“He just asked if you want to mate here,” Kira says, voice full of disbelief.
“Oh shit,” Liz says. “That’s what held her up. Alien nookie.”
My face feels flaming hot. I jerk my hands back.
They’re all staring at me. Megan looks amused while Tiffany looks a little horrified.
“I can explain,” I begin.
“I wouldn’t,” Liz says. “Just let us imagine for a bit. And feed us. I don’t care if you fucked an entire stadium of aliens if you give me something hot to eat.”
“He’s not keen on the ‘hot’ part,” I say, then turn to Vektal and point at the rabbit-things hanging from his belt. “Food? Food for humans?”
“Humans,” he agrees, unhooking the meat from his belt. As I take it, he offers me his knife.
“We need fire,” I tell him and mime the hand-warming gesture. “Fire.”
“Oh shit,” Josie says. “I’ll even blow him if he can get us a fire.”
“Right?” Liz says in agreement.
I feel a flare of annoyance at the girls. They’re cold. There’s no reason I should be jealous of them. I’ve been frolicking in the snow with a big sexy alien for the last two days while they’ve been freezing their butts off and starving. But the thought of them touching him makes me . . . unhappy.
Jealous.
Crap. I cannot be falling for a big blue alien. No matter how good he is in bed.
“Fire?” Vektal asks. He looks around the cargo bay and frowns, then points at the ceiling and spits another stream of syllables.
“He says that there’s no wood this high up the mountain. He’ll have to go get some from the cave and come back.”
I nod at Kira, then at Vektal. “Please do that.”
His ridged brows draw down, and then he points at Kira and says something else.
“He wants to know if I understand him,” Kira whispers. She edges closer to the others. “What should I say?”
I reach up and brush a hand on Vektal’s hard jaw, turning his frowning face toward me. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking right now. “Vektal?” When his attention turns toward me, I gesture at my ear, then move to Kira and pull her forward. “You speak, and she hears it. Understands it.” I add a lot of pantomiming of words and lips moving, in the hopes that he’ll grasp it.
His face lights up, blue eyes glowing. Another string of words, and he gestures at Kira’s ear.
Kira’s face wrinkles. “He says I have a shell that is allowing me to understand him. I wonder if the translation isn’t all that clear.”
“It’s something like that,” I say, nodding at Vektal.
He turns to Kira and says something else.
“He wants to know if my parasite teaches me his language.” She shakes her head. “Just translates.” She taps her ear, then her mouth. “Hear, no speak.”
Vektal scrutinizes Kira for a long moment and then says something else. Then he turns, grabs me by the waist and tugs me against him, pressing a hard kiss to my mouth in front of everyone.
“He says he’s going hunting and to get firewood, and for us to keep an eye on his mate,” Kira relays, amusement in her voice. “Mate, huh?”
This time, it’s my turn to be shocked. “Mate? What? He thinks we’re mated?”
But Vektal’s already climbing up the side of the hull and back out into the snow.
VEKTAL
There are five other humans in addition to the dead one in the snow. All female. My mind cannot comprehend this. All female. I think of my own tribe, with over twenty unmated males. There are only five adult females in our tribe. There have never been many. Maylak was my only age-mate that was not mated, and we were lovers for a time until she resonated for Kashrem. Now they have tiny kit Esha, bringing the count of females in our tribe up to six. Most of our warriors only dream of the resonance of a mate.
And I have found one. And there are five more who could resonate for one of my tribe. Five more who could bring our small, dying people back to life. We are long-lived, thanks to our khui, but it is a long and lonely life, and I have spent much of mine envious of others with their mates.
Now there is Georgie. And Georgie brings hope with her.
I don’t know how she and her tribe have come here or why they are so poorly equipped to survive. We cannot communicate well enough. In time, I will have answers. For now, I must hunt and feed my small, fragile humans. I worry they are too weak to make it back to the tribal caves.