Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
She makes a face. “I’m getting awfully tired of being carried,” she says, slowing her pace to fall into step with me. “But I’m guessing that I don’t get to choose, just like with everything else.”
“You are still recovering. I would rather you be safe, even if you hate me.”
Her expression softens and she looks up at me with such bright eyes full of life that I am both bursting with pride at how strong her khui is, and frustrated at how things have become between us. “I don’t hate you, R’jaal. I’m just…it’s a lot. I’m trying to wrap my head around it all.”
The words make no sense to me, but I try to please her anyhow. “When we get more furs, I will wrap your head for you if you like.”
“That’s weird. And sweet. Thank you.”
We arrive at another sheer wall covered in the vine-like moss, but this one is not nearly as tall as the last. This time, when Tal’nef turns and puts one of his many hands out for R’slind, I push it aside. “My female. I will carry her.”
He shrugs. “We will see you at the top, then.”
As the two ancestors climb up the cliff, I turn to R’slind. “Put your legs around me.”
She purses her lips. “You are just loving this, aren’t you?”
“Shall I call back Tal’nef?”
R’slind blanches. “God, no.”
She moves to me with her arms out, and I take her against me, pressing her teats to my chest. Our combined resonance songs are loud and powerful, and I gaze down at her, letting my feelings show on my face. How much I care for her. How much she means to me. How the world is complete now that she is in it.
But then she puts her legs around me and I forget about everything. I groan, gripping her backside and pressing her hot cunt against my bared skin. Another handspan and I could push myself into her, sink into her depths and claim my mate—
R’slind gasps, shocked, and I feel her body quake against mine. Our eyes meet once more and I realize this is not the right place.
When I take my mate, the moment will be special. It will be everything I have waited for, season after season. It will not be a quick rut against a wall with two others watching our every move.
“Hold on to me,” I manage to grit out.
“This is a mistake,” R’slind whimpers, clinging to me. “Maybe we should ask the others—”
“No,” I growl, and the thought makes me furious. No one will touch R’slind like this except me. Before she can suggest such a thing again, I start climbing.
Last time, the cliff was steep and went so high that I felt as if I were climbing the Great Smoking Mountain itself. This time, the cliff is not nearly as tall, and I reach the top before I realize it. R’slind has her arms tightly around me, her legs trembling, and I stroke her back as I set her down and take a look around at the landing.
I am not surprised to see more mushrooms, though these are growing in rows as if put there on purpose. There is moss, too, and it hangs from every visible surface. There is a small stream with trickling water and even a familiar vine that has the redfruit that are in the fruit cave. None of that surprises me.
The thing that surprises me is that there is a large, gray pod of some kind that pushes through from the rock above, like a finger poking through the leather roof of a hut. Coming from that pod is a light source of some kind, unnaturally bright. I know at once we have not reached the surface—it is too bright and strange, like the lighting from the fruit cave.
Designs have been drawn all over the strange pod with paints, and one side of it is opened like a flower, the hard, shiny stone of it peeled back to reveal the guts inside. From around the far side of the elongated pod, a female approaches. She carries a fringed staff that clacks with the striking of dozens of beads as she approaches us, and her mane is pulled back from her face, revealing the same strange features as the other two Ancestors.
“Welcome to the oracle,” she says to the males, and then stares at me and R’slind in quiet surprise. “Oh.”
Oh, indeed. I am surprised to see a female alone here, just as I am surprised to see the strange stone finger pointing down at us. R’slind stares at it, gripping my arm tightly as she does. She turns and casts me a meaningful look, and I know she will have much to say to me when we are alone again.
“We have a mystery upon our hands, Noj’me,” Tal’nef says, gesturing at us. “Strangers have appeared into the caves of the People.”