Barbarian Lover(2)

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I don’t actually fall asleep until late, and so when I wake up, I’m bleary-eyed and yawning. The translator surgically attached to my ear aches from pressing on it all night, and I’m exhausted. I shuffle out of bed and go to sit near the fire pit in the center of the bachelorette cave. Megan’s poking at the fire with a stick, while Claire is toasting nuggets of raw meat. There’s not a lot of vegetables on this ice planet, so our meals consist of meat, fish, and more meat. The only berries we know of are used for washing. There’s a pounded gruel in storage that’s saved for travel rations, and herbs for teas. Other than that, it’s meat, meat, meat. Sometimes raw, sometimes cooked, depending on your tastebuds. Liz eats hers raw like the hunters do, but I can’t bring myself to try it. I’m a wuss.

I sit next to Claire and draw my legs up. “Morning.”

“Actually I’m pretty sure it’s early afternoon,” Megan says. She examines the burning tip of her twig, and then sticks it in the fire again. Megan is normally a pretty positive one, with encouraging words no matter how bleak the situation. But since we came to the alien caves, she’s been…withdrawn. Quiet.

I worry about her, too.

Claire wordlessly offers me a stick and then a large, stone plate covered in gobs of raw meat. I gingerly spear a few pieces for my breakfast and then hold them over the fire. “You hungry, Meg?” I ask.

“Megan ate hers raw,” Claire whispers.

Megan just gives me a thin smile.

“You’ve got a stronger stomach than me,” I say. I’m no good at being the cheerleader.

“Tastes like nothing when it’s cooked,” Megan says, and jabs at the fire again.

She’s not wrong. With the khui in our bodies, certain things about our physiology are changing. Smells are less strong – not a bad thing, given that the cave is built around a hot spring that reeks of sulphur. Taste is also less strong. All the sa-khui eat their meat raw and their travel rations heavily spiced. Some humans have adapted. Some of us haven’t.

I push my kebob over the flames.

“Aehako came by this morning,” Megan comments, poking at a coal with her stick.

“I’m not interested in Aehako,” I say pointedly, and then nibble on a chunk of my breakfast.

“He’s interested in you.” She looks up at me. “If you mated him, you’d get your own cave at least.”

I can feel my forehead setting in a frown. “I didn’t resonate to him.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t hook up.” Megan is serious.

I’m shocked. “I’m not going to sleep with a guy just because it’d get me a cave. Besides, where would we go? There are no more caves!” I gesture around us. “People are sleeping in the storage rooms as it is.”

Megan shrugs. “Might not be a bad thing to have a guy looking out for you here, like Vektal does for Georgie. And Aehako’s nice.”

I feel my face flushing with embarrassment. Aehako is nice. And handsome, for an alien. And flirty. And…I didn’t resonate to him, so none of it matters. She thinks Vektal protects Georgie, but Georgie’s pretty dang capable on her own.

And it doesn’t matter because they resonated to each other. Now they’re mates and stuck like glue, and Georgie’s pregnant.

Claire’s silent at this exchange, but talking about men gives me the approach I need. I choke down another cooked chunk of tasteless meat and give Megan a meaningful look, asking her to leave for a few. She gets up and heads back to her bunk, bundling in the furs and turning to the wall. I’ll have to deal with that, too, I think. Soon.

Instead, I touch Claire’s arm. “Can we talk?”

A wary look crosses her pixie face. She nods.

I gesture at the translator jutting out of my ear. It’s a bit like a conch shell made of metal that sticks out of the side of my head. “I told you what this does, right?”

Again, Claire nods.

“Did I mention that it also allows me to hear a lot of stuff? More than your average person would?”

“Like…?” Her voice is a mere whisper.

I lean in. “Like girls that aren’t mated going to visit men at night.”

Her face flushes an angry red and she jumps to her feet. “You think you’re my mother?”

“What? I–no! I just–”

“I’m an adult,” she says, her fists clenched, and for a moment, I think she’s going to hit me. I’m so surprised by her anger I can only stare at her. “I can have sex for sex’s sake, you know. I can do what I want. And excuse me if I’m trying to find a little fucking comfort in a bad situation!”