Tribe Outsider, page 16
part #2 of Chosen Series
“Oh,” she frowned as she glanced around, only noticing the time of day after he brought it to her attention. “I didn’t realize it had gotten so late,” she admitted, deflating a bit when she realized it was too close to dark to do anything that day.
Apparently, time flies when you’re worried you might die horribly at any moment while also trying not to get caught staring at anyone’s very alien-looking privates.
They didn’t have flashlights, and she didn’t particularly feel like introducing the tribe to fire when they already distrusted her and observed her like she was some kind of weird zoo animal. What if she fucked up and set their giant tree on fire?
… quick way to get skewered on a spear and turned into a human-kabob.
“Kaashh. Pussseez, ” came a muttered growl.
Lily whipped her head around when she heard Drrak’s gravelly voice say pussies, giving him a wide-eyed look of shock, her cheeks flaming for roughly the hundredth time since meeting him. Her guys immediately started rumbling, loudly , clearly amused at Drrak’s mispronunciation, knowing exactly what he had said by mistake.
She guessed he was trying to repeat the words she’d used and applauded his initiative and effort at learning her language, but his attempt left her blushing like a schoolgirl.
She saw his eyes narrow in confusion and knew he was about to ask why the guys thought his attempt was funny. She started to speak, wanting to cut off someone’s—Tor’s —helpful explanation but ended up just gaping at him like a fish, opening and closing her mouth, speechless. She couldn’t find the words to correct him without also revealing why they found it amusing. Tor, glancing at her from the corner of his eye with a mischievous smile curling his lips, took advantage of her hesitation .
Oh hell…
“Pasha say paa-see. Pussy ha Lily paskk ,” he helpfully informed, his eyes dancing with impish mirth as he told Drrak what the word meant in their tongue.
Drrak’s expression changed from confusion to shock, then amusement when he cut his eyes to her. His scarred lips twitched and his half-missing tail jerked into view before disappearing behind him as a rumble, loud enough to match Tor’s, emanated from his chest.
Lily hadn’t known she could blush harder, but that’s exactly what happened—her cheeks went from hot to rivaling the surface of the sun in an instant while she sputtered, trying to think of something to say to wipe the matching devilish expressions from Drrak’s and Tor’s faces.
Giving up when she couldn’t think of anything and grumbling under her breath about immature men, she turned away to step up to Arruk—who was laughing the quietest of the four. Even Frrar, who she’d mistakenly thought was the most mature of the four, was rumbling, although he at least had the decency to attempt to hide his smile behind his upper hand.
“Et tu, Brute ?” she accused as she slanted a narrow-eyed look at him while Arruk picked her up.
Wrapping her arms and legs around him when he lifted her, she stuck her tongue out at all of them right before Arruk swung off the massive platform and into the branches.
Frrar, instead of passing them to lead the way toward wherever it was they would now live like she expected, stayed behind her. His apparent refusal to lead struck her as odd, especially when he whispered directions to Arruk, guiding Arruk to the destination he had in mind.
As if he felt her gaze on him, Frrar met her stare, all traces of his earlier amusement gone as he pointedly scanned his eyes around them, prompting her to do the same. She found their people were still watching them, some blatantly while others were more surreptitious, which didn’t really surprise her. She was trying to ignore them, but she was painfully aware of the constant attention they were receiving.
She saw approval in some of the gazes and immediately understood Frrar was staying behind her so that she was in the lead. Even though she needed to be carried, having her in front and giving their people the impression that she was in charge would, hopefully, make her slightly less alien in their eyes and give them something familiar with which to identify. Frrar was trying to show them she was the alpha of their group. Turning back to him, she subtly nodded her head, thankful he had thought of appearances. She had been too focused on ignoring Drrak or wanting to take action about the intruders.
They needed to take advantage of every opportunity possible to make her seem less alien if they were ever going to convince the tribe to accept her.
Instead of picking a place for them to live, or at least sleep for the night, in the center tree where the rest of their people made their homes, Frrar verbally directed them in an ever-widening circle around it until he found a spot to his liking.
When he finally told Arruk to stop, the noise of the tribe had all but disappeared, reduced to nearly undetectable background noise, blending into the quiet symphony of alien birds singing themselves to sleep and the whisper of shifting leaves until she couldn’t hear them at all unless she focused.
Tilting her head, she picked out their voices in the distance. They sounded more like ghostly whispers from the forest than people which made her remember Akksha’s comment about the trees.
Arruk dropped to join the rest of the guys on a thick branch, letting her slide down his big body. As she did, she slanted a distrustful look at the black limbs around them, trying to see if there was a pattern to the way they moved that couldn’t be explained by the soft breeze.
Tearing her eyes from the branches, she glanced back at Arruk when he purred inquisitively. She found him watching her, clearly trying to figure out why she was staring at the trees as if they were going to suddenly come to life and yell boo.
She grimaced and shook her head dismissively, deciding not to ask him if Akksha meant it literally. This was one of the rare times it was better not to know.
Maybe it was just one of those sayings, like ‘by the skin of your teeth.’ We don’t have teeth skin so maybe the trees don’t know I might have accidentally peed on them once… or twice.
Arruk guided her to sit against the trunk then handed her one of his food pouches. After making sure she was settled, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head then swung off to join the rest of the guys a short distance away on a neighboring tree.
Splitting her attention between watching the them and the trees, she ate absentmindedly as they set to work. With Drrak staying to help, they cut numerous lengths of vine. Using them to lash the thick branches together, they built the foundation for a nest much larger than she had anticipated, bigger than any she’d seen them make previously. Once they were seemingly satisfied with the size—about twenty foot squared—they took turns leaving in pairs, coming back after a few minutes with their four arms full of different kinds of leaves.
After gathering an impressive pile, Tor and Frrar set to layering them on the floor while Arruk and Drrak began tying vines vertically to the limbs on the perimeter of the nest, starting the framework for what she assumed would be walls.
A bit of tension relaxed from her shoulders at the realization that their new home wouldn’t be open for just anyone to sneak up or spy on them. She hadn’t minded the open nests they’d slept in when leaving the forest the first time, but they hadn’t been around anyone else then. The thought of the tribe able to see them as they had sex or get to them while they were sleeping gave her chills.
They were all strangers, but more than that, they were aliens. She had no frame of reference, other than the guys, for what they might do or what they found acceptable and the guys hadn’t really been in a circumstance where they needed to introduce her to some weird alien custom.
What if watching people have sex was totally normal, encouraged even?
The memory of Frrar and Tor sharing berries like they were popcorn as they watched her and Arruk have sex popped into her mind .
If I catch a stranger doing that, I’m going to lose my shit and freak out on someone. Big time.
Shaking off those distressing thoughts, she went back to observing them work. She thought the structure looked a bit large for just the four of them but shrugged it off, trusting that Frrar had his reasons even if she didn’t understand them just then.
Maybe he wants room for a sleeping space and a living space. Or maybe he’s going to build some kind of indoor toilet so I don’t have to go to the ground every time I need to pee.
He glanced at her just then and, finding her already watching him, raised the skin over his brow bone as if seeking her approval. Smiling, she gave a thumbs up to which he immediately cocked his head in confusion. Rolling her eyes at herself, she realized he had no idea what the gesture meant and nodded her approval instead.
It felt like she had been on this planet for ages, but moments like that reminded her that she and the guys were still learning each other and still had moments of miscommunication.
It was strange to feel so deeply connected to someone—three someones—but to realize you’d only known them for less than three months. She hadn’t known you could fall in love so completely so quickly, but she had. She could no longer imagine her life without Tor, Frrar, and Arruk. They’d become an integral part of her, just as necessary as air or water, and it wasn’t because she needed them to survive. She needed them to feel whole. Losing one of them would break her in a way none of the other losses she’d suffered in her life had, in a way nothing else could.
Chapter 22
T he guys were almost finished building a surprisingly sturdy-looking little hut, but they were quickly losing what little light remained in the forest. Despite the approaching dark, they never paused—their movements stayed sure and steady as they navigated the latticework of thick limbs—stepping fearlessly across large gaps, proving what she already knew: their night vision was far superior to hers.
They worked quickly and confidently, never bumping into each other or getting in each others’ way, as if they were wholly used to operating as a team. She expected that from her guys, but seeing Drrak act like an integral part of the group, watching her guys behave as if his presence was as comfortably familiar to them as the trees they lived in made her view him differently .
She knew logically he was Arruk’s twin and that they’d all been best friends since childhood, but seeing it made it real. Their bond was clear in the way they joked amongst themselves, bantering back and forth about the way Drrak couldn’t keep his vines untangled, or teasing Tor for his imaginative use of bright blue leaves in the walls of the little tree house.
Observing them all together made Drrak feel more familiar to her, less like an outsider—a stranger she’d just met—and more like a missing piece of the puzzle.
Frrar seemed more relaxed with him there, not as on guard and watchful as he usually was. Arruk was more animated, less quiet and reserved, and his smiles came quicker, brighter. Tor was even more playful now that he had someone, other than her, who seemed to get his sense of humor and was almost as quick to mischievousness as he was.
A rebellious part of her mind wondered if she would have accepted him as one of her guys as easily as she had Arruk, Frrar, and Tor if he’d been with them when they found her in the forest. If she was honest with herself, she thought the answer was probably yes even if it made her uncomfortable to think about now.
There was something about him. He had a wildness that both captivated her and made her nervous because of its unpredictability, but that wasn’t the only reason she was finding herself more attracted to him the longer she was around him, despite being uncomfortable with the whole situation.
The clear love of animals he’d shown with his patience toward the pantari cub, how quick he’d been to join her guys in protecting her from the tribe, the intensity in his eyes, the unabashed directness he had when he stared at her, all of it combined to make him entirely too appealing. The glimpses she’d had of his wicked sense of humor, the scars that made him look terrifying but made her want to kiss his pain away just added another layer to his appeal.
The sense of anticipation and approval she was getting from her guys wasn’t helping her put a lid on her wayward feelings, either. She could see that Drrak brought out the best in them, seemed to perfectly fill a spot she hadn’t even realized needed filling until he joined them.
She hadn’t really seen it before then but as she sat there, she became aware that her guys didn’t have much in common, personality-wise. She had a lot in common with each, but Drrak brought them even closer as a unit. They didn’t need to be closer to her, she realized, they needed to be closer to each other. Drrak did that for them. She loved seeing her guys so happy, relaxed, and playful, and knew it was because of his presence. She almost thought she should feel jealous, but she just felt… warm... as she watched them work together, content and happy.
Yet, all those thoughts and revelations didn’t change how she felt about getting closer to him. She couldn’t just arbitrarily marry a guy solely because her other mates wanted her to and seemed happier with him there, or because she thought he was sexy as sin and found him entirely too fascinating.
And she knew that’s exactly what it would be if she began a relationship with him—a lifelong commitment.
She knew from her experience with the guys that things moved faster here than she was used to. They didn’t do anything by half measures, and once they mated, it was for life.
Her marrying the guys had been an accident—the happiest accident of her life—but unintentional on her part all the same. The unexpected nature of it had taken all the pressure and uncertainty away. She hadn’t had to decide whether she was ready to be with even one, let alone three aliens, didn’t have the opportunity to worry over all the risks and unknowns inherent in beginning any new relationship but especially one where the guys were of an entirely different species.
The purposefulness in pursuing or allowing a relationship with Drrak made her feel panicky, as if she was contemplating voluntarily jumping off a cliff and into the unknown. If she let down her guard and let go of her reservations, she was acknowledging and accepting everything that came with that decision. She recognized that her human view of relationships didn’t apply to the people on this planet or their customs, but she also couldn’t let go of twenty-four years of conditioning on what was acceptable and what wasn’t that easily, and she absolutely could not make a decision of that importance on a whim.
Even if she was ready to consider something with Drrak, she’d already given her whole heart to Tor, Frrar, and Arruk. Was there room left for anyone else? They gave her everything she needed. Did she need anyone else?
As if he could hear her thoughts or feel the weight of her eyes on him, Drrak glanced at her from over his shoulder. He went still when they locked gazes, before he slowly turned to face her fully.
Lily felt the attraction she’d tried to dismiss earlier come back, twice as powerful. Her lips parted on a quiet exhale as his impossibly bright, piercing stare held her captive. In that moment, as she felt her heart beat faster beneath her breasts and a tingle of awareness spark under her skin, all her reservations dissipated like mist clearing before the bright rays of the sun.
She watched as his expression gradually changed from curiosity to interest, then from interest to a quiet but unapologetic kind of hunger. It was almost as if he was mimicking the progression of her own emotions, as if she was somehow unintentionally feeding him exactly what she was feeling just then.
He took a step in her direction, making her eyes widen and her heart pound harder in her chest, but she stayed where she was; sitting like prey against the trunk of the tree. She felt like a mouse caught in the stare of a hawk—scared it would eat her but enthralled by its dangerous beauty.
She didn’t know what would have happened… if a call of alarm hadn’t gone up in the distance.
Drrak was gone almost faster than her eyes could follow, whipping around and swinging through the trees back toward the tribe before the sound fully registered in her mind. Leaping to her feet, she threw a wide-eyed, questioning look at her guys. They were all staring off in the direction Drrak had disappeared, their ears stiff and angled. As one, their gazes cut to her, making her pounding heart skip a beat at the grave expressions descending over their faces.
“Kit ,” Frrar whispered.
“Kit ? The cub? Is he in danger?!” Lily gasped, visions of Tor’s mom stabbing the little animal immediately assailing her .
“Go! Don’t let them hurt him!”
Frrar and Arruk took off at her exclamation while Tor ran at her, scooping her up before she could even brace herself, then followed after them. She clung to him tightly as he swung through the trees, her head craned over her shoulder as if seeing where they were going would get them there quicker. He was moving fast enough to make her stomach twist, but she wasn’t about to tell him to slow down.
They better not hurt that baby! Giant teeth and ripped muscles or not, I’ll kick their fucking asses!
Tor stopped abruptly, cutting off her mental threat, then dropped.
A scream lodged in her throat, coming out as a high-pitched squeak as they fell. Looking down in horror, she saw the ground come into view between the thick foliage, rushing up to greet them entirely too fast.
They fell at least fifteen feet before Tor caught a branch, halting their rapid descent with a jarring lurch, making her teeth clack together painfully.
Evidently, he only grabbed the branch to slow them, not stop, because he let go before she could restart her heart, sending it right back into her throat to choke her. She squeezed her eyes shut as they fell the last ten feet and whimpered quietly in relief when he landed next to Arruk with a thud .
Releasing her death-grip from around his neck, she slid down his body and nearly kept going. He caught her before she could melt into a puddle of terrified goo on the ground, steadying her with a lower arm around her waist.
