He nods. “I am a hunter. I spend more time out in the wild than at the tribal caves.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why spend more time alone than back at home?”
His glowing blue gaze neatly pins me in place. “There is nothing for me there. At least in the wild I can provide for my people. At home, I only see what others have that I do not. Sometimes it is…difficult.” The look he shoots me is utterly possessive once more, and I know he’s talking about mates.
I swallow hard. So he voluntarily exiles himself for long periods of time so he’s not around all the happy couples? My heart twinges with pity. No wonder Raahosh is crappy being around people. “Dammit, don’t make me feel sorry for you.”
He grunts and savagely cuts another bit of meat off the kill, then chews it, the expression on his face bitter. “I do not want your pity, woman.”
“Pity’s all you’re getting from me tonight,” I quip.
He bares his teeth in a snarl. “Your words are not amusing to me.”
“I wasn’t trying to amuse you,” I point out. Then I get to my feet, irritated. “Ugh. I don’t know what to do with you.”
“I want my mate,” he grits out, still at the fire. “That is how this works. The khui has decided that you and I shall be mated. Nothing in that can be changed. You will be mine, and that is all there is.”
“Is that so?” I turn back to him and put my hands on my hips. “I want to go hunting. How do you like them apples?” He cocks his head, and I realize he’s trying to analyze my words. “It’s a human saying,” I snap. “I want to hunt and provide for myself. And you know what? I’d like to decide for myself, too. When do I get to decide what I want, damn it?” I fling my arms wide. “Everyone around me thinks they know what I should be doing, but you know what I want? No, you don’t, because no one asks me.”
“You want to hunt,” Raahosh says in a flat voice.
“That’d be good, for starters.”
“Very well. I will take you hunting in the morning.”
I blink at him in surprise. His mood seems dark, but he’s…going to let me join him hunting? “Really? Just like that?”
“Provided…” He pauses and gives me another heated look.
“Oh, here we go,” I mutter, then wave at him to continue. There is always a catch, isn’t there? “Lay it on me.”
“I will take you hunting if you lay with me tonight as mates do.”
“If you think I’m going to bone you for the privilege of hunting–”
“Not sex. Boning?” He looks at me curiously. “Not boning. Just touching. Holding each other.”
My guilty little heart twitches again. He’s lonely. God, I am such a dick. Poor Raahosh, to get stuck with the most stubborn woman ever. I soften. “I can handle that, I think.”
Raahosh gives me a silent nod, and then straightens. “We should clean the cave and prepare for the hunt tomorrow if we will be out.”
“Let’s do it,” I say, hiding my excitement. Truth is, I’m a little nervous and fluttery at the thought of sleeping in his arms tonight and letting him touch me. My mind goes back to the fierce pussy-licking from earlier and a pulse of need rocks through me. My cootie immediately starts purring so loud it sounds like a chainsaw. Dammit, cootie. Show some restraint, girl.
We putter around the cave for the next few hours and it’s surprisingly companionable. Raahosh makes me a pair of shoes with some scraped leather hides he’s been saving for the past few days. I knew he’d treated them with a mash of innards and crap he’d used from the critters themselves, and the results were a tough leather with a bit of fur on the inside to keep my feet warm. They are little more than mittens for my feet with drawstrings at the ankles, but I’m pleased with them nevertheless. I work on my bow, and when I tell Raahosh about the kind of material I need for the bowstring, he produces something from his traveling pack that’s a lot like a thick twine. I string my bow and hope for the best, and then set about making arrows. I have to use bone for those, and the ribs and wing-bones from something unnameable that looks like an ostrich with shorter legs — four of them, mind you — ends up being perfect. I now have arrows that are a little bit shorter than I am used to, but lightweight and deadly as needles at the tip after a good sharpening. I sharpen and fletch my arrows for what feels like hours, until the fire dies down and I’m nodding off with the knife in my hand.
Raahosh takes the arrow from my grip as I struggle to stay awake. “It is time to sleep,” he tells me.