Page 5 of A Kiss of Frost

Shortly before dawn, she fell asleep. In her dreams she saw a handsome prince, just like in her book of fairy tales. Tall and broad shouldered, his skin as pale as snow. His silvery white hair curled down to his shoulders while his dark, spiraling horns reached up to the sky. His eyes met hers, a clear bright blue, and then he smiled. In her dream, she smiled back and reached out her hand for him…

Merry rolled over, digging her elbow into Katerina’s side, and she woke. Her eyes immediately went to the other side of the fire, there was no one there.Of course not, she scolded herself. Handsome princes were the subject of dreams, not reality. But as she drifted back to sleep, she could almost feel him watching her.

CHAPTER4

Jackasarian ducked back into the woods just as the female’s eyes opened. What was he doing? It would be foolish to reveal himself to the primitive inhabitants of this planet. Not that it took much effort to remain hidden from them. They seemed to pay very little attention to their surroundings, only focused on their daily activities. Primitive activities, he thought disparagingly, and yet there was something fascinating about the way they lived their lives. Everything was so… uncontrolled.

His trip inland had not been uneventful. He had encountered a meat animal with horns even larger than his own and had barely managed to escape with his skin – and his pride – intact. On another occasion he had encountered two of the primitive inhabitants copulating in a small grove. Thankfully, they had been too engrossed in their interaction to notice him.

He knew he should have slipped back at once. Instead, he had lingered, fascinated by the raw, unTandroki-like passion displayed by the couple. The male had used his mouth on every part of the female’s body, even the pink folds between her legs. And she - she had done the same. He should have been repelled. The ancient prophet Moroz had taught the Tandroki long ago that such passion only led to violent and unpredictable feelings, and yet he had been enthralled.

When they completed their encounter, they had collapsed together, the male holding the female tightly. Another transgression of Tandroki ways. Such personal contact was frowned upon whether it be between male and female, or mother and child. His mother had learned that lesson as well.

The couple were murmuring together in soft voices when he finally withdrew but of course he could not understand them. He found himself curious. A well-prepared warrior should learn all he could about the inhabitants of a hostile territory, he decided, ignoring the fact that it had not previously occurred to him.

He set the translation protocol to run on his data unit, but it was difficult to obtain sufficient input without the risk of exposing himself. In the end, he had applied some of the nanites to the drone he had taken from the ship, manipulating it into the shape of a pika, a small local animal. Its diminutive size and harmless appearance made it easy to send into more populated areas to gather data and by the end of the second week, he had a solid working knowledge of their language.

He had gained much of his knowledge about their origins from an elderly male telling stories in a town square in exchange for alcoholic beverages and a few coins. His drone had perched in the mouth of a nearby alley, listening as the elder spun a somewhat incoherent tale. Jackasarian managed to interpret enough of the tale to understand that the inhabitants were called humans and that they were originally from a planet called Earth. They had arrived many generations ago when their colony ship crashed on K.R.S. Three.

The elder’s tale was met with skepticism and even outright disbelief from the older members of the small crowd, but the children nodded eagerly. Children, mixing freely with the adults. He shook his head. Another concept with which he was unfamiliar. Tandroki children were restricted to their rooms and their studies, except for a few specially selected occasions, and as soon as they were old enough, they were sent off for training according to their caste. He had been sent for military training as soon as he reached his eighth year.

He was so busy considering the wildly divergent child-rearing practices, that he missed one of the males in the crowd approaching his drone. His first notice came when a big fist closed around his drone’s neck.

“Look at this. Brave little bugger to come all the way into town.” The male laughed heartily. “Foolish little bugger. He’ll make a nice addition to the stew pot.”

No!His drone did not deserve such treatment. Uncharacteristic anger filled him as he manipulated the controls and sent a short spike of electricity into the male’s hands. The male swore and dropped the drone, and the drone scurried away into the darkness of the alley. The male swore again, but before he could go after him, two of the children from the crowd tugged on his sleeve, pleading for the small animal. The male grunted, but he did not pursue the drone as it cautiously made its way back through the town to where Jackasarian was waiting.

The drone’s hind leg was dragging and he growled as he picked up the small body, once again filled with that uncharacteristic rage. His claws emerged as he contemplated visiting the same injury on the boorish male, and the sight was enough to shock him out of his anger. The claws were legacies from Tandrok’s primitive past and no Tandroki ever permitted them to emerge. He hastily retracted them as he set the nanites to work to repair the injury, smoothing down the soft fur.

“I’m sorry you were injured,” he murmured as the big purple eyes blinked up at him.

By the Horns! Now he was speaking to an inanimate object. But it also occurred to him that he had been so intent on retrieving his drone not because of the fear that the human male would discover its mechanical components, but simply because he was … concerned about the drone. Such feelings were unacceptable by any Tandroki standard. And yet, he was no longer on Tandrok, or Perchten, or any of the planets in the Tandroki Empire. Why should he obey such restrictions now?

“I will call you Keffi,” he announced.

The drone’s eyes blinked in seeming approval and he found himself smiling. If nothing else, communicating with the drone verbally would allow him to practice his newly acquired language skills. He accepted the justification, refusing to consider the matter any further even though a small part of him admitted that it was… comforting to have a companion as he continued his journey.

Now, he looked down at the little creature, and murmured, “We should move on.”

Yet he found himself lingering as the pair stirred. The younger female bounced to her feet, but the female who had so enthralled him lingered in her blankets, her eyes fastened on the place where he had disappeared. Did she have any idea how appealing she looked? Her face flushed, her glorious hair a wild tangle around her face, her eyes still heavy – as if she had just engaged in the same type of activity as the female in the woods.

But that female had aroused no more than curiosity. This female made him want to be the male who put that look on her face. To his shock, his shaft stiffened at the thought, pressing painfully against the tightfitting survival suit, and he took a half step in her direction before he realized what he was doing.

She shook her head as if dismissing him, a painful reminder of all of those who had dismissed him before, and his chest ached. But then she put her arms over her head and stretched, the graceful gesture revealing the exquisite lines of her body, and a second wave of arousal coursed through him.

This is entirely unacceptable, he told himself. But despite that knowledge, he was unable to tear himself away as they began their morning preparations. He watched in appalled horror as each of them disappeared behind a clump of bushes and he realized that they were attending to their bodily functions. His survival suit made such distasteful actions unnecessary, but he found it far more distasteful that two delicate females should be exposed to these conditions. Their breakfast was far too meager – and he noticed that his female insisted the younger female eat the larger portion. Once again he had to stop himself from stepping forward, this time to offer nourishment.

After doing their best to eliminate any signs of their camp, they rose and resumed walking.Interesting.Were they afraid that they were being followed? His claws sprang free once more, but this time he ignored them.

As soon as they were out of sight, he went and inspected the remains of their campsite. They had done a surprisingly adequate job, although it would not deceive a trained tracker. He set to work, making sure that no one with this planet’s limited technology would ever know that they had paused here, then hesitated. Should he continue to follow them, to remove any sign of their tracks? What of his own mission? He pulled up the monitor on his data unit, then realized that they were headed in precisely the direction he needed to go.

A fierce grin split his face as he lifted Keffi to his shoulder and set off after them.

CHAPTER5

The second day’s traveling was even worse than the first. Katerina’s muscles were stiff and sore from the previous day’s walk as well as the uncomfortable night on the bare ground. She had thought that caravan life was difficult and draining, but it was far easier than this constant walking.

The terrain was not difficult – it would have been an easy drive for the wagons – but it was monotonous. The scenery never changed – the grey wall of mountains on the other side of the pass, the cold, rushing river, the empty stretch of dry grass leading to the foothills on their side of the pass. Not to mention the constant icy wind that whistled along the pass, bringing the scent of snow.

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