Page 8 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gregar

I jolt from my sleep, and I am not the only one. Anghar sits up next to me. I recognise the startled, awestruck look in his eyes.

“You, also,” I say, keeping my voice low. Happiness and fear war in my heartspace. I am glad for my brother to know the same joy as I do, but we are still more than a day’s travel from the sands before the great salt waters.

“This was your news to share?” Anghar says. “A linasha?”

“Yes,” I say. “She came to me in my brief afternoon sleep yesterday.”

“Afternoon sleep?” Anghar says, eyes narrowing.

I do not normally come over exhausted in the middle of the day, it is true.

“I think it was her,” I say. “I think her spirit reached out to mine and pulled me in to sleep.”

“Is she...” I see Anghar hesitate and know what he means to ask.

“She is not raskarran,” I say. “She is small and pale. But beautiful and fierce. A fine female for any warrior. I am blessed.”

Anghar nods, a grin forming on his face.

“I am blessed, too, brother. I would say no male could be as blessed as I, for that is how it feels in my heartspace.”

I grin back because I feel the same.

“Lina smiles on our tribe,” I say. “But we must rise and we must run. My linasha fears for her safety, and we have a long way to go before we reach her.”

“At the egg?” Anghar says.

“Yes.”

The more I think on it, the more I know it to be true.

Anghar considers this in silence a moment.

“I am concerned about other tribes,” he says. “Perhaps some will be travelling like us, summoned by their linashas. But others will have seen the smoke trail as we did. If a tribe like Sarkry’s decides to make the journey and arrives first...”

“My linasha made no mention of other raskarrans,” I say.

“I am quite sure I am the first of my kind that my linasha has seen,” Anghar says with a hint of a smirk.

“Then we make sure to reach them first.”

Anghar nods. “I will rouse the others, and we will run. No male will run further or faster than you and I. We know what we run towards. The others will follow our lead.”

“They will,” I say, glad that I know this to be truth. My tribe brothers are good males. I hope more of them are blessed as Anghar and I have been.

The others are groggy as they wake, but they sense our urgency and rise quickly. We pack our things and begin the next leg of our journey.

Despite the short hours of my sleeping, I feel strong in body, energised by the thought of my linasha waiting for me. Fear drives at me, too, but I have to trust that Lina would not bestow this blessing on me only to take it away. Lina will watch my Liv while I cannot.

But I will not have my female afraid for a moment longer than necessary.

If the others notice the increase in pace, the relentlessness that burns in Anghar and I, they say nothing, just push themselves onwards with us.

We run throughout the day, pausing only for a small meal when the sun reaches its peak in the sky.

The air is hot and close, and we have all slowed, the temperature and fatigue getting to us.

After, we immediately resume, running and running, paying no heed to the trees or the creatures lurking within them, hoping our numbers and our speed will protect us from anything that might stray across our path.

Risky, but I feel Lina’s presence, as does Anghar. We trust her to guide our feet.

And only when those feet are tired and aching beyond tolerance do we stop.

“You run as if a merka beast nips at your heels,” Shemza says, handing me a drink that he’s prepared from djenti berries. The tonic will rejuvenate us, heal our aches as we sleep and power us to run again tomorrow.

“It is not what is behind me that urges me onward, but what is in front,” I say.

“The egg?” Maldek says. “You know something of it, brother?”

“Not much,” I say. “But I think a new tribe arrived with it.”

“A new tribe?” Vantos says. “Hostile?”

I glance at Anghar, then back to the rest of them.

“No,” I say. “At least, my heartspace tells me ‘no’. I have been visited in my dreamspace by one of their females.”

This revelation makes their eyes widen. Maldek and Rardek both lean forwards, their gazes intent on me.

“Females?” Rardek says.

“What are they like?” Maldek asks. “Do they have fine faces?”

“Are they of mating age?” Rardek asks.

Vantos clips them both on the back of the head, but there is uncertainty in his eyes. I think the questions Maldek and Rardek ask are on his tongue, too, but he knows when to hold it.

“I have spoken to only one of them. I do not know their numbers, only that my female refers to at least one other when she speaks.”

“You refer to her as ‘my female’,” Shemza says, voice quiet. “She is yours in what way?”

His question is echoed in the faces of Vantos, Maldek and Rardek.

They have all grown up knowing that they were unlikely to ever see a female, never mind know the touch of their linasha.

I know they have dreamed of mating to a female, for they are dreams I have had, too.

We all wish for companionship, connection, younglings.

I hold their hope for a better future in my hands. I look to Anghar, and he nods.

“She is not raskarran,” I say. “But her spirit met mine in the dreamspace. The elders say there is only one spirit that will meet yours in the dreamspace.”

“A linasha,” Shemza says, awe and hope in his voice. “Lina blesses you with a mate.”

“And my mate is in danger,” I say, rising to my feet.

“Then we will run as if a whole ensouka herd stampedes behind us,” Maldek says, baring his fangs in a wide grin.

We run further and later than we did the previous day, but we cannot run through the night.

It is dangerous, and we are no good to my linasha’s tribe if we arrive depleted of our strength.

But though I am exhausted, I find myself too worked up to sleep.

Anghar has no such issue. He drops to the floor and is snoring in a matter of seconds.

I hope his linasha’s spirit soothes him.

Shemza hands me more djenti berry tonic, and I drink it down.

“You should rest,” he says, “you do not want to keep your linasha waiting for you.”

But I shake my head. “I will take first watch. I must do my share with the rest of you.”

“I doubt anyone here would begrudge you,” Shemza says, grinning.

I grin back and grip his shoulder. “I hope there are many more females in this new tribe. I hope all of you know the same joy as I do.”

“We should reach the great salt waters tomorrow,” Vantos says, his expression stern but determined. “Then we shall know if all our fortunes will be changed.”

Our fortunes. I only hope mine do not turn before we arrive. My linasha believes she is in danger. She spoke of screams. I know part of my restlessness is fear. Fear that I will sleep and she will not join me. Because she is hurt, or worse.

I watch Anghar as the others settle in to their beds.

He sleeps soundly, deeply. I hope this is a sign that his linasha is safe and well, but dreamspace time is strange.

It does not follow the same patterns as time in the waking world.

The five minutes that have passed here may have been only seconds for Anghar, or several hours. It is impossible to know.

The night is warm and close. We are well in to the rainy season now, the sun burning hot in the day, the air humid and muggy even in to the early hours.

It makes for arduous travel conditions. We are all of us grimy, sweat slicked and dishevelled.

Not the best first impression to be making if there are more females.

But better to arrive this way than too late.

I am so lost in my thoughts that the time passes swiftly, and then it is Vantos’s turn to take watch.

He rises without complaint, nodding to me.

I take the space he had been sleeping in and lie down, willing my headspace to calm.

It does not take long. Like when I felt myself dragged down in to sleep in my hammock, I feel the same heaviness now.

I barely close my eyes and I am in the dreamspace, my linasha, my Liv, waiting for me.

I rush to her side, checking her face and arms for injuries.

I do not know if they would appear here in the dreamspace, or if we leave our wounds behind with our physical bodies.

Certainly I have not brought my muscle aches and tiredness with me.

I am fresh and strong, here, all the better to show my linasha great pleasures.

“What are you doing?” she demands, pushing me away. She is not bound today, just sitting up on the edge of the bed.

“You are not hurt?” I say, equally demanding. I should be more patient, more gentle, but my fear overrides my manners.

“I’m fine,” she says. “God, for a fantasy, you are no fun.”

“I can be fun,” I say, trying hard to think of a way to prove it. But my female obviously has something particular she wants, for she slips her arms around my neck.

“Then be fun,” she says, and presses her mouth to mine.

I do not understand her actions at first. It is a strange sensation, her lips pressed against mine. I never thought about meeting mouths with my linasha this way. In all my daydreams of ways I would please her, this simple touch never occurred to me. It is pleasant. Warming. Tender.

Then she moves her lips against mine and it no longer feels warming, but heated. I let her guide me through the motions until I think I have them mastered. Then I sink my hands into her hair and take control.

She moans against my mouth as I do, and I know I have pleased her.

Smug, I lower her back into the bedding, my body surrounding hers.

I should remove her clothes, lick her sweet cunt, but I am fascinated, entranced by this new form of mating my Liv has shown me.

So I just continue to move my mouth over hers, and when she swipes her tongue across my lips, I do not pause to question. I just open my mouth to her.

When her tongue meets mine, slicking over it, it is as though the heat of the fire in the corner of our dreamspace has shot straight to my cock.

I snarl, all desire and need for her that cannot be fulfilled.

Not here. I want to feel her writhing beneath me as I slam in to her.

Want her sweat slicked body arching into mine as her cunt soaks me with her sweet juices.

But some things are not meant for the dreamspace.

I will not dishonour my linasha by taking her for the first time here.

Instead, I wrench my face away from hers, breaking the tangle of our tongues reluctantly. I pin her arms above her head, loving the way her breath catches in her throat, raw desire filling her eyes.

“When I find you, I am going to pleasure you until you are begging for my cock,” I say on a growl.

“Is that a promise or a threat?” my linasha responds, her smile wicked.

Lina have mercy. No raskarran has ever had a mate so fine as mine.

I growl again, tearing at her clothes until she is bared before me. Then I take my time learning every inch of her so I can make good on my promise or threat once we meet in the waking world.