But she does not touch me with her mouth.
Instead, she grabs the leather harness of my hunting knife sheath from the rock shelf and threads one of the flat fabric panels through it, looping the material over the leather strap. She wraps the harness low around my hips, settling it below my waist, and pulls the fabric panel down over my groin. A flap of hide, hanging from my weapon strap.
“What are you doing?” The projection is strangled as her soft knuckles brush against the sensitive ridge of the primary shaft.
“I’m making you a loincloth,” she says, buckling the harness tight against my hip. “The leather holds it in place. Just... tuck everything behind the fabric.”
I stare down at her.
Rok wears one. Tharn wears one. Sarven, because Mih-kay-lah insisted. The unmated warriors stare at the hide coverings with naked envy, because a loincloth fashioned by a female’s hands is a visible mark of being claimed.
I did not expect to be wearing one this soon.
“There,” she says, sitting back on her heels and admiring her work. “It’s not exactly high fashion, but it covers the essentials. Tina’s retinas are safe.”
I look down at the covering. I look back up at her.
I reach down, unbuckle the harness with one hand, and pull the flat covering off the leather strap, dropping the hide onto the stone floor. I toss the empty harness onto the rock shelf.
“Hey!” she shouts, leaping to her feet. “I just made that!”
“I am not wearing a hide flap,” I project firmly. “It restricts my movement. I am a warlord, not a timid prey-beast hiding in the dust.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, glaring up at me. “Kol. You cannot go out there naked. You just can’t. It’s a cultural boundary for us. Please.”
I stare down at her flushed, deeply frustrated face.
She is so tiny. I will not get over it. Her size is ridiculous. And she possesses no survival instincts and demands that I follow the illogical rules of her terrible water-world.
But she is mine.
And underneath the frustration, radiating clearly through the mindspace, is the quiet fact that she spent time making this garment specifically for me. She worked her soft hands with a sharp blade just to create something she thought would protect me in front of her friends.
She made something for me. With her own hands. A blade she could barely grip and hide-coverings she could not spare. That is how a mate tends a warrior on any world.
The beast in my chest goes helplessly soft.
I let out a long sigh that shakes my broad shoulders.
I bend down and pick up the discarded panels from the floor.
“If I must wear hide to appease the females,” I project, holding both pieces out to her, “at least use both panels. One for the front, one for the back, so my flanks are not entirely exposed.”
Eh-ree-kah’s face breaks into a blinding, victorious smile. The sheer joy of it hits the mindspace, warming my blood instantly.
“Here,” she says eagerly, taking the panels from my hands. She grabs the empty harness from the shelf, re-threads the first hide flap over the front of the leather, and the second over the back. She wraps the entire construction low around my hips and pulls it tight.
The hide-covering is terrible. The material rubs awkwardly against my sensitive anatomy and distracts me completely.
But she is smiling. And her scent is sweet. Happy.
I would wear burning thorns if she asked me to.
“Perfect,” she says, giving the knot one final, firm tug. “You look like a very angry, very sexy barbarian king.”
I do not know what a ‘king’ is, but I accept the title.
I reach down and pick up my heavy bone-axe from the rock shelf, sliding it over my shoulder. Then I grab my hunting knife and slide the long, curved blade smoothly against my skin next to my new loincloth.
