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“Remember what I told you,” Tia calls out cheerfully as we climb down the rocky path that leads out of the mountainous cliffs and down to the sheltered cove of the beach. In the distance, I see at least a dozen huts, plumes of smoke rising from their pointed roofs. People walk around, and in the crashing waves on the shore, I can see someone tossing a net.
Two split off from the cluster of people on the beach and jog toward us, and one of them has the strange, antelope-like horns that R’jaal does. That must be one of his people.
Instinctively, I clutch his hand tighter.
“Rosalind?”
Tia’s inquiring voice reminds me that she asked me a question. “Um. You told me not to bring up Star Trek for at least a few days, because Liz is a hardcore Star Wars fan and won’t like it? Or me?”
She laughs, and when I glance back at her and Rem’eb, I notice he’s not looking at the village at all, but his gaze is trained on her with such longing that it reminds me of R’jaal. “No, silly,” Tia replies. “Just that you won’t remember everyone’s names and I’m happy to help guide you around the village until you get comfortable.”
Oh, right. She did say that.
R’jaal squeezes my hand, and his tail curls around my waist. “I will be with her.”
“Yeah, but sometimes it’s easier to have a girlfriend at your side when you’re meeting other women.” Tia is full of amusement. “The offer’s there, anyhow.”
“I appreciate it,” I tell her, and I do. She’s been very kind and friendly, even though I know she has problems of her own—as in Rem’eb and what’s going to happen with him.
R’jaal leans in close as if sharing a secret. “You will be safe with me. I will protect you.”
I smile up at him. “Just don’t leave my side, okay?”
“Never.” And he says it like he means it.
“Ho! R’jaal! T’ia!” The two men jog up to us, both of them huge and muscular. I’m not surprised to see that one has four arms, but his horns are very small in comparison to R’jaal’s. Not the same clan, then. “We heard you brought back strangers with you!”
R’jaal releases my hand to hug the two-armed male, who slaps him soundly on the back. With the four-armed guy, he’s a bit more restrained, but I can tell they’re friendly. He turns back to me. “K’thar, S’bren, meet R’slind. She is my mate.”
Such pride and joy glows on his face when he looks at me. It makes me blush.
They eye the others walking behind us, and the one called S’bren gives a wide-eyed stare at the four-armed ancestors. He elbows K’thar, who just blinks and rubs his jaw in stunned silence. Now that they’re up close, I can see the differences. K’thar has thick hair, but his horns are stunted and he doesn’t have the crazy body pelt like Set’nef and his brother do. His tail isn’t the glossy waterfall of fur that they have, either. But the thick shoulders and the stance are eerily similar to Tal’nef and Set’nef and Rem’eb.
“Are these our fruit stealers?” K’thar asks, glancing at R’jaal and then Tia.
R’jaal shakes his head. “These are the ones that freed us from the fruit stealers. There is an entire village in the tunnels below the mountains.”
“And that is where you found yourself a pretty mate?” S’bren gives me a knowing look, grinning. “Count on R’jaal to not be satisfied with all of the humans we have found already. He must find himself a mate at the far end of the world.”
But K’thar eyes me. “Why is it that everywhere we turn lately there are more humans? I am going to throw a rock and hit three of them.”
“More humans?” Tia asks.
“There were other pods when I escaped mine,” I volunteer quietly. “I thought they were full of monsters, though. I saw one when I ran away. Now I’m realizing they were probably more aliens, but at the time I didn’t know it.”
S’bren grins widely. “Camp has changed a lot in the two hands of days you have been gone.”
“Two hands of days?” R’jaal is shocked. “That long?”
“And yet it feels like a lifetime,” Tia adds.
R’jaal gazes down at me, and his expression is thoughtful. Does it feel like a lifetime to him? Is he already sick of me? My chest purrs loudly, reminding me that we still haven’t made a baby yet, which means he’s going to want to do that, at least.
“Come back to camp,” K’thar says, gesturing for all of us to follow. “There is food on and R’hosh and his Leezh will want to hear everything.”
We cross the sand, heading for a group gathered around a fire. Children are playing with baby-sized spears in the distance, and others are scraping hides or drying meat on crude racks. Everyone seems to slow down or stop what they’re doing as we approach, and my skin prickles with anxiety. I feel like I’m on stage.
