Barbarian Lover (Ice Planet Barbarians #3)(50)

Sevvah shakes her head and takes a handful of the wooly herbs out of the bowl I’m holding. “That one has a hard head. Perhaps now that you’ve taken a mate she’ll get it out of her mind that you should be together.”

“One can hope,” Aehako says drily. He hisses when Sevvah presses the bundle of herbs against the wound.

“This should be stitched,” Sevvah tells him.

“Maylak can fix it.”

“Maylak will be exhausted trying to save Haeden,” Sevvah insists. “I won’t have you bleeding out while you wait for her to recover. You have a pretty mate to take to your furs. The last thing you want is to spend your time moaning in pain.”

“Not when I’d rather spend it just moaning, eh?” Aehako teases.

Oh my God, I can’t believe he just made that joke with his mother. I stare at him, horrified and unable to laugh.

As if she can read my thoughts, Sevvah rolls her eyes, taps his cheek with her hand, and says, “Behave, you randy fool.”

A giggle escapes me, and Sevvah flashes me a grin. Maybe the whole mother-in-law thing won’t be so bad after all.

“So,” Sevvah says as she readies an awl and a thick length of cord. As she pulls up a small stool, her husband Oshen retrieves a bowl from a shelf over the fire pit and carries it forward with gloved hands. Hot water. He sets it down nearby and Sevvah dips a bit of leather into it, then dabs at the edges of Aehako’s deep wound. “Where will you and your new mate be caving?”

“Caving?” I ask.

“What, you don’t want us here, Mother? I am wounded.”

My eyes widen. Sharing a cave with Aehako’s big family? And trying to have sex while doing so? The idea is unthinkable. But there’s no place else to go, either, and Harlow – and any hopes of a stonecutter – are gone. This is something I haven’t even considered, and I shoot Aehako a worried glance. Does he really want us to live here?

But even as I look over, he winks.

Sevvah snorts. “The last thing a young mated pair needs are two old ones and two boys snuggled up in the furs nearby. Your mate will want more privacy than that.” She dabs at his wound again, then looks at me. “Since there are so many newly mated pairs, there is talk of opening the caves to the south for the winter and splitting the tribes.”

“Then we’ll go there,” Aehako says, wincing as his mother tends to him. “Kira and I will definitely need our own space.”

“A noisy one, is she?”

“The noisiest,” Aehako says proudly.

I’m so going to die of embarrassment.



? ? ?





I must drift off to sleep at some point, because the next thing I know Aehako is kissing my brow and tucking me into bed. I should get up, but it’s so warm and safe and I’m curled up next to him so I just snuggle down closer and drift back to sleep.

It’s heaven, pure and simple.

I wake up at some point because I feel like someone’s staring at me. I squeeze one eye open and Sessah – Aehako’s much younger brother – is gazing down at me. I feel a little awkward and shy under his scrutiny. “Good morning,” I say in his language, since I know it now. The words feel fluid on my tongue, and I realize this is the first time I’ve been able to say more than just ‘hi’ to the younger ones, who haven’t been out to the elders’ ship for the language dump. I decide to show off a little. “Am I sleeping funny? Is that why you stare?”

“You’re Aehako’s mate?”

“I am.”

“But you didn’t resonate. How can you be mates?”

Oh boy. Am I going to have to explain the birds and the bees to this kid? “Well, ah, sometimes when two people love each other very much, they want to be together all the time despite the fact that they can’t have a baby.”

He wrinkles his nose at the thought. “Does this mean you’re moving into our cave? It’s already crowded.”

“I don’t know. Um, is your brother Aehako around?”

“He is with the chief.”

“Thank you,” I murmur, and straighten my clothing before emerging from the bed. I’m still dressed, thank goodness, but my leathers smell like smoke and sweat and I kind of wish I had something else I could change into. Clothing’s been at a premium with twelve new people to tend to, though. Maybe someone will have extras I can change into. I slide out of the furs, glancing around. I’m still in Sevvah’s cozy cave, though this portion has been sectioned off with a strategic rocky outcropping and a large woven basket to give the illusion of privacy. Nearby, I can still hear the heavy breathing of someone else sleeping, and the low murmur of Sevvah’s voice nearby.

Sessah’s right. The cave is definitely small and crowded. I’m grateful for the bed, of course, but I think longingly of my loft apartment back on Earth that had seemed so small two months ago and now seems like unrivaled luxury. When the babies get here, we’re going to be falling over each other with the crowding.

I…suppose that won’t be a problem for me and Aehako. I feel a guilty pang at the thought. It was his choice to mate me despite knowing my flaws, so I can’t worry about it. I tell myself this as I slide on soft boots, give Sessah a pat on the head, and then emerge from the private cave into the main interior of the tribal caves.