But that was a very different time from now. We had good times between the arguments, once. Now there is nothing left but a void.

Still, I cannot help but be secretly pleased to see him here. Has he come to visit me? To tell me that he loves me and misses me? That he is sorry for abandoning me? “What are you doing here?” The words sound abrasive and cold the moment they leave my mouth.

He turns slowly to look at me, his movements a leisurely contrast to that endless flicking of his tail. “Farli told me you had a tear in your roof. I came to look at it.” His voice is liquid and deep, and the sound of it fills me with longing. Hemalo is a handsome male, and his body is big and strong. But his voice, oh, his voice is something special. Just hearing it makes my khui react, and it gives a low, pleasurable hum.

“So you are only here because Farli asked you?”

He turns back to the walls of the howse and examines it closer. “Why else would I be here? You certainly would not invite me.”

That hurts. I have been thinking about him, a lot. It is just…hard to unbend and admit that he has hurt me with his leaving. That I wish for him to give me a second chance. That I am the one that is the problem. The very thought stings my pride. “Why should I invite you?” I snap back. “You have made it quite clear how you feel.”

Hemalo gives me a focused, intense look, and then turns back to the roof. He fingers the covering and the torn stitches that bind two of the hides together. “You should invite me so the snow does not fall on you as you sleep. Or do you like waking up covered in meltwater?”

I shrug, feeling defensive. “It will get repaired soon enough.” I do not tell him that I picked apart the stitches to invite him over for such a meeting, but my courage failed me and I did not follow through. Curse Farli and her interfering. I am not ready to talk to Hemalo. I hate it when he judges me, when he gives me those knowing looks that make me feel foolish. When he treats me like I am a kit.

“It will never get repaired if you do not let me know there is a problem.” There is a rebuke in his mild tone, even as he examines the thick stitching. Then he holds an end out and gazes over at me. “Was this cut?”

“What? Do not speak of ridiculous things.”

The look he shoots me is thoughtful. “If this tore, it would not tear in such a neat fashion.”

“Why would I cut it?” I snarl at him, jerking his hand away from the cords as if they will somehow accuse me, too.

“I do not know. That is why I am asking.” He grabs my hand before I can pull back, and then his fingers lock with mine. “You are angry, Asha.” His voice is a low whisper. “Why are you so angry?”

My heart speeds up at his nearness, my khui reacting to his presence. It is only that I have not mated in such a long time, I tell myself. That is why the brush of his skin against mine makes every muscle in my body tense. That is why my tail begins to flick so rapidly against my leg, and my cunt gets wet with need. It is only because I miss mating. It is not because I miss Hemalo. “I am not angry,” I protest.

A slow smile curls his mouth. “You think I do not know you? That I do not know your moods?” His thumb strokes over my knuckles. “Are you angry because Farli asked me to fix the roof, or are you angry because it is me here and everything I do makes you angry?”

Does he truly think that? That everything he does makes me upset? I jerk my hand from his, because I feel as if I am being accused all over again. “I said I was not angry. Though now I am getting irritated that you think I do not speak the truth about that.”

He sighs heavily, watching me. “No matter what I say, it ends in a fight with you, does it not?”

“Why do you think I wish to fight? Why are you always trying to make me feel like the bad one in a fight? Like I am doing something wrong?”

Hemalo shakes his head at me, his mane flicking. “That is not what I meant at all.” He puts a big hand to his forehead and rubs the base of his horns, like he always does when he has a headache. “I am doing this all wrong. My apologies. I did not come here to make you upset.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I came to help.”

Instead of making me feel better, his words just make my khui hum faster, and my cunt aches with need. I press my thighs tightly together and cross my arms over my chest. My teats tingle with awareness at his nearness, but I try to ignore that. Now is not the time. “You should be with the tribe,” I tell him, and gesture in the direction of the long-howse. “Celebrating.”

He shrugs and turns back to the roof, eyeing the hole I have created (and denied). “I do not feel like there is much to celebrate.” His hand caresses the leather.

I am startled to hear him say that. Hemalo has always had such an even, calm personality, unlike my fiery temper. It sounds like something that would come from my mouth, not his. “The humans, especially Claire, have been working very hard to make this enjoyable for the entire tribe,” I chastise him.

“You have been working alongside them,” he reminds me. Hemalo glances over his shoulder at me, and it nearly takes my breath away. My tail patters against my leg with excitement, coiling and flicking. “I am glad they have finally accepted you.”

Accepted me?

His words sting. Saying they ‘accept’ me makes it sound as if I am the outsider. This is my tribe. I was here first. And it hurts my feelings. “Spare me your pity,” I tell him. “If I wanted to hear what you thought, I would have asked you to come to the howse. There is a reason why it was Farli that asked you here, not me.”

I hate the words even as they spit forth from my mouth like daggers. They are needles designed to launch and hurt, and they succeed. I can see the look on his face as his expression changes, growing cold. It is as if the warmth in his eyes ices over and leaves nothing but frost. Just like that, we are enemies again. My body needs his, but our spirits will never understand one another.

“I am sorry I came,” Hemalo says. Even now, his voice is so beautiful and pleasant that I want to weep. “Tell Farli I will be back to fix it tomorrow.” He steps away from the hole in the roof, and then moves carefully away from me, where I stand hugging my chest and hating the anger that fills me. “I will make sure to come by when you are not home.”

And now I am the one being hurt. This is what I want, right? But the thought of him deliberately avoiding me, deliberately avoiding my house when I am here because he does not wish to talk to me? Even as it makes me angry, it also hurts and makes me feel empty inside. But I lift my chin. “Good. Leave. It is what you are best at.”

He stiffens. Hemalo stops and turns back to me. His nostrils flare and his tail flips wildly, the only signs that I have upset him. “You say that as if you think I wanted to leave.”

“Did you not?”

“No.” The quiet word echoes in the howse between us.

My heart flutters wildly. “If it was something you did not wish to do,” I say, stepping forward, my every movement a confrontation, “it seemed rather easy for you to do.”

“Is that what you think?” He takes a step toward me, and I realize he is devouring me with his eyes, his khui humming. “That it is easy for me to walk away?”

“Should I think differently?” I whisper. I can barely hear my own thoughts over the pounding of my heart. Why am I so nervous around him? So very tense? It is like my entire body is coiled into one anxious knot.

Hemalo gazes down at me, and I think for a moment that he is going to touch me. That he will reach out and brush his knuckles over my cheek. Just the thought of that small touch makes my body react, and my khui hums even louder. His joins it, and the song between us seems to fill the air.

It takes me a moment to realize what is happening. That the joined song of our khuis should not be so loud, so overwhelmingly strong that they take over the air around us. That my pulse should not be thrumming so hard that my heart feels as if it will leap from my chest. That I should not be so very aroused by the nearness of my mate.