Barbarian's Choice: A SciFi Alien Romance (Ice Planet Barbarians Book 12) Read online

  I am not frightened, not yet. I want to see what these people are doing, and why they are landing their cave here. If I see they are the bad ones with the orange skin like the others mentioned, then I will run away and tell the chief. Until then, I admire the beauty and the strangeness of their flying cave. How can something so square and fat move through the skies like a bird? It does not seem possible.

  It is on the ground, quiet, for a long time before one of the sides opens an eye. No, I decide a moment later. It is not an eye, but opening an entryway. A male steps out. At least, I think it’s a male. And what I see makes me suck in a breath.

  His body is covered by some strange, thick gray leather, but he is tall, so tall. Taller than anyone in the tribe, even Raahosh. His head is exposed, and I can see he has blue skin, like mine, but paler. He also has a sweep of arching, proud horns that gleam in the sunlight. Strange. His mane is shorn close to his scalp, but it looks to be black, like mine.

  This tall stranger is sa-khui. He is not the orange-skinned bad ones like Shorshie and the others mentioned. He is one of our people. I bet he is handsome, too. I cannot tell from here, but I like the way he moves.

  A stranger.

  A handsome stranger.

  I am so excited at this that I climb over the hill and begin to approach. I want to say hello, to greet him, to ask him why his horns are shiny and where his mane went. To ask him why he is pulling the guts out of the cave and spreading them on the snow. Before I can take more than a step, the archway on the side of the cave opens again, and this time a female steps out. I frown to myself and duck back behind the rocks. Is this his mate?

  The male stops pulling the guts out and pauses to talk to the female. I study them and determine this must be his mother, not his mate. She is much older, and his manner reminds me of my brothers with my mother—affectionate but impatient. I am curiously relieved, and watch as they continue to talk. My gaze always strays back to the male. From this distance I cannot make out his features, but I like the way he moves, strong and sure. My heart flutters in my chest when he flicks his tail and turns his back on the female, returning to his project. He pulls a few more parts out, and the female returns to the ship, shivering like the humans do, even on a pleasant day. I wait for her to leave, and then when I know the male is alone, I emerge from my hiding spot.

  I am excited to talk to him. I have so many questions to ask. Did he come here with humans? Is he bringing mates to the others? Is he…looking for a mate? The thought makes my entire body flush with excitement. I pick my steps carefully in the snow, moving silently as any good hunter does.

  As I venture closer, I get a better look at his face. He is turned to the side, but I can see that he has proud features and a noble nose. He is handsome, too, just like I knew he would be, and the line of his jaw is proud and unyielding. His eyes are shielded by heavy brows, and plated like my own. I cannot get over how different—but similar—he is to the males in my tribe. He is so like us, and yet…so much handsomer. I could stare at this appealing face for days and never grow bored. The differences are fascinating—like his tail. He has a tail, but for some reason it is blunted, half the length of my own. Has it always been like that, or did he lose it in an accident? His horns with the strange shiny tips fascinate me, as does the fact that his mane is gone. I can see dark stubble on his scalp, and it highlights the strong lines of his skull. Fascinating. He turns to the side, studying one of the parts he has pulled from the underbelly of the cave, and I realize that the dark shadows I thought were from the ship are something else entirely. He has…designs on his face. Celebration designs, like the ones I paint on the others when we have a feast. One entire side of his face is marked with them.

  I gasp at the sight, because it is beautiful and surprising all at once. Is he celebrating something today?

  He straightens, turning toward me. His eyes go wide at the sight of me, and he looks me up and down, as if unable to believe that I am here.

  “Greetings to you,” I call out.

  “Kzzv si metalsivak?”

  His eyes are dark, I realize. There is no glow of a khui inside them. It is like when the humans first arrived and their eyes were dead. Creepy. I hold back a shiver.

  He stares at me expectantly. I do not know his words, and the way he watches me fills me with a new feeling—worry. Is…is he not here to visit, then? I feel shy under the weight of his gaze, which is strange. I am not normally flustered, but this is also the first time I have ever talked to a male not in my tribe. I pick up one of the pieces of the cave and hold it out to him. “Do you need this?”

  He squints, and it is clear he does not understand my words. His gaze moves over my body again, and I feel a tingle of excitement and pleasure as he studies me. He is looking at me like the other males regard their mates. It makes my nipples tighten with excitement, and I feel a warm pulsing between my thighs. He looks at me the way I want to be looked at by a male, I realize. Not like Sessah with his silly devotion, or Taushen with his impatient courting. He devours me with his eyes and I…I like it.

  The male says something again, and I frown, because I want to understand his words. I offer him the cave part I hold in my hand, curious if that is what he wants. As I get nearer to him, I start to tremble in my belly. It’s strange, because I do not feel fear. If anything, I am excited and aroused by the sight of this male. I take another step closer to him…and then it hits me.

  Resonance.

  The tremble in my belly is not trembling, after all.

  It is my khui, singing with such force that it is making my entire body shake. The song rises in my throat, and I stare at this male in wonder. This stranger, this handsome hunter with paint on his face and strange shiny horns is to be my mate. We will make kits together and he will hold me in his arms and we will be a family.

  I am so happy.

  “My mate,” I say with joy, and extend my hands to him. He does not move forward, but he takes the cave part from my hand, and our fingers brush. My pulse thrums with delight at that small touch, and I feel a growing slickness between my thighs. I want him. I am ready to mate, right here and right now.

  He gazes at my hand in wonder, where our fingers touch. Surely he feels the same thing I do. “My mate,” I say again, and put my hands on his face. He stares at me with wide eyes. He is shocked, I imagine, but I will be a good mate to him. I lean forward and press my mouth to his in the human mouth-matings that the others make look so very pleasurable. His lips are cooler under mine. His skin, too. Is he cold? He will warm up when he takes his khui.

  The male jerks backward, away from my touch.

  “It is all right,” I tell him, excited. “It is a human gesture, nothing more.”

  He says something again, and his gloved hand goes to his mouth. He touches his lips, then glances over at the cave, where the entrance opened. He speaks, spitting out a string of fluid-sounding words.

  “I do not understand your language,” I say, fretting. We no longer have the Elders’ Cave to teach languages. It is on its side. “Perhaps you have something in your cave that can teach you to speak with me?” Now that I am standing so close to him, I want to pull off the strange leather tunic he wears that covers him from boot to neck. He has a bit of colorful leather tucked around his throat, and I can see it move as he swallows hard, then slurs another round of gibberish at me.

  He rubs his arms and repeats one word, gazing at me. “Fasang?” Oh. My mate is trying to communicate. I smile at him and listen patiently, but I am more fascinated by the dancing lines that cover one side of his face. They have not moved, and they did not feel wet when I touched them. It is almost as if they are permanently on the skin. Would that not be fascinating? I wonder how he did it, and how he got his horns so shiny and silver. He rubs his arms again and repeats the word. “Fasang?”

  Is he asking if I am cold? I laugh, because the idea is so funny. “Why would I be cold? Today is a perfect day.”

  His expression changes. T
he frustration fades from his face, and a hint of a smile tugs at the corners of his hard mouth. “Fasang la?” He rubs his arms again and then touches my arm with a small shake of his head.

  I decide that I love his smile. It seems so hesitant, and I want to make him smile more. Actually, I want to press my mouth to his again and try more mouth-mating. “Do you want to mate here, or do you want to go back to my cave?” I gesture at the distant hills. There is a hunter cave nearby, full of furs and supplies. “We will be alone there.”

  “Fasang la?”

  Are we still on that? I want to see him smile again. I want his touch. So I take his hand in mine, and note the strange glove he wears. It feels like thin, slippery leather. I tug at it to remove the glove.

  He jerks his hand away.

  I draw back, wounded. “What did I do?”

  He shakes his head and says something new, something different, and then offers me his other hand. Strange. I touch the glove again, and he nods, indicating I can continue. All right. I pull the glove off and notice his strange markings on his face continue onto his skin here. “So beautiful,” I breathe, tracing the whorls and dark lines. “What does it mean?”

  He says nothing, and I wish we understood each other better. I will just have to learn patience. I cannot wait to hear all the exciting things he will tell me.

  He is not pulling his hand out of my grip this time, though, and I smile at him, stroking his palm. It is hard and callused, like that of any hunter. He does not feel as warm as I do, but I do not mind. He is mine. I take his hand and place it on my teat. “Mate? I am ready.”

  I feel his shock ripple through his body. His mouth opens slightly, and he stares at me in surprise, but he does not remove his hand. My khui sings so loudly between us, and I am practically throbbing with the song of it. I am nervous, too. Will he take me up on my offer, or will he fight against it, like Jo-see did to Haeden? I ache to feel his big hands everywhere. I want everything he has to offer me, and more.

  His voice is very soft when he speaks again, and he pulls his hand slowly away. “Na mahas tikla qi tqand.”

  I do not know his words, but when he puts his glove back on, it feels like rejection. Hot tears flood my eyes. “Do you…not like me?” How can my mate reject me so quickly? Is there something wrong?

  The stranger shakes his head, saying more of the jarring words, and brushes the tears off my cheek before they can freeze. His touch is instantly comforting, and I want to burrow against him and feel what it would be like for his arms to go around me. I always wondered what it would be like to resonate to someone, but I never imagined it to be this overwhelming this fast.

  A familiar bleat sounds in the distance. Chahm-pee is returning. I pull away from the stranger and turn around. My fat dvisti stands a short distance away, galloping forward and spraying snow in that funny, kit-like, eager way he does to make me laugh.

  My mate grabs me by the arm, shoving me behind him, and bellows out a word. “Skavash!”

  “It is my pet,” I tell him, patting his shoulder even as he pulls something from his belt.

  I do not know what he’s doing until his hand moves, and then there’s a sizzling sound. Something flashes. Chahm-pee gives a cry of pain and collapses to the ground.

  “No! Chahm-pee!” I scream, rushing forward. The male tries to hold me back, but I shove his arms away and rush forward to my pet. My poor, sweet Chahm-pee. All he wanted to do was greet me. I drop to my knees at his side. He is wheezing, blood spilling into the snow. The smell of charred fur and cooked meat makes me want to vomit, as does the look of pain and fear in his liquid blue eyes. I stroke his nose gently. “It is going to be all right,” I whisper to him. “I am here.”

  3

  MARDOK

  Gods damn it, I think I just shot her keffing pet.

  I put my blaster away, tucking it back into its holster as the strange, nearly naked woman sobs over the furry herbivore. I’m disgusted that I overreacted. Now that I have a moment to catch my breath, I realize that the thing is a four-legged plant eater, shaggy, ugly, but harmless. I just saw it charging toward us and reacted like a soldier.

  But I’m not a soldier any longer, and I keffed up. Bad.

  The woman sobs over her pet, stroking its nose as the creature wheezes its final breaths. There’s blood everywhere, and I have the awful, terrible sensation that I’ve messed this up, bad. I shouldn’t have shot first. This strange, wild girl clearly loves her animal, and she wanted to be my friend.

  I think of the look on her face as she put my hand on her breast, full of need and longing. Yeah, she wanted to be a lot more than friends. And now my cock hurts in my pants, and my heart hurts because I just murdered something she loved out of a knee-jerk reaction. I need to fix this, but how? I move closer, edging forward. The creature isn’t getting up. His head is in her lap, and he breathes shallowly, making little sounds of pain as she cries over him. He’s been gut-shot, and while he’s bleeding a lot, he’s not exactly dying fast.

  Keffing awful.

  If it was just me and he was an enemy soldier, I’d give him a second blast to the head to ease his suffering. But I don’t think the strange, beautiful female would like that. Not in the slightest. So…what?

  I’m full of remorse. Not that I shot the creature—because any soldier wouldn’t hesitate to take down a charging animal—but that it clearly means something to her and I’ve destroyed that. She tosses a look in my direction, and her face is wet with tears. She spits words at me, and I don’t have to speak her language to know what she’s saying.

  How could you?

  I rub a hand over the bristle on my skull. All right, what now? Wait for it to die? Put it out of its misery? I think of the way she smiled at me, putting my hand on her breast, the trust and happiness in her face. I haven’t seen that in…kef, who knows how long.

  And I want it back. I feel a violent surge of possessiveness toward the woman. I saw her first. She’s mine. I think of Trakan heading out of the ship to smoke one of his carcinogels. Would she approach him with her smiles and nakedness? Put his hand on her breast and invite him with her eyes? I clench my hands so tight I can almost hear the metal creak in my bionic arm.

  All right. If she’s mine, then I need to fix this. I slap my communicator on my wrist, turning it on, and lift it to my mouth. “Niri, head to med bay, would you? I’m coming in and you’re needed.”

  She immediately clicks back. “Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”

  “Just go to med bay,” I tell her, and move forward. I head to the other side of the smelly, furry creature and heft him into my arms. He’s enormous and probably weighs twice what I do, with long, dangling legs and so much fur that I’m going to be pulling it out of my molars for weeks to come. But he’s not fighting me, and his head is limp. I tilt so the majority of his weight falls on my bionic arm, and then stagger toward the entrance of the ship.

  The woman follows after me. I almost expect her to shout in her angry, babbling language, or to hit me with those delicate hands of hers, but she doesn’t. She hovers at my heels, her sniffs the only sounds she makes. The hatch opens automatically, and I head inside, turning sideways to go through the narrow entrance. The creature’s bleeding all over me and all over the floors, but right now that doesn’t matter. What matters is making sure it doesn’t die, because I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if this strange woman looks at me with hate…or worse, disappointment. Hate can always be flipped back to friendship, but disappointment lasts forever.

  “What is going on?” Niri calls as she enters the ship’s main narrow passageway. She gasps, flattening herself against the wall as she sees me with the furry, bleeding monstrosity. “What the kef is that thing?”

  “This planet?” I growl. “It’s not uninhabited.”

  “Is that one of the locals?” Niri asks, her eyes wide as she hurries back toward med bay. Inside, I can hear the hum of her computers as they power up. “Did he talk to you?”
<
br />   “No. It’s complicated.”

  “I see. I don’t know if he’s going to fit on the diagnostic bed.” She moves to the control panel and taps a few buttons, and the metal bed rolls out of the compartment with a soft hiss. I heft my burden onto it and stagger backward the moment he’s out of my arms. Gods, that thing was heavy. I glance down at my enviro-suit and it’s covered in blood. I unzip it and begin to unbuckle my way out of the cumbersome thing.

  Niri busies herself with the creature. When the legs don’t tuck into the bed itself, she gives up on sending it through the diagnostic scanner and takes out a handheld, moving it over the creature.

  “I can tell you what’s wrong,” I say gruffly as I pry the insulated boots off my feet. “I keffing shot him. He was charging at us.”

  “Us?” Niri turns and frowns at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “The girl.” Her brows go up, and I turn, realizing that my new friend didn’t follow me into the med clinic. “Shit. Be right back.” I shove the filthy enviro-suit aside and race back into the hall, looking for her. If Trakan sees her…

  But there she is, standing near the doorway that leads to the bridge. She’s admiring one of the wall panels, touching a light as it flashes up on screen. It’s a weather reading of the outdoors, and I’m pretty sure she can’t read what it says, but she seems fascinated by it. I move to her side, and she jerks in surprise at the sight of me. Must not hate me too much, though, because she immediately starts purring again, and that makes me feel better.

  “Tisik,” she says, pointing at the screen. “Vo?”

  I have no clue what she’s saying. “Do you like the lights? Or do you want to know what it says?”