Page 206 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

Bursting from the trees, five more raskarrans join the party.

I know they’re from the same group, as their clothes are the same - patchwork, ragged clothes that look to have been sewn together from lots of pieces of fabric.

Patched and darned and fixed so many times, a bottom tier mother would have been impressed.

No wonder they’re hitting Walset’s tribe for his stuff.

These guys look like they’re just scraping by with what they’ve got.

The new arrivals look like hunters to me.

They have that same lean, quick build that Anghar and Gregar’s other hunters have.

They’re all coated in sweat, breathing hard, some of them bent double as they try to catch their breath.

One steps forwards, a mean-faced raskarran with hard black eyes, and says something to one of the warriors.

“Arztal?” Jestaw says, and I could be wrong, but it sounds like a name, like he’s asking after someone.

Mean Face snarls, barking something and waving a dismissive hand in the direction he’s just come from. Someone’s missing? Have Walset’s tribe already caught up enough that they’ve managed to take one of this group out?

The warrior snaps an order, and suddenly everyone is up and moving, picking up their packs and heading off into the trees.

Jestaw comes back to me, stooping down and taking me by the arm.

I yelp as he pulls me upright, pain lancing through my knee, my temple, but then he’s scooping me up, one arm underneath my knees, the other cradling me to his chest. My body itches at the hold, the implied tenderness of it, but I’m glad not to be thrown over a shoulder or worse, made to run.

One by one, everyone around me starts jogging.

Jestaw takes slow, bounding strides. I bounce around a bit in his arms, but it’s not uncomfortable, and he doesn’t grip me with any kind of tightness, cradling me like I’m fragile.

I watch as raskarrans peel off from the main group, running out at angles away from them, before looping round and rejoining.

I wonder what they’re doing, but then think of the trails we must leave behind us. If there are paths going out in every direction, it will make it harder for someone following to stay on the true trail.

But I don’t let that worry me. Maldek and Walset’s tribe are smart. They won’t let a simple trick like that throw them off.

As time rolls on, the raskarrans not pausing in their run for another break, I feel my eyes start to grow heavy.

The constant rocking motion of being in Jestaw’s arms, along with the burning heat of his chest pressed against me, has me feeling really sleepy, my body crying out for rest to help heal my injuries.

I don’t sleep - every time I get close Jestaw takes a particularly large step, jolting me out of my dozing state - but as I lie there, somewhere halfway in between awake and asleep, I think of something else I can do to help myself.

Dazzik.

Him and his tribe must be nearby. If I can sleep and speak to Dazzik, I can tell him I’ve been taken, that I need his help.

He’d come for me. He might not be in a position to care for me, but he has warriors, he has hunters, he can fight off these raskarrans as sudden and surprising as the attack on Walset’s camp was.

But I’d have to be able to describe where I am.

So I look round as we run, paying as much attention as I can to our surroundings.

A large boulder that looks like a chair fallen on its side.

A tree so wide around the trunk that I think it would take four or five of us girls linking hands to encircle it.

A babbling stream that the raskarrans run up for quite some time. Another way of covering their tracks.

I’m feeling pleased with myself, ready for the night to arrive and sleep to come over me, when a sudden terrible thought occurs to me.

Dazzik’s tribe are nearby. Dazzik’s tribe who are low on food, struggling for supplies.

What if these guys are his?

I shudder against the thought as soon as I have it, prompting Jestaw to frown down at me. I avert my eyes, not wanting him to read anything into my gaze. Would he be able to see my scheming?

Does it even matter, if he’s taking me back to Dazzik even now?

No, Dazzik only just accepted me as real last night, he wouldn’t have been targeting Walset’s tribe as they left the village. He wouldn’t have believed that they even left the village. It was just more of my rambling that didn’t make any sense.

But the thought is persistent, consuming, and every time I look around at the raskarrans running beside me, I see something that makes it feel a little more likely.

Like the way all of these guys are hard - the kind of hard I recognise from bottom tier.

Not enough food, too much hard work. They’re all angles and corded muscle, and not in the sexy kind of way.

In the ‘we’ve been hungry for a long time’ kind of way.

I did not lie about my situation. I cannot care for a mate.

His words bounce round in my mind in time with the throbbing in my temple.

And maybe it’s just that I’ve bashed my head, that I’ve gone from cold to sickly hot, thanks to Jestaw’s heat, but I can’t stop picturing Dazzik ordering his tribe out into the forest to steal what they can.

To do whatever it takes to get them through the rains.

No. He’s been snappy, aloof, hard-edged at times, but he’s not cruel.

I think of the way he brushed his thumb across my cheek, how he looked at me as the truth of my realness started to sink in.

He’s good. He’s gentle and kind and good, and there’s no way he would cause suffering to another to alleviate his own.

If he were that kind of man, he wouldn’t have told me that he couldn’t care for me.

He would have taken me to sate his own needs and let me suffer with him.

He questioned why the warriors of my ‘tribe’ back home didn’t fight to protect me. He put himself in front of me, protecting me, when he thought we were threatened. Dazzik is a good guy. He’s not one of these assholes.

But as we carry on running and running and running, a terrible little voice in the back of my mind whispers to me over and over, growing louder as the throbbing in my temple increases with every pounding step Jestaw takes.

How can you be sure?