Page 165 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “You’re the one who needs to back the fuck up.”

She drops one hand to the knife on her belt, using the other to point him towards the fire. Larzon looks confused for a long moment, like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. Then, with a loud huff, he stalks off. Khadija watches him until he’s out of sight.

“You alright?” she says, turning to me.

I nod, but quickly change my mind, shaking my head as the tears that have been close to spilling over all morning finally come loose. They track down my face, but I don’t sob. Like everything else I do these days, I cry silently.

“We’re going to go back to your hut, okay? I’m going to get you sat down and comfortable, and then I’m going to go find Liv.”

I shake my head, but Khadija doesn’t budge.

“I know what you’re thinking. It doesn’t matter, he didn’t really do anything, you’re not that important, blah, blah, blah.

That’s bottom tier thinking, Carrie. You’re not bottom tier here.

It does matter. That fuckwit has been posturing all day, and he needs a good slap on the wrist and a long patrol away from the village to think about what he’s done.

I won’t stand for him scaring you that way.

Liv won’t stand for him scaring you that way.

Now come on, let’s get you sitting down. You’re shaking.”

I look at the flower in my hand, watch it twitch and dance about due to my trembling. I hadn’t even noticed.

Khadija puts an arm round my shoulder, steers me to my hut. She sits me in my chair, takes the medicine and the slate out of my hand, setting them down on the side. The flower she grimaces at, but fetches one of my cups and slices the stem shorter with her hunting knife so it fits inside it.

“May as well have something pretty to look at,” she says. “Unless you’d rather me throw it out?”

I shake my head. It is a pretty thing. A shame I had to receive it under such circumstances.

Khadija gets me a blanket, once again seeing something I hadn’t noticed myself.

Now the rush of fear has passed, I’m cold, my body aching from holding itself so tense.

I wrap the blanket round myself, snuggling into the comfort of its soft warmth.

My mind goes back to Endzoh sitting next to me, his heat.

I wouldn’t mind being sat beside him again, right now. He would make me feel safe.

It’s a strange thing to think about someone I barely knew before yesterday, but I know in a way I can’t rationalise that I’m safe with him. That having him here with me would make the trembling go away.

Fortunately, I can’t speak, so I can’t do anything as ridiculous as ask for him to come.

Khadija leaves to find Liv, returning a few minutes later. Liv looks furious, her eyes blazing.

“Are you alright?” she asks, ducking down so she’s on my level.

I raise my hand and make the ‘okay’ gesture.

“I’m so sorry, Carrie. It was very, very wrong of Larzon to behave that way and if Darran and Gregar don’t kick his arse into next week, I’m going to do it for them.”

She’s even smaller than Khadija, but I don’t doubt her for a second.

She huffs as she rises to her feet, pulling over my second chair so she can sit next to me, Khadija hovering beside us like a bodyguard.

“Probably a dumb question,” she says, “but based on conversations I’ve had with Rachel and Lorna, I need to ask - are you at all attracted to Larzon?”

My face must make my feelings pretty clear.

“I thought that would be the answer,” Liv says, a hint of a smile curving her lips. “Good. It can be an unambiguous ‘leave her the fuck alone’, then.”

At my questioning look, she clarifies.

“The raskarrans say they know their mates as soon as they see them. And that might not be the way we think about relationships forming, but there’s been a pretty instant attraction between all the mated pairs we’ve had so far.

I just wanted to check that angry and overbearing wasn’t secretly doing something for you. ”

Khadija snorts. “Because they’re really attractive qualities.”

Liv shrugs a shoulder. “Gregar can be overbearing. In the right context, it’s hot.” Then she sighs, turning back to me. “Not when it’s scaring the shit out of you, though.”

She pushes her long hair back out of her face, looking in the direction of the fire as if she can see through my hut walls.

She looks tired, I realise, and I wonder how much of that is the impact of her developing pregnancy, and how much is worry over us girls and everything the tribe has gone through since we arrived.

Vantos injured, Ellie and Anghar’s tumultuous start, the threat from the Cliff Top tribe.

It all must be weighing on her, along with everything happening now with Darran’s tribe.

“I knew there were going to be some teething problems, joining the tribes this way,” she says. “All the raskarrans want mates, and they’ve got to have noticed that there are only three of us left. Four if you count Molly in a few years’ time.”

“And Sam,” Khadija says.

“God, yes, Sam. Four. Five, including Molly. Either way, not enough. A lot of them are going to go without mates. If it were still as simple as the dreamspace forming overnight, it wouldn’t be a problem.

They’d just have to accept it and suck it up.

But now we know the bond can form at any time.

Gregar’s tribe had days of ‘knowing’ they couldn’t be our mates.

If they’re not already convinced despite that the way Shemza and Vantos were, they’re not going to start pushing.

But Darran’s tribe don’t have that. They’ve left their homes and their lives behind to come here.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they feel like they’re owed something in return. ”

“Desperation plus entitlement equals Larzon,” Khadija says, her expression grim.

“I still don’t think he means to be a dick.

” Liv looks to me with an apology in her expression.

“I think maybe he’s convinced himself that you’re his mate, and in his incompetent, angry way, he’s trying to court you.

It doesn’t make it any more excusable, and I’m not trying to say you need to forgive him any time soon. I just…”

“It’s difficult, when they just don’t have a clue,” Khadija finishes.

Liv’s expression twists with discomfort. “He needs to face some consequences. But raskarran punishment… Compared to the sorts of things Mercenia dished out, it’s going to look a little rubbish.”

Given that Mercenia so often punished people who didn’t have any choice in their actions, I’m not as disappointed about this as Liv seems to expect me to be. Then she continues.

“He’s going to be spoken to.”

I must have a pretty clear ‘is that it?’ face, because Liv immediately puts her hands up, placating me.

“I know, I know. But please trust me, it’s much worse for them than it sounds.

” She sighs, pushing her hair back out of her face.

“In raskarran culture, there are a lot of rules about respect and honour. And if your chief has to speak to you, it’s not a quiet word in a hut between two people.

He does it in front of everyone, making the tribe witness to your shame. It’s extremely humiliating for them.”

Her expression goes even more serious. “Raskarran society doesn’t really have the kinds of problems we had back home.

They don’t steal - why would they need to?

And they might get in arguments and fights, but there’s never any doubt about their loyalty to the tribe.

Generally speaking, raskarran ‘crimes’ don’t warrant anything more than a talking to.

But they do have a harder punishment.” She looks me straight in the eye as she says it. “Exile.”

I’m not even being threatened with it, and I feel a shiver go through me at the thought.

“It’s practically a death sentence,” Liv says.

“Raskarrans are social creatures. They need their tribe around them. They can survive on their own, but it’s not good for them.

Exile is usually reserved for the very worst of offenses.

Where a raskarran is considered to be irredeemable in the eyes of the tribe. ”

She pauses, smoothing away non-existent creases in her trousers as she lets her words sink in.

“I want you to feel safe,” she says. “That’s my first priority.

I don’t think you were ever not safe, but I know there’s sometimes a massive gulf between the way things are and the way things feel in the moment.

I’m going to make sure that he’s spoken to, that he’s told not to come near you again, and if I have my way, he’s going to be given the shittiest warrior duties for the next month. Is that enough?”

I think about it for a moment. A few minutes ago, I was half convinced Larzon would have hurt me if I hadn’t given him my name.

But now the adrenaline has faded, I recall how easily Khadija pushed him back, how he left when she ordered him to.

He’s a dick, for sure, but he never did anything that came close to laying a hand on me.

All he’s really done is get in my face and give me a flower.

It doesn’t deserve a death sentence.

Shitty warrior duties, public humiliation and an order to stay away from me? It’s enough.

I nod. Liv takes my hand. Gives it a squeeze.

“We’ll get this sorted, Carrie, I promise.”