Ice Planet Barbarians (Ice Planet Barbarians, #1)(42)

Georgie makes a frustrated sound. “It’s a ship. Do you know what a ship is?” When I remain blank, she drums her fingers on her lip, thinking. “It’s a craft that floats through the stars, Vektal. You know I’m not from here, right? I don’t have a khui. So I can’t be.”

I nod because I know this to be true. But the thought of her coming from . . . the stars . . . is strange and bizarre. Unfathomable. But there are things I cannot answer. Her strange language. Her clothing. Her lack of khui. “You . . . wish to go back to the stars?”

Her expression softens into something sad. Her pale eyes gleam for a moment, wet with unshed tears. “I don’t know. I think I hate not having a choice more than anything.”

So it is not me she hates. My khui begins to thrum in my breast again. I press a hand to it. “Then I will go with you.”

Her tears vanish, and she gives a soft chuckle. Then she moves close and squeezes my arm with her good one. She lays her cheek on it and sighs. “I wish that you could.”

I trace my fingers down her soft cheek. Does she not realize? Anywhere she goes, I will gladly follow. She is my heart, my resonance, my soul. My mate. It grieves me she is so miserable here, with me.

“Even if I wanted to stay,” she says softly, “I cannot make that decision for the others. If there’s a chance we can go home, I have to let them decide that for themselves.”

My mate is noble. I grunt my understanding, though the animal side of me wants to drag her back to a hunting cave and keep her there, naked and pink, until it is out of the question.

But then my Georgie might die, because she has no khui. And the other girls will certainly die with no rescue. And all of my tribesmen who have no mates—Dagesh and Raahosh and Haeden and so many others—will never know this pleasure. Like Georgie, I cannot be cruel.

“We must go and rescue your friends,” I tell her. “If we travel swiftly, we will make it to my tribal caves tonight. We can collect the best hunters and return after them in the morning.”

“Let’s do it, then,” she says, determination steeling her voice. “Every moment that passes is another moment I feel guilty.”

“Guilty?” I ask her, cupping her small face up so she can look me in the eye. “Why guilty?” Why does my mate carry such burdens?

Her cheeks pink again. “Because I’m here with you, and I’m warm and happy and fed, and they’re not.”

Ah. My thumb strokes over her full mouth. “And because my cock makes you cry out with such pleasure?”

The pink deepens, and she ducks her head. “Ohjeez,” she says in her language. Then in mine, “Let us keep such talk between us.”

I am amused. Is my mate shy? Is this what the pink of her cheeks means? A sa-khui woman gets a flush at the base of her horns when she is embarrassed, but Georgie has no horns. “It is but talk between mates, my resonance.”

She tilts her head. “Resonance? What is that?”

I take her small hand, her good one, and press it over my chest. My khui responds, thrumming a content beat inside my chest. “It is this. Only you call to it. Only you make my khui hum in my breast with happiness. It is a sign that one’s mate has been found.”

Her lips part, and she looks up at me, startled. “I thought you were purring.”

“Prr-ing?” I am not familiar with this word.

“Like a cat.”

“Cat? A snow cat?” I think of the ugly creatures with whiskers and tufts of fur all over. I don’t recall them ever purring. They are tasty eating, though.

Georgie giggles. “You know what? Never mind. We should get going.”

She gets to her feet and straightens her clothing. We have eaten, and all is ready to go, except I find myself strangely reluctant to continue on. If I do, I am acknowledging that I might not get to keep my Georgie.

The thought staggers me with misery. I press my face to her stomach and hold her against me, seeking a measure of peace. To think that I might lose my sweet resonance so soon after finding her. I cannot bear it.

“Oh, Vektal,” she says softly. Her hands stroke over my horns, a tender caress. “I wish it was just me that I had to think for. Then this would be easier.”

“It is easy,” I tell her, pressing my face to her leather-covered body. Even through her coverings, I can smell her wonderful scent. I long to taste her again. “Accept the khui. Accept me.”

She’s silent, but her hands continue to touch me and smooth over my skin and horns stroke over my horns in what feels like a loving embrace. She must care something for me. She must. But she only says, “Something has to be my choice,” she says softly. “So many things have been taken from me. I need to claim something for myself. For now. Grant me that.”

I look up at her, at her sad face. “You know I can refuse you nothing.”

Her smile is sweet. Sad. “I know.”





GEORGIE


I ponder my choices all day as Vektal plods relentlessly through snow drift after snow drift, carrying me on his back.

Even though I am doing my best to deny it, it’s entirely possible that we’re never going to be able to get home. If Vektal’s ancestors were stranded here, then we probably can’t get home, no matter how hard we try. Our other option is to wait for the little green men to come back and try to hijack their ship and force them to take us home.