Page 49 of Caveman Alien's Heat
“If we’ll be dead soon, why are you helping us?”
I place my hand on his shoulder. “While we’re alive, we may hope. Perhaps your council will let Riley and me go after all. Then I want the Gar tribe to think, ‘Nator’ax is an honorable man. We have hunted with him. Perhaps we should be friends with his whole tribe.’”
“Are there more women in your tribe?” a man asks.
“There are,” I tell them. “For you see, one woman isn’t enough for a tribe of more than one man. And even then, only if she chooses that man.”
They exchange glances.
We begin the journey back. The sun has shifted, casting longer shadows across the ice. The wind has picked up again, carrying the scent of blood and cold.
As the village comes into view in the distance, my focus narrows. Riley is there. I will see her again. I will make sure she is still mine to protect.
And tonight, while I still can, I will remind her that we are not yet beaten.
My manhood responds under the fur. We may have only four days to live, but those days may be pleasant for both of us.
13
- Riley-
I hear them before I see them.
Voices carry differently out here, skimming across the frozen ground instead of getting swallowed the way sound does in the jungle. There is a rhythm to it. There’s laughter, sharp calls, the scrape of something heavy dragged over ice. When it all stops, it means something unusual is happening.
I step out of the cave. The cold hits immediately, biting through the fur wrapped around me, but I barely register it. My eyes are already searching the line of figures cresting the rise beyond the huts and tents.
I spot him instantly, and it isn’t hard. Nator’ax walks at the front, broad shoulders wrapped in thick furs, sword strapped outside it. There is blood on him, dark against the pale hides, but I don’t think it’s his. He moves like nothing touched him, like nothing even came close.
Relief hits first, fast, and overwhelming. He’s alive.
And he looks powerful, as if he belongs here, as if he’s the chief. It’s partly that he’s bigger than the Gar men in the hunting party, but also the way he carries himself, and the way the others walk behind him. Something happened on this hunting trip, something good.
It does something very specific to me. He looks like he could take on anything this planet throws at him and win.
I swallow, my fingers tightening in the fur at my chest.
This is how it must have been, back on Earth’s own Stone Age world, when your man returned from hunting a mammoth and hadn’t been killed or injured. Because it speaks to something primal in me, something that makes my midsection melt a bit.
The hunters come closer, and the details sharpen. The thing they are dragging behind them is enormous. It’s some kind of dinosaur, all thick hide and heavy limbs, its bulk stretched across a crude sled made of spears and bone.
A few of the men are talking over each other as they come closer, and the men of the tribe come to meet them.
“He made it fall,” one of them says, gesturing toward Nator’ax.
“Never seen anything like it,” another adds. “It charged, and then… down. Just like that.”
“We did not lose a single man,” a third says, almost like he cannot quite believe it. “Not a single injury.”
My gaze flicks between them and Nator’ax. They are clearly praising him. And they are not the only ones. Men and boys are gathering to welcome them. The energy is different from anything I have seen since we arrived. It’s much lighter and more cheerful.
Hope flares in my chest, sudden and dangerous. This is good, because if they respect him, and if they start to think that they need him, then maybe… I cut the thought off before it can fully form, but it doesn’t go away. It lingers, bright, and fragile. Maybe we aren’t as doomed as I thought.
Nator’ax’s head turns, and his eyes find me again. Everything else fades for a second.
There is something in his expression that shifts when he sees me, a little smile, a contraction around the eyes and the mouth, as if he’s saying, “It worked.” And he says it only to me.
My breath catches, and I start toward him without thinking. I am aware of people watching, of the way some of the men glance between us, but I cannot bring myself to care. Not right now.
