ox took a big risk,” I state as I reach for the food pack. The contents are cold, but not frozen solid. “He went out into the storm hoping that you would follow. He was willing to risk his life for that chance. And he lost. Any hunter knows that possibility.”
We eat in silence, passing it back and forth, taking what we need and no more.
I close my eyes. “Will we have enough air?”
She pokes more holes with the spear. “Now we will.” Her shoulder brushes mine as she moves. “You’re hurt.”
I open my eyes and look down at my bare skin, covered in round red marks. “They were strange, the bloodwings. The bite didn’t hurt so much, but they bit deep.”
“Venom,” Riley says as she runs her hand along the marks on my arm. “It stops you feeling pain so you don’t realize how dangerous it is.”
I turn my head toward her, though I can barely see her in the dark. “That’s a sneaky way to bite someone.”
“They didn’t just want to bite,” she says, her fingers tracing each mark in a slow circle. “They wanted to eat.”
“It was their last meal. I’m glad you told me to jump into the hot water.”
“And I’m glad you came for me. You saw what… what he did.”
I pull her closer. “I saw you trying to get away. And you screamed so loud I could hear it even over the bloodwings.”
“I wanted to kill him,” Riley says, with an intensity I’ve rarely heard from her. “If I could have reached my knife, I would have slit his throat. You know, he seemed so nice in the village. But there was something wrong about him. I saw it the whole time.”
“I’m glad I came, and that we could let the bloodwings do it for us. He wasn’t worth making your blade bloody.”
She moves again, turning toward me fully, her body fitting against mine in the confined space. The furs shift with us, trapping the heat.
“I only want you,” she says softly, her voice rough with exhaustion and something deeper beneath it.
Her words sink into me like warm rain into the ground after a long draught.
In the dark snow cave, the pale light filtering through the thick walls turns everything soft and red.
The outside world, with the Gar hunters, the storm, the danger, is completely muffled.
There is only the quiet sound of our breathing and the faint rustle of furs.
I pull her closer until she straddles my lap.
My hands move slowly over her, loosening the outer layers of her heavy furs.
She does the same to me, her small fingers working at the ties across my chest with gentle patience.
One by one we peel the thick hides away, letting them fall open around us while keeping enough draped over our shoulders to hold in the warmth.
I cup her face and kiss her deeply, unhurried. Her lips are soft and yielding, warm despite the cold all around us. “You are everything I need,” I murmur against her mouth. “Here, it’s only us. Nothing else exists.”
Riley sighs into the next kiss, her body melting against mine. “I feel it too. Like the whole planet disappeared and left us here together.”
I slide my hands beneath the loosened inner furs to find her bare skin, tracing her waist and the curve of her back.
She shivers, but not from cold. I kiss her again, slower this time, savoring the way she opens for me.
My larger cock is already hardening against her, and the smaller one rests warmly against her mound, but I do not rush.
There is no frenzy here. Only this quiet, perfect closeness I have never known before, not even in the warm cave of the village, with its flickering firelight. The snow walls wrap us in silence and dim red light, making every touch feel sacred.
She rests her forehead against me. “Love me slowly, my love,” I whisper. “I want your heat inside me.”
I can only nod as her fingers thread through my hair and she pulls me back into another deep, tender kiss. The furs slip further down our bodies, and the world outside ceases to matter at all.