Page 6 of Howling Eve (Ragoru Origins #2)

Chapter Six

E ve hugged her shawl around herself as she stared at the frost clinging to the living room windowpane. It had felt chilly when she returned from her gardens, but she hadn’t thought it was quite that cold. This morning, however, had a stinging, abrupt chill to the air that had motivated her to stumble over the large Ragoru sprawled in her way as she hurried to start a fire in the early hours of the morning. The overnight frost wasn’t unexpected… it was just inconvenient.

Although the harvest would keep fine for a while yet, it meant that she would have to quit putting off walking into town to barter for a new mule. Mechanical vehicles didn’t hold up so well in the constant dampness of her foggy little valley. It was her grandparents who had traded in their large land-rider vehicle for a pair of mules and a sturdy wooden cart. Her parents replaced the cart a few years before they died, and it was still in good working order. Unfortunately, the old mule hadn’t lasted beyond her last harvest. Which meant that if she wanted to haul in her barrels of apples and the harvest of pumpkins and vegetables to the market, she needed that mule.

An unhappy sigh left her as she clutched her shawl tighter. She could probably ride the mule back if she got one that was accustomed to a saddle, but it would be a several-day walk to get there. She shivered at the idea of camping out on the road. The icy overnight temperatures were bad enough, but the town itself was at the edge of the Habitable Zone, and her little farm was a little farther out than that. Predators seldom found their way into her valley, but in the thick forest outside of it, it was another story.

Nothing could be done about it, though. What bartering among the other farmers didn’t take care of, she needed the credits for what she could sell to restock her supplies. Her tea, flour, and sugar were all getting low. Biting back another sigh, Eve pulled herself away from the window and headed toward the kitchen. She could hear Skal grumbling quietly to himself by the fire. She hadn’t quite woken him when she tripped over his large, sprawled bulk, but from the way he was grunting in his sleep, she was certain that he wouldn’t sleep much longer. It gave her enough time, perhaps, to collect some eggs for their breakfast. But first she would put the kettle on so that the water had time to heat while she was out feeding the chicken and gathering the eggs from the coop behind the house.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Eve grabbed the kettle from the stove and stuck it under the faucet. Opening the lever, cold well-water splashed into the kettle. She usually only filled it less than halfway so as to not waste water, but there was also her guest—companion?—to consider. Did Ragoru drink tea? She didn’t even know if he would eat fried eggs for that matter. Better to make enough for both of them, and if he declined, then there was no harm, and she would know better next time. It wasn’t like her hens didn’t produce more eggs than she’d ever been able to eat by herself.

Igniting the burner on the stove, she filled a large cup full of seed and fetched the collection basket down from where it was hanging by the door. A quick glance in Skal’s direction affirmed that the male was still sound asleep, now sprawled on his back, the shorter fur along his muscles and belly showing off a distracting amount of impressive muscular definition. At that angle, it was harder to ignore the similarity in build between their species—if not for al the pale gray fur, a thick, rounded sheath that hid away his sex and everything inhuman below his knees and above the thick muscle of his pectorals. There was so much of him that was simply alien, but the sculpted shape of his torso made her cheeks flush with awareness, and she couldn’t quite help glancing down curiously at his furred bulge and the full testicles that lay just behind it. She knew that he didn’t wear clothes like humans did—who could blame him with all the thick protective fur covering his body?—but given that Skal spent so much of his time crouching when he was at rest, Eve simply hadn’t given much thought to what his body was like until seeing it spread out before her.

She ran her tongue along her suddenly dry lips. She knew that Ragoru and humans were breeding compatible—otherwise there wouldn’t be women who were sent from the citadels to be mated with them following the agreement between the high citadel and the Feriknikal. She had just never really been able to conceive of how exactly it worked. Staring down at his torso, even with his cock hidden away, she suddenly had a much better idea of how a woman would fit against a Ragoru’s much larger body.

Heat gathered within her and spread across her chest and deep into her belly as she stared, transfixed. His hips pumped up with a growl, the thick, dark head of a cock pushing through his sheath with a stream of hot liquid spurting down both lengths, causing an instantaneous reaction within her as a warm, musky scent hit her nose. Her belly clenched with excitement, and heat gathered between her thighs as his sheath stretched even further as a second cock extruded with the first. Holy Mother! Here she was just watching his dick make an appearance like a pervert.

Eve’s eyes slammed shut as she spun away, her breath bursting from her in a tiny, humiliating pant. Blindly grabbing ahold of the doorknob, she hurried out into the cold morning air, allowing the door to swing shut behind her. She drew in a deep breath of the cold morning air and then another as she took a moment to allow her cheeks to cool. She fanned herself, her eyes roving around the foggy yard around the house, a soft, nervous chuckle escaping her.

Gracious Mother of All, that was something. She couldn’t recall ever being that worked up—with barely even seeing anything at that. Even Victor, when he was excited and ready to fuck, didn’t inspire such a strong reaction in her. And he had been considered very attractive by the locals when he moved into town. So much so that she had believed herself lucky to have attracted his attention and protection. Certainly, several women in town had fussed over it, cooing over the way he was always by her side when she came into town, eager to help. Of course, she could have been flattered, and it only made sense to accept his proposal to ease some of the loneliness. She had just assumed that her lack of enthusiasm for intimacy with him was because she wasn’t a very sexual person.

She had barely warmed with his impatient groping, but now she was burning up with desire with only a glimpse of what Skal offered as he slept. She shivered at the thought and hurried around to the back of the house, where she was promptly greeted by the cluck of her hens and the ornery call of her rooster as he hopped up onto the roof of the coop. His wings beat the air for a moment until he realized that she was scattering seed over the grass and dropped with a flurry of feathers down to eat with his ladies. Eve shook her head at them and continued to toss seed out away from the coop until her cup was empty and she could set it aside. Picking her basket up from the grass once more, she made her way over to the coop and hunted for the eggs among the little nests inside before scouting around the outside for any sign of eggs laid and hidden in the grass. Her lips curled with every recovered egg until she had nearly a neat dozen in her basket and a broad grin on her face as she headed back to the house with breakfast.

As it happened, it didn’t take much to wake Skal up. The smell of hot eggs coming off the pan and tea brewing was soon accompanied by the quiet steps of a Ragoru coming to investigate. His twitching nose peeking into the kitchen was the first thing that she saw, and it was quickly followed by the rest of his head. His yellow eyes fastened on her and his tongue swept over his sharp teeth and muzzle.

“That smells good, hu—Eve,” he corrected, earning a pleased smile from her at his quick recovery despite his mean glower.

“I’m glad you think so, because I made plenty. Come sit. I will give you the tea unsweetened, and you can doctor it as you like. There is goat milk and a small amount of sugar left in the bowl.” She gestured to the set table, and he gave it a wary look as he slowly approached it.

Skal gripped the chair in one hand and wiggled it a bit before letting it go with a disdainful snort, his muzzle wrinkling in a clear grimace. She watched him from the corner of her eye as she flipped an egg, curious as to what he was going to do. Giving one final disgusted look at the chair, he stalked out of the house, the door slamming shut behind him. Eve stared at the door, her mouth gaping open in surprise, wondering if he had simply left her, but then jumped at the sharp crack that came from outside. It was followed by three others, and then suddenly the door flew open again, and Skal entered carrying a large log that she immediately recognized.

Nearly half her height and more than double the reach of her arms, the log he brought in was one that she’d used for chopping wood on. She couldn’t even lift the blasted log, and Skal carried it inside and thunked it on the floor at the table as if it were practically weightless. She stared at it, a protest forming on her lips as she thought about all the borrowing insects that he had surely carried in with it until she noticed that he not only stripped off the bark but several layers of wood growth while he was outside. Although it was possible that some pests lingered, Eve relaxed considerably as the Ragoru settled on it with a deep grunt of approval before picking up the teacup closest to him.

Bringing the cup close to his muzzle, Skal sniffed and carefully lapped at the tea. Eve swallowed back a laugh at the way his face twisted, and his tongue hung out slightly as he shuddered at the bitter flavor.

“Poison!” he snarled around a gag.

“No, I swear it’s not. Sorry,” she giggled. “I should have warned you that the tea is pretty strong without being fixed up at all. Just add a little cream and sugar until it’s how you like it.”

His eyes narrowed, his ears flattening suspiciously, but she just smiled at him guilelessly as she flipped the eggs onto the two plates on the counter in front of her. His eyes never left her as he reached for the small pitcher of cream. He drizzled in a small amount and followed it with a small cube of sugar before taking another experimental taste. He grimaced again, but she was glad that his reaction was not quite so strong. He continued to tweak the contents of his cup as she loaded their plates with honey-roasted tubers and pumpkin, some sausage links she found in the cooling box, and a sort of milled grain pancake from a strain of wheat that was a combinant variation created from an indigenous strain hybridized with one from earth. By the time she brought the plates to the table, she was pleased to see that his hackles were no longer raised, and he was contently lapping at the tea in the cup. His ears pricked with interest, however, when his eyes fell upon the plates and his expression turned suspicious.

“You prepared all this for me? Why?”

She gave him a confused look. Although they ate fruit, bread, and small flaky bits of ghost cheese throughout much of the day, it wasn’t like she hadn’t cooked for him. Granted, the pumpkin soup, while filling, didn’t quite have the same presentation as the spread now laid out before them. Eve looked over it and shrugged.

“I figured that I might as well work on using up some of what’s left of my supplies and take the opportunity to fill my belly now before I make my way to town. You may as well enjoy it, too, since it will be the last of my cooking for a while. It will take me a few days to make the trip,” she hurried to explain when his brow lowered, “but I’m sure that you’ll be glad to have the house to yourself, and there’s plenty of game that makes its home in the valley. You’re of course welcome to make use of anything you find—except my animals,” she clarified. “The goat and the chickens are off-limits. And the mule I bring back will be, too.”

A soft growl left him, his yellow eyes slitting, and for a moment Eve felt a fear conflict with a bizarre sense of arousal that swept through her.

“Why?” He snarled. “Who do you go to meet?”

“Meet?” She blinked at him. “Well, hopefully someone is willing to let me buy their mule off of them.”

Some very small amount of the tension around him eased. “I don’t understand,” he grumbled bitterly, and Eve gave him a sympathetic look. “You are speaking in confusing riddles, and I do not like it. Stop.”

Eve bristled, her sympathy waning rapidly as she glared at the male seated across the table from her in Victor’s place. Speaking in riddles? She did no such thing. She was simply being honest with him. It wasn’t her fault that he was dumped on her planet with the expectation to breed with humans that they knew nothing about. And yet he was angry with her . Part of her wanted to verbally strike back at him and give him a piece of her mind over his own social failings. There was no reason for him to be so snarly with her! She never appreciated it when Victor snapped or snarled at her over the most ridiculous things, but she had overlooked it because he was who she had chosen. That didn’t mean that she was going to take it from an uninvited Ragoru who had invaded her home. A sharp word lingered on the tip of her tongue, but she reluctantly bit it back as she considered the way he hunkered defensively over his plate, his ears laid back as if expecting some manner of retaliation.

She frowned at that and sighed heavily, drawing his wary yellow gaze reluctantly to her. That touched something within her. Although he was a very convincing brute, there was something vulnerable about the way he looked in that moment that touched her heart a little. She empathized with it because she often felt that way when dealing with the townspeople, after dealing with the small-minded meanness of so many of the people there. Despite how many people tried to coax her multiple times to move into town when she was left all on her own, she knew that it wasn’t because anyone there genuinely cared about her. And now she no longer had Victor to act as a buffer, allowing her to escape their attention, so now every interaction was one filled with anxiety for her.

Although she didn’t know what potential trauma Skal suffered to get him to react that way, she believed she understood. He was confused, and for some reason, the idea of her meeting with someone upset him—perhaps because it made him suspicious that she was going to look for someone to remove him from her farm. He didn’t trust her, and so he was relying on his instinctual impulse. She understood that. So, she merely needed to reassure him and explain to him exactly what she was doing.

“A mule is a beast of burden. An animal that will help me transport my crops to the town a short distance from the valley for credits or to barter for goods that I need. Things like the sugar and tea,” she pointed out. “Or the flour here in our pancakes. Unfortunately, my mule died after my last harvest of spring fruits, which means I need to make the walk to town to get a new mule. It is a long walk, and when I get back, I will need to work quickly to begin my harvest, so I guess this meal is kind of an apology in that I will be very busy.”

She cringed a little as he stared at her blankly, recalling that his offer to allow her to stay rather than chase her away didn’t mean he would miss her. He had never explicitly shown any interest in having a companion. He probably didn’t even feel the same consuming loneliness that she did. She was about to backtrack and apologize when he suddenly opened his mouth and surprised her.

“Show me this wagon.”

Leaving their plates on the table, she led him out into the side yard of the house where the two large wagons waited, already hitched together. Skal’s gaze roved over them, and he gripped the shafts that would connect the modified wagon to a single mule’s harness. He gave the wagon a sharp, speculative look and gave it a brief tug, grunting when it rolled forward effortlessly. His eyes fell on her, just as distant as ever, but they narrowed perceptively with a look that she couldn’t even begin to decipher.

“I do not like your plan. The woods are dangerous, and you plan to walk far and all alone. I will do it. We will prepare your harvest, and I will pull your wagon.”

She gaped at him in shock. “Skal, that’s generous, but it will be very heavy.”

He snorted dismissively. “I have hauled many kills much larger over great distances to feed my family…” his voice faded, and a look of loss overcame him before he pushed it back away behind an inscrutable mask. “It will be nothing. You will have protection. And in town, you will make your trade and get your mule. Then we will return and prepare for winter.” He grunted, giving her home a cynical look. “There is much to do,” he grumbled as he stalked back into the house, assumingly for his breakfast, leaving her staring speechless after him.

Prepare? What exactly did he think needed to be done? There was absolutely nothing wrong with her home. After the harvest was brought in and her supplies restocked from town, she would have all that was needed. Wrapping her shawl around herself, she followed after him at a furious pace, determined to get some kind of answer from him over breakfast.