Penny's Protector: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Icehome Book 10) Read online

  Great, another pissing war. Just what I need. And they wonder why Nadine and I want to go hunting alone. Not that the men will let us, but stuff like this happens all too often. I tell myself I understand it, I really do…even so, it gets old. I need to separate them before it gets any worse. “Let’s just get back in the water, okay?”

  I drop the fur and step back into the icy waves, wading out a few feet. I don’t get very far before I notice both I’rec and O’jek have nets and are glaring mightily at each other. So much for separating them.

  “Watch me throw,” O’jek says in a hard voice. He doesn’t look at me, though, just glares challengingly at I’rec before casting off his net with a hard fling. He tugs on the braided cord wrapped around his wrist, pulling it back slowly as he does.

  “You call that a throw?” I’rec’s lip curls and he gives me a cocky smile. “Watch and learn, little human.” And he throws, too. To me, they look like they’re both sailing out to the exact same distance, and both are going much farther than anything I can possibly throw.

  I fight back a sigh of irritation and raise my hand to my eyes, shielding them from the weak sunlight. So much for my lessons.

  Both men pull in their nets, and then cast them again, each trying to throw a bit farther than the other. They’re out farther now, a good twenty feet or so ahead of me and off to the right, and if this continues, they’ll drift away entirely. It’s ridiculous. I could probably leave and they wouldn’t even notice. I—

  Something brushes against my foot again.

  Wrinkling my nose, I peer down at the water. I have my spear in hand, but I can’t see anything to spear. It didn’t feel like a fish, either. It felt more…slithery. Seaweed, then? I remain completely still, watching the waves, when it brushes against my leg again. This time, I feel the graze of something that almost feels like…thorns? Are there thorny plants in these waters? I push the head of my spear into the water, testing things.

  Suddenly, I’m yanked under.

  My legs go out from under me, and water shoots up my nose. I open my mouth to gasp, and it immediately fills with water. Pain lances up my leg as those thorns dig into my ankle, and then it feels as if something’s taking a bite out of my leg. I thrash in the water, choking and terrified, trying to find the surface. I need air. I need my spear, but it’s gone. I can’t find the surface, either. It wasn’t deep where I was standing, but as water rushes around me, it feels like I’m being pulled out deeper. Sharp pain in my leg flares again, more tentacles drag around my calves and blackness starts to creep into my frantic vision.

  I’m going to die.

  The realization is horrifying. I’m going to drown before some sea monster eats me, all while standing twenty feet away from I’rec and O’jek while they throw their nets. No one’s noticed that I’m gone.

  Just as I’m about to black out, something hard and unyielding grabs me by the waist. Another tentacle—

  I’m immediately hauled upward. Suddenly there’s air again, and light. I sputter, coughing furiously, and realize the iron clamp around my waist isn’t a tentacle, but an arm. I’m hauled against a big, warm chest, and as I choke, trying to drag air into my lungs, I hear a furious growl.

  The swimming blackness recedes from my gaze and I see nothing but ice blue in front of me. Ice-blue shoulders, hard and rippling with muscle. Ice-blue arms, taut and veined, as the other one strangles the spiny-looking sea monster that has one long, vicious tentacle wrapped around my leg and won’t let go. Dazed, I look up and see a massive pair of horns.

  Not O’jek. Not I’rec.

  S’bren.

  My goofy stalker.

  He’s saved me.

  With a pained whimper, I cling to his neck even as I cough, and he strides toward the shore, all strength as he plows through the rough waves. I’m battered and flung with every icy slap of the water, but S’bren never lets go of me. He keeps growling and marching toward the shore, and the thing in his arms writhes and flails, and I eventually feel it release my leg with a rush of blood.

  A moan escapes my lips as the pain intensifies.

  Then we’re on the shore, and S’bren casts the now-limp creature aside with an angry huff. It takes me a moment to realize that the thing is one of the smaller jellyfish-like creatures we jokingly call “spaghetti monsters,” but this one’s bigger and uglier than any I’ve ever seen. Its plate-sized mouth has pincers like an oversized ant, and I can’t stop staring in horror at the realization that it was going to eat me.

  Well, after I drowned.

  I cough more water, my nose burning, as S’bren gently places me on the sand.

  “P’nee,” he asks, his voice low and urgent. “Speak to me. Are you all right?”

  I cough again, pushing wet, salty hair out of my face. My tunic sticks to my skin, ice cold and wet, but none of that matters right now. My leg feels like it’s pulsing heat, and when I look down, I see nothing but red and a bit of shocking white at my ankle.

  Oh shit. I’m cut all the way to the bone.

  S’bren touches my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Speak.”

  “You—you saved me,” I manage.

  He gives a crisp nod, all authority, and starts to pull off his loincloth. I want to protest that I’m not in the mood, that I’m super grateful he saved me but maybe now’s not the time for hanky-panky. But he only rips off the length of leather, flips it over to the outside, and then wraps it around my wound.

  “This will stop the bleeding for a moment,” he says, ripping the cord of his loincloth free and using it to bind my leg in a tourniquet. “Then I am taking you to the healer. She will make your hurt go away, P’nee. This I promise.”

  There’s such authority in his voice, such soothing control. He’s letting me know he’s got me, and all of my panic ebbs away. I manage a choked “okay,” then lose my voice to coughing again, but I’m not freaking out.

  S’bren’s got me, and for some reason, that’s comforting.

  He bends over me again, and before I can even think, he hauls me into his arms as if I weigh nothing. As if I’m a bride he’s about to carry over the threshold. Oh. I’m a heavy girl, and this is the first time a guy’s ever really, truly carried me. I feel weightless and protected and I immediately lean against his chest for warmth and comfort, snuggling close. “Hurts.”

  “I know. I will make it better.”

  Somehow, I think he will. I close my eyes, burrowing against him as if that’ll somehow stop the throbbing, agonizing pain in my leg. Voices shout, and I hear the crunch of footsteps on the sand.

  “What happened?” I’rec asks.

  “Is P’nee well?” O’jek adds, and when I open my eyes, I see him striding toward S’bren with an almost defiant look on his face, as if goofy S’bren has encroached on his territory for the last time.

  S’bren’s body stiffens and he snarls in their direction, holding me closer. “You let her get hurt!”

  There’s such venom in his tone that both Shadow Cat men stop, taken aback.

  S’bren turns away from them, giving them his back, and begins to hike back to the distant camp with me lightly in his arms. “You are both fools for not keeping an eye on the most precious thing on this beach,” he tells them. “I will take care of her. S’bren will not let her come to harm.”

  And he storms away.

  I’m wide-eyed with the viciousness in his tone. S’bren’s always been a bit of a goob, awkward and uncomfortable whenever any of the girls talk to him, except maybe Devi. He never knows what to say, is tongue-tied or weird and follows me around, just watching.

  And yet…he saved me.

  If he hadn’t been watching me so intently, I’d have died.

  He yelled at I’rec and O’jek, too. Told them I was precious.

  I’ve never been precious to anyone.

  It’s super flattering, as is the way he carries me as if I’m nothing. He makes little sounds in his throat as if to comfort me, the same ones he makes when one of the i
nfants at camp is crying. I’m not a baby, but…I still like it. I like being taken care of. I’ve tried so hard to be game about all of this, to roll with the punches that life keeps throwing my way. To be utterly self-sufficient so I can handle stuff as it comes.

  But right now? God, it is so nice to be a damsel in distress.

  S’bren’s got me, so…I let him take care of things. I put my head on his shoulder and hold on as he storms toward camp, heading for the healer’s tent.

  2

  S'BREN

  I have never felt a fury like I feel right now.

  I stalk away from the shore, with my female whimpering in my arms. Her leg is bleeding, her ankle mangled from the creature that grabbed ahold of her and nearly pulled her under the water and into its lair, never to be seen again. My P'nee almost died, and those two Shadow Cat fools argued about nets a short distance away. They were not watching her as closely as I do.

  No one watches her as closely as I do.

  She whimpers in my arms again, crying out when my jostling steps make her bounce in my grip. I murmur an apology and slow my steps, even as we head toward the camp. I can see those gathered by the fire sending curious looks our way, but I do not stop. I head for the healer's tent, determined to get her help. I will take care of P'nee, I have decided. I will watch out for her.

  Even if she resonates to another before my eyes, I must still ensure that she is safe.

  "We are here," I reassure her as I stride up to the healer's large tent. It is double-chambered, with the front tent a place for storage of herbs and roots, and the back is private living quarters. I push my shoulder under the flap and head inside without calling a greeting, earning a gasp of surprise from H'nah, who kisses her mate while surrounded by roots. "Get up," I tell H'nah, who I do not like much at all. She is one of those that resisted resonance, like my brother's mate C'lie, and it is one of the few things that makes me angry.

  That, and now I'rec and O'jek are added to that list.

  "Do not talk to my mate in that tone," J'shel of Strong Arm says, rising to his feet. He is normally as easy-going as I am, but on this day, he bristles.

  I ignore him and his flexing of his four arms, looking around the interior of the hut for a place to set P'nee down comfortably. There is a nest of furs in the corner, and I move toward it and gently lay her down. "This female is in pain," I say to H'nah and J'shel. "Someone find the healer."

  "She can probably hear you shouting. Damn." H'nah's tone is grumpy, but she sits next to the furs and starts to unwrap P'nee's leg. "What happened, Pen?"

  "Thorns," P'nee gasps. "Fish had thorn tentacles or something."

  The interior privacy flap opens and V'ronca pokes her head in, looking over at P'nee. "I heard the commotion. What happened?"

  The small chamber is suddenly full of people and I see J'shel quietly step outside. Perhaps I should do the same. I rise to my feet—

  P'nee grabs my hand, her eyes going wide. "Wait. Stay with me? Please?"

  My chest swells with a mixture of pleasure and agony to hear that. I hate that she is hurting, but I want nothing more than to stay with her. I sink back down, shifting my weight to allow room for the healer at her side, and clasp her small, cold hand in mine. "I will keep you safe, P'nee."

  She gives me a wan smile and closes her eyes when V'ronca puts a hand on her brow. "Just stay, S'bren."

  Nothing could pull me from her side.

  A little sigh escapes P'nee as the healer begins, and I can feel the pain-tension leaving her body. She relaxes, and as H'nah mops at the blood on P'nee's leg, I think about O'jek and I'rec.

  They did not watch her like they should have. I am so full of anger at them that it takes everything I have not to curl my fists and go after them. O'jek bragged about spending the day with P'nee, how he liked her smiles and the jiggle of her teats. How she would make a fine female in any hunter's furs. He made it sound as if she was practically going to join him in his, that it was just a matter of time. That he had staked her out as his mate. And I'rec—he thinks he is so clever. That he is going to get a female soon because he is Shadow Cat's clan leader.

  I know I am not as clever as either of them. Or any of the others in my clan. My brother M'tok is the crafty one. He is the clever; I am the muscle. Normally such things do not bother me…but lately, it has. Lately, I have felt stupid and useless, because I do not know how to talk to females.

  Back in Tall Horn camp, when I was a young kit, it did not matter. Females were kept carefully away from young males and protected because our people were already an unbalanced tribe. We had two males to every female, so no female was left unguarded and they never went hunting into the forest. But because of these rules, all of the Tall Horn females died with the Great Smoking Mountain. After that, the only female on the entire island was I'chai of Strong Arm, but she resonated to another and that was that. Here on the beach with the human females, though, we are allowed to talk and spend time together as much as we want. We can hunt together. We can fish together. We can have long conversations. Hunters can bring gifts to the human females to entice them into their furs for pleasure mating. The humans are not quick to take a pleasure mate at all, but that has not stopped the unmated males from trying. Shadow Cat clan are the worst of the unmated hunters. They flirt and tease all the females, they bring them gifts and offer to go hunting with them. They speak easily with the humans and make them laugh.

  And I am envious because I am terrible at all these things.

  I am a good hunter. I am strong. But I am not good around females…at all.

  I first realized this would be a problem when we arrived on the beach and one of the females—the youngest one, T'ia—approached me and asked my name.

  I stumbled to find words, and when I did finally think of something, I said “Name” back to her. She laughed and thought I was being funny, but it did not take long for the females around camp to start giggling whenever I came near. They are not cruel to me but it is clear my awkwardness makes them smile, and that makes it worse. So I watch them from afar, and think about what it would be like to resonate to one of the laughing, smiling humans with the manes of every color and skin that changes no colors. I think about the females with their strange, prominent teats, their hands with too many fingers, and no tail. No horns, either.

  Yet somehow they are appealing and feminine and I cannot take my eyes off of them. My brother M'tok immediately resonated when we arrived, but she refused him. Ever since then, M'tok has been distracted and surly, frustrated by C'lie who refuses to follow the rules of resonance. So for the first time in my life, I spend most of my days alone. I hunt. I fish. And I think about the females.

  I thought at first that D'vi was the female for me. She does not fit in with the others, and prefers to spend her time looking at dead creatures on the beach or staring at bones. This is a female I can understand. But D'vi made it clear we were just friends, and that was fine. Perhaps if I learned to speak to her regularly I would be able to talk around the others.

  Around one in particular.

  P'nee.

  My chest aches as I hold her hand gently in mine, gazing down at her. I have always been fascinated by this one. She is all curves and jiggly teats when Tall Horn females are lean and long. She is smiles and happiness, and her hair is a yellow that is as bright and cheerful as the rest of her. In the beach games, she smiled at me. Smiled so brightly when I helped her to her feet after a particularly messy race that my heart stuttered in my chest. I thought in that moment that my khui would begin to sing for her, but it remains quiet.

  Since that day, though, I have been lost. All other females have faded away and there is only P'nee.

  I am not the only one that notices her, though. She catches the attention of all the unmated males, O'jek especially. O'jek makes her laugh. He takes her fishing. He brings her small, shiny shells he finds on the beach that he thinks she might appreciate, and she accepts them all with that same wide, happy smile that she g
ave me once.

  I know I am not special to her. Since the games, I have not spoken to her much, but I watch her all the time. When I try to give her gifts, she refuses them, which hurts my chest. It makes me think she has decided that perhaps O'jek will be her pleasure mate after all. That she has decided to take him to her furs until resonance pulls her to another. IF resonance pulls her to another.

  But today, O'jek did not watch her closely. Today, I saved her life.

  She held tightly to me as if I kept her safe, and it filled me with a sick joy. I know I will never have P'nee for myself. I know I am just big, stupid S'bren…but I will watch over her, with or without resonance. If keeping her safe only nets me a smile or two…it will still be worth it.

  Because P'nee's smiles are everything.

  3

  PENNY

  S'bren stays at my side. It's not something I thought I needed, that constant presence, but it's comforting, even when Veronica isn't able to completely finish my healing. Hannah binds up my ankle and they give me the good drugs, and S'bren carries me out to the fire and props me up, then covers me in furs. He fusses over me, keeping me warm and comfortable and handing me hot tea and soup while everyone in camp quizzes me about my ankle. My answers are slow and dopey thanks to whatever Hannah gave me, and it's all a blur until S'bren picks me up and takes me to my furs in the cave and tucks me in.

  Then he leaves, and for some reason, that makes me sad. Shouldn't he want to stay and hold me? I really want to be held while my ankle throbs and my brain spaces out on medicinal roots. But he departs and then I'm alone, and I fall into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning, though, I'm wide awake and alert, and my ankle hurts like a bitch. S'bren appears from the shadows, creeping into the cave, and mutely offers me a cup of hot tea. And because it's sweet of him and because he's my savior, I let him fuss over me. He helps me pull on a few layers, carries me back out to the main fire, and then sticks around camp, hovering like a Mama Bear with a wounded cub. He gets me bowls of food and parks nearby, working on nets and watching me constantly.