Barbarian's Heart: A SciFi Alien Romance (Ice Planet Barbarians Book 10) Read online

  Barbarians Heart

  A SciFi Alien Romance

  Ruby Dixon

  Ruby Dixon

  Contents

  Barbarian’s Heart

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  The People Of Ice Planet Barbarians

  Ice Planet Barbarians Reading List!

  Ruby Rec - Savage Mafia Prince!

  Ruby Rec - A very special barbarian story coming soon!

  Want More?

  Boring Copyright Stuff

  Barbarian’s Heart

  I’ve never spent a day without my mate since arriving on the ice planet. I’m happy and in love, and we have a beautiful child together. All that changed when the world shook.

  My mate nearly died.

  He wakes up from his coma…and he can’t remember me. Or our son. Every memory of the past two years is gone. And that changes everything between us. How can I love someone that doesn’t remember me?

  How can I not, when I know he’s still my mate underneath it all?

  1

  STACY

  Pashov’s arms go around me and he nuzzles my neck, all affection. He’s always very affectionate around breakfast. And lunch. And okay, dinner. The man’s ruled by his stomach, and today is no change. He presses a kiss to my neck and then peers at my frying pan. “Are you making those for me?”

  “No,” I say, teasing in my voice. “This is for Josie. Are you hungry again?”

  “I am always hungry, female.” His hand slides to my butt and he gives it a squeeze. “Perhaps throw one of your cakes on there for your suffering mate?”

  Suffering? I snort with amusement, but I get out a scoop of the mash I use for the not-potato cakes. “Sweet or meat?”

  “Meat, of course.”

  Of course. He likes sweets about as much as the next sa-khui, which is to say not at all. I open my pouch of spices for the peppery flavoring he likes so much. “Oh, shoot. I’m out. I need more of the spicy stuff. Do you think your mother has more?”

  “There is some in the storage cave,” he tells me, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “I will go and get it for you.”

  “Leave Pacy with me,” I tell him, setting my pan down. “He needs to eat, too.”

  He shrugs off the papoose carrier and sets my son down near my feet, touching his nose. “Do not eat all of the cakes. Save some for your father.”

  Pacy giggles and tries to catch his father’s big finger with his tiny hands. My heart squeezes with affection at the sight. “Hurry up,” I warn Pashov. “I need those spices if you want to eat.” I’m not trying to nudge him too much, but my mate can get distracted at times, and if I leave my pan on for too long, it’ll get too hot and scorch the cakes.

  “I am going,” he says, uncurling his big body and getting to his feet. He tugs on my braid, grabs my ass again as he leaves, and then jogs away into one of the back tunnels.

  The ground shifts.

  I drop my pan into the fire, ignoring the crash of sparks it makes, and grab Pacy instead. I don’t understand what’s happening. I look around, wondering if I’m imagining things, but then the ground shakes again.

  “Out of the cave!” someone bellows, and then hands grab me and pull me blindly after them. I think it’s Haeden, and he’s got Josie in one arm and drags me with the other.

  “Wait!” I cry out. “Pashov!” He’s in the storage cave.

  I look over…and then the ceiling collapses.

  “PASHOV!”

  I wake up in a cold sweat. Every inch of me is slick with it, and I rub my arms briskly to get rid of the dampness before it can crystallize to frost. Next to me in the nest of furs is Pacy. He’s got one fist in his mouth, and as I watch, his little mouth works as if nursing in his sleep. Normally the sight of my son in sleep brings me immense joy, but today…

  All I can see is the velvety pale blue skin, the dark lashes that frame his eyes, and the nose with the bump right in the middle of the bridge, just like his father. He’s the spitting image of him, and it hurts me.

  I’ve lost my mate.

  Even though Pacy’s asleep, I pick him up and pull open my tunic, settling him to my breast. He latches on sleepily and then begins to nurse, pushing a small hand against my skin. The nursing’s to comfort me more than him, I think. I need to hold him close. I need to feel the calm that motherhood brings with it.

  I need to feel the touch of someone who loves me and whom I love.

  Because right now, I’m losing control.

  I glance across the small tent. Georgie’s sleeping curled against her mate, Talie, in a basket of furs nearby. They’ve been nice enough to let me stay with them for the last week and a half, but I know it can’t be easy on them. It’s not easy on me, either. Every time Vektal pulls Georgie close, I think of Pashov. Every time they exchange a look, I think of Pashov. Every time he steals a kiss from her, I think of Pashov.

  And I hurt all over again.

  Tears threaten, but I close my eyes and force myself to be calm. It does no good thinking about my mate right now. Right now, he is not my mate. He doesn’t remember me. Doesn’t remember the last two years we’ve spent together, or the baby we made together. Doesn’t remember resonating to me.

  Doesn’t remember me at all.

  To him, I’m just another faceless, puzzling human. He doesn’t remember our crash here. He doesn’t remember Vektal mating to Georgie, or me resonating to him the first day we met. He doesn’t remember the birth of our son. He remembers his sister and his brothers. He remembers his family and the rest of the tribe.

  Me? I’m just a big fucking blur.

  No matter how many times I tell myself that it doesn’t matter, that he’s alive, that all I ever wanted was for him to be alive and whole, I’m lying to myself. He is alive. He is whole. I am grateful. I’m just…miserable. I feel like I lost him.

  The moment those rocks came down, I lost everything. I didn’t think I could feel worse than I did during those endless days wondering whether or not he would live, but back then, I had hope. I don’t even have that now.

  I stroke Pacy’s brow as he nurses. It’s been eleven long days. Eleven long days since Pashov woke up, and fifteen days since the cave fell to pieces. For the first few days, I had hope that Pashov’s memory would come back. That he’d look at me, and recognition would dawn. That he’d grab my ass the way he always used to, and he’d be himself again. I kept that hope up for well over a week.

  And then as each day passed, and he grew a little more distant, a little more uncomfortable each time I looked at him, I realized that I was hoping for too much. My mate is alive. My mate is healthy.

  He’s just not my mate anymore, and I have to figure out how to go on without him. I won’t push him into a relationship—hell, a mating—when he doesn’t feel a thing for me. How can he? All of our memories are gone. Me crying over him just makes it worse.

  So I’m avoiding him. I’m doing my best not to make him uncomfortable. Maybe it’s not the best way to handle it, but it’s the only way I can. I’ll break if he looks at me in that empty, polite way again.

  “You lost your frying pan?” Josie asks me, aghast. “I thought you weren’t cooking because of…well, never mind.” The look on her face gets awkward.

  I shrug and spre
ad the leaves I’m trying to dry on a hot stone, then cover them with a second stone to flatten them. I don’t have a closed-in, windless spot to dry more spices, so I’m hoping that squishing them between two hot rocks will do some of the trick. Mostly I’m just guessing and trying to stay busy. “When the cave shook, I think I threw it into the fire by accident. And then after that…”

  The knot forms in my throat again and I can’t speak. After that, my world was destroyed.

  “Shit. I’m so sorry for bringing it up.” Josie grabs my hand and rubs it. The expression on her face is concerned. “What are you going to do?”

  “There’s nothing to do.” One of the leaves is sticking out from between the rocks and I absently tuck it in—and then jerk my hand, my fingers burning. Ouch. Hot already.

  “This is bullshit!” she whispers at me. “I can’t believe he’s acting like nothing happened! He should be here with you, Stacy! I can’t imagine what it’d feel like if I didn’t have Haeden right now! Aren’t you scared? We don’t have a home and food to eat for the winter!”

  I know Josie’s trying to help. It’s the only reason I don’t take my hands and wrap them around her neck. She means well. She does. Her mouth just runs away with her. “I’m scared,” I admit. “I think we all are.”

  “And you don’t even have your mate to lean on!” She’s outraged on my behalf. “Even right now, he’s over there hanging with Bek and the other hunters like you’re not here by the fire with his baby! What the ever-loving fuck already!”

  “Shh,” I tell her, because she’s getting louder with her indignation. “Really, Josie, it’s all right.” I just feel defeated. Tired. I have for days. It feels like I haven’t relaxed or slept in weeks, though I know that isn’t true. And I just don’t have the energy for Josie’s outrage. “I chose to stay away from him, not the other way around.”

  “You what? Why?”

  Why? How can she sit here and ask me that? Because my heart is breaking every time I look at him? Because he should be relaxing and recovering, and me shoving myself and my baby under his nose and demanding that he remember us will be stressful? Not just to him but to me? “I just can’t right now, okay?”

  From the look Josie gives me, it’s clear she doesn’t understand. How can she? Has anyone ever had to deal with their mate just not remembering them at all?

  PASHOV

  On the outskirts of the encampment, I tie sinew to a new spear-head and try to keep my head down. I can feel eyes on me, watching me, waiting to see how I react. To see if I fall over, clutching my head.

  It is all very strange. I do not feel like a hunter who has nearly died. I do not feel like a male who survived a cave-in. I feel…normal. I just do not remember anything that has happened. When they first told me, I thought it a joke. A cave-in? At the tribal caves? Everything lost? Old, peaceful Eklan dead?

  Surely I would remember that.

  But I search my mind and search my mind, and there is nothing there.

  Yet the fact that there was a cave-in cannot be denied. My people are here in the snow before the Elders’ Cave, homeless. I have seen many tears and much frustration since I awoke. I have seen people carefully doling out soup to make meat last. And I have seen the Elders’ Cave, flung onto its side, resting in a gorge that was not in my memory, either.

  It feels as if I closed my eyes and have woken to a strange new world, and it unsettles me.

  Most unsettling of all?

  The human females.

  I can remember the first dvisti I killed, and the first time my father took me hunting. I remember my sister’s birth and what a squalling, strange thing she was. I remember how my first taste of sah-sah burned the tongue. But I do not remember the humans.

  I am told that they came to our world on a strange black cave, not unlike the Elders’ Cave. That Vektal mated with the curly-haired one, and she brought him to the others. Now, everyone else in the tribe has mated one. Several have young, and at all times, there is the sound of a kit wailing in distress.

  And I am one of the ones that is mated.

  The strangeness of it curls in my belly and makes me sick. Not that I am mated to a human, but that I cannot remember it at all. The humans have been here for three seasons—two bitter, one brutal. Long enough for the human that is ‘mine’ to bear my kit. They are a welcome, happy part of the tribe.

  How can I not know of this? How can my mind betray me so?

  I scan the smaller forms huddled near the fire and see two humans talking. The one they say is my mate has a flat face with no bumps, a very tiny nose, and no horns. Her mane is a strange furry brown. Other than that, I remember nothing about her. Normally I recognize her amongst the tribe because she carries her kit—our kit—on her back in a strange pack. I do not see a human wearing that today, so I squint at the females by the fire. Not the small one—the other. It is Stay-see. The one that is my mate.

  Was my mate.

  She is pressing something between rocks and talking to the tiny one who waves her hands and speaks angrily. They seem strange to me, with their pasty pale coloring, lack of horns, and small build. If I were to stand next to Stay-see, she would not come to my shoulder. She bends over to pick something up, and there is no tail, a sight I find unnerving.

  The other female says something, and then they both look over at me.

  I busy myself with my spear again, not wanting to be caught staring. I have tried talking to Stay-see a few times since I awoke in the healer’s tent, but each time it goes badly. It always ends with her weeping and running away, and I do not wish that today. Perhaps her tears should upset me more than they do. They upset me, but only because when she cries, I feel confusion. I do not like to cause distress in another. I want to comfort her, but I have no words of comfort to give.

  “Are you sure they will let you out of the camp with that, brother?” Salukh drops to the ground next to me, crossing his legs. He pulls out his favorite sharpening stone and his knife, and begins to scrape it. “If Mother sees it, I am sure she will come running.”

  I snort. My mother has been coddling me as if I were a fussy kit and not a grown hunter. “It is a spear. Surely they cannot stop me from making weapons if I am not allowed on the hunt.”

  “I suspect you will be allowed soon,” my brother says. “All hands are needed to gather food.” He scrapes his stone along his knife, unruffled. Salukh is always calm. Always possessed. He does not look as if worries over mates and the brutal season ever cross his mind, though I know he has a human mate now, too, and her belly is big with kit.

  “I am tired of lying about, doing nothing. I am glad to be out of the furs.”

  “I am glad you are out, too.” My brother gives his knife a long scrape and then offers the sharpener to me. “How is your head?”

  I take it from him and run it along the sides of my spear-head, even though it is already sharp. “It does not hurt today.”

  “A good thing. And your memory?”

  I shake my head. “Same.”

  “Mmm. It will return. How is Stay-see? Tee-fah-nee says she cries much.”

  I shrug, and the unhappy feeling returns to my gut. “We do not speak today. She is busy, and I have much to do.”

  My brother is silent. I know if I look over, I will see his look of disapproval.

  I continue to sharpen the spear-head, and then add, “When I talk to her, it upsets her. I am trying not to upset her.”

  He grunts. After a moment, he adds, “She cares for you very much.”

  “I know.” I do not offer more than that.

  “And you remember nothing of your resonance?”

  “Nothing.” I hand him back the whetstone.

  Salukh has a pitying look on his face. “Your khui was one of the first to sing to the humans. I remember being envious of your happiness. You smiled so much in those days, brother.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” There is edge to my voice.

  He puts a hand to my shoulder and s
queezes it. “I am glad I did not lose you in the cave-in, but…I would like for you to smile again. Stay-see, as well.”

  I flick his hand off my shoulder. It feels like judgment. Does he think I do not want to remember? A mate is the greatest thing a hunter can hope to acquire, and mine cannot look upon me without weeping. “You think I do not wish these things?”

  Salukh sighs. “I know you do.” He claps my shoulder again and then gets to his feet.

  He leaves, and I am alone with my thoughts and a spear with a point so sharp and thin that it will likely shatter when thrown. I toss it aside in disgust. Just another thing I cannot seem to do right lately. Maybe I should do more. Talk to Stay-see and try to convince her to stop crying. Gaze at my son and see if his face stirs my memories.

  I glance over at the fire again. Stay-see is gone, along with her friend.

  Perhaps it is for the best. My mood is dark and I would just make her weep again.

  Hassen and one of the yellow-haired human females return to the tribe that afternoon, speaking of a strange encampment in a new canyon. The area they describe is deep in metlak territory, which worries me, but it is large enough to house all of my people. I watch my chief as I eat my watery soup around the fire with the others. I have seen the worry on Vektal’s face, and I know we are in danger. The cold tang of the brutal season is in the air, and we are in the open, in tents. The humans look frail and wear many furs, and they will not be able to withstand the chill of the brutal season. They must be protected.

  Some are excited at the prospect of a new encampment, though I think we all worry that it is not protected like our cave. We gather near the fire, waiting for our chief to tell us what will happen. I glance over at Stay-see as I eat, but she is pointedly ignoring me, her focus on the kit in her arms. She lifts one side of her tunic and tucks him underneath to nurse, and I find myself curious what she looks like without her leathers.