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“Thank you,” I said, holding back a sudden tightness in my throat. “I’m seriously glad I have friends to help me deal with this.”
Nasrin laughed, deep and melodic. Fiona made a pleased-yet-embarrassed scoffing sound. Tilly, despite being the shortest, hugged back the hardest.
“I wonder what he’ll do now,” Fiona said as we pulled apart. “I couldn’t tell if he was leaving to go back to his territory, or to just blow off some steam.”
I shrugged. “Not my problem whatever he does,” I said. “He can hang around or go back. Whatever.”
“We’ll be leaving soon for the new settlement anyway,” Nasrin said. “Day after tomorrow.”
I pushed aside thoughts of Gahn Errok to let in a little excitement about that fact. New places, new work to explore, my friends with me...
I tried to picture the vast blue mountainscape ahead of us.
But instead, Gahn Errok’s sneer filled my mind. It was even more annoying that the expression of judgmental disgust was on such a handsome face.
Well, that face won’t get him any points with me.Outer beauty did literally nothing to impress me. Other things – kindness, authenticity, and generosity of spirit – were far more important. And something told me Gahn Errok didn’t have much of those things to spare.
“I’m gonna hit the hay,” I said with a sigh, suddenly exhausted.
The other girls said their goodnights as I took off my boots, socks, and pants and wiggled into my bedding hides.
Over the next hour or so, other women filtered into the tent. I’d thought I would fall asleep right away, but I didn’t. I lay there with my eyes closed, listening to the titters and snatches of conversation around me. Most of that conversation was centered on one thing: Gahn Errok’s arrival and the subsequent scene that had unfolded at the fire.
The conversations invaded my ears as I finally did drift off, tainting my subconscious.
Because when I eventually fell into a deep enough sleep to dream, I dreamed of flashing fangs in a disdainful face. A haughtily raised chin. And piercing sight stars.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Errok
After hunting a desertrakdo for an evening meal (reddish-coloured, like the sand, instead of the blue of our mountains) Togo and I begrudgingly found a place to sleep. We slept upon a ledge up among the cliffs. One that offered a view down into the settlement, with the new women’s tent at its heart.
I knew this was the tent for the unmated new women because I’d watched them enter it. Which meant that was where my own mate was.
I laid flat on my stomach, my arms crossed ahead of me, my forearms at the very edge of the stone ledge. I rested my chin moodily upon my crossed wrists, glaring down at the tent.
