Ice Planet Barbarians: The Complete Series: A SciFi Alien Serial Romance (21 page)

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The men retreat, a little awed by the newest revelation that there are yet more human females. I see eagerness in their faces, and they want to stay behind to be the first to lay eyes on the new females—in the hopes of resonating to one. But we know the women will be hungry when they awaken, and a sa-khui male’s instinct is to feed and tend to his mate. So the men set off hunting, and Georgie and her women get to work prying open the compartments. I watch from a distance, unable to let my mate leave my sight. She and her women are weak and listless, and I am worried that the khui-sickness might be too much for them.

With Kira’s help as translator, they manage to open the strange wall, revealing six long tubes with floating, naked women. Georgie is right. Six more women, all so similar to my Georgie that it makes my heart clench uncomfortably at the thought of her being trapped inside one of those tubes.

One by one, the women are freed from the tubes. There’s confusion at first followed by sobbing. The others wrap the new female in a warm fur and take her aside to answer questions she might have, feed her, and clothe her. Some of the women stare blankly as Georgie and the others explain. One is furious. There is one with flaming orange hair and orange specks all over her strange pale skin. She sees me and chokes back a little scream, only to be comforted with small pats from Georgie and the other women.

My mate is right. It will take some time before these women are comfortable, and it’s time we don’t have. Georgie and her women cannot last much longer without a khui
.

As the women share clothing and chatter together, I head out to check on the men who were exiled from the hold to give the humans time to acclimate. A few of my hunters have stayed behind to guard the hold while the others search for more food. Amongst them are Aehako and Rokan.

Aehako presses a hand to his chest. “I do not know if my heart is beating fast with excitement or if it is resonance.”

I clap him on the shoulder. “You will know when you see your female’s face. Until then, do not worry.”

“I have longed for a mate all my years,” he says. “Now I cannot stop wondering if it is one of the human females. To think of having a family after so long.” There is an ache in his voice I well understand. Before my Georgie, I felt the same. Now my life feels almost complete.

When she takes the khui and her life is no longer in jeopardy, I will know total contentment.

“When can we look upon them?” he asks.

“Soon,” I tell Aehako. “The humans are scared. This is all new, and we are strange to them. Give them a bit more time to adjust.”

“It is difficult to be patient,” Rokan says. He seems to be calmer than Aehako, but the hands that grip his spear are white-knuckled. “To know that there are mate-able females so close by . . .”

I nod, but my gaze is on the men in the distance. The hunters are returning, and there is haste in their steps. I watch them approach, and when Raahosh arrives at the head of the hunting party, he is out of breath but jubilant. “A sa-kohtsk is near. A large one.”

I nod. “Then we will bring our humans to it in the morning.” My own blood thrums with excitement. The sa-kohtsk are lone wanderers. To find one so close to the human encampment is a sign. I decide it’s time to sit back no longer. Entering the human cave, I ignore the startled looks the new humans send my way and call Georgie to my side.

She comes, all kisses and smiles. I suspect that’s for my benefit as much as the wary humans’. “Hi,” she says in a cheery voice. She looks tired, though. All of the humans do.

I take her hand in mine to kiss her palm again, and she gives me another tiny sigh of pleasure. I can smell her arousal bloom at my touch, and it’s making my khui hum in my chest. But I cannot take her tonight. She needs her rest. “Tomorrow, we leave here.”

“To go to your caves?”

“To go hunt the sa-kohtsk. We seek khui for you and the women.”

She flinches a little but nods. “If we must, we must.”

“We need more time,” the mouthy one called Liz says. She looks weaker than the rest, thin and wan. But she’s got a stubborn set to her flat mouth. “Not all of us are sold on the idea.” She puts an arm around a new human’s shoulders, and the woman trembles and leans into Liz’s caress.

“You may not have much more time,” I begin, but I’m interrupted by a high pitched whine. In the background, Kira claps a hand to her ear and collapses. Georgie claps a hand to her own arm, wincing.

“What? What is that?” I ask.

Her mouth opens in pain, and she pulls her hand away from her arm even as the whine dies down. There’s a light blinking in her arm, just under the skin, an angry, glaring red.

“The aliens are coming back,” she tells me. “We need to leave.”

GEORGIE

We’re a sad, sad little party as we set out from the cargo bay a short time later. The new girls are weeping and confused. They want more furs than we have to go around. They want better shoes. They’re hungry, cold, and tired. Maybe it’s exhaustion, but I’m frustrated with them because we’re doing the best we can and they just keep crying. I know this is new and scary for them, but I find myself wishing they’d catch up and get with the program already.

The women also want to avoid the men, who are giving them longing looks. Someone keeps purring, though no one will step up and admit things. It’s probably for the best, because I’m guessing that the girls can’t handle the thought of taking on an alien boyfriend right now. Not with everything else going on.

My upper arm throbs. It’s freshly bandaged, but it still stings like the dickens. Once the sensors went off, we set into action, readying to leave the camp. Before we did, though, we had to take care of matters. If the sensors were trackers, we had to get rid of them, and fast.

Out came the knives, and five minutes—and a lot of tears—later, the trackers had been removed. Pashov had been sent to dump them into the nearest metlak cave. Let the little green men take
them
if they want captives.

Now, the rest of us trudge through the snowy dusk, except for Josie, who is carried by a big male called Haeden. We’re trying to ignore the bitter cold, in search of something Vektal called a sa-kohtsk. It would have the khui we needed, and it, he told me, would save us.

I am all for being saved at this point. Exhaustion is making it difficult for me to keep up, and Liz is so weak that Raahosh decides to carry her slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

One of the scouts appears, waving his spear overhead. “Sa-kohtsk,” he calls into the driving wind. “In the valley. Hurry!”

Vektal puts an arm around my waist. He is now carrying Tiffany, who’s too exhausted to lift her feet. “Come, my resonance,” he tells me. “Not much further.”

“I’m good,” I tell him, plodding ahead. “I—”

The ground shakes under my feet.

“What was that?” I ask, stopping. Terror ripples through me as it happens again. Even the snow at my feet vibrates.

“That,” Vektal says, urging me forward again, “Is a sa-kohtsk.”

Oh, shit. I’m a little terrified of what we’re about to find, but we’ve come this far. Vektal and his men press ahead, so we have little choice but to keep up. “Have you hunted these a lot?” I ask him.

“Not often,” he tells me. “Only when a khui is needed. They are too fierce otherwise.”

“Great,” I say dryly.

“This will go well,” Vektal tells me and gives me a comforting pat on the arm, which only sends a flare of pain through my new wound again.

At least when I get a khui, Maylak will be able to heal me. At this rate all she’s going to have left are a bunch of Georgie-shaped pieces. I ready the knife I carry with me.

“What’s happening?” one of the new girls asks, shivering in her furs. Her name’s Nora, I think, and she’s one of the stronger newbies.

The ground thumps again, and Vektal points at a copse of pink feathery trees ahead. “Take the women there. If the creature comes for you, hide amongst the trees.”

“By climbing them?” I look at the other women. “I don’t think they can climb.”

“You won’t need to climb,” Vektal says. “He cannot get to you through them.” I wonder at his words, but there’s no time to talk. He presses a kiss to my forehead and then passes Tiffany off to me. She’s so weak that she clings to me, and I have to drag her over to the trees with Nora’s help.

It feels a bit sexist to have all the women huddling under the trees as the men go off to fight, but I look at the women around me and feel a little despair. We’re weak, exhausted, and not used to all this cold. If the little green men showed up right now, we’d be helpless to fight back against them, even if we outnumbered them.

The ground shakes again, and at my side, Kira clutches a spear while Liz moans unhappily. “What the fuck is that
Jurassic Park
shit?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. But I ready the knife I carry with me.

Something gives a high-pitched roar, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It seems close, really freaking close, and the ground shakes again. Megan chokes back a sob of fright, and the other women are whispering. I hiss for silence because I want to know what the hell is going on, damn it. The thought of Vektal out there with some huge monster frightens me.

What if he gets hurt? What if he . . . dies? My heart clenches at the thought. In such a short period of time, I’ve come to care for him more than I like to admit, even to myself.

I don’t want to be here if Vektal is not.

A gigantic head rises over the trees. I suck in a breath, staring in horror. There’s a thing with four glowing blue eyes, two sets stacked on top of one another. It’s got enormous tusks and is covered in long, grayish shaggy fur. It gives another high-pitched roar and lumbers forward, the ground shaking. It’s taller than all the trees, and as it moves past, I see long, twiggy legs with wide feet pushing through the snow. An alien hunter hangs off of one side, clinging to a spear sticking through the creature’s flank.

“Holy shit,” Liz says. “What the hell is that?”

“I think it’s a sa-kohtsk,” I say, feeling faint. It looks like a Macy’s Parade float with legs. And they’re going to kill that thing? Dear God.
Be careful, Vektal
, I send out quietly. More of the men run past, chasing after it with spears. I try to pick out Vektal in the group, but I don’t see him. He doesn’t carry a spear, only knives and a sling, and the thought fills me with dread.

“I wish I had a bow,” Liz says as we stare at the creature lumbering past.

“That’s random,” Kira comments, her tone awed. We can’t take our eyes off the sa-kohtsk.

“I was a champion archer when I was a teenager,” Liz comments. “Though I don’t know if I could shoot that thing.”

“Huh,” is all Kira says.

I stride forward through the snow as the creature lumbers away from the trees, the hunters chasing it. Where is Vektal? Where? I follow behind in the distance as the men harass it with spears.

The creature bellows again, and his head swings low, dipping toward the ground. An alien grabs one of the jutting tusks, and as the creature jerks his head back, the man goes flying onto the creature’s head, barely holding on. I suck in a breath as I recognize the graceful movements and the long, fluttering black hair. Vektal. My hand goes to my mouth, and I press my fingers against my lips so I don’t scream in fright.

Please don’t get killed for me
, I think.
Please.

I watch as he gracefully flips to his feet atop the monster’s head. It swings back and forth, trying to dislodge him, but Vektal’s holding on tight. He pulls something from his vest —a bone blade, I think—and raises it high into the air.

With a battle cry, he plunges it downward, and the creature screams and writhes in pain. Behind me, a few of the women choke out cries of their own. I’m breathless as Vektal raises the knife and slams it home over and over again, driving it into the creature’s eye.

With a final gurgle, the creature staggers. It takes one step forward and then collapses. The ground shudders with the force of it, and I can’t help but rush forward to Vektal. I push through the thick, knee-high snow, ignoring my exhaustion. I have to get to him, to know he’s all right.

When I do, I see he’s covered in blood and gore from the creature, wiping his face clean on one edge of his vest. He grins at me, and it’s so boyish and did-you-see-me that I choke back my sob and fling my arms around his neck. “You scared the shit out of me,” I babble in English, not caring that he’s getting my new clothing all gunked up.

“Georgie?” he asks, patting my back. “Are you well?”

“I am now,” I answer in his language. “That was scary as hell.”

“They are strong,” he admits. “But not so strong that I would not bring one down for you and the humans.”

“Just as long as this is not a regular occurrence,” I tell him.

His hand touches my belly, and there is warmth in his shining eyes. “We will need one for our kit, and I will gladly do so.”

“All right, all right,” I grumble. “So what now?”

He presses a kiss to my forehead. “Now, we get the khui. Gather the women.”

My stomach drops at the thought, but I force myself to nod. If they risked their lives to get us the symbionts, the least we can do is hold up our end of the bargain, since it’s for us anyhow.

I go to Tiffany’s side and help her walk, trying to seem more confident about this than I really am. If I freak out, so will the other humans. I need to be cool, calm, and collected about things.

I manage to remain cool, calm, and collected for all of five minutes as we gather nearby. The men are watching us avidly, hope and hunger both in their eyes. I ignore them, focusing on the gigantic fallen sa-kohtsk. The long, spindly legs are splayed, and the fat belly of the creature sticks out. I look for something that resembles a remora
please please don’t look like a remora
—but the thick, bushy coat of the creature hides anything that might be living against the skin.

“Where are the khui?” I ask, since the men seem to be waiting for the humans to say something.