If he thinks this is the way to woo me, his head is as broken as this so-called relationship.
I stomp my way back into the cave to sit by the fire and wait for my jerk of a captor to come back.
RAAHOSH
She’s a talker, my Liz. Even when she thinks I don’t understand her, she rambles and speaks, carrying on a one-sided conversation. It’s strange to me, as I’ve always been a silent one. Even my tribe jokes that I like silence the best.
But…I don’t know that I do.
She mentioned hunting as I left the cave and seemed disappointed when I didn’t take her with me. Does my woman hunt? The thought is unusual to me. It’s not that our women are not capable, but they are so few and precious that we dare not risk them on a dangerous hunting trip. Perhaps when she has given in to the khui-bond between us, we will go on hunting trips together. We will track kills together, and bunk down in caves and make love during the long winter nights…
And Liz will yammer the entire time and scare off all the game.
The idea still fills me with joy. To think I can have a companion after so long. I have my tribe, but I have always felt…alone. On the outside. Perhaps it was because I never had a mate, or a lover. I assumed no one wanted me.
Then my spirits sink. No one wants me still. Liz does not. Angry with myself, I stab the butt of my spear into the snow and use it as a walking stick. She will change her mind. She must. I…don’t know what I will do if my own mate spurns me despite the khui in her breast.
The thought makes my very soul ache with loneliness.
The game is scarce near the sheet of ice, and it takes me a little time to find a meal that will be large enough for both of us. I sneak up on my prey and stab it in the throat before it can run. Then, I bleed the carcass and slit it from rump to throat because I don’t want the blood to clot before I can make it back to my mate. I take out the offal and use it as bait for a snare trap that I will check tomorrow. The rest of the tasty organs, I snack on as I jog back to the cave, since Vektal said the humans are picky and won’t eat the best parts of the kill.
When I return to the cave, the human’s hair is wet as if she’s bathed herself again. The waterskin is full of snow once more, and she’s sitting on the furs without her skirt on. I pause at the sight of one delicate bare flank, the curve of her buttock making my khui thrum mercilessly in my chest.
She shifts and delicately pulls the furs over her loins, hiding them from my view, and her face turns an interesting shade of pink.
“So nice of you to return,” she says.
My heart thumps. Does she mean that? My cock is stiff and aching with the need to claim her, but her expression doesn’t say she is happy to see me. It’s confusing. Is this more of the human mating rituals I don’t understand?
Why did Vektal not tell us more about human courting? I’m at a loss.
I watch as my female uses a bone knife to punch a hole in her skirt. Actually, it’s not a skirt any longer – it looks as if she’s making leggings. That’s clever. Her hair is woven into a crown atop her head and I’m impressed at her ingenuity.
I’m also a little worried – I’m deliberately keeping her without shoes because I suspect she’ll leave the moment she has them. I’ll have to watch her closely.
A growl fills the cave, and for a moment I think it’s her khui…then I realize it’s her stomach. She’s hungry.
I move toward the fire and use a few twigs to create a spit. The humans like their meat burned, so I’ll do this for Liz. I skin the creature and notice that Liz is watching with interest. She’s not revolted like I thought she would be.
“Is that a porcupine?” She asks as I toss aside the skin of the quillbeast. “It looks like it mated with a cat and a platypus.”
I don’t know most of those words. I work on cutting long strips of the juiciest flesh off of the creature’s flanks and spear them on twigs so they can cook in the fire. She watches with interest, commenting occasionally.
“I can’t smell the food as much as I thought I’d be able to,” she says. “It’s weird. It’s like my nose is stuffed up but it’s not. I just can’t seem to smell things like I used to.” She lifts one arm and sniffs under it. “Even my own BO is practically non-existent. Is it the cootie? Or a physiological sort of thing? Does a girl in the forest stink if there’s no one around to smell her?”
Her incoherent talk continues and I eventually take one of the strips off the fire, sniffing it. It looks awful…which probably means that it’s done. I hold it out to her, wanting to feed my mate.