Page 72 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER ONE

Rachel

I must walk past the door of the medical hut five times before I work up the courage to stop in front of it.

It’s a little way from the main cluster of huts that make up the raskarran ‘village’, so I don’t think anyone notices my pacing.

I hope not. I don’t want anyone to see me. Ask awkward questions.

My stomach roils, and I pause my pacing a moment to take a couple of slow, steadying breaths. It’s hard to know if the sickly feeling is just a result of eating well after days on the beach slowly starving, or if it’s the other thing.

It’s got to be the food. The other thing… it’s impossible. Or it should be impossible. And that’s all I need to speak to Grace about. Confirm the other thing is impossible, resume life among the tribe like all the other girls.

Yeah. Just speak to Grace. Get reassurance. Then this worrying can all be done with.

The medical hut is a little different to the residential ones.

All of the buildings are made of wood - branches cut from the trees and shaped and arranged so they lock together.

All around them, a vine grows, squeezing between the gaps in the wood, filling them.

It looks at first glance like they’ve been overtaken by nature, but every hut in the village is the same, so I guess it must be deliberate.

Unlike the plain residential huts, the medical hut has all different vines, some of them growing flowers.

The whole thing is a burst of colour, like the house of some magical creature from a children’s story.

The kind of stories Mama used to whisper to me at bedtime before she lost interest. The kind I whispered to my little brother because there never was a time when she was interested in him.

I wonder if the flowers have medical properties.

Perhaps that’s why they’ve been allowed, or encouraged, to grow over the hut - so Shemza can just nip outside when his supplies are running low and take a cutting.

I like the thought. Back home, medicine was just little white tablets - all indistinguishable from each other - swallowed down in the dingy medical office so the medic distributing them knew you weren’t trading them to some other bottom tier worker.

I’m not sure why they were so concerned about this.

It’s not like any of us had anything worth a damn to trade.

I like the idea that medicine here grows on trees. Or vines, or bushes. I like that I could just walk up to this hut and pluck off whatever I needed. A petal or two to reduce nausea.

No. It’s not the sickly feeling that’s the problem. I don’t mind feeling sick. It’s not pleasant, but it’s ignorable. I can mostly eat through it and it should pass in a few days. Should.

It’s that ‘should’ that’s the problem. Because if it’s just a bug, or my stomach growing used to being full, it will pass. But if it’s the other thing…

Well, I’ll be stuck with the sickly feeling for another few weeks. And a whole heap of problems beyond that.

I should get it over with. Should just stop torturing myself, knock on the door and talk to Grace.

As soon as she tells me that it’s not possible, that I can’t be, I can relax.

Relaxing will probably cure me of the sickly feeling, too, I know.

It’s all just… my own head. As per usual, I’m making problems for myself.

If there’s a problem in the room, Rachel will find it, as Mama used to say.

I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and force myself to knock on the door.

It snaps open a moment later, Grace’s face appearing. She looks dishevelled, her hair wild about her face, her clothes rumpled and askew.

“What?” she says, her voice sharp, and the words I’d lined up to say to her die in my throat. I open and close my mouth, failing to make any sounds come out, when a low moan sounds from inside the hut, followed by a crash.

I consider Grace’s hair, her clothes, and wonder if I’ve interrupted something.

She certainly doesn’t look thrilled to see me.

Did she get visited by one of the tribe in her dreams last night?

Am I interrupting her time with her mate?

My cheeks start to burn, and I’m about to stammer an apology when Grace gives a startled cry and rushes back into the medical hut.

“Rachel, help me!” she calls out.

I head after her, grimacing as I take in a lungful of the air inside the hut.

It stinks of sweat and something sickly, almost sweet.

When I turn, I see why. The big warrior - Vantos - is lying on a bed, thrashing.

His eyes are pinched closed, his green skin flushed dark with fever.

His arms and legs flail about, his mind trapped in some horrible dream.

With every twist and writhe of his body, blood blooms further across the bandages wrapped around his chest. Grace tries to pin one of his arms, to hold him still, but he’s so much bigger than her, he can knock her aside with the slightest effort.

“Shemza’s gone to get fresh supplies,” Grace says. “Something to bring his fever down and fight the infection. But he’s tearing his wounds open again, making himself worse. I’ve been trying to restrain him, but I can’t.”

I look at Vantos. Sweat glistens over his entire body.

There were once furs on the bed, but in all his thrashing, he’s kicked them off, leaving his body exposed.

A loin cloth maintains his dignity just about, but otherwise, every muscled inch of him is on display.

Enormous thighs, bulging arms, broad shoulders.

Grace never stood a chance of restraining him, and I’m smaller than she is. Tiny compared to Vantos.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, not sure there’s anything I can do. Nothing I can do successfully at any rate.

Grace points to a bucket. I go to it, finding it full of water with a cloth inside. I take out the cloth, wringing out the excess water, then head back to the bed. I dodge an arm as Vantos flails wildly.

“See if you can bring his temperature down a bit,” Grace says, grunting as she leans her whole weight on Vantos’ other arm. “Cool his forehead. We’ve got to stop him thrashing before he hurts himself more than he already has.”

I dart past his arm, perching on the bed beside his head, pressing the cool cloth to his forehead. I can feel the heat radiating from him, and the cloth isn’t going to do shit, but I dab him with it anyhow. Anything to feel like I’m not completely useless, like I’m doing something.

“Shh,” I whisper as he groans in pain, twisting and writhing as if to get away from me. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

I don’t know where the words come from. Except, I guess, it’s what I want someone to say to me.

I dab his forehead, then down his cheek to his neck, wiping away the beads of sweat that gather on every part of his skin.

He’s breathing hard, and I can feel the racing pace of his pulse through the cloth as I touch it to the spot just beneath his jaw.

His teeth grit together, and he flails again, nearly knocking Grace clean off her feet.

The blood on his bandages spreads further, and panic rises in my throat.

Because he was standing in front of me when the other tribe attacked. I know he was just fighting to protect everyone, to protect his tribe as much as to protect us girls, but it felt almost like he was protecting me.

It felt like he was shot three times protecting me, and I hate that. Hate that anyone was hurt when all the tribe have done is take care of us - feed us and protect us and give us a home. But it’s worse, somehow, that it’s Vantos. That such a strong, proud male has been reduced to this.

Because of me.

Logically, I know it’s not my fault. But it’s still hard not to feel like it is. And it terrifies me to think that he might not get better.

The cloth in my hand is already warm, so I dash back to the bucket, soaking it again.

This time, I barely wring it out, instead, sluicing the cold water over his chest as I trace the line of his collarbones with the cloth.

He mutters something, his words low and growling, then bares his fangs in a snarl.

Without thinking, I sink my fingers into his hair, smoothing it back from his face, stroking him as I murmur more soft words to him, telling him he’s okay over and over again.

If I say it enough times, maybe it will become true.

I keep brushing my fingers through his hair.

It’s damp with sweat and mussed from his thrashing about.

I tame it for him, coaxing it back into tidiness, and as I do, he starts to settle, the tension leaving his face.

He has quite a hard face - a lot of the other girls are a bit nervous of him.

And I get it. He’s not only bigger than most of the raskarrans, and therefore enormous compared to us little human girls, he’s stern and distant.

He doesn’t try to engage with us the way the others do, just standing off to the side of the group, watching the trees all the time, as if keeping us safe is a big burden, and he’s the one who has to bear all of it.

But as he drifts into a proper sleep, his face relaxes, his brows not going to their usual frowning position, his lips not set in a thin line.

I brush my fingers over his forehead, tracing the new shape of his brow as his eyes relax, no longer pinching shut, just resting.

With all that aloofness melted out of him, he’s handsome.

Softer, too. More vulnerable. If he were awake like this, he’d be approachable, rather than the wall of stern silence he normally is.

Grace sighs with relief, and I jump, snatching my hand back. I’d almost forgotten she was there. She steps back from the bed, bending down to collect the furs and settling them over Vantos’ body. I fuss with them on my side, making sure he’s tucked in.

Grace comes to me and squeezes my shoulder.

“Thank you, that was brilliant.”