“Do you think you will be able to make socks?” He wriggles his toes, and even it the firelight I can see they are worn thin and much mended.
“Are you able to make rope fine enough?”
He is silent for several heartbeats. “Orik helps me make the rope.”
I put my hand on his thigh. “And he still can. It will be a chance for us to all talk.”
“We haven’t mated, and you already talk of taking another.” His lips pull back in a snarl and he stands. “If you want him, you should’ve chosen him.”
He stalks off into the dark, leaving his boots behind.
“Where did that come from?” But there’s no answer from the darkness.
My shoulders slump. I thought he understood I want both. Or more correctly that he can have both.
I expected once I’d chosen, the tension would ease, and we could concentrate on doing more than survive. I force out a slow breath. Well, I’m not going after him.
I wriggle back into the shelter and lie on the blanket. The heat in my blood isn’t from annoyance, and the edges aren’t from anxiety.
Though now he’s stormed off, maybe they are, just a little.
I don’t want Yva to challenge him and win, because I don’t ‘know what that means. I think I’d have a choice, but I don’t want to test it. I want Vari to come back, so we can work this out. Because survival isn’t enough for me. I want to live.
16
VARI
The moment I’m three steps away, I realize my mistake. I should not be leaving the woman who chose me on our first night together. I’m not even sure why I did, only that a rage bubbled up from a hidden spring within me.
I pause at a nearby tree and press my hand to its cool bark as I recall the conversation. The kiss. She tastes different to…
My heart misses a beat as I locate the cause of my frustration.
Orik.He’s the thorn in my clothes that I can’t pick out. That I don’t want to pick out. And it’s unnerving the way she sees that. I want to be a good mate to her, and that means forgetting about attachments. Mated men don’t have them.
Don’t need them.
Maybe after we have mated, the desire to be with him will be gone.
And if it’s not?
I run my thumb over my lips, tasting her on my tongue. She was just as cautious as me. Ideally, we should spend more time getting to know each other beforehand. And we could have worked out what to do. Orik could have spoken more about his tribe. I should have let him…I should’ve listened instead of thinking that I knew what was best for him.
In the same way she felt pressured to choose, I felt the pressure to accept.
Even now, having three mated warriors in a tribe of banished might be enough to upset the delicate connections we have maintained. Banished warriors do not form such big tribes.
For a moment, I wonder what the ones who chose not to cross the ocean are doing. Do they regret not joining us, or do they think we are dead? They would be amazed if they knew we had found another tribe, one made mostly of women.
And I’m standing out in the dark, in my socks, while my mate waits alone.
I am a fool.
This is an opportunity than any of my brothers would seize. And I would be wise not to give her a reason to doubt her choice. No matter how much she presses on the wound breaking my attachment caused, it would hurt more to see them together and know that I was the one who turned my back and refused to even consider an alternative.
I walk back to the shelter. No one else is up and moving around. Sabine and Edilk are sitting by the fire. Sunif and Mia must be back on the boat and the unmated warriors are making camp on the beach.
If we are not careful the tribe will fracture, and I do not want that. We will not survive if that happens. Tomorrow, there will be discussions about the future.
