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Her brows knitted together as she regarded him. “You are telling me that you are going toallowme to live inmyhouse?”
“My house,” he corrected with a sharp snap of his teeth that made her jump slightly in spite of herself. His pronunciation of the word “house” was strange, as if the use of the word was unfamiliar to him—but then he had been calling it a den. “I claim this territory. Males claim territory and set up their dens. Females pass through, and males accept this. I accept your presence.”
“Well, what if I don’t accept yours?” she bit back but was met with a bland look that told her all she needed to know regarding his opinion on that. Sighing, she rubbed her jaw and gave him a perplexed look. “Okay, why do you accept me?”
He shrugged and turned his attention back to the door frame. Eve eyed him for a long moment and sighed again. A stand-off wasn’t getting her anywhere.
“All right. I will be right back,” she muttered, and she stalked back toward the rear of the house.
It didn’t take her long to grab the box of tools and carry them down the ladder from the attic. She lowered them to the floor, a safe distance away from the alien, and gestured to the box.
“There they all are. I have no idea what most of them do, so I guess I’ll leave you at it. I will go see what vegetables are ripe in the garden.” She paused and squinted at him in suspicion. “You aren’t going to lock me out if I go out there, will you?”
He gruffly chuffed again in amusement, and she relaxed and felt a tiny smile pull at the corners of her mouth. With a nod, she slipped out the door but couldn’t quite stop the smile that broke out over her face and the tiny chuckle that bubbled inside of her. The nuances of the Ragoru’s facial expressions were a little harder to read than those of a human. He seemed pretty grumpy when he wasn’t laughing at her, but he was actually a bit funny himself. It was, without a doubt, the strangest situation she’d ever been in. but at least it was interesting. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? If nothing else, the feeling of loneliness may abate some while he was around. It had been a long time since she had anyone there but herself.
ChapterFive
Skal had planned on hunting that day, but fixing the barrier that the human called a door took most of the daylight hours. Mostly because he was nothing but a perfectionist. He worked the wood until it was smooth, and using a small boring tool that whirled to life when the female returned and pushed the end into the wall, he was able to reposition the metal parts and get the door secured in place once more. Although the tools and structure were unfamiliar and different compared to the den he had prepared so long ago, once he understood what he was supposed to be doing, and how, he found a peculiar satisfaction in it. There was something about the repetitive motions, the feel of the solid wood beneath his hands, and the scent of it that calmed him as he worked.
A grunt of satisfaction left him as he tightened the last metal piece and slowly stood. His eyes narrowing on the door, he carefully closed it, his ears pricking when the door aligned just right so that it snicked shut, fitting perhaps better than it had before. A smile stole over his face, and he experimentally opened it again and moved the door back and forth to test the door’s stability. This was far better than a stretched hide. Releasing the door, Skal stretched the muscles of his back. They were tight from laboring over the door, but it was a good feeling. It spoke of accomplishment and the comfort of settling into his den and making it his own. Dragging in a deep breath of the cool air,herscent tickled his nose, drawing his attention to the lone figure picking its way through the fog toward the house with a large basket in hand.
His ears tipped toward her, taking in the soft sounds she made as she neared. The quiet draw and exhalation of her breath, the light crunch of leaves and greenery beneath her feet. Other than these soft sounds, she could easily be a living shadow herself there within the fog. An illusion to entice him from his den with the soft sway of her rounded hips with her every step. She did not have a tail to accentuate the movement, but he didn’t find any lack in that. It was her scent that teased him and called to him through the fog that made his fur prickle with wariness even as his shafts thickened within his sheath.
A soft growl left him. With the fog between them, the female was a tantalizing thing—all scent and shadow that triggered an unexpected yearning within him. It was more than a desire to simply bury his cocks within a warm female body. There was a stronger desire that rose from the depths of him that he shied away from and tried to ignore.
His human was like a nishagolin—a spirit of the land who tempted unbound males to tie them to her and consume his seed to make the forests and mountains verdant with life. In the steady light within the den, he would not have believed her to be a nishagolin, but out in the ceaseless mists of the woods and the full ache of his seedsacks filling for her as her scent engulfed him, he could believe it.
Was this how she had first seen him? A shadow of the forest come to life? As a male of his size, she doubtlessly felt no seductive call that he felt now, but an unknown predator stirring in the fog, prowling. He wanted to prowl away from the den now and stalk his sweet quarry. His cocks twitched with their eager demand, but he snapped his teeth against the growl of need that attempted to rumble through his chest as the female suddenly emerged from the fog, her eyes wide and blinking as she jerked to a stop and stared up at him as if surprised to see him there. A faint pink stain rose to her cheeks, and her plush human lips parted.
“Oh!” She took a hesitant step back.
He blinked at the scent of her fear and took a step back as well, shaking his head to clear it from the fog of lust that had flooded him. What had he been thinking? His cocks had not risen for anyone for revolutions, but they came to life for her? Not only that, but his entire ability to reason had completely deserted him, to the point of fixation on her approaching through the fog. It was alarming at best for a male who had no desire to be mixed up in such things again.
“Sorry. I didn’t expect to see you out here,” she said quietly, giving him a long, uncertain look.
Skal grunted and cleared his throat, dipping his head toward the door. “I fixed it,” he grumbled, intentionally drawing her attention to the repairs he made, all the while hating the fact that some part of him wanted her to see his work and be pleased by it.
Her large brown eyes turned the door and widened. “Oh! It looks as good as new! Better, in fact. I don’t think it ever hung quite so straight. You did this?”
The look she gave him was full of surprise but also pleasure, and it took all of his willpower not to preen like a newly mated alpha. Instead, he narrowed his eyes on her and huffed in mock offense as he pulled the door open for her.
“I am not a helpless Rog. I said I could repair the wood, and so I did,” he grumbled, gesturing to the lit interior. His muzzle wrinkled as he glanced up at the rapidly fading sunlight. “You lack fur, and it’s becoming colder. Get inside.”
Her lips pressed together, but he did not miss the faint upward hitch at the corner of her mouth. It sent a strange warmth within his belly as she passed him and stepped into the den. He ran his claws over his abdomen, scratching lightly. Perhaps he was allergic to something that the female had in her den that was making him feel odd.
“Well, it is better than Victor did,” she muttered in a low voice as she glanced toward the door in passing, and his ears twitched with curiosity even as something within him tightened darkly.
Who was Victor? A male? Skal’s lips pulled from his sharp teeth, a low growl rolling in his chest. He would not tolerate any other males there. An unwanted female was one thing. Females were to be protected. A male he did not have to suffer, nor would he.
Setting her heavy basket on the table, she unwound the thick band wrapped around her neck and peeled off her outer covering, dropping them onto the very small human sitting bench. He eyed it speculatively, uncertain if it would even hold his weight as she continued on into what appeared to be a food preparation area at an unhurried pace.
“I noticed that you like pumpkin. I cut another from the pumpkin patch at the edge of the orchards. They need less fussing over than most other plants and do well with the extra nutrients and sun that they get out there near the mountain. Anyway, I thought I might make some pumpkin soup. I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of meat right now, but it’s the least that I can offer,” she said as she bent down and pulled out a large, round metal container and set it on a metal surface in front of her.
Skal grunted. He should have found time to hunt. He could survive without the meat—it was something that he had done many times before, starving himself to feed his family—but for some reason it did not feel right that there was no good meat available for the female. Unwilling to touch the small sitting benches, he crouched low and rested his arms against the firm muscles of his thighs as he watched her move about the small space. He startled briefly when a flame sprung up without the use of the flint and ore that he kept in a small bag hanging from a cord and hidden in the ruff of fur around his throat. Discovering the valuable stones had been a moment of triumph, but now he wondered what more this new world offered. Dens made out of wood and now fires that sprung to life with just a move of the fingers. It was all strange and new.
Ears pricking, Skal watched her as she pulled out a large wooden board and a blade and began to cut into the large orange fruit. Its musky, sweet scent sprung into the air with each score of the blade into its meat. As if sensing his gaze fixed on her, her eyes flicked over to him for just a moment, and her lips twitched yet again, intriguing him with their delicate curl.
“I suppose that if we are going to be doing this, we might as well call each other something other than human and Ragoru. Or female,” she added with a wrinkle of her nose in obvious distaste.
