What are they going to do when they find out that I’m sterile? That when my appendix burst as a child, it infected my ovaries and I won’t ever have children?
What will happen to me then?
AEHAKO
I see Kira’s small form hurry out of the caves, and I automatically follow her, a predator stalking its prey.
She’s fascinated me since the beginning, this Kira. Ever since we rescued them from the black cave they were hiding in, I have been drawn to the human with the melancholy eyes and the strange device protruding from her ear. I thought perhaps that I would resonate to her, but my khui remains silent.
My cock, however, pays attention when she is around. It comes to life when she brushes a lock of brown hair behind her small, perfect, unadorned ear. It twitches in response when she gives one of her rare smiles to the other human women. And when she flushes and hurries away from me? It ignites the predator inside me.
I want to find her and grip her against me. Push her into the snow and fuck her until my name is on her lips.
But she resists me. It’s the human way, perhaps. I’ve made it quite clear I’m interested in this particular human, but she ignores my attempts to get her attention. She’s rarely alone, always surrounding herself with the other humans. This might be my one chance to give her the human courting gift that her friend Leezh suggested.
I race back to my bunk to retrieve the item I’ve been whittling. I will give it to her, and she will know of my interest. I want to see the look on her face when she realizes it. I want to see her soft, small human mouth part in surprise. I want to touch her smooth brow and find out the other places she is smooth.
I want to touch that third nipple between her legs that Vektal mentioned his mate had. He said it made her squeal. I want to make Kira squeal and lose that careful, calm expression she always wears. I’m good in the furs. I know I can please her.
Thinking about solemn Kira coming undone in my arms has made my cock stiffen in my breeches, and I rub a hand against it through my leathers, assuaging the ache. I haven’t had a woman in some time, and my cock responds eagerly to the thought of sinking into the warm, ridged warmth of a woman’s cunt again.
“There you are,” purrs a voice.
I stifle a groan of irritation as Asha saunters into my family’s cave. My bunk is closest to the entrance, and it offers little privacy. Certainly not enough for what Asha intends. “I’m busy at the moment, Asha.” My voice is blunt in the hopes she’ll get the idea. I hide the gift for Kira in the waist of my leggings, because the last thing I want is someone like Asha seeing what I have before my intended recipient does.
“Hemalo’s out showing one of the ugly human girls how to dye leather,” she says, and then moves forward to put a hand on my chest. “Want to come back to my cave with me?”
I remove her hand from my tunic. Once, I had welcomed Asha’s forward attentions. She’d been unmated and flirty and I’d eagerly participated in bedsport with her.
Until she resonated with unassuming Hemalo, one of the tribe’s tanners. Asha hadn’t been pleased – at the time she’d been moving between the beds of several unattached hunters, eager to frolic and enjoy herself. Resonating meant she had a mate and a family…and someone she didn’t want. Their joining hadn’t been the most joyous of occasions, but I had genuinely wished well for her.
I am also relieved, because Asha can be annoying when she wants her way. I am glad she is not my mate.
But her kit died mere days out of the womb, and she and her mate fight, and now she seeks to recapture her old ways…only I am not interested in another male’s mate. And Asha is not the only young female in the tribe anymore.
She clings to my arm. “Aehako, wait.”
“I am busy, Asha. Go seek your mate if you want sex.”
She huffs in irritation, and smacks my arm with one hand. “I am not interested in him. We have no children together. Why should I be tied to him?” She follows me as I head out of the privacy of my parents’ cave and into the main tribal area. “You enjoyed sharing furs with me before.”
“I’m interested in another,” I tell her.
Asha gasps and clings to my arm, tugging me backward to face her. “Not one of those humans?”
“Who else would it be?” I chuckle.
“But they’re so…ugly.”
I roll my eyes. “Does it matter?” I do not find them ugly. Different, yes. Intriguing? Definitely. They could be as beautiful as a kas-fish with its opalescent scales, and she would find them ugly because they are competition. Poor Asha is threatened – before, she had all the young hunters in the tribe at her beck and call. Now she watches them pair off with their own mates and feels unhappiness at her situation.