Tribe Outsider, page 13
part #2 of Chosen Series
Glancing down, she saw Frrar, Tor, and Drrak were waiting on a thick branch about fifteen feet below, staring up at where she and Arruk were hanging. Groaning quietly, she squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in Arruk’s warm neck, preparing herself for what she knew was coming.
Her stomach went weightless when he let go of the limb. They dropped what felt like a lot more than just fifteen feet. He grunted when they landed while she morbidly waited for the branch to snap and send them plunging to their deaths.
When that didn’t happen after a second, she released a long, relieved breath and opened her eyes. Relaxing her locked arms from around Arruk’s shoulders, she slid down his body, ignoring the way her legs felt like jelly from the rush of adrenaline. Pretending, as she always did, that the limb under her was actually solid ground, she took a moment to settle herself, resting her forehead against Arruk while repeating her calming mantra in her head.
I am not two hundred feet up a tree. One misstep will not send me falling to a horrible, gruesome death. Woosah… wooosaahh.
Wondering why they’d stopped when they had eaten not long before and she hadn’t asked to go to the ground, she lifted her head from his upper stomach and turned to glance around them. She nearly choked on a gasp at what she saw.
From where they were standing on the branch, she realized the tree they were in was part of an almost perfect circle of trees surrounding the biggest one she had ever seen. The behemoth timber soared skyward from its position almost directly in the middle. It had to be close to four hundred feet tall and at least fifty feet wide. Reaching out blindly, unable to take her eyes off of it, she latched onto the first arm she felt and used it to balance herself as she shuffled as far out on the limb as she dared.
They were at least one hundred feet from the center tree. Here and there, the branches of the surrounding trees touched those of the center’s, creating what appeared to be bridges connecting it to the surrounding circle. Craning her head back, she looked up and up and up and still couldn’t see the top before her view was blocked by the canopy above.
Movement had her glancing quickly at the center of the middle tree. Squinting, she focused on the broad, shifting white leaves and intricate latticework of truck-wide black branches, trying to find the source of the movement.
After staring hard for a long minute, her eyes finally picked out the shape of a person, the white and black pattern of his fur camouflaging him almost perfectly.
As if her brain knew what to look for now, all at once she could distinguish all the people standing in the tree. There had to be nearly one hundred of them.
And they were all staring at her.
Oh. Shit.
Okay, don’t panic. Just stay very still and pretend you don’t have the sudden urge to pee your panties .
Lily gripped the arm she was holding tighter and ruthlessly squashed the urge to hide behind her guys. She would not have their tribe’s first impression be of her cowering behind her mates like a scaredy cat.
Thankfully, her guys sensed her sudden tension and knew exactly what to do to calm her. She felt a tail wrap around her waist and two more coil around her legs while two big, warm bodies pressed against her back and another stepped up to stand at her side.
Glancing quickly at who was where, she saw Tor on her right, smiling down at her in a way she was sure he meant to be reassuring but looked more like he had just eaten something sour, an expression she lovingly dubbed his lemon face . Reaching out to lace her fingers with his, she gave his lower hand a squeeze and returned his nervous smile.
A quick look over her shoulder showed Frrar and Arruk at her back. Frrar was staring out at the people, facing the threat as always, his first priority to keep her safe, even from his own tribe. His eyes never stopped their vigilant sweeping, but she saw his lips curl and knew it was for her. Without looking, he reached up to cup her shoulders, his strong thumbs kneading the tense muscles in her neck, telling her without words that he would take care of her, would protect her from whatever they faced.
Arruk, when she glanced at him, had his eyes locked on her, watching her with a soft expression and a tender smile, as if she were the most important thing in the world for him, and he knew they would be okay, no matter what. Not even a reunion with his tribe could take his attention off her.
Wait, that means…
Grimacing internally, she slowly turned to her left… and found Drrak. It was his arm she was holding, him she had blindly latched onto to steady herself. At least he had gotten over his apparent aversion to being too close to her and hadn’t yanked his arm away and let her fall. He was also doing an admirable job of ignoring her nails digging into his arm. Wincing, she retracted her claws from him and let her arm drop to her side.
He didn’t react to either the pain of her nails or her letting go of him. A glance up at his face showed him staring at the people in the middle tree, his expression just as deer-in-the-headlights as she was sure hers had been.
She didn’t understand why he would look that way when these were his people, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to comfort him.
“Hey,” she whispered, waiting until he looked down at her before continuing haltingly, “Fa sehr . Me na kah shevari danke shh. ”
If she hadn’t messed up the pronunciation too horribly, she’d just told him it was okay, that she wouldn’t let anyone bite him. Not the most reassuring of statements when she could see oversized fangs peeking out from underneath the females’ upper lips even from their distance, but she hoped he understood the sentiment.
He blinked in surprise before a purr started in his chest, and the corners of his eyes crinkled, causing the scars on his cheek to scrunch up in a way that was unreasonably attractive. He bent down abruptly and gently bumped his forehead to hers before he made a noise halfway between a chuff and a growl in her face, sounding alarmingly like a tiger. She froze, wondering if the feral male was going to bite her nose or lick her or something crazy. He didn’t do any of that, just stared at her for a long moment before he straightened and faced the tribe again nonchalantly, as if that wasn’t the weirdest damn thing she’d ever had done to her.
She gaped at him for a moment before throwing a what-the-fuck look at Tor, who responded by grinning at her and shrugging.
“Is Drrak,” he said simply, as if that explained everything.
Maybe it did for him, but it was going to take her a hell of a lot longer to get used to Drrak’s oddness.
That was bizarre as hell! He acts more like an animal than a person sometimes.
She felt Frrar’s hands tighten on her shoulders at the same time that Tor muttered what sounded like a curse, drawing her attention from the scarred male standing next to her and back to the people staring at them from the massive tree… except they weren’t just staring at them anymore.
They were running, climbing, and swinging along the limbs connecting the trees. They were headed straight toward them.
They had knives in their hands and threatening expressions on their faces as they skittered along the branches like a demon horde of furred alien monkey people.
And leading the charge was the single scariest looking woman Lily had ever had the displeasure of seeing.
Oh fuuuck!
Chapter 18
H er guys closed ranks around her, surrounding her in a tight circle of their bodies, just as the terrifying female landed on the branch they were standing on and let loose a knee-weakening roar of unmistakable challenge and fury.
She could hear the thud of more and more people joining them, felt the thick branch sway nauseatingly under her boot-clad feet, just before the huge woman screamed, “Norak ha mek shevariak !”
That was all she could make out before everyone began talking at once, yelling louder and louder to be heard over the others, until the words blended together to sound more like a mass of growling bears fighting for dominance than anything she could call a language .
Lily’s heart was pounding in her chest and she clenched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking as her wide eyes bounced from spot to spot, trying to keep track of where everyone was, even though she couldn’t see past the wall of backs around her.
She heard the scary female’s voice rise in an exclamation above the others… right before Tor was abruptly yanked away from her.
“Tor!” She lurched forward to go after him, but hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her back before she could take more than a step.
“No, wait! Tor!” she screamed.
He threw a panicked look back at her but disappeared, dragged bodily into the crowd of aliens, before she could do more than reach for him.
They took advantage of the distraction. A group of towering, grim-faced females lunged forward and grabbed Frrar, hauling him away from her, despite his furious struggles, almost faster than she could process.
She darted a scared glance up at Arruk and Drrak when they jumped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder in front of her and glimpsed an expression on Arruk’s face she didn’t know her gentle mate was capable of—an expression of fury and aggression so menacing it sent a chill up her spine and made her genuinely concerned for the safety of his people .
She felt like everything was moving in slow motion as she saw more women coming at them from between their huge bodies and saw Arruk’s hand drop to the knife hanging from his vine strap.
In that split second, she made a decision—a decision she fervently hoped didn’t get her killed, but she couldn’t just stand there helplessly while Arruk was preparing to fight and possibly kill his own people over her.
She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone dying while she did nothing.
Reaching over her shoulder, she pulled her water spear free from where it was twisted in her own vine strap at the same time as she pushed her way through Arruk and Drrak.
Please don’t let this get me killed.
Hoping without hope she remembered the lessons she’d had when she was thirteen and wanted to be a cheerleader, she planted her feet, bared her teeth in the scariest snarl she could muster, and began twirling her spear hand over hand in a fast circle in front of her, attempting to block the approaching women from coming any closer.
Miraculously, it worked.
They skidded to a stop about three feet away, eyeing her spear warily, but she could see them looking for an opening and knew that as soon as she stopped, they would pounce.
Unsure if she could successfully concentrate on spinning her spear while speaking, she, nevertheless, knew it was the only way out of that terrifying situation.
Taking a deep breath, she shouted the first thing that came to mind.
“I come in peace!”
Fuck me! I did not just say that!
Her twirling faltered when they growled in response to her using a foreign language. Arruk reacted by trying to pull her back behind him. Not ready to give up, she jerked away from him and recovered her rhythm then sucked in another breath to try again.
“Me sehr! Me na rrukt! ” she shouted, this time remembering to use their language, using the word she thought meant good or safe then telling them she wasn’t scary, which in the face of six and a half foot tall naked warrior women was probably one of the most ridiculous things she could have said.
Not the most ideal of sentences for holding back a horde of pissed off aliens, but it was all her panicked brain would provide.
They apparently agreed because they blinked at her in what she could only call stunned amusement before the giant, scary lady from earlier barreled through them. She did not look at all amused as she snatched the spinning spear out of Lily’s hands in the time it took her to blink, before reaching for her throat.
Tor, bleeding from a cut on his lip, appeared next to the huge woman and knocked her arm away right before she could wrap her too-long fingers around Lily’s neck, then moved between them.
“Shevak , na! ” Tor growled.
Lily choked at hearing Tor call the terrifying woman mother.
You have got to be kidding me! That is Tor’s mom?
Tor was breathing heavily from fighting to free himself from the restraining arms of his tribe and get back to his Lily. He could feel blood running from his split lip down his chin from a thrown elbow, and he was sure he’d cracked one of the branches in his middle, but he didn’t let that stop him from glaring resolutely up at his Mother, refusing to let her past him and determined to make her listen.
“Lily did not take anyone! She is our Pasha! We brought her here to be part of the tribe, not to be attacked! ”
“Skaa was taken from the cave, and now you show up with a… whatever that is,” his Mother growled, pointing at Lily standing behind him. “You expect me to believe these are not limbs of the same tree?”
His tail went straight as a spear at hearing her speak of Lily in such a way, and he had to bite his lip to keep from growling. He knew showing disrespect would only make her even more unreasonable.
“Her name is Lily, and she did not take anyone. I do not know what happened to Skaa, but it was not my mate that did it,” he retorted lowly, speaking each word slowly in an effort to contain his anger over the insult to his mate.
He felt Lily rest her hands on his lower back, stroking his skin with her little thumbs, and knew she was trying to calm him. Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly, trying to do as his Pasha wordlessly asked. It was not easy; his Mother knew exactly how to make his tail kink.
“Mate? Is it even female?” she sneered. “It is tiny, has no tail or fur, and has only two arms. How has it even survived this long being so deformed?”
At that he did growl, would have bared his teeth at his Mother, if Frrar had not pushed through the crowd and stumbled forward to stand at his side, facing off his Mother with him. He was cradling his lower arm and the skin over his brow bone was bleeding, but he appeared calm despite all that .
“You cannot have it both ways, Tribe Mother,” Frrar announced breathlessly, eyes lowered slightly in deference but shoulders stiff and expression uncompromising. “Either she is too small to be a threat and could not have taken Skaa, one of the biggest Pashas of the tribe, or she is a fearsome female, deserving of respect, regardless of her differing appearance.”
He could see the sound reasoning of Frrar’s statement sinking in. He watched his Mother’s tail begin to slow its lashing behind her as her scowling face relaxed into an expression halfway between reluctant acknowledgment and lingering distrust.
With her anger gone, Tor could now see the worry she was trying to hide and knew the disappearance of their tribe mate upset her greatly. His Mother was many things, and they got along about as well as a frrtlk and a eakkr trying to share a tree, but he knew she loved her people and would defend them to her dying breath if need be.
He did not know what had happened, but knowing she brought the tribe back to the forest early meant she felt the rest of her people might be in danger. The loss of a Pasha always affected her immensely—he knew she took each loss as a personal failure—but that Skaa had not died defending the tribe, had apparently been taken, would put her on high alert and make her even more distrustful of outsiders than usual, especially one that was not shevari like his Lily.
“Bring… her to the Circle. I will tell you of what has happened, and you will tell me how you came to find such a strange female, so I may decide if she will be allowed to stay among us,” she declared, her expression clearly telling him she had no plans to allow Lily to remain with the tribe.
She gave Tor a narrow-eyed look of displeasure, as if he had purposefully found and been Chosen by a new kind of Pasha just to vex her.
He rolled his eyes then watched her turn and gesture for the rest to leave before she followed them across the branches to their home tree, the Mother Sha . Tor released a deep breath, wincing when it pained his middle, and turned to check on his Lily once his tribe mates were out of sight.
He ignored her gasp and flash of outrage when she laid eyes on his lip, patting her down to feel for any injuries while dodging her hands as she tried to do the same to him.
Not finding any hurts on her, he finally let her grip his face to still him and bent so she could inspect his lip, smirking slightly when she growled in anger.
“I can’t believe they would do this to you! That was, hands down, the shittiest homecoming I’ve ever seen!” she grumbled, reverting back to her tongue in her anger so that he could only understand about half, but it was enough for him to grasp that she was furious on his behalf.
It made a warm feeling bloom in his chest.
“I okay , mek Lily,” Tor rumbled quietly before gathering her to him, wrapping her in all his arms and nuzzling his face into the fur atop her head.
He could feel her heart beating fast against his chest and rumbled softly to calm her, wishing he had done a better job of warning her about his Mother’s overprotective nature.
“That went well,” Drrak proclaimed from beside them.
It wasn’t just the words, but the tone that had Tor raising his head to stare at the bigger male in disbelief. He said them as if he meant them, as if he truly thought Lily’s first meeting of the tribe had gone well.
“Why this face?” Drrak asked, waving a fore hand at Tor’s incredulous expression.
“You cannot think that went well!” Tor sputtered, eyeing him as if he had lost his senses.
“Still have your ears, yes? And your fierce little female did well. She is tiny, but she stood up to the Pashas with courage even though they could have crushed her. She is still alive and not missing any limbs,” Drrak challenged, then sent Lily a concerned glance and muttered, “Not that she has any to spare.”
Tor huffed at Drrak but couldn’t deny his reasoning.
Turning back to Lily when she gripped his chin, he bent so she could treat his lip with salve then straightened so she could prod his middle. He grunted in pain when she found the sore spot. He immediately regretted not containing the sound when she winced with him and apologized, her sparkling green eyes both sad and angry.
