Page 225 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER ONE

Grace

I ’m not exactly surprised to find myself in the dreamspace.

I felt the weight of a gaze constantly on me as we ate dinner, even without Molly’s elbow in my side, her eyes darting in Calran’s direction to draw my attention to him.

Unlike the other raskarrans who looked everywhere at everyone, Calran never wavered, his eyes always on me.

Mercenia may not have put much effort into their medic training, not even bothering to teach us to read, leaving us to rely instead on memorised procedures, treatment checklists that rarely fit any patient perfectly.

But the medics I trained under were as passionate about their profession as Shemza is.

They taught me what Mercenia’s rote learning couldn’t.

The power of dispassion, how to care deeply and not at all at the same time, how to coax the information you need out of a patient.

How to observe them, read their tells and cues so you don’t need to ask them anything at all.

The raskarrans aren’t like humans, but after several weeks living with them, I think I’ve got a pretty good read on their behaviour.

I know the difference between someone like Callif, who’s enamoured with the idea of having a mate and not any one of us girls in particular, and someone like Shemza, whose infatuation with Lorna wouldn’t have diminished even if the dreamspace had never come for them.

The heartspace knows. That’s what Rachel says Vantos says about their own mating. I think I’ve got a pretty good read on when a raskarran’s heartspace knows. And Calran, in the few glimpses I dared to take over dinner, was exhibiting all the signs.

He’d taken one look at me, and he’d known.

It’s a thought that exhilarates me as much as it terrifies me.

I sit up, rising out of the mounds of soft furs I’m lying in, knowing it’s going to be his face I see.

Several emotions war inside me for dominance, but I take a breath, exerting my medic’s control over them.

Acknowledge them all one at a time, then set them aside.

Happiness, fear, excitement, anxiety, delight, dread.

He’s sitting in a chair opposite the bed, watching me with big brown eyes, a half smile curling up the corners of his full lips.

His long hair hangs over his shoulders, streaked with grey, fine lines around his eyes.

Older than most of the eligible raskarrans.

It surprises me. In the quiet hours of the night, when sleep evaded me, I’d given some thought to what I would like my mate to be like.

Older was the one thing I was sure I didn’t want.

“Grace,” he says, his voice a low rumble, full of heat.

“You know my name.”

“I asked your tribe brothers for it. I saw you and knew that no other female would be entering my dreams.”

The heartspace knows.

“And you’re Calran,” I say, my voice catching in my throat a little.

“I am.”

He looks pleased, as if he takes my knowledge of his name to mean I was as instantly smitten with him as he was with me.

I point to his tattoos.

“Rachel told us about a raskarran in Darran’s tribe with tattoos like the Cliff Top tribe.”

His hand shifts, wrapping around his forearm as if to hide the markings from view.

“Vantos told us of how those Cliff Top males attacked you. Know that I would never mean harm to another without good cause.”

“That’s what Rachel told us. Not to be afraid.”

“And are you unafraid?”

I hesitate, his brows dipping into the smallest frown as he notices.

I swallow past the fear that grips my throat.

I’ve known that there would be a good chance of the dreamspace forming for me ever since Liv first mentioned this plan to join the tribes together.

Had time to think about how to approach it.

Decided that honesty would be the best thing. So I take a breath, tell the truth.

“I’m not any more afraid of you than I would be of anyone sitting there.”

“You fear having a mate?” Calran’s voice is soft, gentle.

“Yes,” I say, my voice tremulous. I swallow again, re-exert my control over my emotions. “But it’s not something I don’t want. I like the idea of having a mate very much.”

“But ideas are safe, while reality is not.”

His words surprise me, and it must show on my face, for Calran inclines his head in acknowledgement.

“Vantos did not only speak to us of the Cliff Top tribe,” he says. “I understand that the world you are from was not a kindly place, that you have learned to be fearful of things that to us it makes little sense to fear.”

“Yes.” My voice shakes again.

Calran nods, then meets my gaze, holds it.

“My Grace, I wish for you to know that you have nothing to fear from me, but I understand that it may take time for trust to build between us. You do not need to fear my impatience or lack of understanding. I have lived many seasons knowing I would never know my linasha. Knowing you at all is the greatest gift. It is not one I would squander. I only ask that you would help me to understand your fears so that I might not trigger them.”

I hear his words. Vaguely. Part of me registers that they are sweet and swoons. But the bigger part of me is frozen in response to the first thing he said.

My Grace.

I know this is how the raskarrans refer to their mates when they don’t call them linasha. How many times have I heard Shemza use the phrase ‘nhi Lorna’ since their mating? I always thought it was sweet, but hearing that possessive ‘my’ next to my own name just sends me back ten years.

My breeder is defective.

Calran shifts and I flinch, my body reacting instinctually, the movement happening before I have a chance to think about it, to hold the instinct in. Calran holds himself very still for a long moment, before sitting back in the chair, putting himself further away from me.

“I can see I have triggered some already.”

There’s no judgement, no sneer in his voice, but the drive to placate him, to beg his forgiveness, is difficult to ignore.

“Please explain to me what I have done wrong, so that I do not do it again, my Grace. I wish for you to be comfortable with me above all else.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” I say. “Not really. I don’t want you to feel bad for doing what comes naturally to you.”

“I will feel bad only if I repeat the actions that you do not like. Until then, we are just two people from different worlds coming to an understanding.”

He gives an easy smile, and it’s impossible not to smile back.

“So you’d tell me if I did something to make you uncomfortable?”

“Of course,” he says. “Though I think it very unlikely you could do anything to make me uncomfortable.”

He grins, clearly trying to put me at ease with humour, but his words make me tense again.

“And I have said another wrong thing.” Calran ducks his head, giving me a sheepish smile. “I will say nothing further until you have explained to me.”

I wonder where to begin. True to his word, Calran says nothing as I search for a way to explain which will make sense to a guy who can’t begin to comprehend the world I come from.

“You called me ‘my Grace’,” I say in the end. “I know that’s how raskarrans refer to their mates, and I know you don’t mean anything bad by it, but I belonged to someone once and being reminded of it is very difficult for me.”

“You had a mate before, one from your own world?” His voice is gentle, but I can see how he is holding himself back, guarding his emotions every bit as much as I’m trying to.

“No. When I say ‘belonged’, I mean he owned me. Like you own a knife or a spear. He bought me. I’m not sure you’ll know what that means. You don’t have currency here.”

“It is like a trade?” Calran says. “If another has a well-made knife that I desire, I might give him a pelt I have worked on in exchange.”

“Yes, like that.”

I watch the horror he feels play out on his face.

“You can trade for people in your world?”

“If you’re wealthy enough, you can trade for just about anything.”

He’s silent for a moment.

“Why would someone seek to own another person?”

It almost hurts how unimaginable it is to him.

“Sometimes for labour,” I say. “Having someone else around to do jobs they don’t like.

Cooking, cleaning, that sort of thing.” I take a steadying breath.

“The man who bought me - he came from a tier, a tribe, that didn’t have many of their own women.

Male children were more desired, so they would have…

treatments, to ensure any child conceived was a boy.

Which meant after a while, the men outnumbered the women.

So the men without wives who wanted a child - someone to continue the family line - they would sometimes buy a woman from another tribe. As a breeder.”

There’s a long moment of silence as he processes this.

“Humans can seed a child with someone who is not their mate?”

“Yes.”

“And a male from another tribe traded with your tribe so he could own you? To seed his youngling in you?”

“Yes.”

“And your tribe chief allowed this?”

His outrage is palpable, and despite knowing it’s not aimed at me, I still start to shrink before I catch myself, try to force myself to stay open.

“Our tribe chiefs didn’t care about us the way Gregar cares about his tribe. The way I’m sure Darran cares for yours.”

“I cannot fathom how difficult that must have been for you.”

My throat is tight, my voice squeaking out of it as I speak my next words.

“It was over ten years ago,” I say, the instinct to minimise overriding my intention to be truthful for a moment. “I’ve been free from him longer than he owned me.”

Calran shakes his head. “Time gives us distance from a thing, but it does not make it any less difficult.”