Page 41 of The VaDorok's Unexpected Mate
“It is better if we do not. Regardless of Mother Zalla’s intentions, Kull does not tolerate her interference. I should have told him this immediately, but he asked me to help him finish raising your shelter and did not think any further of it.”
“Our shelter?” she echoed, and she gave him a puzzled look. “Aren’t you staying here, too?”
He grinned suddenly in response. “No, this is all for you. I am of age to join the scouts, which is where I will be heading now to meet up with them and also where I will be sleeping. I do not wish to hear whatever you do without walls separating us.”
Katie choked on a laugh and waved him away. “Go away, then,” she chuckled. “I will catch up with Macy and see what other gossip I can pull out of her.” She paused for a moment as uncertainty caught up with her and tightened its vice-like hold on her. “That thing with Ita—the mate challenge—is that common? Could it happen with someone who is just a pleasure-mate?”
A look of understanding came to Ren’s face, as well as a small measure of reluctance as he dropped his eyes to avoid her gaze.
“You don’t want to answer?” she asked. “I just want to know what Kull might potentially face.”
“It is not that.” He sighed. “It is just that mating is complicated and not something I am even prepared to put much thought into. Mate challenges like what happened with Ita and Vidok are usually only for circumstances where ulukskinon hasalready risen. It is like a last effort to exert a potential claim. It happens more often with highly desirable males than with those who are not. For males who are not in the grip of ulukskinon, it is different. Not a formal challenge, but the female can request to join his household. She will not have the same privileges as what happens in the challenge, but her presence there could be allowed for one full moon cycle to see if she can inspire ulukskinon. If she does, then the pleasure-mate is set aside to rejoin the rest of the tribe.”
“So if she marches a bunch of females past him, and none of them inspire this ulukskinon but one takes a liking to him—”
“Then Mother Zalla will encourage her to push for asserting her rights now that Kull is interested in taking a female again,” he said. “I just hope that Kull maintains some control over his temper about this.”
She hoped so, too.
Chapter 31
Kull stormed through the gathering grounds, seething, his anger fueled to even greater heights by the unresolved torment of the ulukskinon. He was worked up to the point to where, after dealing with his mother, he was going to either have to fuck his ulukska into mind-numbing pleasure or find a cold river to submerge himself in, as he did every morning, to keep him from killing any male who so much as looked at his female wrong.
How dare his mother interfere! She must have intentionally had their kin watching for him to arrive and reporting back to her. It is ridiculous that he had to deal with her mechanicians. Because of her interference, he was not with Katie where he belonged, setting out the leathers and baskets for trade. Although her skills are still rudimentary, teaching her this aspect of their life was something that he had begun looking forward to.
Leave it is his mother to try to ruin everything.
An impatient growl rattled in his chest as he walked along the familiar route to where his mother and extended kin always set up their camps. As expected, she was in the midst of a crowd of females, talking excitedly. He could see how animated she was even from a distance as she gestured to several young females to come closer to her. His nostrils flared with his outrage. Let her see how far her efforts would get her. Did she not learn adequately enough the last time?
Without hesitation, he strode through the crowd of females, startling gasps of indignation from several of them as they were forced to move quickly out of his way while others watched with open curiosity.
“Mother,” he growled.
Zalla’s shifted to him in shock, but that surprise was quickly covered with a look of joy as she rose from the boulder draped with an ornately embroidered cloth, her arms open to him.
“Kull! You have come. Join me, I wish you to meet—”
“No, Mother,” he snapped, and she jerked with a wounded look.
“But Kull, they—”
He cut the air with a hand in a sharp demand for silence. “Enough. We have had this discussion before about your interference in my life. I told you then that I would tolerate no more manipulation.”
“I am not trying to manipulate you,” Zalla protested, and her braids swung wildly around her shoulders as she gestured to the gathered females. “What I am doing here is for your own good. Any one of these females can—”
“Do absolutely nothing,” he interrupted, refusing to allow her to have any opportunity to speak. “Did Ita’s humiliation demonstrate nothing? These archaic laws to save the pride of our females have never, in the history of our tribe, successfully won anyone over.”
“Ita’s case is different. Vidok has an ulukska. But you—”
“Have the female I want. I do not want any others. This tradition must stop here and now,” he replied flatly. “If you try to coach any of these females to make a challenge, I will refuse each and every one of them. Borax can punish me if he likes, but I will not take a single one of them to my den, nor will I ever return for another gathering where you are present.”
“Kull, you would speak to your mother this way?” a young wiry male stepped forward, his jaw jutting.
Kull narrowed his eyes at him in recognition. Jegar, the cousin that his mother raised, seemed to have finally reached full maturity. Judging by the beads in his mane, he had just recently completed serving his term as a scout and was nowconsidered an adult member of the tribe. He curled his lip at him in disgust. Of course, the male would demonstrate loyalty toward his mother over everything and interfere where he did not belong. It seemed that she taught him well on that. Kull did not owe either of them anything, least of all did he owe the male any kind of reply. With one last sharp look of warning to his mother, Kull spun away and stalked back toward the central gathering grounds in search of his ulukska.
“Kull, wait,” a female called, jogging to his side.
Biting back a snarl of annoyance, he slowed just enough to glance back at Tev as she caught up with him. She grinned as she matched her stride to his, her tail playfully flicking at his leg.
