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My whole body sought her touch. I wanted to tip back, to bump myself against her.
I wanted to turn around, scoop her up, and run away with her back to Gahn Errok’s mountain. No, even further than that. Somewhere far enough from everyone and everything else that she’d never be able to tell me to go home again because by then it would be half a world away.
“Why don’t we go inside and hash this out,” Valeria finally said.
Gahn Thaleo said nothing in response. He merely moved aside and gestured with his tail towards the large crack that led into his mountain. I hissed low in my throat, something I was not conscious of doing until every set of Deep Sky sight stars slammed into me. More than one warrior pulled his bow from his chest.
I did not care if they aimed their puny projectile spears at me. Let the bite of their flying weapons rain down upon me – ha! I would show them what a real, zeelk-tipped Sea Sand spear could do.
But Fiona was behind me. And one of those skinny Deep Sky spears could perhaps make it through the shield of my body and into hers. Or, and this possibility made me near-dizzy with dread, she could duck out from behind my back at precisely the wrong moment. I knew her to be a very clever female.
But I also knew her to be curious. And stubborn.
She could reach out a hand or – cursed sands, her face – and get hit. Her little body would not take a blow like that the way mine would. Even with Lavrika’s – or Vrika’s – blood, she might not recover.
Thinking of Fiona getting wounded, maybe mortally so, made me feel like all my bones and guts had been peeled out of my body and were pinned to me like bloody clothing. My insides were on my outsides and I was more vulnerable than I’d ever been in my life. My hiss turned to a snarl and I started backing up, forcing Fiona along with me for a few stumbling steps. My hand shot behind me, not for a blade, but to hold her in place and to make sure she did not fall as we moved backwards.
I expected her to resist me, to fight me, to try to boldly step out around me.
But she did not. All she did was try to keep her small, shell-covered feet under her as I rapidly forced her into motion, and ask, her voice small and shivering with alarm, “Dalk, what is it? What are you doing?”
“I fear,” I growled, and then I faltered, because fear? Fear? I had not feared, let alone admitted to such a thing, since I was a cub. Maybe not since my father died, followed by my mother, and I was very young then.
But here I was. A full-grown male. Fearing that if I let Fiona (who was not even mine to fear for!) go into that mountain then she would not come back out again.
Perhaps I was not the only one with such thoughts. Zoren and Oxriel were now closing ranks around Tilly and Nasrin while Valeria tried to maintain peace.
“Dalk,” she snapped, pointing a small, clawless, and accusing finger at me as I retreated, “Cool it, would you? We are just going to talk. If you can’t maintain decorum among our allies then you can wait outside.”
“Absolutely not,” I hissed. I felt the shadow of the shuttle fall over Fiona and me and stopped walking backwards. If Fiona went in there then they could just try to keep me out. I would not be kept away, locked outside like some slobbering, sand-maddened irkdu waiting for the merciful cure of a spear through my head. These men were the new women’s allies but they were certainly not mine, not even by proxy, and I would have said that, too, only Fiona was speaking quietly from behind me now. So I forced my tongues into stillness so I could hear her.
“Dalk. It’s alright. You don’t have to go in there.”
“It is not myself I fear for!” I would have turned around to see her and to force her to look at me, but that meant turning my back on Gahn Thaleo and that was something I would not do.
“Alright,” Valeria said, raising her hands and no doubt sensing that she was losing authority over the situation. “We can chat out here for a bit. Let’s just move into the shade a little, shall we? I feel like we’ll all be a bit more calm outside.”
I doubted that Gahn Thaleo felt that way – he would probably spill seed into his loincloth at the thought of us all confined and under his control in his mountain – but he ultimately conceded, jerking his tail and following the others as they came to join Fiona and me. I planted my feet firmly upon the stone, not budging even a claw’s breadth. While Gahn Thaleo’s men had their bows in their hands she would remain behind me and I would not be swayed.
Oxriel and Zoren stood at my sides, and Tilly and Nasrin crowded in behind them, clustering around Fiona in a whispering huddle. Valeria and Grim stood in front of us.
“OK,” Valeria said, keeping her voice very neutral. “I can understand why having most of our party sleep in Gahn Errok’s mountain feels like... a breach of our alliance. You and Gahn Errok are both important allies to us despite whatever past grievances there have been.”
Gahn Thaleo did not look impressed by her words. But nor did he look particularly unimpressed, either. His face was hard as bone and twice as inscrutable, because even a bone could tell you things if you knew where to look.
“What is your proposed solution?” Valeria asked. “How about you tell us your ideal outcome of this scenario, and we’ll go from there.”
“The unmated new women sleep in my mountain,” Gahn Thaleo said instantly, his sight stars flicking to Zoren who stood in front of Nasrin before his attention returned to Valeria. “The rest of the party can remain in neutral territory or even remain with Gahn Errok if they so choose. That would be four new women and their mates in Gahn Errok’s mountain, plus you and Grim wherever you desire to spend your nights. That would give Gahn Errok a majority and he should be satisfied with that.”
“I highly doubt he’s going to see it that way,” Valeria said on a low sigh. I agreed with her. Gahn Errok would not want to relinquish anyone, let alone an unmated new woman who might be meant for one of his men. And his Gahnala was very good friends with Tilly, Fiona, and Nasrin. For her sake, I did not think he would let them go.
I would not either.
“We don’t agree to that!” came a feminine voice from behind me, not Fiona’s, but Nasrin’s.
It was a fascinating thing, watching the effect that voice had on the stone-like Thaleo. He’d exhibited no outward reactions to anything that had gone on thus far. But now, though small, there was no mistaking the sharp intake of breath through his nose, the twitch in the muscle of the scarred cheek, the way his sight stars looked like they wanted to burn a hole right through Zoren so he could see her.
When Gahn Thaleo answered, there was an odd, low, scraping quality to his voice that I had not ever heard from him before.
