“What’s all this?”
“Supplies.” He hefted a crate, muscles shifting under his shirt. “For the house. Some trall you might be able to use. Grall was selling it off cheap.”
She grabbed a smaller box, following him inside. The house still felt cold, still looked bare, but that pathetic fabric garland she’d made this morning caught the afternoon light. She couldn’t help grinning.
And in three days, she’d be at the Midwinter Celebration.
“Thank you,” she said again as they set the boxes down in the main room. “For agreeing to take me.”
He straightened, eyes finally meeting hers.
“It’s just one night.” But his voice had lost its edge.
She smiled.
One night was a start.
Juni couldn’t sit still.
This morning Goraath had called her Christmas decorations “false cheer.” This afternoon he’d agreed to take her to Midwinter. And he’d brought her things but she didn’t know if she should unpack them yet or not.
The house felt too small to contain whatever was buzzing under her skin.
Grabbing her jacket, she stepped outside. The cold hit her face, sharp and clean, and she pulled the air deep into her lungs. Better. The sky was turning gold and purple at the edges, the suns dropping toward the mountain ridge. It was beautiful, in a stark, alien way. She was starting to understand why someone might choose to live out here, alone.
She walked without direction at first, just moving, her boots crunching on the hard-packed ground. The ranch spread out around her… fences, outbuildings, the distant shapes of the herd in the far pasture. Goraath’s whole world, contained in this valley.
A sound caught her attention. High-pitched. Distressed.
Following the sound, she found herself at one of the larger outbuildings… a barn set apart from the others. Warm light spilled from a gap in the door, and she moved toward it without thinking, drawn by that thin, frightened little cry.
She peered through the gap and stopped breathing.
Goraath was inside, crouched on the ground beside a small creature. No, not small. Just young. A baby version of the massive animals she’d seen in the fields. It lay on a bed of straw, its sides heaving, and its legs folded awkwardly beneath it.
Six legs. And that head… armored plates across the skull, though on this little one they looked soft, like they hadn’t hardened yet. The rest of it was all gangly limbs and velvet hide and huge dark eyes.
Her heart melted. It looked like a reindeer.
A six-legged, armor-headed reindeer on an alien planet in the middle of nowhere, but a soft, fluffy baby reindeer all the same.
Suddenly she was eight years old, hanging ornaments on the tree while her mother hummed carols in the kitchen.
Goraath hadn’t seen her. His back was to the door, his massive frame folded down to make himself smaller. Less threatening. One hand rested on the baby’s flank, steady and warm. The other held a bottle. Milk, maybe, or medicine.
“Easy, little one.” His voice was low. Soft. “I’ve got you.”
He stroked a massive hand down the baby’s flank. The creature shivered but didn’t pull away.
“You’re alright,” he murmured. “Just need to get some of this into you. Can you do that for me?”
The baby made a sound somewhere between a bleat and a whimper, and kicked its legs weakly.
“I know. I know it’s scary.” His hand stroked down the creature’s neck, slow and soothing. “But you’re tough, aren’t you? Tougher than you look.”
Her throat went tight.
This was the alien man who’d told her she was a temporary guest. Who spoke to her in clipped sentences and looked at her like she was a problem to be managed. And here he was, murmuring endearments to a sick baby animal, his scarred hands as gentle as anything she’d ever seen.
