“I cannot believe I did not see these,” he rumbled, delighted. “They are extraordinary.”
Ke’lar stretched toward the marks left by his ancestors. His glowing eyes shone with awe, his face softened with wonder as he traced the simple figures with his fingers, every line of his face and masculine form beautiful by the luma’s light . . .
“Funny how something could be right in front of you,” she murmured, “and you can’t see it at all.”
He sent her a wry glance. “I came back here searching out danger, not anthropological finds.”
“I didn’t—“ She shook her head and gave a quick smile. “Never mind. Humans did that too, you know. Lived in caves, made cave drawings like these—images of people and animals. They did handprints too. I saw some reproductions of them at the Museum of Natural History.”
He indicated the wall. “Our drawings are like the humans’, Summer?”
On this wall both beasts and two-legged figures had fangs but—
“Yeah,” she murmured, fitting her hand to the print left by a g’hir who must have stood here millennia ago. “Yeah, they’re a lot alike . . .”
Nine
He had already set up the shelter to face the cave’s entrance and Summer scrambled gratefully into the geodesic dome. The heater had warmed the inside enough that the door flap could be left open but still allow them to sit inside comfortably.
The storm didn’t seem to have let up at all and Summer chewed her lip for a moment. “With this rain, and the runoff, the river is going to be impassable, isn’t it?”
“There are passages through the mountains,” he assured as he finished assembling their simple meal. “We will bypass the river and reach the clanhall from the north.”
“But it will take longer,” she said for him.
“Perhaps whatever draws you home—”
He broke off when Summer dropped her gaze, her lips pressed together.
“Now that the valley has flooded,” he continued after a moment, offering her a plate, “the high pass is the only way to reach the clanhall. There is no choice but to take it, even if that way is longer.”
“How much longer?”
His eyes met hers. “I cannot say for certain. A day, perhaps two.”
“Oh, that’s just fucking great,” she muttered. “It doesn’t give me a lot of time to convince your father to help me get home.”
“The journey from Hir to your world will not take long.”
“Yeah.” She gave a wry smile. “Too bad you can’t open a wormhole to take us from here to the clanhall.”
“I would need a ship,” he reminded, smiling a little too. “One cannot open a wormhole with a multari.”
“I didn’t even ask—is she okay? Did you find a place for her?”
“Beya is comfortably housed in a small cavern not far from this one. She was not happy that I left her to come here.” His glowing eyes crinkled. “I think she is jealous of you.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Summer’s eyebrows rose. “Why would she be jealous? And how can you even tell if a multari is jealous anyway?”
He gave a short huff. “She has feelings just as you and I do. Of course she feels jealousy. As to how”—his broad shoulders lifted in a shrug—“when you spend as much time with one as I have with her you come to understand a being, even when she cannot speak.”
Summer took a bite of the food he’d prepared and blinked.
His brow furrowed. “Is there something wrong?”
“Wrong?” she got out, already spooning up more of the stew. “This is fantastic!”
He gave a half shrug. “It is not my best . . .”
She gave a laugh. “Well, now I want to know what your best is.”
“I will hunt a kartlet.” His chest puffed up a bit. “I will roast it for you over an open flame, and season it. Then,” he added with a g’hir chin jerk, “you sample my best cooking.”
Summer dropped her gaze and offered her own half shrug. “I make a real good lemon pie.”
“What is that?” he asked, his eyes bright and curious.
“It’s a dessert . . . from Earth.” Her bit her lip. “Jeez, obviously it’s from Earth. It’s my Granny Crawford’s secret recipe. I’m the only one she taught how to make it. Probably on account of being the only one bugging her to learn it. It’s all from scratch, even the lemon curd. Everybody loves it,” she mumbled, suddenly feeling silly for having bragged on it at all.
“Then I am sure it warrants their esteem,” he rumbled.
Despite his claim that it was nothing more than emergency rations, dinner was delicious, and he seemed very pleased that she took seconds.
“What is ‘bloodhound’?”
Summer blinked at his sudden question—and that he’d said the English word. “What?”
“You said I—that the g’hir—are half ‘bloodhound.’ I do not know what ‘bloodhound’ is.”
“Oh.” She had said that. “It’s a dog.”
“‘Dog’?”