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She looked amused. “Oookay!” She stretched the word with a wink. “Message received.”
I tried to laugh it off. “He and I are mat—” I broke off and corrected, “Married.”
She waved her hands. “It’s alright, off-limits, I understand.”
But did she? Did she really? I knew I was being petty; nothing could ever come between Thor and me. But Brigitte was gorgeous, even while dirty and looking ragged, rather than taking away from her beauty it only enhanced it. She was one of those rare women who would look beautiful in an old potato sack.
We reached the place where we had spent the night and introduced the rest of our group to the women The three women seemed a bit out of sorts at first upon meeting more of these hunky men, but after a moment they began to dip into the food the Vhar’Khyngs offered.
“It’s delicious,” Noelle exclaimed, wiping dripping grease from her lips and smearing away some of the dirt marring her pretty features.
“Tastes like pork.” Cara nodded, taking another bite.
Thor handed me a big chunk with his knife. “Don’t forget to eat.”
I took the knife and nibbled on the dripping-with-fat slab of meat. It was delicious, and it did taste like pork.
“I hope this creature is not one of the ones you wanted us to… domesticate,” he stumbled over the word, “because there is no way in hell we’ll be able to do that.”
I laughed with him. “Unfortunately, I don’t think so either. It is delicious, though.”
“I wouldn’t mind adding it to our daily fare,” Oredeon agreed.
“You guys never ate this before?” I asked, astounded that they had been here for years without having tried it.
Thor shook his head. “Too ugly.”
We all laughed at that, and I supposed had I come across the hell pig without knowing what it was, I would have felt the same way. Heck, I still did. I still wasn’t used to the looks of any of the creatures we were eating.
“We should break camp and return to our cave. I don’t trust those Cardens not to follow us,” Thor suggested after we had all eaten our fill.
A sudden shudder ran through me, and I agreed wholeheartedly. As much as my paleontologist mind had reveled in seeing Homo habilis, there was something about them that made me wary. And it wasn’t only the similarities between them and us Homo sapiens that was off-putting to me, because I had studied apes before without feeling this… I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling. A primal apprehension? A warning coming from deep inside me? My lizard brain shooting alarms?
Whatever it was that was alerting me, it wouldn’t let me discard it. It stayed with me all day. The Homo habilis were definitely more advanced than apes, but I didn’t feel like they were quite human yet either. They might have carried the sameanatomy, and been scientifically dubbed as human, but there was somethinghumanmissing about them.
I tried to take into account that I had only briefly met them, which shouldn’t have been enough to come to these conclusions, but my mind wouldn’t let me shake my dark suspicions, either.
Despite theHomo habilis’ obvious use of tools and weapons, as well as being able to speak, reason, and think in human ways, they had retained some deep animalistic characteristics. And yes, I was aware that I was projecting, but they gave me the same feeling the saber-toothed cat and the entelodont had: a deep-buried fight-or-flight response.
There wasn’t enough known about the Homo habilis and even if there had been, after everything I had witnessed here, it probably wouldn’t have helped me that much. But for some reason, I couldn’t shake the notion that the Homo habilis saw us not only as a rivaling tribe, but something that threatened them on a primal level. Maybe they, too, sensed it would be our species that would evolve from them, or perhaps even hunt them into extinction much like it was assumed Homo sapiens had done to the Neanderthals.
“You’re very quiet, Holly. What’s bothering you?” Thor asked, completely attuned to my moods, as usual.
“I’m probably only being silly, but I fear that we haven’t seen the last of the Homo habilis yet.”
“That’s not silly. That’s your instinct telling you something, and you should always listen to it,” Thor replied with a serious expression on his face.
I shuddered. “So you think so too?”
“I ordered scouts to keep an eye on the area. They didn’t kill or abuse the females we freed, which tells me they had other plans for them. What plans, I don’t know. But I don’t think they’ll give up easily.”
Having my premonition confirmed didn’t make me feel any better, but at least now I could concentrate on what-if scenarios instead of worrying about my rationality.
“We’ll have to make camp out here again, won’t we?” I asked, wanting nothing more than to be back in the safety of our caves, where we not only had larger numbers but the security of the walls.
“Probably twice. The other females are exhausted.”
I nodded, remembering the terrible condition I had been in when Thor found me. Starved, dispirited, wounded, exhausted.
