Текст книги "Surviving Skarr"

Автор книги: Ruby Dixon

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Chapter Twenty-Eight

VIVI

When the twin suns are high in the sky, I poke my head out of the hut and test the air. I have to run to the bathroom anyhow, and right now I feel more like going to the tent-like latrines set on the far edge of camp rather than doing my business in the hut again. I want a privacy screen for that section of the house, I decide. I’m comfortable with a lot of things in this world but…not that comfortable.

I jog across camp, waving back awkwardly at the people that wave at me. I’ll probably never know how to strike up a comfortable conversation with anyone, but it’ll get easier with time. I hope. The weather does seem warmer, and several of the hunters have their skins spread on the pebbled sands, scraping them clean. Someone else is setting out drying racks for fish and seaweed, so I think it’s safe for Skarr to emerge. I finish my business and head back to my hut.

Just thinking about it fills me with a strange sense of joy.

My hut.

The hut that Skarr built for me. A private hut with the door facing the inside wall of the cliff so I can be as isolated as possible while still being in the village. It’s just so thoughtful of him and it makes my heart warm to realize he spent so much time and effort on this to please me.

He’s a good guy, even if he’s a little loud and overly in love with himself. Thinking about his boasting just makes me smile as if it’s a charming quirk, which means the khui is definitely doing a number on me. How have I gone from wanting him to fall off a cliff into finding everything he does adorable and sweet? I’m a little disgusted at myself, and amused, too. Is this all because he gave me a hut and I got a few orgasms? Or is it because we’re finally starting to understand one another?

I hurry past the fire and then pause, slowing down. Veronica—Ashtar’s mate—is there with her two small children. She’s talking to Penny, her hand on her arm, and one baby in her lap while her older son sits nearby, spooning breakfast into his mouth. There are others by the fire, of course, but I’m interested in Veronica’s children.

This might be a good time to test how Skarr is with kids.

Returning to the hut, I duck inside. Immediately, Skarr grabs me by the waist and pulls me against him, kissing me. “Mmm, you were gone a long time.”

“I was not.” I slide out of his arms, crossing the hut. “Get dressed. I want to go sit by the fire with the others for a bit.”

“You…do? That does not sound like you.” He puts his hands on his hips and regards me, a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Is something wrong?”

I pick up his tunic and shake it out, then hold it up for him. “Not at all. Just trust me. You’ll see what I mean when we get to the fire.”

He makes a few grumbling noises and it’s obvious he’d rather crawl back into the furs and let me sit on his face again. Okay, I might like that, too, but I also need answers. I need to know if this strange bond between us is going to work or if we’re going to have to take more drastic plans. “How many children are in this camp, do you think?” I ask casually. “Nearly every family seems to have at least one young child.”

“Do they? I hadn’t noticed.” Skarr folds his tunic over and then belts it.

I immediately grab another fur wrap and stuff it under his tunic, around his neck, to add warmth. Am I fussing? Absolutely. I haven’t forgotten what it felt like to find him limp and unresponsive in the hut, his skin ice-cold. “Bundle up just in case.”

“Bossy,” he says, but his eyes gleam and I can tell he likes it.

Getting dressed to go out into the frigid air is a production, but when I’m convinced that Skarr is warm enough and that the only part of him that’s exposed is his face and his tail—I need to make him a tail wrap of some kind, I realize—I toss a warm cloak over his shoulders and then lead him out of the hut.

Veronica is gone by the time we get to the fire, which is disappointing. Another woman is there, though. Her name is Steph, and she’s breastfeeding an infant while she chats with Penny and S’bren. Others are coming and going by the fire, but they look as if they’re sitting for a few. Good.

I take Skarr by the hand and all but drag him across the encampment, toward the fire.

“You must be quite hungry,” he comments, letting me lead him.

“Famished,” I agree. We make it to the fire circle just as Steph puts her baby on her shoulder, burping her. I point at the open seat next to Steph. “You sit there. I’ll get food.”

He does as I ask, and I grab a few bowls of “breakfast”—which just looks like a warm fish stew—from Lauren, who’s on food-and-fire duty today. I watch Skarr out of the corner of my eye as I do, and I’m a little worried to see that he barely glances over at Steph and her baby. If anything, he seems as if he’s avoiding looking in their direction at all.

“Can Skarr hold your baby, Steph? He was curious about infants,” I call out, deciding to take the bull by the horns.

Skarr sits upright, his eyes widening. He seems to notice Steph and her baby for the first time and stares.

Steph just grins at us, fixing the neck of her tunic and wiping the baby’s face. “I would love that. My mate’s off with our son practicing their traps, and I would love a break.” She holds the baby out to Skarr, watching him. “Have you ever held a baby before?”

The look on his face is one of sheer terror. After a panicked look in my direction, he turns back to Steph and shakes his head.

“Her name is Jethani. She’s a wriggler so make sure you hold her tight, but not too tight. Just let her sit on your leg and keep her occupied. Make sure she doesn’t put anything into her mouth.” She looks over at me and winks, then continues speaking to Skarr. “Think you’ve got it?”

He takes Jethani—a fat, sweet-looking girl who seems barely old enough to crawl—and holds her at arm’s length with an expression of consternation on his face. “Should she be drooling like this?”

“She should,” Steph says, trying not to laugh. “And it’ll be easier if you put her on your lap, like I suggested.”

He gives me another alarmed look. “What if she wants a teat?”

“Then you hand her back to her mother,” I tell him.

“How will I know?” He pulls Jethani a bit closer to him, that mystified expression remaining on his face. “She is very small and squishy. Is this normal?”

Steph is the soul of patience. She doesn’t panic when Skarr awkwardly settles the baby on his knee. She just reaches over and plops the baby against his chest and maneuvers his arms until he’s holding her securely. “Like that. And yes, it’s normal for her to be small and fat. Babies don’t look like adult humans for a while.”

“She is wearing a loincloth,” he points out in a voice of sheer awe, touching one of her small knees when she wriggles her feet. “And tiny boots.”

“That’s a diaper,” Steph says. “It’ll be a while before she’s old enough to know how to use the bathroom like an adult. For now she relieves herself in the diaper and I change it.”

He jerks in surprise, eyes wide, and lifts the baby off his leg, holding her into the air again. “Right now?”

“Not right now. In general.”

Jethani squirms, reaching for his hair. She grabs a handful and jerks on it, playing with the strands. To his credit, Skarr does not blink, just continues to hold the child and fires questions at Steph. “Is that why her legs are short and flailing like that?”

“Exactly.”

“And her head looks like a lump?”

“It’s not a lump!” I protest, trying not to laugh.

“All of her is a bit like a lump,” he whispers as I sit down next to him with our food bowls. “I am not saying it to be cruel. She should know her strengths and weaknesses so she can compensate for them.”

“Babies are very little humans,” Steph continues. “They won’t look like adults for a long time.”

“How long until they grow up?” he asks, fascinated.

“About twenty years?” Steph says.

Skarr’s jaw drops. He shoots me another panicked look and then glances back at Steph. “You have to change her diapers for twenty years?”

I can’t help it. I burst into giggles.

“Not twenty years,” Steph reassures him. “Only until she’s old enough to figure out how to tell me when she needs to relieve herself. It’s different for a lot of children, but some learn in less than two years. It’s hard to say because Jethani is a hybrid of myself, a human, and my mate, who is an Islander. If you don’t mind holding her for a bit longer, I’m happy to answer as many questions as you like. Babies must be new to you.”

“Very new. And I do not mind holding her,” Skarr says. Jethani jerks on his hair and giggles, and his face breaks into a grin. “She likes me best out of all the warriors here. I can tell already. She knows she is in the arms of a champion.”

Steph, to her credit, does not blink an eye at the self-aggrandizing. She just calmly puts a burp cloth on his shoulder and pats it in place. “You’re going to want that.”

The baby wriggles, her legs dancing and bouncing on his strong one. He holds her carefully, watching her moves with fascination. “Is she trying to spar?”

“No, I’m pretty sure she’s going to puke.”

I lean away, and sure enough, the baby lets loose. Skarr looks horrified. “Did I do that to her?”

Steph continues her lesson in her soothing voice. “Nope. She just got excited. Let’s clean her up and I’ll show you how to play peek-a-boo with her. She loves that.”

We stay by the fire all day, holding children of various ages and teaching Skarr about babies. Steph stays all morning, until Jethani is tired and cranky and she puts her down for a nap. She sends Pak out to sit with us when he returns from fishing with his father, and Skarr gets into a mock-fight with the little boy, complete with fake punches. He sprawls on the ground when Pak lands one, groaning dramatically. “I have been felled!”

 I hide my smile against Aayla’s hair as she plays with a leather doll in my lap.

“Excellent work, warrior,” Skarr tells the boy. “You will be one to fear soon enough.”

Pak’s rabbit-like tail flutters happily.

“Now fight me,” Z’hren says, bounding forward and putting up his fists in a boxing pose.

“I do not know if I dare,” Skarr tells him, all seriousness. “You have so many fists I am certain to lose.”

Gail shoots me an amused look. She’s sewing a fur ruff onto a hood, seated next to me by the fire. There have been people coming and going all day, but Gail seems to do a lot of her work by the fire. She says she likes to help out if anyone needs it. I suspect she just likes being in the thick of things, unlike me. She’s really nice, though. She makes a stitch in the fur and then leans towards me. “For someone that’s never been around children, he’s good with them.”

“He is.” There’s a sincerity to children that meshes well with Skarr’s loud personality. He tells them he’s an incredible fighter and they believe him, because children believe adults. And so when he solemnly tells them that they have real promise as warriors, they preen with delight.

“Show me how to throw a punch,” Liz’s oldest daughter Raashel demands, racing up to join the sparring group.

He nods at her, gesturing for her to come forward, and demonstrates how to position her fist, and how to hold her thumb.

“Is this the first time he’s been around the kids?” Gail asks me. “You guys have been here for a few days now.”

“I think this is the first time he’s truly noticed them.” He’s been caught up in resonance. We both have.

“Well, he’s going to be popular with them, I can tell. You’re going to have a lot of little faces at your hut each morning, wanting to play.” She smiles, shaking her head as she sews. “Just warning you now.”

“It’s fine.” And surprisingly, I realize that it is. I don’t mind children showing up on our doorstep wanting to spend time with Skarr. Children don’t make me uneasy.

“Did you see my doll’s hair?” Aayla asks, lifting her doll to show me. “It’s in two buns because her name is Princess Leia.”

“Very pretty,” I agree, and wonder how a child born on this planet knows anything about Star Wars.

Later that night, Skarr curls his big body around mine in bed. He presses his mouth to the crook of my neck, his favorite spot, and kisses me. “I think I like children.”

“I think I do, too,” I whisper back.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

SKARR

ONE WEEK LATER

“I promise you, this is how they’re supposed to look.” Vivi shoots me an amused look as she straps one of the skis to my boot. Just her bending over in front of me like that is enough to make my cocks want to extrude and my khui is singing loudly. Resonance presses upon both of us hard, but Vivi has not indicated she wishes to mate yet, so I wait.

And wait.

Truly, the waiting is not so bad. Vivi and I spend most of our time together, and at night we are in the furs, kissing and touching. But the longer this goes on, the more difficult it becomes to control my cocks. I extrude in my sleep and wake up grinding against her. I think about mating constantly. I ache with hunger for her. My cocks constantly throb with need.

I hope she decides we are mates soon, but until she does, I must control myself. I give her rounded backside a hungry stare and then bite back a sigh, forcing myself to look at the ski on my foot instead. “It looks ridiculous.”

Vivi laughs, unoffended. “It does not.”

“It does look a bit like a canoe,” Nadine offers, watching from nearby. She has been helping Vivi with skis for days now, both of them trying different versions before settling upon this one. I see them together often, their heads bent, smiling and laughing, and I am glad that my Vivi is friendly with her…and I am jealous at the same time.

I want all her laughter. All her smiles.

And because I am a jealous fool, when they suggested trying out the skis, I insisted I join them. Now I have a slippery wood-thing strapped to my boot. Nadine hands me a pair of poles and I lean on them while Vivi slips the other ski on my foot. By the time she is done, I am sliding back and forth on the snow, trying to remain in the same spot and failing. “I am drifting!”

“Turn your ski,” Vivi instructs without looking up.

Nadine finishes strapping hers to her feet and braces herself on her poles, testing them out. “Not bad, not bad.”

“Let me put mine on and we’ll give them all a test run.” She grins with excitement up at the others. The skis are twice as long as my feet and not very wide. I turn slowly in the snow, lifting each foot as I prepare myself. We are bundled up heavily and have taken to the hills just above the cove to test the skis out in the snows. Vivi worries they will not stay together well enough, so we’ve picked a “small” hill to ski down.

Now that I have these bone sleds attached to my feet and I feel how uncertain my stance is on the ground? The hill looks very large indeed. “The bottoms of my skis feel very slippery,” I confess as Vivi finishes strapping her skis to her feet and stands upright. “Are they supposed to?”

“They’re slippery because they’re greased,” Vivi tells me. “So we can go faster, remember?”

“If you don’t want to try the skis out with us, I can go get Thrand and you can watch Deenie instead.” Nadine’s tone is sweet.

“Bah,” is all I say. I should be the one with the skis on my feet, as it is my mate’s idea. “I will be excellent at skiing. Wait and see.”

“I’m sure you will, babe,” Vivi tells me, and poles her way forward a bit, testing the skis on her feet. “This version seems to be holding. That’s a good sign.”

“They feel sturdy,” Nadine agrees. “Much better than the reed ones. I think the length and width helps, too.”

Vivi makes a hmming noise. “They’re not as long as I want, but maybe that’s a good thing? We’ll just have to take it slow and make sure we don’t topple over as we go downhill. You remember what I told you, Skarr?”

I remember some of it, but I had also been admiring how strong and fine she looked when she was instructing me. “Balance my weight on my knees. Do not lean forward too much. Crouch. Steer with my knees. Turn to the side when I get to the bottom so I can stop.”

“You’ve got it.” Her eyes sparkle and she skis over to me, then puts one of her poles in the wrist loop and pulls a hood over my head, tucking a scarf around my neck. “How’s your tail sock?”

“Warm. I like it.” She made me an attachment that ties to the back of my leggings that covers the majority of my tail and helps me stay much warmer. I do not care for the festive pom-pom she put on the end, but it makes her smile and I like her smile, so it stays.

Vivi beams at me and taps a finger on my nose. “I’ll go first.” She turns to the other woman. “Nadine, you want to go last so you can help Skarr if he gets stuck?”

Nadine nods. “Will do.”

My female flashes a smile at us and then shuffles to the edge of the hill we are upon. She pushes off and crouches low as she glides down the side of the hill, picking up speed as she goes, her poles lifted horizontally under her arms. Near the bottom, she wobbles, almost losing her balance, and my heart leaps into my throat. I start forward to go after her, but she rights herself and I can breathe again.

When she gets to the bottom, she turns her skis and straightens to her full height, waving and giving us a thumbs-up gesture that means she is happy.

“Go for it, Skarr,” Nadine says. “You’re up.”

I bite back a heavy sigh. I will be excellent at this, I am certain. I just…do not want to do it. I like my feet on firm ground. But Vivi is gazing up with an expectant look and I do not want to disappoint her. Gritting my teeth, I move to the edge of the slope and hunch over.

The skis move forward a handspan, nothing more. And they do so agonizingly slow.

“Push off,” Nadine says. “With the poles.”

“I know this. I was just testing.” I try to push myself forward with the poles, but the angle is wrong.

“You want me to give you a nudge—”

“No,” I snarl at her. “I have it.” I shoot Nadine an indignant look and try to push myself forward again. This time I start to slide forward and pick up speed, and the snowy slope begins to rush past me. My heart does not beat as I fly at high speed down to the bottom of the hill, and I laugh in triumph when I make it all the way to the bottom. I knew I would be the best!

But…then I keep going.

I stand up, surprised, and look back over my shoulder at Vivi as my skis keep on carrying me across the snows, the momentum of my speed propelling me way past my mate.

“You have to turn your skis to stop,” Vivi calls after me. “Otherwise you’re going to keep going.”

“I am simply testing them,” I call back to her.

“Of course you are, babe.” Her laughter is sweet on the air, taking the sting out of her words.

I finally figure out how to turn my skis and when I do, I flop over onto the ground. Hmph. I will need to work on that part. I suppose I cannot be amazing at everything right away. Getting back on my feet proves to be a bigger challenge than the hill. By the time I manage to get upright again, Nadine is down the hill and standing with Vivi. I slide my way back to them and I have to admit, it does let me move across the snow quickly.

Vivi’s eyes are bright with excitement. “Let’s try going across the snow down here and go cross-country for a bit. I want to give the skis a real workout before we call them a success.”

We ski for a bit longer, but then one of Nadine’s blades breaks, and then the two women spend a long time examining the broken piece, looking for flaws and discussing how to make it stronger for the future. “I should head back anyhow,” Nadine says, glancing up at the suns and their position in the sky. “Thrand and Deenie are going to be wondering where I am.”

“We’re going to stay out for a bit longer,” my mate says. “If the weather holds, I want to ski out to one of the supply caves. Don’t wait up for us.”

“Oooh, a sexy honeymoon. You know I won’t.” She winks at us and then waves, picking up the broken pieces and hiking back up the snowy hill to the trail that leads back to the beach camp below.

“We are staying out for longer?” I ask Vivi, surprised. “For a sexy honeymoon?”

My mate moves closer to me, skiing to my side. She bumps into me and grins, and then adjusts the scarf around my neck again. “Not exactly. We’re partners, right?”

“Right…?”

She gazes up at me. “Do you trust me?”

“You know I would follow you anywhere.”

Vivi pats my chest. “Good, because I’m about to ask you something crazy.”