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She gave him a confused look. Although they ate fruit, bread, and small flaky bits of ghost cheese throughout much of the day, it wasn’t like she hadn’t cooked for him. Granted, the pumpkin soup, while filling, didn’t quite have the same presentation as the spread now laid out before them. Eve looked over it and shrugged.
“I figured that I might as well work on using up some of what’s left of my supplies and take the opportunity to fill my belly now before I make my way to town. You may as well enjoy it, too, since it will be the last of my cooking for a while. It will take me a few days to make the trip,” she hurried to explain when his brow lowered, “but I’m sure that you’ll be glad to have the house to yourself, and there’s plenty of game that makes its home in the valley. You’re of course welcome to make use of anything you find—except my animals,” she clarified. “The goat and the chickens are off-limits. And the mule I bring back will be, too.”
A soft growl left him, his yellow eyes slitting, and for a moment Eve felt a fear conflict with a bizarre sense of arousal that swept through her.
“Why?” He snarled. “Who do you go to meet?”
“Meet?” She blinked at him. “Well, hopefully someone is willing to let me buy their mule off of them.”
Some very small amount of the tension around him eased. “I don’t understand,” he grumbled bitterly, and Eve gave him a sympathetic look. “You are speaking in confusing riddles, and I do not like it. Stop.”
Eve bristled, her sympathy waning rapidly as she glared at the male seated across the table from her in Victor’s place. Speaking in riddles? She did no such thing. She was simply being honest with him. It wasn’t her fault that he was dumped on her planet with the expectation to breed with humans that they knew nothing about. And yethewas angry withher. Part of her wanted to verbally strike back at him and give him a piece of her mind over his own social failings. There was no reason for him to be so snarly with her! She never appreciated it when Victor snapped or snarled at her over the most ridiculous things, but she had overlooked it because he was who she had chosen. That didn’t mean that she was going to take it from an uninvited Ragoru who had invaded her home. A sharp word lingered on the tip of her tongue, but she reluctantly bit it back as she considered the way he hunkered defensively over his plate, his ears laid back as if expecting some manner of retaliation.
She frowned at that and sighed heavily, drawing his wary yellow gaze reluctantly to her. That touched something within her. Although he was a very convincing brute, there was something vulnerable about the way he looked in that moment that touched her heart a little. She empathized with it because she often felt that way when dealing with the townspeople, after dealing with the small-minded meanness of so many of the people there. Despite how many people tried to coax her multiple times to move into town when she was left all on her own, she knew that it wasn’t because anyone there genuinely cared about her. And now she no longer had Victor to act as a buffer, allowing her to escape their attention, so now every interaction was one filled with anxiety for her.
Although she didn’t know what potential trauma Skal suffered to get him to react that way, she believed she understood. He was confused, and for some reason, the idea of her meeting with someone upset him—perhaps because it made him suspicious that she was going to look for someone to remove him from her farm. He didn’t trust her, and so he was relying on his instinctual impulse. She understood that. So, she merely needed to reassure him and explain to him exactly what she was doing.
“A mule is a beast of burden. An animal that will help me transport my crops to the town a short distance from the valley for credits or to barter for goods that I need. Things like the sugar and tea,” she pointed out. “Or the flour here in our pancakes. Unfortunately, my mule died after my last harvest of spring fruits, which means I need to make the walk to town to get a new mule. It is a long walk, and when I get back, I will need to work quickly to begin my harvest, so I guess this meal is kind of an apology in that I will be very busy.”
She cringed a little as he stared at her blankly, recalling that his offer to allow her to stay rather than chase her away didn’t mean he would miss her. He had never explicitly shown any interest in having a companion. He probably didn’t even feel the same consuming loneliness that she did. She was about to backtrack and apologize when he suddenly opened his mouth and surprised her.
“Show me this wagon.”
Leaving their plates on the table, she led him out into the side yard of the house where the two large wagons waited, already hitched together. Skal’s gaze roved over them, and he gripped the shafts that would connect the modified wagon to a single mule’s harness. He gave the wagon a sharp, speculative look and gave it a brief tug, grunting when it rolled forward effortlessly. His eyes fell on her, just as distant as ever, but they narrowed perceptively with a look that she couldn’t even begin to decipher.
“I do not like your plan. The woods are dangerous, and you plan to walk far and all alone. I will do it. We will prepare your harvest, and I will pull your wagon.”
She gaped at him in shock. “Skal, that’s generous, but it will be very heavy.”
He snorted dismissively. “I have hauled many kills much larger over great distances to feed my family…” his voice faded, and a look of loss overcame him before he pushed it back away behind an inscrutable mask. “It will be nothing. You will have protection. And in town, you will make your trade and get your mule. Then we will return and prepare for winter.” He grunted, giving her home a cynical look. “There is much to do,” he grumbled as he stalked back into the house, assumingly for his breakfast, leaving her staring speechless after him.
Prepare? What exactly did he think needed to be done? There was absolutely nothing wrong with her home. After the harvest was brought in and her supplies restocked from town, she would have all that was needed. Wrapping her shawl around herself, she followed after him at a furious pace, determined to get some kind of answer from him over breakfast.
ChapterSeven
Skal smirked humorously at the small female as he lifted a large gourd—a pumpkin Eve called it—onto his shoulder while she struggled with one a fraction of its size. This harvest thing that she was so worried over was ridiculously easy and actually quite enjoyable, too.
Over the past several days, he dug up thick tubers with his claws, snapped off and carried back gourds, and hauled in the bushels of apples that they had collected during the sunnier parts of the days when the mist was the thinnest. Bit by bit, he’d steadily loaded everything into the wagon. In between all of that, he hunted, sometimes going far outside the valley to search for bigger game that lingered in the outer woods so that he had their thick pelts to drag home.
It was a good life, with plenty to see and do to keep him well fed and active. He could feel his health improving by the day. In fact, his cocks had come fully to life again, aching as if he was preparing to rut. His seed sac was swollen and sensitive, and his cocks felt as if they were partially engorged at all times within their sheath. It was uncomfortable but strangely invigorating, making him feel young and strong again. And that wasn’t the only thing making him feel that way. He woke up every morning, eager to not only to enjoy the simple pleasures of his new territory but more so the company of a particular human.
Eve was a surprise for him. Not only was she kind and surprisingly generous, but she was also turning out to be an interesting and amusing companion. He had not imagined that after everything he’d suffered that he would want anyone to spend his days with, but he enjoyed having her there with him. She was… fun.
He blinked, paused with his head cocking, and repeated the word in his mind—tasting it. The idea of an adult engaging in fun felt entirely alien to him. His entire life since reaching maturity had been one of struggle and survival. Of mating and providing. But Eve simply brightened his day just by being herself and made him smile even at times when he wanted to sink into the depths of his own self-imposed misery. But even when he snapped or growled at her in his lowest moments, she took it in stride while pointedly telling him exactly what she thought of the way he was behaving. He would push, and she would stubbornly push back in return with surprising tenacity. And yet, she never held a grudge. She always had a smile for him, a thoughtful action, or a kind word. She was also full of laughter, which slowly began to draw him from the bleak isolation he had sentenced himself to.
His gaze slid over to her, and she looked up at that moment, a tired grin stretching her lips that made her cheeks bunch adorably and the corners of her eyes slightly crinkle. As he watched, she straightened, her hands flattening against her lower back and stretched as she looked around them with a pleased smile.
“Wow, this is going really fast! A few more pumpkins and I think we will be done loading up. That means we can head out tomorrow—or do you need a day to rest after all this back-breaking work?” she asked as she glanced over at him uncertainly.
Skal snorted in amusement and her grin widened, turning lopsided as her cheeks went pink with embarrassment.
“Ok, yeah, I’m the puny one. I know,” she chuckled. “Well, it’s back breaking work to me. So, we leave in the morning then? We will still need to be prepared to spend one night in the woods each way so it’s best to get an early to start to make the most of the daylight hours.;”
He inclined his head in agreement. “This is the best plan. I can see well in even faint light so we can leave before sunrise.”
A look of surprise crossed her face. “Oh! That would be wonderful. That means that we might even have time to set up when we arrive in town rather than having to wait until the next day. We might even be able to sell a little to get a few credits for a bed.” Her face suddenly darkened an alarming shade of red and she hastily waved toward the pumpkins. “Okay, I’m going to cut a few more for you to haul to the wagon and then we’ll be done. Let’s get this finished up and I’ll get supper going.”
He watched her for a moment longer as she moved a little further through the pumpkin patch and crouched once more to hack at the vine with the blade in her hand. A hatchet she called it. Although it didn’t cut quite as effectively or efficiently as his claws, it seemed to be very useful for a clawless species. Human ingenuity was truly remarkable.
