Page 39 of Romancing Rem'eb

Both myself and the strange blonde—Rosalind—help dress our unruly group. I meet the three “Ancestors” for the first time. There is Set’nef the Wanderer, who has gray coloring and a somber expression. His younger brother, Tal’nef the Swiftest, with a lean build and a worried look on his face. Then there is Noj’me the Attendant, who has a silvery mane and bright eyes. She looks thrilled to be meeting strangers, her face wreathed with an excited smile. We don’t have time to get to know each other, though. There are shoes to be made, wraps to be adjusted, and people to be herded. Noj’me is so fascinated with everything that she keeps accidentally wandering away. Set’nef pauses to look at everything. Poor Rosalind sticks to R’jaal’s side when she’s not clinging to mine.

This is a lot for all of them, I’m sure. So I do what I can to be a leader. I make sure people are covered and no extremities are going to get frostbite. I teach them not to wander through the thicker snowdrifts while R’jaal scouts ahead, looking for the next hunter cave which will be full of the supplies we need. And when we get to the cave, I decide I’m going to show Rosalind how to make a fire. I’m so used to the cold, the gloomy sunlight, the bitter wind, that none of it strikes me as disturbing anymore. But it’s clear from the shocked expressions of the ancestors (and poor Rosalind) that Not-Hoth is a lot to take in.

I can be a guide for them like Stacy was for me back on Croatoan—patient, helpful, and practical.

We crowd into the cave, the ancestors shivering and clutching borrowed furs around them. The weather feels pretty nice to me, but even I admit it’s an extreme temperature drop from the balmy interior of the fruit cave and the stagnant warmth of the tunnels of Rem’eb’s people. R’jaal goes out to find fresh water, and I take one look at the others, huddled in the back of the cave like baby birds in a nest, and decide I need to take charge.

“Noj’me,” I begin, pointing at the lean, lovely young alien woman with four arms and a pretty silvery mane. “Dig through the supplies in the back of the cave and look for furs. They will be rolled up. Let’s make beds for everyone.”

Noj’me can speak some of the sa-khui alien language, so I use their words, though I know my pronunciation is all garbled. “Skins…for beds,” she repeats slowly, making sure she understands. “For us, yes?”

“Yes,” I agree, and gesture at Set’nef and Tal’nef. “Tell them.”

“I tell!” She beams at me, obviously loving her adventure. When she turns to the brothers to explain, I tune her out and turn to Rosalind.

The look on her face is just as lost as the others, and I’m guessing she had no idea that the ice planet was going to be quite this cold. Then again, R’jaal probably didn’t mention that this is an ice planet. To him, it’s just his home world. I recognize that deer-in-headlights look on her face and I want to help her.

So I smile and pull the fire strikers hanging from the wall. The bits of metal salvaged from the ship have a lot of magnesium in them, so we use them to start fires and pretty much every cave has something like that in it now. I wore one around my neck for a long time, too, but I abandoned it thinking I’d never be out somewhere that I’d need a striker, as I’m not much of a hunter. Ha. Joke’s on me. I hold the strikers out to her. “Have you ever made a fire, Rosalind?”

Her eyes are wide and she shakes her head.

“Okay, well, that’s one of the things you’re going to want to learn first, now that you’re here. You’ll get used to the cold for the most part, but fire is handy for a lot of things, not just warmth. We’ll get you a striker at some point so you can practice, but for now we’ll use the one here in the cave. You’re going to want a striker, and you’re going to want a nest of tinder.”

“Striker. Tinder. Got it.” Rosalind’s voice is shaky but growing stronger.

Good. Maybe if we keep her occupied, R’jaal and I, she won’t get depressed once she realizes she’s stuck here. I threw myself into making out with as many alien guys as possible when I went through the grief of being trapped here, but I’m guessing that won’t be a choice for her.

Thinking about kissing guys makes me think about Rem’eb. I glance back at him, where he sits, hands tied behind him, near Tal’nef’s feet. Tal’nef carried him today because we couldn’t trust Rem’eb not to race back to the caves, and I know he has to be angry right now.

If it was me, I’d be furious with me at the moment, seeing as how I kidnapped him.

Our eyes meet, and he gives me a resentful, betrayed stare. He’d been trying to help me, and I took him captive. I totally get that he’s mad. At some point, we’ll have a few moments alone—and maybe we’ll be able to talk once he gets a language chip implanted—and he’ll understand why I did it. For now, he just glares at me mutely, twisting in the ropes. His long, fluffy tail thwacks hard against the stone floor, annoyed.

And I feel…sad. Bitterly disappointed because I’m not enough of a draw to make him want to stay with me. What else is new, that awful little voice in my head pipes in.

I glance away from Rem’eb, because I can’t even apologize. I’m not sorry for what I did. I’m just sad that whatever flirtation we had going has died.

“You want to go talk to him?” Rosalind whispers.

I shake my head, because there’s too much to say and not enough shared words between us. “Let’s just work on the fire.”

R’jaal returns, filling the entrance of the cave, and Rosalind immediately perks up at the sight of him, her cheeks turning pink.

For some reason, that irks me. “Okay,” I say a bit louder to get her attention once more. “There’s going to be a pouch around here with some dried sea grass in it, and that works well as tinder. We want to make a little nest?—”

And I pause.

My chest feels…strange. That weird bubble I felt also feels as if it has popped, and warmth is spreading through my veins. Warmth, and a heavy, steady throb of my pulse follows.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

My heart pounds in my chest, my pulse throbbing in time with it. Then, my pulse seems to center in three particular places—my nipples, and directly between my thighs. Shocked at the arousal that floods my system, I look back over at Rem’eb.

Our eyes meet.

God, he looks good, even with his mane disheveled and a scowl on his face. I put a hand to my chest, feeling the pounding of my khui’s song, but what I really want to do is crawl over to him and kiss him. Lick him all over. Slide my legs over his lap and fit his strange—yet also appealing—umbrella dick into my body and see what it feels like when it unfurls…

This. This is what we’ve been waiting for. What we’ve been feeling all along.

---