Barbarian's Seduction: A SciFi Alien Romance (Ice Planet Barbarians Book 20) Read online

  Analay brightens at the word “cookies” but wrinkles his nose when I show them the flavor. Even so, he is a kit and takes one, nibbling on it with a woeful expression. Ariana fights back a laugh, her eyes full of sympathy as Zolaya helps their son dress in enough layers for the blustery day. When they are ready, they both kiss Ariana goodbye, and I don’t miss the way she reaches up and touches Zolaya’s braid, a soft smile in her eyes.

  Then they are gone and it is just me, Ariana and new baby Zoari, and a basket full of terrible herby-sweet cookies. I eat one absently even as I pull out my scattered bits of leather. I was working on a fitted tunic for Farli, but since she shows no signs of returning home anytime soon, I will put it aside and work on something new. “Borran gave me new leather,” I tell Ariana. “I am going to make a sack-dress for Zoari.”

  “Okay?” She smiles, but there is a question in her eyes.

  “Oui.” I dig through my sewing basket, and then sigh with frustration. “No cord. Why is there never cord when I need it? Alors.” For a moment, I purse my lips at the leather bits in my arms and then fling them all into the basket.

  Ariana slips a finger between Zoari’s little blue mouth and her skin, breaking the suction, and then lifts the baby to her shoulder, rubbing the small back. I can see that Zoari has the soft markings of the sa-khui protective plating along her small spine.

  My Zalene has that, too, and for a moment I’m hit with fierce longing and a rush of worry.

  “Are you all right?” Ariana’s voice is gentle. “You don’t seem to be yourself today.”

  I drum my fingers on my leg, feeling oddly restless. I have the leather I need. I’m sure Ariana has extra cord, and I keep needles in my belt pouch, but for some reason, I pick up the basket of scraps and begin to pull them out, smoothing them onto my lap and straightening them out. It takes me a minute before I realize what I’m doing—I’m looking for hearts. For a sign from my mother’s spirit that all is still well and I’m just imagining things. But they’re just shapes, and nothing calls out to me. I glance up and Ariana’s still watching me, her brows knit in concern.

  “Je suis inquiète,” I tell her, and when she continues to look at me blankly, I realize I lapsed into French. “I worry.”

  She gives me an easy, teasing smile, rubbing Zoari’s back in little circles. “You? You are Marlene. You never worry.” Her amused boast makes me smile despite myself, and she continues. “Even on the day we were dropped onto this strange world, you never worried. We ran around screaming like banshees and crying for weeks, but you just smiled and acted like this was just another day.”

  I think of that day, of seeing my Zennek’s face for the first time, and a dreamy smile touches my lips. “C'était une bonne journée.”

  She snorts. “For you, maybe. My anxiety was through the roof for weeks.” The baby belches and her little tail flicks contentedly. Ariana swaddles her and then slowly rocks her in her arms, coaxing her drowsy-eyed daughter to sleep. When she speaks again, her voice is softer, so as not to wake the baby. “I’m serious, though. What’s troubling you? You can tell me. As your friend, I know something’s on your mind. Is it Zalene?”

  “Non. My little cocotte is her usual happy self.” I think for a minute, smoothing a scrap of leather on my lap and then sigh. Now that I have to mention my worries to someone else, it seems silly. “I am seeing bad omens today.”

  “Bad omens?”

  “Oui. Zalene stepped in animal dung with her right foot when we were out this morning, and then I thought I saw bread—but not bread, of course, there is no bread here—turned upside down.” I shake my head. “It sounds crazy, I know.”

  “I’m not going to tell you that you’re crazy. This is me here.” Her smile is gentle. I know what she’s thinking—of everyone in the tribe, Ariana struggles to fit in the most. She suffers from a great anxiety in her head, and sees the healer often because her khui cannot conquer bad thoughts. She always worries the other women in the tribe dislike her, which is not true. But if anyone will understand foolish worries, it is her.

  “It sounds foolish when I say it aloud, but my Maman, she always paid attention to omens.”

  She studies the baby in her arms, and Zalene’s little mouth works in her drowsy almost-sleep, as if she’s still nursing. “You should have said and we could have asked Analay.” Ariana thinks for a moment and then shakes her head. “Then again, maybe not. He makes things up because he’s little, too. Like yesterday? He told me quite seriously that the dirtbeaks were going to school to learn how to give us better eggs. And the day before he told me it was going to snow so hard it’d be like a blanket.” She gestures at the air. “No snow.”

  Mmm. She has a point. It is so cold that the air hurts to breathe, but there is no snow and has not been for several days. “The omens do not bother me as much as that I do not see anything from my Maman. Always she has sent me signs, but today I look and look and see nothing.” I chew on my lip, worried.

  “Does she normally send you signs every day?”

  “Not every day, no.”

  “But you need them today and you’re not seeing them,” Ariana guesses correctly, and I nod. “I understand.”

  I pick another piece of leather out of the basket and add it to the growing pile in my lap. I need to keep my hands busy or I will wring them like a 50s movie heroine. “Do you think I worry overmuch?”

  “It’s possible?” She eases to her feet, carefully cradling the now sleeping baby as she moves toward the basket of furs next to her bed. When Zoari is settled and sleeping, she moves back toward me and sits down again, picking up a long-cold cup of tea and swallowing it all. She dips a fresh cup and then studies me, leaning back. “Do you think your brain could just be feeding you things to worry over? I mean, I stress every brutal season. The weather can really beat you down, and I know food stores are going to get low in about two months like they always do, but we go through this every brutal season, and I remind myself that we always come out the other side. Do you think that could be what it is?”

  “Je ne sais pas.” I shrug. “Perhaps I am broody, or my period is about to start.”

  “Or…you’re going to resonate?” Her eyes go wide. “A lot of people are having second resonances right now and maybe it’s your turn.”

  I chuckle at that. “Come, now, we both know how I acted when I resonated to Zennek. I was not full of worry.”

  She gives me a mischievous smile, grinning. “No. I remember you watched him like a very hungry spider and he was the fattest fly ever just wandering close to your web.”

  I laugh, full of delight. Am I such a predator? Only when it comes to my shy, handsome Zennek. He brings out the fierce tigress in me. Pleased, I think of my handsome mate and how he looked that day, his long hair pulled back in a tight, stern braid…that I immediately loosened.

  I think I shall loosen his braid for him tonight and perhaps we will be tigress and prey once more. A sultry smile curls my mouth and I look over at my friend. “I think perhaps I see worry where there is none.” Already talking to her about this makes me feel better.

  “If it helps, Analay would have said something when he saw you. He hasn’t figured out how to tactfully point out things yet. He told Josie that he always saw her fat. I nearly had a heart attack, but Josie just laughed.” She shakes her head, her expression exasperated. “But you know with his ‘knowing’ if he saw something bad, he would have spoken up.”

  Hmm, she has a good point. “Bon. I will put it aside then, like so much bad leather.” I wink at her and toss a handful of scraps back into their basket. “Now, shall I make your pretty cocotte a sack-dress? This new leather is very soft.” And I unroll it for her to see.

  * * *

  Hours later, Zoari wakes up for another feeding and Ari takes care of her while I continue to sew. When the baby finally goes down for another nap, Ariana starts to yawn, and I finish the stitches on the downy-soft sleeves of the simple sack-dress that I’ve sewn together. Ari
ana and I have passed the time talking and sewing, comparing stories of mates and kits as married friends do. My mind is no longer full of distress and instead, I find that I am getting sleepy, too.

  “I think I might take a nap while Zoari does,” Ariana tells me as she puts her sewing aside. “Zoari isn’t as fussy as Analay was, but that still doesn’t mean she’s sleeping through the night.”

  “Bien sûr. I might take one myself.” I fight back another yawn. The kits’ “school” is temporarily on hold while Ariana has a new baby, and Gail is gone to Icehome, which means that I do not have many afternoons to myself. This one will be a treat and I can lie about and rest until my handsome Zennek and sweet Zalene return home. I gather up my sewing, straighten up the hearth with Ariana, and then kiss her cheeks as I leave. “À plus.”

  It’s a short walk back to my own hut and chilly inside, because I’ve let the fire go down to coals as I visited others. I stoke it, add a chip of the slow-burning dvisti dung, and then move to my bed, burrowing under the thick furs for warmth. I close my eyes, reveling in the quiet and peace of the afternoon.

  A nice, lazy day, my mother would say. The chores can wait a few hours, and I will treat myself with a pleasant nap. So I close my eyes, snuggle in to my bed, and wait to drift off to sleep.

  I don’t, though. Instead, I wake up and stare up at my ceiling. I gaze up at the smoke hole that lets the thread of smoke out of my hut. I look up at the tented roof made of waterproofed skins that have been carefully pieced together. It is very different from the day I first arrived.

  Very different.

  And I cannot stop thinking about that day.

  Or Zennek.

  2

  MARLENE

  Eight Years Ago

  I stare up at the harsh metal ceiling overhead. It’s unfamiliar and this place is so intensely cold that it feels as if my breath will freeze in my lungs. Not Fort Lauderdale, then. I am somewhere new, somewhere strange. Around me, women weep and sob, and someone wails about how cold they are. How frightened.

  I suppose I would be frightened, too, but as I look up, I stare at the metal ceiling. There are scorch marks all over it, as if it went through a terrible trauma, and I cannot help but notice that one scorch mark looks like a heart.

  Always with the hearts.

  I see you, Maman. Je me souviens.

  Even though I am in this forbidding, cold place, I am safe. She is reassuring me that I have nothing to fear, and I am calm as I sit up. We are supposed to be sleeping, us humans, because tomorrow we venture out into the snow and toward the home des barbares. I look at the group of women near me. Many weep. One trembles with fear. Several are sickly and weak, and I wince in sympathy at the sight of a fragile girl with a heavily splinted leg and a pinched look of pain on her face. Some of them are wounded and starving, and one girl has frostbite on her toes. I have no such problems. I was in a deep sleep, Georgie said to me. A stasis. Half the girls were in stasis and the other half were not so lucky. They froze and starved out here in the broken remains of the spaceship while Georgie tried to find help.

  It seems she found help all right.

  My gaze slides away from the other human women to the blue-skinned strangers. They watch us unabashedly, their expressions fascinated. You would almost think they had never seen a female before, là. Georgie gets up from our group and approaches the one that I think is their leader, and they share a kiss while he watches her possessively. It seems Georgie found more than just a friend. That’s un petit ami if I have ever seen one. Perhaps I should find one for myself.

  I make a game out of such a thought, studying the aliens as if I am choosing one for my own personal pleasure. After all, I cannot sleep with the sobbing and misery around me. There is no television or books, nothing to do or look at except the heart smeared into the ceiling that tells me that Maman watches over me even now.

  So I roll onto my side, prop up on an elbow, and scrutinize the aliens.

  They have blue skin, which is incroyable. Some are darker blue than others, and when Georgie pets her blue man’s arm, I wonder if he is soft to the touch. Interesting. Many of them are shirtless, wearing nothing but loincloths that outline some VERY interesting anatomy. Ah, Maman, what a place to be stranded! If every male here is built as if he is a hulking bull, I will be a very happy Marlene indeed. One turns away to whisper to another, and I notice a flicking tail, much like a cat’s. Fascinating. I want to touch one. I wonder if that would be considered rude. I shall have to ask.

  I study the big, arching horns that they have. Some are curling and thick, some are sleek, and some curve close to the brow as if caressing the head. They all have big, oversized features and hard brows, and bright, glowing blue eyes. As I watch, the two whispering to each other glance over at me. How I must look to them, all pale white skin and black, rumpled hair. Skinny arms and short body. They are all immensely tall with thick, three-toed feet and broad shoulders.

  I wink at the one that caught me staring. His nostrils flare and he looks displeased, glancing away. I chuckle inwardly. That one is not a friend then. Eh. He is too tall for my tastes, his mouth turned down in unpleasant lines. I continue studying the aliens and my gaze locks down on one carrying a stack of rolled-up furs toward the group of blubbering, terrified females. I watch him with interest, and when he glances over at me, I wink, testing this one as well.

  He practically stumbles over his feet, staggering. When he straightens, I notice the bases of his horns have flushed a deep, velvety blue.

  Oh now, this is interesting.

  I sit up, clutching my blanket to my chest, and snap my fingers at him to get his attention. “Coucou, mon ami!”

  The hulking giant glances around, then carefully looks over his shoulder as if expecting to see me talk to someone else. I cannot help but laugh. “I speak to you, my blue friend. Viens ici.” I make a gesture that he should come forward.

  Again he looks around, and then gives the group what can only be described as a downright bashful look. He comes toward me and holds out one rolled-up fur in silence.

  I pat the cold, metal floor next to me, indicating that he should sit and keep me company. And I smile, because what man would resist a naked female smiling at him? I am not going to fuck him, of course. I am just having a little bit of fun.

  This one, apparently, can resist a naked female who smiles at him. He drops the blanket in front of me, manages another bashful look, and then hurries away. I chuckle, taking the blanket, and use it as a pillow under my cheek as I watch him leave. I like the way the shy one looks, I decide. He is not as tall as some of the others but la, he is wide, his arms great big blue slabs of muscle veined with power. His back is thick and broad and tapers down to narrow hips that have a small loincloth clinging to them. I watch that backside in fascination.

  Oh yes. If I were picking myself an alien, I would pick that shy one. It would be fun to see how many ways I could make him blush. I am not normally such a…hungry woman when I am at home, but là, do the men at home look like these? Never. Every one of them ripples with muscle and confidence. They are tall and strong and utter perfection. I gaze at the shy one again, noting the incredibly tight weave of the braid that goes down his back. I wonder if his hair is soft, or if he ever loosens it.

  He glances back over at me and then quickly looks away once more, and I cannot help but smile.

  A sobbing girl thumps down next to me, huddled in blankets. Her face is the picture of misery. I automatically sit up to make room for her, and put an arm around her shoulders. She leans in and weeps on my arm as I stroke her hair. “Why are you not freaking out?” she asks me. “Aren’t you s-scared?”

  Am I? I glance around the room, assessing the situation for what feels like the hundredth time today. The aliens—the barbarians—are huddled on the far side, whispering and talking. Two are guarding the entrance to our dirty, cold metal home and they hold crude-looking spears. Off to one side, Georgie—the American with the bouncy curls an
d authoritative expression—curls up next to her alien. I see the way he watches her as she relaxes against him. He looks at her like I look at a fresh baked croissant covered in butter. I watch as one big hand gently touches Georgie’s hair, and the look on his face is reverent with joy.

  I am not afraid of these aliens, no. We are here for a reason. What that reason is, I do not know, but I am not afraid. I pat my companion on the shoulder, noticing that amongst the muddy boot-prints that cover the floor, there is one that looks like an elongated heart shape. It reassures me that this is the right way to think. “There is no reason to panic, mon amie. We are in good hands.”

  She looks at me as if I am crazy. “But did you hear what they said? There’s no going home! We’re stuck here! And there’s nothing but snow and ice on this planet.”

  Maman always did like the snow. And a new adventure. Did we not get on the Métro every weekend to visit new cities? Did we not travel all over Europe because Maman loved to explore? That was what I was doing when I ended up here—adventuring in the States. Perhaps that is why she is reassuring me all is well—it is just another adventure. I smile at the heart on the ground and shrug. “It is just a new adventure for us.”

  “I don’t want adventure,” she wails. “I want to go home!”

  I sigh. I did not choose this adventure either, but that does not mean it will be a bad one. It is a big change, and if I think about it too hard, it will be frightening…so I will not think. “Let us sleep, hmm? It will all seem less scary demain matin—in the morning.”

  3

  ZENNEK

  I do not know what I expected when my chief told us we would be helping him retrieve “hoo-man” females. He returned from his hunts with a strange creature on his back, a female that he claimed was his mate, and no one could believe it. But he was resonating to her even though she had no khui yet, so it was clearly true. We set off to rescue the females, and even though I knew that was our task, the sight of so many was…overwhelming.