Page 32 of Red

The wind howled outside, reminding Arie that winter had truly settled in. She tried to ignore it as she worked but was no more successful at doing that than she’d been when it first descended upon them within days of their arrival. She reflected on the fact that between the bitter frosts and the cold that came with the snow, the first several days had been miserable. After that first snow, with no immediate decision in sight, the families came together in cooperation to prepare the cave for the cold season. Rager, naturally, had been inflexible on what they needed. Arie half suspected he would have gone out and hunted himself to the point of exhaustion to provide for them. Thankfully, it hadn’t come to that.

Vordri and Korash had brought supplies over and replaced the leather flap over the entrance with a better one that tied snugly to the anchors. They had also increased the comfort of their bed but gathering every spare fur they could find and bringing it to the den, after which all the males worked together to cooperatively load the narrow room at the rear of the cave with nothing but firewood. Upon finishing, the triad had looked at the stockpile and then at her, murmuring to each other in Ragii in such low voices that Arie had been unable to make out a word. By the end of the day, they’d doubled the supply, making her suspect that they’d had been anxious over her comfort—which was very sweet.

She even had the opportunity to meet Mishar when he came with bags of prepared meat. The pure white male didn’t seem able to speak, although his eyes shone with good humor. Whereas Rager had pale ice-blue eyes, Mishar’s were the brilliant blue of a summer sky. With the help of his triad as translators, he managed to communicate with signs expressing his great happiness to meet them and his gentle features and sweet personality quickly won Arie over.

That she was now spending parts of her days with Emala had been unexpected, but a welcome change considering how close she’d come to going out of her mind with boredom. And if Arie didn’t go to her den to learn how to cook and make the most out of foraged and hunted ingredients or share her own medical knowledge with the older woman, then Emala made a point to visit her with one of her mates to check up on her. Mostly, however, Kyx brought Arie to his family den and she couldn’t complain. It was far warmer and more comfortable than what they had or even what she had grown up in. She was perfectly comfortable working on learning how to piece together and sew the tough leather in companionably silence with Kyx’s mother, as she was currently doing. seated comfortably in a plush chair across from Emala.

Arie’s lips quirked as she watched her needle steadily pull in and out of the leather, recalling how she’d dreaded the lessons at first. Her memories of past failures at learning to sew had caused her all kinds of mental anguish. But Emala proved to be a patient teacher with many useful skills to make life far from the human trade routes as comfortable as possible. To Arie’s surprise, she even noticed an improvement in her sewing skills as the female taught her the easiest way to stitch the leather pieces together with strong bone needles.

It was hardly the sort of tools she would’ve been using at The Citadel, but Arie didn’t care. She had stopped thinking about the city weeks ago. She had even ceased thinking about the huntsmen after so many days with no sign of them. Had the pursuit been called off? Surely even huntsmen wouldn’t be so suicidal as to risk exposure to the brutal weather. With no imminent threat lurking around the corner, Arie found that she was happy.

She’d long lost track of the days, but she figured that no less than three months had passed since she was rescued by her triad, closing in on four, and they’d slipped into a comfortable routine. Thanks to her high-protein diet, her hair had grown long and thick in those months, the curls now extending down to her hips. Warol loved to touch it, dragging the lengths between his fingers as all four of his hands worked it into braids or just played with it, running soft strands across the tip of his nose.

The males had also seemed quite content for a time, up until just recently. While Warol and Kyx took turns scouting, Rager often stayed inside with her, his large bulk a comforting presence. He busied himself with weaving baskets from the long grasses given to him by Mishar or found some task that needed tending to. Sometimes he would go outside. At times it was to take Arie out for a stroll and at other times to patrol the immediate area around the cave while one of the other males rested.

In the evening, however, all the males were in the cave after dark, their bodies settled around her. In those early days, Arie taught them how to play dice with a set she’d made from the knucklebones of a wild goat that Warol and Vordri had killed. She’d laughed when she saw just how competitive the males could be. They, in turn, taught her various games that involved sticks of different lengths and colorful stones.

She missed that.

Arie also admitted to herself that it bothered her how, aside from their mutual non-penetrative lovefests that were becoming more and more common, the males never initiated sexual contact with her. It never happened unless things got started up while they were sleeping. Because of that, she was never sure if they actually wanted her or were just reacting instinctively to the presence of a female. In which case it could have been any female body at all that could have set them off. And that was a depressing thought. She’d assumed that they would all just reach that point of intimacy—but they hadn’t and Arie was too uncertain of what they wanted to make the first move. Despite all their protectiveness toward her, neither Rager nor Warol had made any declarations of wanting her the way that Kyx had. As far as she understood, their plans were still to take her to The Citadel once the snow cleared.

She didn’t know what to think of the situation, but she did know that was what she had wanted. But now? The fact that she was no longer even thinking of The Citadel, and that she had begun to dream of an entirely different future that hadn’t seemed possible until she’d met Emala, took her by surprise. Rager, Warol, and Kyx—somehow, she’d become attached to them.

No, attached was too shallow of a word. She wasn’t merely attached. She loved them. She loved Rager with all his patience, wit and kindness. She loved Kyx who never failed to make her smile with all of his antics and made her feel adored. And then there was Warol, she loved the male for how strongly he felt everything and the way he was able to make her feel a part of it once he opened himself up to her. The thought of living in The Citadel and not seeing them made her heart constrict painfully. How did she tell them that she wanted to stay with them and be with them in truth in every way when she didn’t know if the triad felt the same way?

She wasn’t even sure how to broach the matter, especially when she was even more confused about the changes in the males’ temperaments that had begun just a handful of days ago. The triad was beginning to act oddly hostile toward each other, and it was worse whenever they lay together. It was getting bad enough that the tension between Rager and Warol was becoming increasingly volatile and Arie was at a loss as to why or how to go about resolving it. The males often snarled threateningly at one another. Worried about an eruption of violence, she was eventually driven to solving the problem by sleeping apart from all three of them. Unfortunately, that just made the matter worse as the hostility between the males only seemed to increase.

Rager never seemed to relax, with waves of aggression and dominance rolling off him continuously. It was bad enough that, much to Arie’s dismay, Warol began to spend long periods away from the cave. Whenever he came home, his expression would be one of such sadness and longing that it made her heart ache for him. Then there was Kyx. Although he never got involved in the fights, he seemed to be retreating within himself miserably as the conflict escalated.

Was this somehow her fault because they were trapped in the den with her for the winter?

It worried Arie so much that she could barely focus on what she was doing as she sharpened her bone knife in front of Emala’s hearth. She could feel the older woman’s eyes and looked up to meet her concerned gaze.

“Is everything okay?”

Arie bit her lip, uncertain of how much to divulge.

Emala set aside her knife and sharpening and stone and reached over to touch the back of Arie’s hand. “You will feel better if you talk about it. Trust me.”

Knowing that she was right, Arie confided, “I don’t think they are happy.”

The other woman drew back in surprise.

“You are speaking of your triad?”

Arie nodded miserably and Emala chuckled.

“Whatever makes you think that? Every time I see any of those boys, they appear very content. More than content. I don’t imagine I have ever seen a happier triad—outside of my own of course. Not that I’ve seen many. My mates don’t let others close,” she admitted.

Arie gave her a weak smile and shrugged. She would have said the same not too long ago. She’d thought that they were all happy being together. “They are just acting… strangely. There is a terrible tension in the air, and Rager and Warol are at each other’s throats. I can’t even lay between them anymore because they were fighting over me.”

Emala looked at her in confusion before a look of comprehension lit her face.

“Oh dear, those poor boys. You haven’t chosen yet. It is the season and you haven’t chosen,” she said with a short sympathetic laugh.

Korash looked up from where he’d been dozing on a plush nest of furs set up against the wall with a pair of rogs nestled against him. He smiled at the sound of his mate’s laughter. “What are you two going on about now?” he inquired.

Emala shook her head as she wiped away tears of mirth and explained to her mate, “Arie’s boys are acting out. She hasn’t chosen yet.”

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