“Hey,” she said now, shrugging out of her furry swaddle.
He grunted a greeting and wound up some more sinew. “See anything?”
“There’s always something to see,” she replied, setting her brace of mimuts down on the hearth beside him. “I went out to the road.”
He grunted again, noncommittally. She knew he didn’t approve, he knew she knew, no more was said. They’d had that fight already.
“There was a thuoch there.”
“You should have brought it with you.”
“It had a baby.”
“Ah.” He wound more sinew. He was almost at the end of it.
“It also had brown coming in on its face.”
“It’s warming. We’ll have to finish your coat with turned fur.” He flicked his spines at her knowingly. “How was the road?”
“Still filled in pretty good.”
“Yes.”
“But I think we could climb over it if we wanted to. With the snowshoes.”
He nodded distractedly. Nodding was something he’d picked up from her over the winter and it still didn’t look quite normal on him. He finished with his sinews and set the finished spools aside so he could pull the mimuts toward him.
She watched him skin them, as easily as if they were wearing little fur jackets. Then she watched him finish the butchering she’d started. She handed him a skewer when he reached for one. She brought the pot over so he could stew the organs he liked, and the smaller pot for the brains to make the hide-cure. Mimuts didn’t have a lot of fur, but they’d be good to line her sleeves or something. She waited and he waited with her.
“You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“Big scaly jerk.”
He hissed through his teeth, but playfully. This wasn’t an argument, not yet.
“When are we leaving, Meoraq?”
“When leaving will not kill us, Soft-Skin.”
She sighed and sat down by the fire, pulling one of the fresh pelts over her knee so she could start scraping. Now it was his turn to watch her.
“Are you angry?” he asked after a few quiet minutes.
“Not really. But I’m not happy. Look,” she said, shoving the half-scraped pelt away and facing him. “I know you’ve given up on my sister. I know you don’t even consider her a factor when you think about us moving on. I can’t do that yet.”
He didn’t argue, didn’t say anything, just waited.
“I’m trying to trust you,” she told him. “I am trying. But one of these days, I’m going to leave without you.”
He took that well, although he couldn’t quite prevent himself from rolling his eyes a little. When he’d more or less controlled himself, he nodded again and even gave her a two-knuckle nudge to the shoulder.
“I’ll look at the road,” he said. “But if I say it isn’t safe, you will submit to my judgment. At least for a few days.”
“How many is a few?”
“Six.”
No surprise. It was his favorite number.
“All right,” she said, and resumed scraping. “But if the road does look good, we have to be out of here the next day, okay?”
“If possible. I think you underestimate how much time it takes to ready supplies, now that we have them.”
“I just don’t want you running up unnecessary delays, that’s all.”
“Mm. I do that,” he agreed mildly. “I’m always losing consciousness for days at a time and laming myself…or am I thinking of you?”
“I wasn’t lamed! I just limped for a few days! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, lizardman, but there’s ice everywhere!”
“I’m not the one who wants to walk in it.” He leaned toward her and rubbed his snout up and down along her throat, letting her know they could fight if she wanted to, but he was already winning.
“Maybe we should pack now so we’re always ready,” she suggested.
He glanced tolerantly around the cave. “Some things, I suppose. I’ll see what I can do about making another sled.”
“We can leave some stuff here, can’t we? I mean, we’ll have to come back this way, right?”
“I have not been curing hides all winter to leave them behind. Besides, the cold will last another brace of days at least in this corner of Gann’s world and you can’t hold your heat.”
“Yeah, yeah. So what do you need me to do?”
He moved her hair and nipped suggestively at the scar he’d given her for a wedding present.
Amber heaved a sigh at him, but she was grinning. Every night with this guy. Twice, most nights. The only times he’d ever let her alone were when she was on the rag and he’d made it clear even then that he was humoring his silly wife by doing so. “Are we really going to do this now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, hang on.”
At her gentle insistence, he released her and stood back while she moved the fresh hides and turned the roasting mimuts over. “But seriously,” she said, untying her belt. “What can I do to speed things up?”
“Speed is not a virtue in this undertaking, Soft-Skin.” He pulled his belt off, looped it playfully around the back of her neck and pulled her close for a quick nuzzle. Then it was all business—loosening ties, unbuckling bootstraps, peeling off outer layers, exposing inner ones. People in the movies made this part look so spontaneous, but it was actually something of a process when you were dressed for winter in the mountains. “It is not the snow that lies on the road that concerns me as much as the snow that still lies on the mountain.”
“What about it?” asked Amber, hanging up his coat.
“Ice on the ground can melt from beneath,” he explained, sitting down to work his boots off. “When that happens, the weight of the snow on top can cause it to break off in large packs and fall.”
“Yeah, it’s already happening some places. So what are you saying? We wait until the snow falls onto the road and then we walk out over the top?”
He sighed, then beckoned to her and took off his tunic and dropped it on the floor. “This is a mountain thaw,” he told her, gesturing at it. “You see how it seems to lie flat, yet there are many folds and thin places over pockets of air that reach who knows how deep? Snow can smother a man quicker than you might think, or crush him, or cut him open.”
“We’re not waiting here until the snow completely melts, so forget it!”
“Calm yourself. What I propose,” he said, gathering her against his bare body, “is that we climb out a little higher along the southern face, where the snow has already broken free, and travel on the cleared slope. It is not so safe a crossing as I would like, so I must limit the time we would spend in the open pass.”
“Meaning?”
“Patience, Soft-Skin.” He nuzzled at her shoulder again. “Patience is more than a word. It means that we will walk for every moment there is light, with little or no rest. It means we will not stop to hunt, but must have provisions to see us entirely through.”
“We may also need to conserve our energy while we’re traveling and not waste it frivolously having sex.”
“We may,” he said gravely, backing her toward the cave wall which Amber had privately dubbed ‘Meoraq’s screwin’ place’. “We’ll have to store up some of that, too. Do you want to show me your belly or your back?”
“You hopeless romantic, you.”
“Back it is.” He nipped her on the jaw and turned her around.
“Oh fine, but I get the next round in bed.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“And take your panties all the way off this time. That thing is cold as hell on a lady’s ass.”
“Demanding creature.” But his loin-plate clanked to the floor and then his arms were a warm girdle around her middle. He nuzzled thoroughly at her neck, breathing deeply and managing not to catch too much of her hair in his teeth until he deemed she’d had enough foreplay (the concept was still fairly strange to him). Without further ceremony, he tugged her hips into position and pierced her, slipping at once into that detached trance he claimed was a tribute to her overwhelming sensuality.
Amber closed her eyes against the sight of her hands splayed over the rough rock wall, letting the moan that wanted to happen just happen—a tribute to his overwhelming sensuality. Hearing it, the steady rhythm of his breaths broke in a dry laugh. “Try not to move.”
