Barbarian Mine (Ice Planet Barbarians #4)(44)

She nods and pushes the blankets off my belly, all business once more. “I thought so, but I had to ask. Sometimes it is hard to tell.” Her fingers prod the side of my stomach, and she looks up at me. “Any pain here today?”

I shake my head. For the first time in what feels like forever, the nagging ache in my side is gone. “No. It feels good.”

She nods. “Your child is healthy, but your body struggles to create enough food for it. There is a…thing the body creates when a kit comes out of the mother. We call it the ‘life meat’.”

Well, that sounds gross. I’m growing a baby and ‘life meat’ inside me. “The placenta?”

“It is not nourishing your kit as it should. Your child will come early.”

My hands go to my belly, caressing it. “Is that bad?”

“No. It just means you will be with us for a while longer.”

I relax. “I’m ready to stop being pregnant.”

Maylak grins, her sharp teeth showing. “I know this feeling well. But for you, it will not be much longer now.”

I can hardly wait.



? ? ?





The next week crawls by slowly.

I sleep a lot, thanks to the baby and Maylak’s healing. Since I’m confined to the caves, there’s not much to do when people aren’t visiting. And since my mate is skittish around all these people, I do a lot of shooing off even the most well-intentioned of visitors.

Much has changed in the tribe since I was here last. They’ve split into two caves, with half of the group living in a network of caves to the south. Kira and Aehako are there, along with a lot of the single women and men. Tiffany, Josie and Claire are the only girls that haven’t mated yet, and so they are there as well. The main cave is full of pregnant couples, since they need to be close to the healer.

Rukh and I are made comfortable in a cave that is used for meat storage, and everyone stops by to bring us extra furs or additional food or even baby clothes. My mate is clearly uncomfortable whenever people arrive, and he takes to spending a lot of time with Raahosh, hunting. The two men leave at dawn every morning and go out to provide meat for the tribe. Rukh has confessed to me that he feels obligated to Maylak for her help, and so he hunts not only for us, but for her and her family. I personally think a lot of it is stress relief, and I’m happy that Raahosh goes with him. Every time Rukh disappears, there’s a nagging worry in my mind that he won’t come back. That he’ll just walk and keep going, deciding that life alone is less of a hassle than a pregnant mate and people constantly in your face.

At least Raahosh is with him. Liz comes over every day to keep me company, grumbling that now that I’m cave bound, he wants her to stay with me. She thinks he just wants her to stick around in the caves because he worries she’ll end up like me. I want to point out that it’s likely she never had a brain tumor, but then my secret would be out, and I don’t want to be treated weirdly by the others.

Aehako and Haeden stop by from the south caves one day, and I’m thrilled to see both of them looking so healthy. It eases my lingering guilt, especially when Aehako wraps me in a bear hug and tells me all about Kira’s pregnancy and how happy they are.

Days pass, and still the baby doesn’t come.

I start to relax, because I’m feeling a lot better. The endless nagging pain in my side is gone and I no longer feel stretched to my physical limits. I suspect that maybe my baby won’t be coming early after all. Georgie’s further along than me and she shows no signs of going into labor any time soon.

Since there are so many of us heavily pregnant, we tend to gather by the bathing pool. The water’s heated from one of Not-Hoth’s many hot springs, and it feels wonderful on my swollen feet. I’m happy to see that Marlene also suffers from puffy feet, and it makes me feel less like I drew the short end of the pregnancy stick.

Today, several of the human girls are sitting around the pool. It feels a little cliquish, but then I remember that there are practically no sa-khui women in the tribe. There are two women our age, and two elderly women. Oh, and Farli, who is the Earth equivalent of a pre-teen. So I guess it’s okay if we huddle together.

Megan holds up the leather belt she’s braiding. “See? You thought being a Girl Scout wouldn’t be handy at all. Who knew that I’d be using macramé skills on a daily basis in the future?”

Nora snorts and wiggles her feet in the water. “When you’re done with that, make me one. I’m all thumbs.”

“You are?” Georgie kicks a bit of water in Nora’s direction. “Have you seen my attempts at sewing? I can balance a checkbook like nobody’s business and can count a drawer of money in a heartbeat. But crafty shit? Not in the slightest.”

I’m seated next to Megan, between her and Stacy. She’s trying to show us how to macramé leather together into knotted creations. It looks useful, and I think of the things I could make – a sling to carry the baby in, and Rukh’s shoulder bag looks as if it’s about to fall apart it’s so worn. Hell, maybe I could macramé a bra, because right now? My boobs hurt like there’s no tomorrow and the leather band I wear around them tends to slide.

Liz sits nearby, sharpening and resharpening the tips of bone arrows. Marlene’s with the group, but she’s quiet, preferring to listen while others chatter. Ariana’s sleeping in back in her cave, and the men are out hunting to stock up. Last ‘winter’ apparently cleaned the storehouses out and so they’re working extra hard to make sure everyone has enough to eat for this upcoming winter, when the snows get so high they sometimes can cover the cave entrance entirely. Liz has plenty of stories about the insane amounts of snow, and they make me shiver. It was cold by the sea, but not nearly as cold as that.