Lauren's Barbarian (Icehome, #1)

by Ruby Dixon

Two narrow walls and I’m naked… Am I in a coffin? “Am I dead?” I cry out, horrified. I squint at the big blue horned face. “Oh my god, are you devils? Am I in hell?” “Only if it’s frozen over,” says the blonde. “Yuk, yuk.”

“Where is here?” I ask. “Where are we?” “Like I said, it’s an ice planet. Two suns, two moons. Nothing else you’d recognize, I’m afraid. We’re all very primitive here, hence all the furs.” She smiles. “But it’s a good life once you get used to it, I promise.” “There are no cities?” Willa asks. “There’s a village. Just one.” Jesus. I can’t imagine. This sounds worse and worse all the time.

I’m only human, after all. If there’s a naked dude, I want to stare, too.

“I can’t believe we’re lining up to get a tapeworm,” Hannah grumbles at my side. “Believe it, sister,” Nadine tells her, hopping up and down to stay warm. “If it stops my ass from freezing off, I’ll take a dozen of them.”

It’s cold. It’s miserable. It’s exhausting. At this point, I welcome my “cootie” overlord.

I kind of wish someone was there to hold my hand and tell me that I’m not alone, but if I can’t receive, I guess I’ll give.

Because the cootie, the symbiotic tapeworm that will give us electric blue eyes, a built-in space heater and super-charged immunity, also has a catch. It likes pairing up people and making babies. Seems that the cootie will pick out a “mate” for its person and you start “resonating” or vibrating from your chest. Someone else vibrates to you and that’s it. Boom. You now get to make children together and that’s that.

Veronica—clumsy, plain, quiet Veronica—sits next to the big golden guy. The lion-haired one. They’re resonating. It started apparently the moment that Veronica woke up and hasn’t stopped since. There’s a low thrumming purr coming from both of them and it’s so loud that everyone can’t help but notice. Veronica looks shy and embarrassed. The big gold guy looks as if he wants to eat Veronica up with a spoon.

Yeah. If you’d ask me, I don’t want resonance. But…that kind of attention from a hot, sexy guy is tough to pass up.

“They seem…nice.” I can’t think of anything else to say. Hannah snorts. “And Cujo’s just a dog.”

Even now, though I’m not thrilled to be stranded here, I’d rather be awake than in limbo, unaware of anything. That seems like a special kind of hell.

The only reason I haven’t broken down sobbing myself is because one more crying person isn’t going to help things. Others need someone strong to look to, so I might as well be that person.

Things will get better, I tell her silently. This is only the beginning. When you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

“Gren is missing, too. The others think he might have taken her.” I feel sick at the thought. I know Willa’s been trying to befriend him. This is what happens when you try to be nice.

“I think we’re sinking now.” “Of course we are,” I murmur, because that’s my luck. I’ve survived a kidnapping by aliens and being stranded on a wintry planet only to go down with the ship. Seems about right.

“Thank you for being so brave,” she tells me in an admiring voice. I want to tell her that I’m not brave. That I’m just as terrified as she is, but one of us has to act.

Whoever said drowning was peaceful lied to me, because all I want to do is breathe and I can’t.

Even though the four clans—now three—live apart, we have an agreement. If something washes up on the shore, it belongs to those that find it.

I see another approaching from the opposite direction. Not just any sakh, but my most hated of rivals, R’jaal of the clan of the Tall Horn.

“I should have known you’d be here. Trash always washes ashore.”

His clan is dying, just like mine. All of us are dying out. We only prolong it with every day of survival. There is no hope for our people, not since the Great Smoking Mountain exploded seven turns ago and destroyed most of the island…and most of the people living on it.

I know I am hotheaded. I know it is my nature to fight.

Her sleepy gaze lands on the beach, and then on R’jaal. Then me. She pales and her eyes roll back in their sockets. Her body slumps and she disappears back inside the stone-egg.

This one is mine. I feel it surge through me, the intense knowing and covetous feeling of finding something that truly belongs to me. It does not matter how this female got here. She is leaving with me.

Mine. Mine. Mine. The word throbs through my mind, as fierce as any heartbeat. I can feel it, pumping through me like blood. Mine. Mine. Mine. This female is mine. That is why I did not care about the other—my heart knew this one was coming to me. I am not entirely surprised when my khui begins to sing, its tempo matching the beat in my head. R’jaal’s eyes widen in surprise, and then he nods slowly. “Yours, then.” “Mine,” I say with fierce pleasure. I resonate to her. No one will ever take her from me. She is mine and mine alone.

Once she wakes up, it will draw her to me as mine is drawn to hers. Resonance is never one-sided. All I have to do is wait.

have found my mate only to lose her. “No,” I murmur, and take her small hand in my own. “You are mine. Now that I have found you, you will wake up and you will join me. We will make many kits together and work to bring our clan back to greatness.”

A resonance mate is the greatest gift. I have been told that over and over again. I thought I would never experience it, not after the death of the Great Smoking Mountain and the decimation of the clans.

Perhaps the sakh are not doomed to die with the remnants of our clans. Perhaps there is more to look forward to than merely existing.

I’m not the kind of girl to rub against a guy naked in the jungle, but it seems today I am.

I’ve never been sniffed by a guy before. I never realized such a small thing could be so very erotic, but as his nose drags along the cords of my neck and he inhales? If I had panties, they’d be wet.

I want to know what it’d be like to be possessed by a guy this big, this primal.

She makes a soft yelp and slaps my cheek. “Noh!” I frown, surprised. Is this how her people show affection? Slaps on the face? I do not think I can follow this custom. One of my lightest taps would send her delicate body reeling. “I will come up with different ways to pleasure you, this I promise,”

“I know you are eager,” I soothe her. “Time enough for that, I promise. I must have you safe before I have you under me. Then you can slap me to your heart’s content.”

Did I somehow get taken to yet another planet while sleeping? It sounds ridiculous, but I’m pretty sure all of this is ridiculous—tapeworm, ice planet, blue guys, four arms—and it’s happening to me. I would love for a big pinch to wake me up, but that’s not happening.

Resonance is more or less a slap across the face telling your hormones to get in line, because they are about to get served.

Something squawks—like a chicken with more bass in its voice—and then hops from K’thar’s shoulder onto my bare arm. I fight back a screech of alarm because this has to be a pet.

It feels like a lifetime since that happened, but it’s been less than a day. Jeez. Less than a day and everything in my world has gone upside down. Again.

Well, fuck. You can’t get into a slap-fight with a four-armed guy.

For once, I want to get my freak on. I want to know what it’s going to be like if he touches me and I let him. For a moment, I want to release control and let someone else handle things. I want to be impetuous and wild and not think about tomorrow. Not too impetuous, of course. But maybe just a little.

I will have to teach her how, because it is clear she does not know how to take care of herself. I do not mind, though. I look forward to such things.

I can only worry over that which I can control.

I cannot complain, though. Not to N’dek, who has lost all of his leg below the knee. I am healthy and whole, and I have a mate. Truly, I am the luckiest of males.

I guess I’m a sucker for a guy with a soft spot for animals.

He’s thoughtful and he’s kind. I don’t know if Lo-cootie cares about that, but Lo-human finds it pretty sexy.

It does explain why all the other girls are so damn happy and smiley to be stranded here, though. No one’s complaining about resonance because they’re getting boned by the gold standard in dicks.

There’s no getting around the fact that he’s enormous. Of course he is. The guy’s twice the size of me, but did he have to be twice the size everywhere?

It’s getting harder and harder not to stare at his butt, especially now that it’s naked and he seems to not care. Either that or maybe he wants me to admire it? Surely he knows it’s some prime ass, though. Surely. Mine feels positively doughy in comparison.

I knew nightfall was coming. I just didn’t know if I’d be coming with it. Ha.

Why am I fighting this again, exactly? Because people that don’t know that I exist anymore won’t approve? Because Earth morals say it’s a bad idea to jump into bed with a guy you’ve just met? Do those things really apply anymore?