My mind goes back to Georgie, and the way Vektal cut her neck. The gleeful wriggle of the thing as it burrowed into her. Her cry and then collapse. I shudder.
A figure appears at the edges of my vision. I just barely realize that it's Raahosh before a gigantic hand goes to my shoulder and forces me onto my back in the snow.
"What?" I sputter.
His knee goes over my shoulder a moment later, pinning me against the ground. His hand is cradled to his chest and I can barely see a glowing, snake-like filament wriggling there.
Then, he draws a knife from a sheath at his waist.
"Goddamn it, motherfucker! No!" I fight him, struggling against his weight pinning me down. But I'm weak and he's huge, and I'm barely able to bat at him as he lays the blade against my neck and carefully makes a cut at my collarbone.
"No!" I protest, but he's not listening. This asshole, this jerk, is forcing the parasite on me.
He's not my friend. Not at all. He's not letting me have a choice.
I fight against his hands as he leans in with the cootie.
"I will hate you forever if you do this," I hiss at him, trying to push him away.
He just gives me a hard look and then leans in. I hear a tiny hissssss as the cootie finds my skin, and then it's wriggling into me.
And I pass out from shock.
RAAHOSH
I tell myself that it doesn't matter that she'll hate me forever as I watch her unconscious body shiver and jerk, acclimating to the khui. At least she will be alive. My father and my mother never liked each other. Until the day my mother died, she cursed my father. Their mating was a supremely unhappy one, but they were still a family.
My human can hate me and still be my mate. I'm not going to allow her to choose to die. I won't. I'll keep her safe, even if I must keep her safe from herself.
I heft her small form into my arms and cradle her against my skin. She's so cold. So fragile. I did the right thing by forcing the khui on her. She wouldn't have lasted another day without it. Holding her close, I consider.
If I take her back to camp, when we return, she will be furious. She will tell the others that I forced her to take the khui.
Vektal, my chief, will not be happy. He says we must cater to the humans. Give them what they want.
It is…easy for him to say that when Shorshie looks at him with love and affection. Not so easy when your human looks at you with anger and disgust.
Raahosh is scarier than most.
If I take her back to the others now, they will be furious with me. My khui vibrates in my chest for my human, and for the first time in the last day, I let it hum freely. I resonate, and it feels incredible.
They cannot take her from me.
I turn and look back at the others, still huddled close to the sa-kohtsk. They will be there for hours yet. The humans will be asleep for a while. Maybe a day. I don't know how long it will take. There will be meat to carve up and bring back to the clan caves, and humans to escort and fawn over.
They will be distracted.
Instead of taking my human back to camp, I hold her closer and head in the opposite direction, out of the valley.
I'll take her and hide her away, and I won't return with her until she is full of my child and we are truly mated. Then we will return to the clan and be part of it once more.
Until then? She is mine and mine alone.
• • •
There's a cave out in the wild I like to think of as my own. Our clan cave supports many mouths and sometimes our hunters must range wide to feed everyone. Thus, we have a network of hunter caves dotted through the wilds that provide a resting place for any hunter who needs to stay out through the night. There are furs, fire-making implements, and sometimes a few other supplies to ease things. These caves are for any hunter to use, so long as they are left in the same condition as when the hunter arrived.
But this cave is mine and mine alone. I found it on a hunt when I was a small kit on one of my first forays into the wild on my own. The entrance is hidden by a large sheet of glacial ice in the brutal months, but right now it is merely bitter and the path will be open.
It's not far from where we are, and it has been on my mind for hours as I walk. My human weighs nothing in my arms, nor does she rouse. She will just need time to acclimate to the khui, I tell myself. There is nothing to worry about. She has been sick. It will take time. It still strikes fear into my heart, and my steps increase in speed.
My cave is just as empty as I left it. There are signs that a nesting animal stopped in, but it's empty now. I clear debris off the neatly-stacked furs in the corner and then lay my human down amidst them. She shivers, her body trembling. The bone-chilling cold is gone from her skin, a sign that the khui is warming her, but still she quivers and shakes. I decide to build a fire, and spend time setting it up, trying to ignore the thrumming of my khui as it sings a song to the unconscious woman in my bed.