Page 154 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

I turn away from the girls and their conversations.

Trying to distract myself, I think of Mom’s stories.

All those moments when the princes and princesses laid eyes on each other for the first time.

How their hearts would pound, their stomach flutter, their mouths grow dry, the world around them narrowing down to just the person in front of them.

This is what the stories have taught me to expect from meeting the person you’re destined to be with - and Rachel, Ellie, Liv and Lorna haven’t said anything to convince me the fairytales are horribly wrong.

Around the fire, the raskarrans are preoccupied with their food.

I take the chance to have a good look at them, counting maybe six younger males, though a couple of them look like they’re the human equivalent of forty, rather than in their twenties like us.

I gaze at them each in turn, waiting for my heartbeat to start speeding up, or any of the other symptoms of infatuation to start.

There’s the one with the tattoos on his arms, Darran’s blood brother.

Calran, I recall. Rachel talked about him a bit when she came back from visiting with Darran’s tribe.

He looks like his brother, but rather than a full head of grey hair, Calran’s is only just starting to turn in places.

It gives him a refined look, and I can tell he’s a gentle kind of soul, despite the Cliff Top tribe markings on his arms. The most I feel looking at him is a desire that he mates to one of the other girls. He would be a good mate, I think.

Next to him is another older raskarran. This one has orangey eyes that burn with enough intensity to make me drop my head, in case he sees me looking. From the brief glimpse I get, I see his mouth is pinched, his brows knitted close together. The thought of him in my dreams makes me shudder.

The two from earlier, Mavren and Flarin, get their food together, talking with their heads bowed close, stealing glances in our direction every few moments.

They’re made the same way Anghar and Shemza are - lean and pretty.

The last two are clearly warriors, their shoulders broad and muscled.

One has a full set of lips to rival Darsha’s. The other is entirely unremarkable.

None of them make me feel any kind of spark or heat.

I scan my eyes over Gregar’s tribe, too, studying their more familiar faces.

I thought maybe there would be some tension among them.

There aren’t enough of us girls for everyone to end up with a mate, and Darran’s tribe could snap all of us up tonight, dooming them to be alone for the rest of their lives.

It’s not exactly a small stakes kind of evening.

But if there is tension in them, they hide it well.

Rardek looks, as he always does, absolutely relaxed.

Paskar chats with one of Darran’s tribe, laughing heartily at something.

Darsha’s being pouty, but that’s not so different to how he normally is.

When one of Darran’s tribe leans close and asks him a question, he grins wide enough to show his fangs.

Then my gaze lands on Endzoh, and it’s as if all the tension that everyone else isn’t feeling has collected under his skin.

I watch all his many well-defined muscles shift as he clenches and unclenches his fist, his lips down-turned as he scowls at the floor - the most expression I’ve ever seen from him.

He sits separate from everyone else, his chair further back. Present, but not involved.

Just like me.

I’ve never really given the big warrior much thought.

He keeps himself to himself, and I’ve always thought he didn’t much like any of us girls, bar Khadija.

With how things turned out for Vantos and Rachel and Lorna and Shemza, I figured that was a mating waiting to happen, but they don’t seem to have grown any closer together in the days since.

I’ve not noticed any longing glances, any suggestion of tenderness between them.

Watching him now, I wonder if I’m wrong in my assessment that he doesn’t like us girls. The way he’s positioned himself at the back of the group, his teeth gritting as if against some pain - it makes me think he just doesn’t like being around people full stop.

My gaze must have a weight of its own, because Endzoh looks up, his eyes meeting mine through the gloom. Grey eyes. Not the bright silver of Gregar’s. A softer kind of colour, more reminiscent of rocks than starlight. Pretty eyes. The only thing about him that could be classified as pretty.

I’ve always felt a little intimidated by him.

It’s not just the dislike I thought he had towards us girls.

All the warriors are big and muscled and deadly looking, but the others all have something that softens that a little.

For Maldek - the least built of all the warriors anyway - it’s his easy smile, and the gentleness that he can exude when he wants to.

For Gregar, it’s the way he is with Liv, his devotion to her.

Vantos seemed aloof and distant at first, but I always knew with him that he was committed to our safety, even before Rachel became his mate.

Darsha has a way of looking sullen and displeased, but it didn’t take long to figure out that’s mostly just his face.

I saw him goofing around with Jassal a couple of days after we arrived, and I’ve never been afraid of him since.

But Endzoh…

There’s nothing that softens him. Nothing I’ve ever seen that’s let me glimpse something beyond the unreadable set of his craggy features.

But right now, our eyes locked across the gathering, his discomfort is so clear. It’s like looking into a mirror, seeing my own feelings reflected back at me. Only magnified tenfold.

And in this moment of unlikely connection, I do something I’ve never done before.

I smile at him.

His brows quirk upwards, a tiny little movement.

The downwards curve of his mouth reduces, too, his lips parting ever so slightly.

My eyes are drawn to them, tracking the shape they make.

He’s not handsome, and I don’t think any change in expression would shift his features enough to make him handsome, but somehow that slightest movement of his lips gives him that softness he’s always been missing.

It makes him look… not friendly, not kindly. Nothing that strong. Different. It makes him look different.

A good kind of different.

“Will Sam and Maldek be back soon?” Mattie asks.

The sound of Sam’s name gets my attention, snapping me back to the conversation going on around me. She’s been gone for a long time on her trip to meet with Walset’s tribe. Her continued absence must be starting to get worrying.

Liv shrugs, not looking overly concerned. “I’ve tried to pin Gregar down to an estimate, but Raskarrans aren’t very specific with timings. It’s always ‘a few more sunsets’, or ‘it will happen when it happens’.”

“It’s a nice change of pace from relentless, by the second ‘be here, do this, fill this quota’,” Khadija says, leaning back in her seat. “I don’t miss that.”

“I don’t miss much of anything,” Ellie says.

“Lights,” Hannah offers.

“Hmm, yeah, those would be handy. We wouldn’t get the amazing stars that way, though,” Ellie says.

“Forks,” Mattie suggests, and several people voice enthusiastic agreement. Eating everything with a knife and spoon took a bit of adjusting.

“Indoor plumbing,” Liv says, and they all groan.

None of them mention people. I suspect some of them, like Lorna, don’t have anyone to miss, but I can’t be the only one who left someone behind that mattered.

In the lull that follows Liv’s last comment, the memory of those people looms up between us.

A huge, shared ache that none of us want to face.

“I see no one’s in a rush to get back in the jumpsuit,” Khadija says, bursting the sudden melancholy of the moment by making them all laugh.

As the conversation moves onto a different topic, I touch my fingers to my locket once again.

Feel its unbearable weight.