“Both!” he proclaimed. “Dalk is a scoundrel. And so is his cock!” He heaved a great sigh. “Fiona needs a barrier between her and that unruly organ. A buffer, if you will. She is liable to lose an eye, if not!”
Tilly dissolved into snorts. I took a shuddering breath, and then tried to keep my voice steady as I said, “Oxriel, do you think that maybe the lack of loincloth on Dalk’s, er, unruly organ, was perhaps part of the reason Fiona nearly tripped over herself volunteering to go with him just now?”
Oxriel appeared stunned by this suggestion. Zoren frowned, muttering, “I did not see her nearly trip.”
“It’s very good of you both to be so worried about the integrity of Fiona’s tongue and, er, eye,” I said with what I hopedsounded like kindness. “But I really think that it’s going to be alright. Fiona knows what she’s about. She chose to go with him. You can definitely bring him a new loincloth,” I added, because I didn’t think anyone (besides maybe Fiona) wanted to see Dalk complete the rest of the vaklok with his big, bare dick flopping around. “But maybe just wait a few minutes more…”
He did so. But soon enough a few minutes turned to five more, then fifteen.
“How many wounds do you think Dalk’s got to heal?” Zoren asked Oxriel. Even the other Deep Sky men were all sorted out now, glancing around in anticipation of resuming the vaklok. Gahn Thaleo was among them, standing on the stone, his gaze fixed on the valley Dalk and Fiona had disappeared into.
“Maybe you should go get them now,” I said, once again feeling protective of Dalk and Fiona’s time alone. I’d much rather have sweet Oxriel go and interrupt them to fetch Dalk back than Gahn Thaleo.
Oxriel didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He bounded away, snatching a fresh hide, presumably for wrapping Dalk’s loins, as he did so. Moments later, all three of them returned, with Fiona walking slightly ahead. She looked flustered, her hair mussed as she pulled up her hood. Oxriel looked sheepish. Dalk looked absolutely murderous with anger.
“What do you suppose Ox just interrupted?” Tilly asked, no doubt noting the charged atmosphere among the group. We both stared meaningfully at Fiona as she returned to her spot with us on the bench. But before we could ask her to spill the details about what had just happened, Gahn Thaleo called for the resumption of the vaklok.
Then, he came back to his place on the bench.
He sat beside me for the rest of the afternoon.
I didn’t say a word.
4
THALEO
After the conclusion of the vaklok, during the final meal, I watched as the new woman Fiona took the Sea Sand male Dalk back with her into my mountain.
She led him by the hand.
There could be no doubt as to their intentions. After they’d returned to the vaklok earlier today, he’d smelled like freshly ejaculated male seed and some other, foreign musk I could only guess was related to a human female’s arousal.
It made me wonder what Nazreen smelled like. Between her legs.
I hurled myself away from that question, because I rather felt like it would somehow break me. So instead, I concentrated on the question of Dalk and Fiona, unmated, but clearly growing closer. The entire reason Fiona was here, in my mountain, was that she was technically unmated and could end up as mate to any of my men. If a male of my tribe had a mate vision of her while she was thus entangled with Dalk…
It would not go down peaceably.
I was prepared to spill blood to defend the rights of my men to have access to mates of the Vrika’s choosing. I would fight,and fight hard, for any one of my tribe if it meant safeguarding their future. But I knew that the new women, with their strange ship and their weapons and their ways so different than ours, would not understand this. They would fight back. And more might be lost than just one man’s chance at a mate.
Sometimes our alliance with the new women, and by extension, Gahn Errok’s tribe, felt as if it were balanced on the edge of a Deep Sky cliff. The wind that made it shudder, that threatened to send it sailing over the edge and into disaster, was merely my own breathing. I did not know how to exist around this yet.
Movement beyond the gathered group outside drew my sight stars to its source. Nazreen was alone, drifting along the edge of the stony clearing. Her cloak was on, but its hood was down. The shells she’d spent much of the day wearing over her eyes were gone. The light of the moons sent silver spearing down the thick, wavy locks of her hair, spangling across her nose, her cheeks, her chin.
She paused at the short valley that led to the waterfall where Dalk had had his ceremonial bath and healing with Fiona.
Then, she took a step into it. Then another.
Shadows engulfed her.
Her own people did not even see her go.
It was not a long valley. She would barely be out of earshot. It was unlikely any mountain predator would approach with the sounds of all my warriors eating here together.
But she was alone. And that my heartbeat feel strangely like a hammer’s blow.
I reached the shadowed valley, prowling through it, before I even told my feet to move. I found her in the clearing, observing the shining clatter and fall of the water.
