She was my mate, and now that I had tasted her flesh, had sunk into her soft body, she was mine through and through. This was the bond that hunters talked about, the one I’d heard my brothers sigh over. I hadn’t known what I’d been missing, but it was huge. I felt different, stronger, faster, more in tune with my surroundings. Every cell in my body screamed that it was wrong to leave her side, to part ways. I couldn’t, so what did that mean for me and formy younglings?
The terrifying part was that what I felt for my tiny human was already growing big enough to compete with what I knew to be right for my younglings. It was dangerous—terrifying, even—to discover how powerful the mating bond was, and how instantly it had tied my loyalty to her. It should be Nisha, Daois, and Rasho only, all the way, but she was now just as important.
Then she threw me for a loop by being the one prioritizingthem, even though she didn’t even know their names. She’d only learned I had younglings a short while ago, but that hadn’t mattered. The idea of taking her that close to the village was terrifying, too, but it was rapidly winning out as the best option. She was small, she could easily hide, and I’d give her my portable heater to stay warm. That could work. I’d be in and out of town, doing my report, checking on the younglings, and then I’d slip away to bring Jolene to Artek.
No! My chest ached when I finalized that plan in my head, labeling it the worst plan in history. I couldn’t leave Jolene, so how could I keep her and let my young grow up with the peers they needed, the friends they had? It was impossible. To keep Jolene, I’d have to take my younglings and leave Thunder Rock, but that seemed unfair to them. And I doubted Jolene would want to raise the young of another female; that was something I could not ask of her. Such a thing had never happened, as far as I could remember, and I was certain no female would tolerate it.
She was only okay with this because she thought she was not my mate. She thought she was free to walk away from me as soon as she was safe. I hissed, furious at the thought, and my bold female thought she needed tocomfortme, her small hand patting my chest, her fingers icy against my scales. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be in time. How much further is it?”
The distance felt too far, and I’d already given in to the need for speed by leaving a much more obvious trail. At leastI’d personally been able to assess the skill level of these sky creatures, and I was fairly certain they were not terribly good trackers. The red-and-black hunter was the only threat, but I did not think he was dumb enough to try and take on an entire village of armed hunters.
“Aye, we’ll have to make camp when darkness falls,” I told Jolene. It made my stomach clench uneasily as I recalled how Reshar had urged me to keep my trip short. Arosha’s unease also didn’t help, my brother was not easily ruffled, but he had been when I left. The whole town had seemed tense, actually, but perhaps that was just the unease of having such an unknown threat on our border.
“Oh, who is watching your kids while you’re away? What are their names?” I saw through Jolene’s questions right away: they were an attempt to distract me from my worries. It wasn’t going to work, but I was always happy to talk about my young, so I gave her what she wanted. It wouldn’t hurt to tell her about them, see what she thought. She was human, after all; there was this faint stirring of hope that she might not be averse to the young of another, after all.
“My brother Arosha,” I said. “Rosh is a terrible hunter, so he watches the young of others. He’s good with my second, Daois; they’re very similar in temperament. Rasho is the oldest, he’s already proven to be a stealthy hunter. And then there’s Nisha, my baby girl. She’s…” I faltered, trying to find words to describe her in a way that would make a female like her. For a human, did I need to emphasize her ferocity, or was Jolene more interested in softer things?
“Nisha?” Jolene prompted, her tone gentle, curious, even. It was what made me be truthful, even though that would not win me any favors with a Naga female. I wasn’t talking to a Naga, and Jolene had caught me by surprise every step of the way. I’d like to believe it would also be different when she was my true mate, but mate bonds in the village often seemed one-sided. In that, my supposed mating to Kusha had not drawn any suspicions. It had, in fact, helped put therumors in the past, mostly forgotten and certainly not harmful to either of us.
“She’s sweet. She tries to model herself after her mother and the other females, but it does not come naturally to her. She likes purple things because they’re like our eyes, and she still sleeps with her doll and a nightlight.” Kusha had tried to get rid of Vod several times, but either Nisha or one of her brothers always found it and brought it back. For a while, we kept it hidden in a basket by the bed, only to take it out when Kusha wasn’t home. After her death, no such pretense was needed, and Vod resided permanently in her tiny nest.
“Oh, that’s cute,” Jolene sighed, a smile playing on her partially hidden mouth. The furs had been pulled high around her, and still I could see that her lips had turned darker—still cold. When I pointed that out, she laughed. “I might not be the most suited for this cold. Grew up in Arizona. Heat and deserts—that’s what I’m used to. Not this…” She flapped a hand around, indicating the shimmering snow that covered most of the foliage and the ground.
I had no clue what this place was she talked about, but Jolene talked easily when prompted: descriptions of fantastical cities, a place called a “hospital” she’d worked at, and more things I could not wrap my head around. But she was also good at listening and asking questions that drew me out of my silence when she thought it had gone on too long. I found myself talking more than I had in a long while, and even enjoying the journey with her, despite the creeping sense of urgency.
When night began to fall, we had both fallen silent, and I’d begun running through our options for a good camping spot. I knew all the best places by heart, but we needed to pick one that wouldn’t risk us running into another hunter. There was a good spot not far away that was less known and rather narrow. The spring there would have frozen, but we could melt snow over the heat source.
“What are you going to do with your kids if you discover they’re in trouble?” Jolene asked, her voice hushed in the descending darkness. I had not made up my mind, couldn’t make up my mind, and the question caught me off guard. She had never asked what kind of trouble I worried they might be in; the keen look in her eyes told me she understood, anyway.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. It worried me greatly. I was always the one male with a plan, with backup contingencies in case of emergencies. Hunters I’d trained all called me a worrier, thinking up solutions for issues that hadn’t even arisen yet. In this case, the solutions were neither simple nor easy. What would they want? What did theyneed?
“Are you going to get them out? It doesn’t sound like you can trust them to be safe with your Clan when you’re not around. That’s no good, is it? Are you gonna take them to Artek too?” Jolene shifted her head, but I knew her eyes could no longer pick out the shapes of the mountain peaks.
The narrow crevice for the hunter hideout was between two large, snow-covered boulders and was covered by branches to keep out the snow. Jolene trembled from the cold when I put her down to clear our path, but she did not press me to answer the question as I pondered it. “No,” I said at last. “They just lost their mother. I’m not ripping them from their home.” That’s what I came back to each time, too many changes couldn’t be good for them. They needed normalcy; they needed to feel part of something.
I almost didn’t hear her response as I ducked into the small hideout to check that it was safe. “Is that the best?” she questioned, as if I hadn’t gone over it a million times already. I was silent, possibly even a little angry that she’d challenge my assertion. She knew nothing of my world, of the Clan and the dynamics that went on inside it. She was a stranger, a sky creature. Just because she was my mate did not give her any right to question me.
My anger deflated just as quickly as I began making camp. A light went on first inside the tiny burrow beneath the earth. Then I was pushing Jolene into the furs and setting up the heater. All these tasks felt familiar, yet they were different too. On the rare occasions I’d traveled with Kusha at my side, I’d cared for her the same way. Though a Naga female did not need or want any coddling, she expected to be catered to.
Jolene expected no such thing. She fiddled with the heater herself, tried to help me with the straps of my backpack, and got in the way of my coils when she tried to stick her nose into the pile of ration bars I dug from my pack—not because she wanted to object or demand freshly hunted meat, but because she was curious and wanted to help. “What is this? Do we need to heat it? Or are they like bars we can just chew on?”
She had not complained about this morning’s simple fare on the go, either: roasted nuts and dried berries. Exar berries were my favorite, and as they were nutritious, I always carried a bag of them. “Bars, no need to heat anything,” I told her, then watched with far too much interest as she nibbled on a corner with her blunt little teeth. When she pulled a face, it was instinct to snatch up the bag of dried berries instead, to offer her.
Too tempting, but if we got tangled again like last night, we’d never leave this cave in a timely fashion tomorrow morning. I could not risk it, and, truthfully, I wanted to keep my distance also because I feared I’d make the wrong choice if I didn’t—a choice that might put either my young or my mate in danger. She seemed disappointed when I refused to crawl into the furs with her, but she did not press me on the matter. Her body buried inside the furry pile, still trembling a little, as if it weren’t warm enough.
Her words, barely heard as they’d been, had stuck in my brain, though. Was it really the best choice? Nisha was bullied all the time by the bigger, more vicious girls. She hadit tougher than any of them because she looked so much like me, her scales matte, her eyes purple, and her hair as black as midnight. It was easier for her brothers, but even Daois and Rasho got remarks. When I pondered their friends, I was shocked to discover not one name sprung to mind. Maybe Jolene was right, maybe staying wasn’t any better for them than leaving was.
My mate didn’t warn me that she was getting dangerously cold, but when the pile of furs stopped shaking, my senses tingled. I’d flicked off the light a while ago, the tiny silver relic already tucked back into one of my pouches. Still, my eyes saw perfectly fine in the dark, and I could see she was awake. Her lips were turning dark purple again, the perfect indicator that she’d gotten too cold.
With a furious hiss, both at myself and at her stubbornness, I slid into the pile of furs and dragged her into my arms. “You must warn me,” I told her, “when the temperature is not right for you. Fragile little human, I can’t have you freeze to death!” She laughed, as if she thought that was funny, but I couldn’t see the humor. The thought of my female freezing was utterly abhorrent, and I was furious with myself for being too distracted to notice in time.
“It’s not that bad,” she said. “But noted. I’ll tell you if I am cold. It just… it seemed like you were thinking, and I didn’t want to disturb you.” I had been thinking—that was true—but now I was done. A new plan was forming, and it was starting to feel much more right this time. Now, all sides of me were aligned.
“Thank you,” I told her. “Now sleep, while I decide how to make sure you stay warm enough on your own tomorrow.” Of course, the temperatures had dropped with the vanishing of the sun. I still worried that she’d be in danger on her own tomorrow. I’d have to tweak the heater to increase its output, but fiddling with relics was not my strong suit.
She curled closer, trustingly putting her head on my chest so that all I could smell was the sweet, flowery scent clingingto her pale hair. “Okay. No objections. I’m still a little weak from that second round in stasis. Tomorrow, we’ll make sure your kids are safe, Khawla. Don’t you worry.” Spoken as if she were personally going to fight off any physical threat, should there be one. Her words made me laugh, but she’d already fallen asleep. If only my racing mind would let me find slumber as easily as hers had.
Chapter 10
