Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
I’rec chuckles with amusement. “I would wager she hates this idea.”
A’tam’s foolish grin grows broader. “Wait. Am I hearing you correctly, brother? You will force the female to look after herself and in exchange, you get her in your furs every night?” At my nod, he gives me an incredulous look. “Where is the catch to this?”
“There does not seem to be one,” I admit.
“And yet you are here fussing with a bed-roll instead of driving between your female’s legs?” A’tam shakes his head at me. “Is your skull full of rocks, brother?”
“Oh boy.” B’shit takes her sleeping son and hands him over to her mate. “Take your child. I’m going to go get something.” She heads for the door of the hut and pauses, looking over at me. “Ignore A’tam, by the way. He talks a big game but it’s not as if he’s always been full of smooth moves himself.”
She heads out, and I frown over at A’tam. “What is a smooth move?”
“Nothing,” he mutters. “She is just talking human speak.” He settles A’bri in his arms and then glances over at me. “Do you think the healer will be able to help you make a kit?”
“D’see seems to think so,” I say. “She turned it off for T’chai and M’rsl, yes? Perhaps she could turn it on again. And she helped W’lla and Gren.”
“She is helping them again,” I’rec confesses. “F’lor says so. They wish for another.”
Interesting. Then our request will not be so out of the ordinary. I nod, concentrating on tossing the last of my things into a pack. I want to return to D’see already. Every moment I spend here is a moment I am not kissing her again. “I will be busy for the next while,” I point out to them.
“Filling your new mate,” A’tam says with a grin.
I glare over at him. “Teaching her to hunt.”
“That, too.” The flap to the hut opens and A’tam’s grin broadens. “Speaking of pretty mates…”
B’shit returns, slightly breathless, her lower legs covered in sand. She dusts them off near the entrance and then hands me a tiny jar with a stopper in it. “A gift.”
“A jar?” I ask, since I know she makes pottery for the tribe. She is getting better with them but I still do not see why I need this jar tonight. “My thanks.”
“It’s a cream,” B’shit says. “For sex. In case things aren’t very…lubricated. She’s a virgin, right? She told me that.” She gestures at the jar. “So her first time with a Shadow Cat hunter isn’t as awful as mine.”
A’tam makes a sound of protest in his throat while I’rec chokes back laughter. “My heart,” A’tam says, covering his sleeping son’s ear. “You wound me.”
“Oh, shush,” she says, brushing the last of the sand off her legs and moving over to his side. “You got much, much better at it. Trust me.” She leans over him and gives him a kiss. And then another. And a third. A’tam’s tail snakes around her leg and they look lost in each other.
I’rec clears his throat, annoyed at the two of them. “Go back to your own hut if you are going to do this. And you,” he says, making a flicking motion at me. “Get out of here and go claim your mate. Make Shadow Cat proud.”
“The bar is pretty low,” B’shit calls out as I leave. “Trust me!”
A’tam’s low growl is the last sound I hear as I exit.
I return to the hut I will share with D’see, scratching at the screen before I enter. Foolish, perhaps, but I do not want to startle her. When I enter, I am surprised to see there is a small fire in the pit. D’see has straightened up the hut and she sits near the fire, poking it with the long, carved thigh bone I use for such things. She smiles at the sight of me. “The coals weren’t totally dead so I tried for fire again.”
“My thanks,” I say, not pointing out that she is burning a small mountain of quick-flaming tinder and very little long-burning fuel. There will be time for lessons tomorrow. Right now all I can think about are A’tam’s careless words. They circle in my head like snakes, waiting to attack.
And she chose O’jek?
You are here fussing with a bed-roll and not driving between your mate’s legs?
If D’see has doubts about me, she does not show them. She is bundled in the bed furs, her mane long enough that it brushes against her shoulders now, and her expression is no longer defeated and sad. She looks…excited. Eager.
For me?
Flustered, I dump my hunting supplies at the far end of the hut. My nets will be tangled in the morning and my fishing gear everywhere, but I cannot find it in me to care. I think of the small pot of cream B’shit gave me and wonder if it will embarrass D’see to know that my clan is aware of what we do. “B’shit gave us a cream,” I finally decide to say, feeling awkward. “Because it is our first time.”