Barbarian's Choice (Ice Planet Barbarians, #11)

by Ruby Dixon

The tribe loves to tease Haeden and his mate about their frequent resonances, but Haeden just takes it all in stride. I think he secretly loves the fact that he and his mate have resonated three times so quickly, but Jo-see loves being a mother and Haeden is a good father. They are happy.

I like the exploring. Sometimes it feels like I am the only one out in the big wide world, and it is fascinating to me how empty and yet gorgeous my surroundings are. I love this place.

“Kopan Keffing VI,” he snarls, and I can hear the angry smack of his fingers against his input station as he types. “Uninhabited keffing snowball of a planet, that’s what it is.”

Let the small things get to me and I’ll never get my head calm.

Guess I don’t have to wonder about why this place isn’t inhabited. Not only is it in the middle of keffing nowhere, but it’s also so cold it makes your cock freeze

Shouldn’t matter that I’m nothing but broken parts inside. That’s why people crew on long-distance freighters like The Tranquil Lady. Got nothing going on in their lives.

I take the gear from her hands, and as I do, our fingers brush. And that’s when I realize three things. She’s real, she’s incredibly warm, and she’s purring.

A male steps out. At least, I think it’s a male. And what I see makes me suck in a breath. His body is covered by some strange, thick gray leather, but he is tall, so tall. Taller than anyone in the tribe, even Raahosh. His head is exposed, and I can see he has blue skin, like mine, but paler. He also has a sweep of arching, proud horns that gleam in the sunlight. Strange. His mane is shorn close to his scalp, but it looks to be black, like mine.

I cannot get over how different—but similar—he is to the males in my tribe. He is so like us, and yet…so much handsomer. I could stare at this appealing face for days and never grow bored. The differences are fascinating—like his tail. He has a tail, but for some reason it is blunted, half the length of my own. Has it always been like that, or did he lose it in an accident? His horns with the strange shiny tips fascinate me, as does the fact that his mane is gone. I can see dark stubble on his scalp, and it highlights the strong lines of his skull. Fascinating.

He looks at me the way I want to be looked at by a male, I realize. Not like Sessah with his silly devotion, or Taushen with his impatient courting. He devours me with his eyes and I…I like it.

I decide that I love his smile. It seems so hesitant, and I want to make him smile more. Actually, I want to press my mouth to his again and try more mouth-mating. “Do you want to mate here, or do you want to go back to my cave?” I gesture at the distant hills.

Gods damn it, I think I just shot her keffing pet. I put my blaster away, tucking it back into its holster as the strange, nearly naked woman sobs over the furry herbivore. I’m disgusted that I overreacted. Now that I have a moment to catch my breath, I realize that the thing is a four-legged plant eater, shaggy, ugly, but harmless. I just saw it charging toward us and reacted like a soldier. But I’m not a soldier any longer, and I keffed up. Bad. The woman sobs over her pet, stroking its nose as the creature wheezes its final breaths.

I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if this strange woman looks at me with hate…or worse, disappointment. Hate can always be flipped back to friendship, but disappointment lasts forever.

“Didn’t Trakan say this place was uninhabited?” “According to planetary surveys, yeah. You think she’s a shipwreck survivor? She looks like us. Clearly mesakkah.”

I gesture for her to keep talking, she does. After a moment, the computer comes back with an answer. 88% match - Old Sakh. Holy kef. Old Sakh? From the Old Sakh Empire? No one’s spoken that language in a thousand years.

Some hunter I am. A handsome stranger walks in front of me and my mind turns to scrambled eggs, like the kind Stay-see makes for breakfast.

He is not a talker, my mate. I do not mind that. He seems like Asha—someone with hurts buried deep.

I know what it’s like, first hand, when someone invades a peaceful land and brings unwanted technology with them. And it makes my blood run cold to think of Farli losing the happy innocence in her demeanor. I’m going to do my damnedest to protect that.

I head into med bay, but it’s empty of both women, the only occupant the still-sleeping furry animal. At least it’s still breathing and its vitals are good. I heave a sigh of relief at that. Least she can’t hate me for killing her pet. For some reason, it’s really important to me that she not hate me.

These strangers are…odd and not entirely pleasant. I do not understand why they make me feel…like less. It is a sensation I have never felt before.

This male is so full of stories, of mysteries. I cannot wait to find them all out.

“You like me?” I repeat again. I need to hear him say the words. “You do not think I am too young?” “I think you’re just too keffing innocent, that’s all. I don’t want to be the one that spoils that.” “You spoil nothing,” I tell him, and let my fingers wander over his lips. They are surprisingly soft for all of the frowns he tends to do over a day. “Let me be in control of my innocence.”

She really believes that if she purrs to me that we’re somehow destined to be together and I’m going to make her pregnant? That’s the craziest thing.

With a job as a mechanic on a long-haul space-freighter, I’ve seen a lot of places. Nothing has felt even close to home…not even the ship I’m on now. Sometimes I don’t feel as if I have a place anywhere. One thing’s for sure, though—if I had to pick a new homeworld, this sure as shit wouldn’t be it.

And in the space of a day, Farli has crashed through all my walls and made me think about a life outside of this cold, unfeeling ship. Made me wonder what it’d be like to have someone like her to come home to.

keep picturing how Farli’s going to react when I leave. She thinks we’re married. According to her customs, because she ‘sang’ to me, we’re now together and should make babies. It’s absolutely crazy.

I’m drawn to Farli, far more than anyone I’ve ever met in my life. Maybe it’s the fascination of her naïve happiness. She’s brimming with life and love and hope and all the things I lost long ago.

“She’s approximately twenty-five Homeworld years old. Adult. Last menstruated about three weeks ago. Blood sugars are excellent, teeth and vital signs are perfect. She’s got that parasite, but other than that, everything’s as it should be. Oh,” she adds in an exaggerated voice, “and she started ovulating when you walked into the room. Interesting, isn’t it?”

“He is my mate!” That stops everyone in their tracks. Everyone except Mardok, that is. He rushes to my side and pulls me away from the others, tucking me behind him as if to protect me from my tribe. The others stare. Aehako starts to grin, and Pashov smirks. Bek just rolls his eyes.

I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want Farli. And even though it’s wrong to think about it, I don’t care. I’m not a nice guy. Never have been, never will be. And the thought of keeping Farli—whether or not she wants to be kept—is a tempting one.

“We want to know what the spur is for.” It’s just as bad as I thought. “Pardon?” I wheeze. “The spur. It’s not a human thing. We want to know the purpose of it.” “Biologically,” Liz adds. “We can’t figure it out.”

“Pheromones,” Niri says, saving me from an awkward explanation. “It’s a primitive biological way of marking a female as belonging to a particular male. The spur secretes twice the pheromones that the rest of the body does.”

“As long as your heart is good, it does not matter.” “My heart is not good,” he says. He turns and cups my face in his hands, his strange, pale eyes wild. “Most of the time I’m just…tired. Existing. But around you, I want to be better. I want to be more than what I am. Is it crazy to be this addicted to someone I just met?” “It is resonance,” I tell him happily.

“You would take my khui out of me?” “It can be done. I promise you wouldn’t feel a thing.” “But…” I touch my chest, where it is singing even now. “It is what connects us. It is what makes us mates. If I remove it, we are just…two people who do not resonate.” “You just said it doesn’t matter, Farli. That as long as we choose each other, that is all we need.” Mardok approaches me, puts his hand over mine, where I have it pressed over my heart. “I don’t care if you have this or not. I don’t care if you never sing another note. What you and I have feels special. It feels right. And I want to be with you. Not just for a day or two while I’m here on this planet. For good. Forever.”

I’m a mechanic—what would I do? I bring nothing to the table, no skills of value.” “I do not care,” I cry out, my heart breaking. “You can still be my mate. I can teach you to hunt.” Mardok looks sad. “If I stay here, I leave behind everyone and everything I have ever known.” “If I go with you, I do the same.”

“If they’re anything like these pictures, they’re ugly creatures. Four arms and no horns.”

If I will only have a few days with Mardok, then I will make the most of them. I will grieve and feel sorry for myself later, when his ship has disappeared from the sky and I am left empty and alone. But for now, he is here. I will worry about everything else tomorrow.

Does he truly think I will hate him if he touches me and then leaves me behind? I could never hate him. Ever.

I don’t want to make you run away screaming if I try to touch you.” “Am I screaming with pleasure?” I ask, trailing a finger across his hard chest. “And am I running slow enough so you can catch me?” “Woman, you are entirely too much of a tease. Be serious for a moment.”

“When you leave me behind, will you be seeking out other females?” Mardok blanches. “I don’t even like to think about that. I don’t want anyone else but you. Not sure I could let another woman touch me.” That makes me feel better. “You should be mine and mine alone.” A smile curves his mouth again. “I agree.”

She doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. There’s a freedom to her that makes me envious, even as it shocks me, just a little. When did I—the jaded, world-weary ex-soldier—become the prude? Yet I can’t be as free as Farli. It’s hard to wrap my brain around it.

“It would have been much easier if I had resonated to one of the tribe’s hunters, I know. But I do not choose.” And I would not choose anyone but Mardok. I love him. The moment he appeared, I knew he was mine. “The khui chooses,” Taushen agrees. He rubs my arm and then pauses. “If he does not stay and you need a father for your kit, I will be that hunter for you, Farli.” I blink in surprise. “What—” “It does not have to be pleasure-mating, though I would take that in time. It would be enough for me to know you are cared for. You and your kit.” I feel like crying. “You are a good hunter, Taushen. You are going to make a female a very good mate someday.” His smile is sad. “Someday.”

“He would be giving up a lot to stay…but am I not enough?” “That is a question you must ask him, my kit.”

“If I leave, I will never see you again,” I tell her fretfully. “And if you stay, you will never see him again.” She cups my face in her hands. “Only you can decide where your path will take you.” Do I choose my mate or my family and my tribe? I have no answers. I only know that if Mardok leaves, he takes my heart with him.

“I am your mother. I will love you and honor whatever decision will make you happy.” Her eyes shine with tears of her own. “Even if it takes you far, far away from me.”

“Can I give you a piece of advice?” Uh oh. “Is it going to piss me off?” Trakan chuckles. “Nah, man. Just gonna tell you that when you find the right girl, don’t let her get away.

If you like the barbarian girl, let her know. That’s all I’m saying. We’re not gonna be here for much longer, and regrets are a shitty thing to sleep with at night.”

Maybe I’ll see the captain again someday. Probably not, but if I do, I’ll buy him a drink and a meal. Or since I’m going to be one of the local ‘savages,’ I guess I’ll slaughter him a meal and brew him a drink.