I’m loading an unconscious Haeden onto a makeshift travois when a roaring sound comes from overhead. I look up and watch as the black smudge of the alien ship on the horizon approaches. My heart slams in my chest as I watch it slowly crawl across the sky. Is it leaving? Taking my Kira with it? Helpless fear burns a track through my guts.
The oddly shaped flying ship seems to be tilting to one side, continuing its slow descent. It flies overhead and I turn, then realize it’s heading directly for the side of the nearest mountain. “No!”
My hoarse shout echoes on the lonely, snow-covered plains. It doesn’t stop the alien ship from plunging headlong into the rocky slope, or the crash and fiery explosion afterward.
“KIRA!” I fall to my knees in agony.
No. My mate. My sweet, sad-eyed mate. The pain of loss is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’ve always been a lucky one, born into a large, loving family. We were spared when the khui sickness hit the caves hard many years ago. I’ve never lost someone I loved so intensely as I loved Kira.
The thought of going on without her staggers me.
I fall forward and press my fists to the icy snow, trying to contain my rage and grief. Haeden needs my help, even though I want nothing more than to chase down that black, smoking char of a ship and find any traces of my sweet Kira. Was she in fear when she died? Hurt? A harsh sob breaks in my throat.
She deserved better than this.
Dully, I look over at Haeden’s unconscious form. It would be easy to just roll onto my back and wait for my own end to come. To give up and join my Kira in death. But Haeden is here, and he needs the healer, and for a moment I feel a wave of ugly resentment for my wounded friend, that he won’t let me join her.
But that doesn’t mean I cannot grieve for her.
I sit up on my haunches, ignoring the stabbing pain of my wound. I grab a fistful of snow and begin one of the mourning songs, the one for a mate. I have no ashes to pour over my horns, so I let the snow trickle down over my brow, and I give my dead mate the respect she deserves. I will have a better ceremony when Haeden is safe. I will give my horns the proper cuts, smear ash upon my brow and chant songs of our love before I can go on without her.
If I can go on without her.
Right now, the thought seems impossibly cruel.
I pour another handful of snow over my brow and horns, my mourning chants growing louder. I’m so lost in my grief that I don’t hear the noise around me until a shadow passes overhead. Then, I realize there’s a thick buzzing in the air, a hum not unlike the elders’ cave.
I wipe the snow from my eyes and watch as a pod, the same dark color as the alien ship but much, much smaller, lands delicately in the snow nearby. There’s a whoosh of air, and then a hatch opens, like an egg cracking. Something is immediately flung out into the snow, and the scent of blood and char touches my nose.
It…looks like a severed hand. An orange, alien hand.
Then, a small figure stumbles out of the pod and lands, face-first, into the snow. It’s a human, with pale brown hair, dirty, torn leather clothing, and the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Aehako,” Kira chokes.
“My mate,” I growl, surging to my feet. I forget my wound. I forget the mourning rites. I forget Haeden, lying unconscious nearby. All I care about is that my Kira — my beautiful, delicate human Kira – is in front of me, alive and whole. I stagger toward her and sweep her into my arms, clutching her against me so tightly that I fear I’m going to crush her.
I can’t let her go, though. She’s never leaving my sight again.
“Aehako,” she sobs again, and her voice is full of laughter and joy as well as tears. Her arms around my neck are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt, and when she grabs my face and begins to press sweet kisses to my mouth, I nearly explode from joy.
“Kira! Kira! My mate! How is this possible?” My fingers dig into her hair and before she can answer me, I claim her in a rough kiss, my tongue seeking hers. The need to brand her as mine, to take her before she can be stolen from me once more, overwhelms me. I want to devour her whole, if only so she will never be apart from me again. It takes every ounce of my strength to stop kissing her long enough for her to draw breath, and when she looks up at me with a dazed, hungry look on her face, I kiss her all over again.
I will mate with her mouth for days on end now that she is back in my arms. There is no part of Kira that will be safe from my hungry tongue. I will worship every bit of her.
Her breathless moans are utterly intoxicating, and I want to rip my loincloth free and thrust my throbbing cock into her welcoming cunt. I press her back into the snow, only to hear her gasp.