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She glanced up at the massive warrior, and an even stronger current of lust overtook her surprise, making her feel weak with need.
The Invicta warrior, on the other hand, was so serious he almost looked angry.
He doesn’t want to hear about what’s going on with me.
And I don’t know what’s happening enough to explain it.
The sight of his chiseled features was only making it worse. Her belly tightened strangely as she studied the tension in his jaw.
Tearing her eyes away, she fixed her gaze on the horizon and placed the hand that wasn’t holding the baby in her lap, willing herself to breathe.
If I just focus on something else, and I don’t look at him again, maybe this will pass. Sooner or later, he’ll go, and then I can relax.
The warrior shouted something harshly in a language she didn’t understand, and all the dogs leaped to their feet at once.
Though his hoarse shout seemed to light up her senses all over again, the sight of the dogs preparing to move was a good distraction.
There were six dogs in total. The two in the back were calmly attentive. The two in the middle quivered and panted.
But it was the two in front that really caught her eye.
One was leaping in place and practically howling with excitement to get moving, while the other stood with a stillness that somehow implied intelligence and responsibility.
“What are their names?” she asked, without meaning to.
She clamped her mouth shut and kept her eyes on the dogs.
“The two nearest to us are Banshee and Roo,” the deep voice replied. “They’re the wheel dogs, and their job is to be calm and steady to help us get around sharp turns.”
She nodded.
“The two in the middle are Cheeky and Sooky,” he went on. “They’re swing dogs, which means they have to pay close attention to the leader dogs in front of them, and help swing the sled and the dogs behind them on regular turns.”
Sure enough, the two were paying close attention to the dogs in front of them, and the sled wasn’t even moving.
“The ones in front are the leaders?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Leader dogs must be intelligent, with good noses to find the trail, and good common sense. If something is wrong up ahead, they have to let us know. And they set the pace for the whole team.”
“Their personalities seem very different,” she said, watching the more solemn of the two study the horizon as the other capered in place, panting and snuffling the lichen.
“Apollo is a thinker,” the warrior agreed, nodding. “He’s the dog most likely to slow the pace when another teammate is hurt, or intuit what I want when I command him.”
“And the other?” she asked.
“Alibaba has the best nose of the pack, and she’s the fastest,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. “She’s the first to know if there’s danger up ahead, though she’s more likely to want to run to it than from it. She’s also the last one to run out of energy. I like to think she inspires the others. Between Apollo and Alibaba, we have everything we need to run for days.”
“We’re not actually traveling for days, are we?” she asked him.
He didn’t answer, so she broke her resolve and looked up at him instead of just catching what she could in her periphery.
Gods, but he’s handsome…
“You’re going to be running a fishing operation, and the only water is at the poles,” he said. “Getting there requires a few days of travel.”
“Wow,” she breathed, reminding herself that the moon wasn’t as big as Terra-17.
It still felt like a wild adventure to go all the way to one of the poles.
