BROOKE

By the time morning comes, I’m no longer angry. I’ve had time to stew over the situation all night, and I’ve come to the conclusion that while deceiving me into a quasi-abduction was kind of headstrong and uncool…it was also really flattering.

No one’s ever wanted me that much. All of my ex-boyfriends never seemed to give a crap when I broke up with them, as if I was totally disposable. My relationship with my family wasn’t great, and all of my friendships seemed to fizzle out after high school as they all went on to go to college and I decided to do hair. Oh, they’d still call me when they needed drinking buddies for Mardi Gras, but it’s not the same. Even now, the other human girls seem to be closer to each other than to me. It didn’t really bother me too much, because at heart, I’m independent and like to do my own thing.

But…it’s really nice to be wanted.

More than that, it’s nice to be wanted so badly by someone that they’re willing to risk their neck for me.

Granted, if I were back on Earth and Taushen was a one-night stand that wouldn’t leave me alone? I’d be calling the cops. Things are different here, though, and sa-khui don’t think like humans. I can’t think like an Earth person when it comes to Taushen. Everything’s different. I come from a culture where women are everywhere and it’s just assumed you’ll eventually settle down with the right guy and get married and produce a few kids. That you and your husband will get a nice little office job and then spend your weekends shuttling the kids to soccer practice and keeping up with the laundry. That food comes from a grocery store and the toughest decision you make about it is whether you want Honey Nut Cheerios or the plain ones.

Taushen’s world is different. If you want to eat, you have to catch your food, kill it, and store it. You have to portion and prepare for the long winter—the brutal season. You can’t have lazy days in bed and do nothing. And he grew up in a tribe that only had four women for almost forty men. More humans have come, but he still hasn’t resonated, and there haven’t been any single women left to play the field. The more I think about it, the more I’m almost positive he was a virgin when we got together.

In short, Taushen has no clue how to handle a relationship. Me? I’m used to the games. I’m used to feigning disinterest and not calling guys back for days—or weeks—to make it seem like I’m not all that interested. I’m used to playing the field. Most of all, I’m used to not needing anyone but myself. If a guy doesn’t like me? Oh well, there’s more fish in the sea. But poor Taushen doesn’t have the same option. No wonder he feels desperate when he looks at me. I’m the only single girl. Well, up until tomorrow, I’m the only single girl, since I’m pretty sure Summer is now hooking up with Warrek. Tomorrow sixteen more women get woken up, though. Maybe if we hadn’t had sex, Taushen would have transferred his affection onto one of them.

Problem is, we did have sex. I don’t know how to detangle the knot we find ourselves in, either.

I like Taushen. I like him a lot. He’s got a sweet core, and underneath that scowly exterior is a heart of gold. He’s caring. It’s obvious in how many times he woke up last night to stoke the fire and how he made sure I had enough furs to sleep comfortably, even if I wasn’t talking to him. How he hung my boots so they’d dry properly and checked on them regularly throughout the night, turning them so they wouldn’t sear. How he woke up super early this morning to refuel the fire, brew tea, and brought back fresh meat that he’s roasting even now.

If he was a dick, he wouldn’t bother. I’ve dated a lot of dicks in my life. I can spot them from a mile away. Taushen’s like…an anti-dick. Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time figuring out how to act around him. If he was one of those “Hey baby, I’ll call you later” types, I’d know what mental category to place him in and wouldn’t think twice. He’s not like that, though. He just watches me from afar with his heart in his eyes, and it’s clear he’s anguished that I’m upset.

And even though I want to stay mad…I can’t. I can’t stay mad, but at the same time, I can’t entirely forget everything we’ve been through. From the night we were imprisoned together to the fun conversations we had yesterday as we walked, I like Taushen too much to cut him off and be enemies.

It’s a little problematic how much he likes me, though. He doesn’t want me to resonate to anyone else. He thinks of me as his mate. I know some of that is his naiveté, and some of it is the fact that there haven’t been other single women around for him to focus on.

And okay, some of it is because I’m sending him totally mixed signals. We had sex that I was totally into, only for me to tell him that, surprise, I wasn’t into it after all. That has to be confusing for a guy who’s never had sex and probably has never even heard of the concept of Spanish fly. To make matters worse, all of the things he was telling me last night about how much he wanted me?

I have to admit, it turned me on. I immediately responded with my natural instinct—to take things to the next step. I would have gone down on my knees and taken him in my mouth…except that he thought I was using him to get something. That hurt my feelings. It made me feel like, well, a whore. Like I was doing something wrong.

We’ve got to come to an understanding, though. I meant what I said when I claimed I didn’t want to be anyone’s mate. I still don’t. I want to figure out who I’m supposed to be on this new planet before I go hitching my wagon to someone else. I want to be my own person. After bad relationships back on Earth and family that didn’t give two craps about me unless they could use me, I went right to the slave pens and became someone’s property. Then I arrived here, the planet of cooties and resonance, and while I’m lucky that hasn’t hit me yet, I have a feeling that bullet’s headed in my direction at some point. Until then, I want to enjoy just being…me.

Also, Taushen doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of a casual hook-up.

So, yeah. We can’t let things continue with the both of us angry at each other and frustrated. That doesn’t work for anyone. It’s a small tribe, and we need to learn how to get along. We need to come to an understanding for his sanity and mine.

I sit up in the furs, rubbing my eyes. I didn’t sleep all that well, despite the cave being kept cozy and warm. I kept thinking about the situation I’m in. The situation we’re both in, really. He’s put his neck on the line to “claim” me as his mate, and I know that Vektal won’t be happy with this, given how he reacted when Bek told them he was the one that brought us here. He’s risked everything…for me. I mean, heck. He could be resonating to one of the new chicks, even now. The odds are better that he’ll find a girlfriend out of sixteen than me finding a mate out of four new guys.

Funny how that thought doesn’t sit so well with me. Maybe I’m all mixed up over the situation, too. The fact that we had really great sex—drugged or not—can’t be helping things.

So I sit up and wait for Taushen to notice that I’m awake. When he does, I offer him a smile.

He looks surprised to see my reaction, and his own smile gradually eases over his handsome face, and breaks my heart. Poor guy. He’s so darn lonely.

“Can we start over?” I ask him, keeping the smile on my face to gentle my words.

“Start over?” he echoes, clearly not understanding what I mean. Instead, he practically scrambles to the fire, grabbing one of the hollowed-out bone cups and filling it. “Let me get you tea. Are you hungry? I have charred flesh for you for breakfast.”

Yum, yum. Just hearing it said like that makes me lose my appetite, but I know he “charred” it for me. It’s just another sign that he’s trying really hard. I take the tea he offers me and try again. “When Earth people acknowledge they’ve screwed up, sometimes they try to start over. You know, start fresh.” I give him my most winning smile. “Hi, my name is Brooke, and I’m a Scorpio. I’m currently visiting other lands to find myself, and I like hot food, warm blankets, and long walks in the snow.” I stick my hand out for him to shake. “You?”

He takes my hand gingerly in his own, examining it as if waiting for me to do something. “I what?”

“You introduce yourself,” I tell him.

“But you know who I am.” Taushen narrows his eyes at me, not following. “Did you hit your head somehow? Like when Pashov lost his memories?”

“This is us starting over. Like we’re just meeting each other for the first time.” I withdraw my hand from his, because he’s touching it far too familiarly for just a simple handshake. “We’ve got too much baggage between us, you and I. It’s interfering with how we are acting. It’d be better if we just started fresh, don’t you think?”

“Start fresh.” He says the words slowly, as if tasting them, and then his gaze meets mine. “So…you wish to pretend we have never met before?”

“Something like that, sure. We act like the past didn’t happen, so we can start a new future together with fresh minds.”

His jaw clenches stubbornly, and he shakes his head. “I do not wish to do this.”

Exasperated, I sigh. “Why not?” Why is he making this so difficult? Is he determined to piss me off?

“Because I do not wish to forget what happened between us.” The look on his face is earnest. “I know it was a terrible night for you, but it was the best night of my life. I will never forget it.”

And just like that, all of my irritation fades away. “Oh, Taushen.” I pat the blankets next to me. “Sit and let’s talk, okay?”

He eases his big body down onto the furs next to me, and if he’s sitting a lot closer than he probably should, I don’t point it out. I clasp my hands in my lap, trying to think of the best way to broach the subject. “I really want to be friends with you,” I tell him gently. “But I’m not sure we’re on the same page.”

“Friends?” Taushen frowns down at me. “I wish to be mates.”

“Yep, that’s the problem I’ve got. I’m not ready to be anyone’s mate.”

“If it were resonance, you would not have a choice,” he says stubbornly.

“Which means I’m really glad it’s not.” I shake my head at him, frowning. “Why are you so fixated on resonance? Is it because it hasn’t happened for you yet? You’re young. It’ll happen. You just have to give it time…”

As I speak, his face grows more and more shuttered, his expression tight.

I pause, studying him. “What is it?”

“It does not matter how much time I have,” Taushen says flatly. “Resonance will not happen for me.”

“That’s not true,” I protest, aching for him. It’s clear that he wants this badly. “You don’t know that. No one can predict the future.”

“Rokan can.”

Okay, he’s got me there. “You know what I mean. Stuff can always happen.” I reach out and take his hand in mine, squeezing it. “It’ll happen for you. I promise.”

The look on his face flashes to one of agony. “You do not know what you speak of.”

Don’t I? Is there something about the khui that I’m not understanding? “What do you mean?”

“I have never been chosen. Never.”

The vehement way he says it makes me think there’s a little more under the surface, an old festering wound. Is this what’s made him so bitter? I remember Harlow’s comment about him being so puppyish and eager once upon a time. “Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing,” he says angrily. “That is what has happened. “When human females arrived on our world, I thought, finally, I would have a chance. That I could have a mate and a family and all of the things I have longed for. The things I have dreamed of. Others resonated and I did not. I thought that was all right. That there was time and I would resonate to one of the females. I had one that I liked more than the others, too. Her name was Ti-fa-ni and she was beautiful. And I fought the others for her attention, only for her to resonate to Salukh.”

“And it broke your heart.”

“It hurt more that I was not chosen. Ti-fa-ni is a fine female, and Salukh is a good mate for her.” He shakes his head. “I thought perhaps my khui waited for another. But then Jo-see resonated, and then there were no more females. There were so many in my tribe without mates that I did not feel abandoned. There were many hunters who ached for a mate, and the hunters’ cave was full. But then Li-lah and her sister arrived, and I once again hoped.” He shakes his head.

I know Lila. She’s mated to Rokan. And Maddie’s mated to Hassen. Both quite happily. “So you were passed over again.”

Taushen’s gaze is distant. “I thought perhaps I would wait for Farli, but as she grew older, I suspected my khui would never see her as a mate. She is too much as a sister to me.”

“And then we arrived and you still didn’t resonate to anyone.”

His mouth thins. “I thought it would not matter so much if I had a pleasure-mate…but…”

But he slept with me, and then I made him feel guilty because I was under the influence. Yeah, it’s kind of a mess. “I’m sorry, Taushen. There will be other opportunities. Sixteen new—”

“How many females must be paraded before my khui for it to finally notice one?” he explodes. “For it to deem me worthy of a mate?” When I open my mouth to speak, he shakes his head. “And do not tell me I can wait for one of the kits to grow up. I have had others tell me that.” Taushen snorts. “As if every day is not lonely enough as it is, now they tell me to be patient and to wait twenty seasons.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” I tell him softly. “I just hate that you’re hurting so much. I know what it’s like to want something you can’t have.” Like…Earth. Home.

His gaze fixes on me. “It does not matter anyhow, the only one I want is you. Resonance or not, you are my mate.”

And this is where it gets awkward. “Oh, Taushen. You—”

“You do not wish for me to be your mate. I know. But you wonder why I am so angry? So bitter? So frustrated?” He spreads his arms as if to say “see.” “It is because my khui rejects all. It rejects any happiness I might have and remains silent. Forever.”

I don’t want to tell him that it’s just waiting for the right girl to come along. I know how it feels to be told shit like that. So I put my hand on his knee in (what I hope is) a friendly gesture. “You’re looking at this all wrong. Men on Earth would love to be in your shoes.”

He scowls at me. “Explain.”

“You’re a single male, and there’s gonna be a ton of single ladies in the tribe all of a sudden. You’re one of a handful, and you’re strong, brave, and smart. Girls are going to be falling all over you, looking for a protector.”

“But you—”

I push ahead, because I don’t want him declaring love for me. I don’t know how to handle that. “Without resonance, you have freedom. Didn’t Vektal play the field a little before he hooked up with Georgie?”

“Play in fields…?”

“Sleep around.”

“Ah.” He looks unhappy at the thought. “He and Maylak were pleasure-mates for a time, but she resonated to Kashrem a few seasons before he met Shorshie.”

Again, more resonance talk. I shake my head. “You want freedom. It’s the most important thing in the world.”

Taushen meets my gaze, his heart in his glowing, sad eyes. “And is that what you want?”

I feel like my answer might break him, but at the same time, I don’t want to lie. “After everything I’ve been through? Being enslaved and almost enslaved a second time? Dropped on this planet without being asked where I’d want to go? There’s nothing more appealing than being able to choose my own fate for once.”

He nods slowly. “And I have stolen your freedom from you again, have I not?”

“You didn’t mean to—”

“I meant to,” he admits, a grin crossing his face. “Be assured of that.”

I laugh, because he’s right. “Okay, you meant to. I’m just telling you what I thought you wanted to hear. It’s called being nice.”

“I do not want your nice. I want your honest.”

I smile. “And I want your friendship. Nothing more for now. Can we just go with that? Just be friends without being weird about things?”

Taushen meets my gaze, but the strange tension on his face seems to have eased. “You do not hate me for stealing you?”

“Nope.” I could never hate him. It’s kind of weird, but I think I understand him better than anyone else on this planet. “I could never hate you.”

He gives me a long, long look, and it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. Eventually, though, he smiles once more. “Then I shall let you lead from this point onward.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you wish for freedom, I shall give it to you.” He makes a gesture at the cave, and sweeps his arm outward toward the front, where I can see the snowy ground outside. “Where would you like to go? Do you wish to return to the ship? To the tribe? The Elders’ Cave? You choose. I am giving you freedom.”

He is? I’m so astonished that I can’t answer for a moment. “You’re…letting me pick where we go?”

Taushen nods. “I shall take you wherever you like. You decide.”

I blink and then pull my knees up to my chest, considering. At first thought, I want to say “I can’t possibly pick,” but that’s because I’m used to letting others get their way. If I want freedom and to do things on my own terms, I need to learn to make my own decisions. So I think. Do I want to go back to the little stone city in the canyon? I’m not in any particular hurry, honestly. There’s no one waiting for me back there. Go back to the tribe and meet up with Vektal and the others at the ocean? While I’m curious about the newcomers, I’m also not in a big rush to head in that direction, either. I do want to see the ocean…but not if it means I’m going to resonate to someone like Taushen’s afraid of.

A thought crosses my mind, and I glance over at my companion. “I don’t suppose we can go on vacation?”

Taushen pauses, a curious expression on his alien features. “Vacation? What is this?”

Now that I’ve said it aloud, I like the idea more and more. “A vacation. It’s where humans decide they need a break from everyday life so they escape for a little while. They go traveling. Exploring. Do new things, just to change stuff up in their lives, and then they go back home again, refreshed and ready to take on their problems once more. We could do that. Have a little adventure of our own and see the world.”

“You…do not want to rejoin the tribe right away?”

“No. Not if we could just do our own thing. Is it safe if we go traveling, just you and me? We’re not going to get caught in a blizzard or anything, are we?”

He considers. “As long as we do not stay away for many moons. If we are back to the tribe before the brutal season, it will be fine.” Taushen says the words slowly, as if he doesn’t want to admit it. “They will need me as a hunter, though, especially if there are more mouths to feed.”

“Then we’ll hunt as we go,” I tell him quickly. “You guys store food in caches, right? We can fill them as we go. It’ll be vacation and work all rolled into one.”

“But where would we go?” Taushen asks, a genuinely curious look on his face. It’s as if he’s never considered such a thing before.

“Anywhere we want to.” I’m excited at the prospect. I remember car trips with my friends back after I graduated from high school, when we’d fill up the tank and just drive and see where it led us. I turn toward him on the blankets, eager to plan things out. “Do you ever just explore out on your own? What’s your favorite place?”

He thinks for a moment, and then touches his horns. I’m curious about that, and then he begins to speak. “There is a cave…in the mountains a very long walk from here. It is close to where Shorshie and the others landed when they arrived. It is small, and the icicles that hang from the ceiling scrape your horns when you walk in. But…it is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Everything shines, and there is a hot spring that bubbles from the cracks in the rocks and it trickles down over a pond that has fish with no eyes.” He closes his own eyes as if to demonstrate, and then opens them again. “They are pale and ugly, but they are good eating.”

I clasp my hands, excited. “That sounds lovely. Let’s go there!”

The look he gives me is uncertain. “It is a long walk.”

“I don’t mind walking. You can teach me how to hunt and follow tracks.”

A half-smile tugs at his mouth. “Any kit can follow tracks. They are obvious in the snow.”

I swat at his arm, chuckling. “Well, then give me the basics on how to handle myself in the wild, all right? You can teach me how to survive.”

“This is what you wish to do?”

I nod, eager. “I think a vacation is just what the both of us need.”

He rubs his chin, thinking, and then shrugs. “We can leave by midday then. If we pace ourselves strongly, we can make it there in a few days.”

Midday? Today? I glance outside, where the snow is starting to fall thick on the ground. “This is vacation, dude. We don’t have to be anywhere fast.” I lean over and slouch down on the furs, relaxing. “We can just hang out.”

“Hang…out?” He looks over at the propped spear, where my clothes are hung and drying.

“Not hang like that,” I say, poking him in the leg. “Hang out like just relax. Enjoy the day. Be lazy. Crawl under the furs.”

His eyes gleam. “Your furs?”

“Nice try.”