Page 2 of Barbarian Daddies

Second, we’re constantly pushing back Sky Tribe attacks—we even had to split up in order to make it harder for them to find us. Alicia has been living with the Tallas clan up north, and Jewel has moved in with the Kreek clan, also farther north up the Sun River. Amber stayed with the Mal clan for obvious reasons, and I’ve stuck with Kai and Maur Hadana across the stream, since it’s the safest place for me to be.

“Alright, he’s good,” Amber tells me, noticing her son is close to falling asleep at this point. The kid loves his midday naps more than anything.

“How’s Valen?” I ask. “I haven’t seen him around.”

“He’s with his dads,” she says. “They’re teaching him the way of the Fire Tribe men. Valen is almost six, now, so he needs to follow in his fathers’ footsteps.”

“You’ve been an incredible mother to him, too.”

“I love him just as much as I love Salem, to be honest. He’s a good kid. He asks about his biological mom sometimes, and it just breaks my heart to explain these things to him.”

The sadness in Amber’s voice is too much to bear sometimes. The plague killed Valen’s mother when he was just a babe. She’s right. These are hard things to understand for a kid who knows little about this cruel world he was born into. I give her a gentle shoulder squeeze.

“Hey. He’ll understand when he gets older. Until then, he’s got you, he’s got Binzen and Izzo, and he’s got a little brother as well.”

“Provided we all survive this slow-dripping nightmare,” Amber sighs deeply. “Two weeks without a Sky Tribe jet flying overhead feels kind of weird. I don’t want to get comfortable.”

“Meh. We know the drill by now, and Jewel’s work with the Kreek clan has certainly helped us in that regard,” I reply. “We do the best we can and pray we’ll finish this our way, not theirs. That’s all there is to it.”

I put the blood samples away in a glass box, then slip the box into my leather satchel. My journey back is short. All I have to do is hop on one of the rafts and cross the Sun River. To think I used to need a car to move around in Seattle. Then again, a car would be amazing out here, too, but I’m adding that to the list of things I won’t get to enjoy in this lifetime. Probably.

“How are you getting along with the Hadana twins?” Amber asks, a girlish smile curling her lips.

The Sunna suns have done wonders for her complexion over the past three years. They’ve done wonders for all four of us, but Amber stands out more. Her skin is a gorgeous caramel, bringing out the blue in her eyes while her long, ginger hair seems one shade brighter, close to fiery orange.

She has taken the Fire Tribe’s clothing style and made it her own, too, much like the rest of us, though she sticks to animal hides wrapped tightly around her curvaceous figure with strips of leather and silver chains. I prefer the short, cotton-like dresses and beaded sandals more.

But this smile of hers sometimes irks me, because I know what she’s trying to do.

“For the umpteenth time, I’m not gonna bond with Maur and Kai the way you did with Binzen and Izzo,” I reply bluntly. “Forget about it.”

“How much longer are you going to keep lying to yourself, Cynthia? It’s been three years.”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. She’s not wrong.

I have been lying to myself. There is so much sizzling tension between the Hadana twins and me that it’s hard to breathe sometimes. They haven’t tried anything untoward, nor will they ever, because they’re gentlemen, which just makes them even more attractive.

Their appearance scared me at first—massively tall with dark red skin and a Herculean physique; those long horns protruding from their heads; the devilish tail with a spiky end that could easily slit a man’s throat at the slightest flick; their short but sharp, retractable claws; their fangs and fiery red eyes.

But now, hot damn, I can’t stop thinking about them.

More than once, I’ve had to pleasure myself in order to release some of this insane sexual pressure. Kai and Maur have been nothing but kind and courteous, yet they absolutely love teasing me. And the more I fight this bond between us, the harder it is to resist. Sooner rather than later, the pot will reach its boiling point, and then I will be lost. Forever lost to them. I know it, deep in my bones.

“We’re just friends,” I insist. “Not that they don’t want more.”

“Like you don’t!” Amber laughs.

“I’m not immune to their charms, I’ll admit, but I can’t let this bond happen. How will I ever go back to Earth if I do?”

She smiles softly. “You sound just like I did before I accepted the truth. It’s fine, Cynthia. You’ll get there. And so will Alicia. And Jewel. Fight it all you want, but the Sunnaite love is an otherworldly experience. These guys will grow on you more and more until you won’t even wish to go back to Earth.”

“You wouldn’t go back if you had the chance, huh?”

“I have two gorgeous men who love me more than anything, and two sons. I have a family and a purpose here, I have happiness and peace, as crazy as the latter may sound in the midst of a plague and a civil war, but you know what I mean.”

“Fair enough.”

I get up, ready to head back across the river so I can store the samples and study them later. Kai and Maur were able to smuggle some medical equipment in from Sapphire City, but it’s nowhere near enough for my work.

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