Barbarian Mine (Ice Planet Barbarians #4)(39)

Good, he’s here. He hasn’t left me. I give him a small smile to let him know I’m just fine. “I must have fallen asleep again. Have I been out long?”

“A day,” he says, and his hand flexes on mine. There’s a tightness in his voice that tells me of his worry. A full day?

I want to tell him that I’m just fine, but I don’t feel fine. I’m so exhausted and worn out. My head throbs and my throat hurts. Actually, all of me hurts. The baby kicks again and a little bit of tension I’ve been holding inside me releases – whatever happens, the baby is fine. Our baby.

I squeeze Rukh’s hand. This can’t be easy for him. “I love you.”

“You are my heart,” he says thickly.

I know I am. I smile at him again, but then Maylak’s gentle song begins and I feel a weird…excitement in my chest. Not like resonance. It’s something else. My body floods with what feels like endorphins and I feel…good. Just good. Relaxed. Happy.

“Rest,” Maylak says in her gentle voice. Her fingertips smooth over my eyelids, ensuring I close them and obey her. “I will speak to your khui and heal you. But for now? You must rest.”

Rest sounds good, despite the fact that I seem to be doing a lot of sleeping lately. “Is it the baby?” I murmur. I have to know before I can relax.

“Your khui will tell me.”

“While you’re in there checking everything out,” I say sleepily. “Can you make sure everything’s okay…up here?” I touch my forehead. “Just in case? Nothing weird going on?”

Her laughter is like a gentle rainfall, which sounds like such a cliché. But…it fits. Just hearing it makes me feel soothed and at peace. “I will check everything, I promise.”

I nod and squeeze Rukh’s hand again, relaxing. “I’ll be fine, baby. You’ll see.”

And then I fall asleep, sinking back into darkness. In my dreams, I’m holding my child. It has Rukh’s horns and tail, and my reddish hair and freckles. Poor kid. I can’t stop smiling at the thought, though, because the baby is happy and healthy and when he laughs, he looks just like his daddy…




RUKH



The healer hums softly as her fingertips brush over Har-loh’s pale skin. She looks calm, happy, and so at ease that some of my tension melts away. I don’t let go of my mate’s hand, though. As long as I touch her, some of my fear remains at bay. As Har-loh sleeps, I gently rub her knuckles. I want to touch her face but I don’t want to get in the way of the healer as she works.

“Your khui is not familiar to me.”

I look up, surprised to hear her speak. Even as her hands glide over Har-loh, doing seemingly nothing at all, there are small changes. Some of the hollows are easing from Har-loh’s face, the tension on her brow relaxing.

The healer gives me a gentle smile and puts her hands on Har-loh’s belly. “I know the khuis of each and every tribemate, but you do not sing in a familiar pattern to me.”

“I am not of your tribe.”

She looks surprised to hear that, her hands smoothing over the hard, rounded belly of my mate. “No? But you look like Raahosh.”

“We shared a father.”

“But you do not claim the tribe?” Her voice is soft and motherly, for all that she could be the same age as me.

“You have nothing I want.” My voice is a near snarl.

She ignores the anger in my response, unruffled. “Yet you are here, asking us to heal your mate.” Her gaze flicks to me. “I do not judge your choice. I am just stating it.”

I return to silence. If she expects a reply from me, she doesn’t seem disappointed.

“I am Maylak,” she says after a moment.

I do not give her my name. Not yet. When she leans forward to touch the far side of Har-loh’s belly, I notice that the healer is pregnant, too.

“You are with kit?” Is everyone in this tribe pregnant? Leezh is, this one is, and Raahosh tells me that the tribe’s leader’s mate is also pregnant.

“I am, though I am the only one that will be giving birth to a full-blooded sa-khui. All the others will be half-human and half one of our people.” She sighs and pats her belly. “I envy the humans their speediness, though. They will not be pregnant nearly as long as I am. Your Harlow does not have much longer.”

I rub her knuckles again. “No?”

“The kit is small inside her, but seems to be fully formed.” She touches Har-loh’s belly gently. “It will be different, of course. The humans are very different from our people.”

That worries me. How different? In the wild, animals cull the ‘different’ from the herd. But this woman is a healer, and she would know if my kit is going to be too ‘different’ to survive. My chest feels tight, and it takes everything I have not to crush Har-loh’s hand in mine. “Is that bad? That the kit is…different?”

She shakes her head, and the pressure in my chest eases a little. “The humans have different strengths than we do. I’m grateful they’re here. Without them, we only had four females. I do not know how much longer we could have lasted as a tribe. They have given us new life and new hope.”

I don’t care about the tribe’s hopes. All I want to know is if my mate and my kit will be well.