“I would not be much of a warrior if I needed to call for help and I did not think to be concerned with any but myself.” He gave a huffing chuckle. “I certainly did not expect to share this foresting with a human female.”
His tone was friendly, respectful, not at all seductive, but Summer—suddenly aware of the heat of his body beside hers, the warm scent of him, male with a bit of cinnamon—felt her face go hot.
“I’m good, thanks,” she mumbled and stepped away. “The walking is helping so I should probably move around on my own a bit.”
Ke’lar gave a nod. “I will have the shelter in place shortly.”
Summer moved about and stretched, trying to work the kinks out, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before he had the geodesic dome set up and was carrying the packs in.
He opened the flap to the shelter to invite her in. He already had a heater set up that both lit and warmed the space and had arranged the pallet bed, thick with furs, along the side of the shelter.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, already setting out the water pouches, pulling foodstuffs out.
“Not yet.” They’d eaten some dried meat that reminded her a lot of beef jerky—except it couldn’t possibly be beef—as well as nuts and dried fruit before they set out and again when they’d stopped to rest earlier. But at his size he must need something like five times the calories she did. “And anyway I think I’m too tired to eat.”
“The bed is ready.” He indicated the pallet. “I must tend to Beya.”
“Right,” she murmured.
His brow creased. “What is the matter?”
“Well, to state the obvious . . . there’s only one bed.”
“I have no intention of trying to couple with you,” he growled, his gaze on the supplies he was unpacking and organizing. “I will sleep outside.”
“Okay,” she managed in a rush of embarrassment and annoyance. “No, that’s fine.”
He sought her gaze, confused. “Would you feel safer if I slept inside the shelter instead?”
“I don’t care where you . . . Look, it doesn’t matter. You can sleep in here if you want,” she said shortly. “You might as well share the pallet for all the difference it makes.”
His brow furrowed for an instant, and then he gave a short huff and stood.
“Beya needs to be watered and we need fresh water as well.” He grabbed a few pouches of food, obviously intending to munch as he worked, then lowered the heater’s light to minimum. “Go to sleep. I will be nearby if you have need of me.”
He did not want to sleep.
Sitting inside the shelter now, Ke’lar did not even think he could, though his body cried out for rest at this late hour.
He simply could not stop looking at her. She was asleep, resting easy on the pallet bed he had prepared for her, her arm thrown wide beside her face, her bright hair covering the pillow. Her delicate face was turned toward him, her skin smooth, her full mouth so rounded and pink.
He had seen only two other human women before and they were beautiful.
But she . . . she was exquisite.
Summer . . .
She was very like that season, soft and golden, sweet smelling.
And mate to the heir of an ancient enemy clan.
But one she is fleeing.
She must hate Ar’ar very much to risk her life to escape him. And be very brave to journey through the forests of an unfamiliar world, alone.
Ke’lar breathed her scent in. It was intoxicating; that had to be it. He had his faults, had often struggled with the rules, but he had never endangered his enclosure by his acts, never shown himself as anything other than an honorable man, as one worthy to be called a warrior.
His clan’s feud with the Betari had been a long and bloody one, the reasons for it buried in antiquity. Generations of animosity would unexpectedly blaze into conflict. Only the Scourge, the need for unification against a common enemy, had brought about their treaty.
Just to take and conceal her—the mate of the Betari heir—was justification enough to draw his enclosure into a war with the Betari that could see the destruction of both clans.
Nor could he count on the sanction of his own clan for what he had done. There were few crimes more abhorrent to his kind than to steal a female from her mate, from her clan, especially in the wake of the plague.
Ke’lar knew himself innocent of any crime. He had not stolen her but there were many—including his own father—who were not likely to see things that way. Just concealing her from her clan might earn him banishment from his own.
But . . .
She had taken food and drink from his hand yesterday when he had first hidden her in his shelter. Not as formally done as it should be, certainly, and at first he himself had not realized the significance of what he was doing.
But Summer was human. Would she even know the meaning behind the ritual; that a warrior could provide for his mate and that she would trust him to?