Page 24 of The VaDorok’s Unexpected Mate (The Mate Index: Dorok #1)

Watching Katie come so dangerously close to freezing made something clench painfully in Kull as he hovered anxiously over her. He felt useless in his inability to help her while she shivered violently under the thick furs that he pulled over her.

“Will she be all right?” Ren asked in a hushed voice from the door.

Kull looked over at the young male and gave him a reassuring smile that he didn’t feel. “She will be fine. We got her home quickly and built up the fire to warm her. Now we just need to wait.”

“What are we supposed to do with these humans if freeze quicker than younglings?” Ren muttered. “It is foolish to keep them as pleasure-mates. They should have gone back to where they came from.”

“It is not that simple,” Kull sighed. “Their people do not know that they are here, or what their fate is. The Edoka assisted in their rescue, but not only did he not have enough fuel to make it directly to the Intergalactic Space Station to begin with, but the females were too frightened to go with him into another unknown situation. Nor do we have the means for a long-range system to reach that far. As it is, we can only reach A’Jular specifically when he comes within range of our world, but he has promised to inform their people.

In the meantime, Borax promised them continued safety while they wait for their people to retrieve them. ”

A pensive look crossed Ren’s face. “That does not explain why they need to be our problem, or why you needed to bring a human home as your pleasure-mate. A hunting shelter could have been put up for them in the gathering grounds where they could wait.”

Kull glanced toward his younger brother, suddenly annoyed despite the fact that he had offered these same arguments only a short time ago. “So, they are frightened and have been abused, and your solution would be just to stick them all together alone in a hunting shelter?”

The younger male shifted his weight in place uncomfortably, his expression anxious as he looked at Katie’s sleeping form.

“Maybe that would be a little unkind,” he hesitantly replied.

“But why us? Why take a pleasure-mate? We are much further from the gathering place than anyone else in the tribe, and we seldom socialize with others. This cannot be the best place for her.”

Kull grunted in agreement. But it was not simple either.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he rubbed his face with one hand.

“She trusts me. I killed for her and took her from that place. In my eyes, I am safety. And perhaps I have been alone for long enough and would like to enjoy the company of a female.”

Ren snorted mirthlessly. “Safety? Does she not know that you intentionally threw me in the lake because I hated getting wet while you were teaching me to kill finned gurups with a sharpened pole?”

“You survived,” Kull muttered. “I would naturally be gentler with a little female pleasure-mate who is not VaDorok.”

His brother gave him a sidelong look and grunted. “Okay. Then why are you teaching how to make fires, sew, and hunt if it is not just to torture her?”

He gaped at the younger male in disbelief. “She wished to learn! Do you really think that I am forcing these things on her?”

Ren shrugged, his tail flicking in agitation.

“I thought you were trying to discourage her from hoping for ulukskinon,” he admitted.

“While no one can anticipate how or when the ulukskinon can strike, it is not like females have not pushed to become closer to males whom they have pleasure-mated with in order to achieve this goal. Or even that you might keep her as a pleasure-mate for life.” His lip curled with distaste, revealing his thoughts on the matter, and Kull swallowed a wry chuckle.

Ren was still too young to truly understand how good it was to have a mate—even a temporary one for pleasure. There was a reason that their species pleasure-mated. That was something his younger brother would discover for himself soon enough.

That said, Ren’s words struck a little closer than the male realized. That was the reason he had not gone easy on her from the day she was thrust upon him, but it had nothing to do with why he was teaching her.

“That is not entirely accurate,” Kull muttered.

“That is not my reason for teaching her, though it is perhaps true that I did not wish her to become too dependent on being pleasure-mated to me. That she is being taught basic skills to survive here, however, is at her request and is necessary for her to have while she is mine.”

“It does not make any sense, though,” Ren replied in bewilderment. “If they are eventually coming to retrieve the humans, then why is she bothering to mate or learn anything? She could just make herself comfortable and wait.”

“Make herself comfortable?” Kull echoed as he turned to fully look at the male. “Is this before you let the fire go untended for long periods so that she was cold or after you tried to frighten her with the durwa?”

“I was just having a laugh,” Ren muttered. “It was just a joke. As for the fire, I forgot sometimes is all, but it never got that cold.”

Kull shook his head and settled back tiredly as he regarded him. “Forgetting the fire could kill her if she didn’t know how to build it back up or restart it if it went out. Would that have pleased you?”

“Fine,” Ren mumbled, “I was wrong. I can even understand teaching her to sew to relieve her boredom. But if she is so sensitive to cold, then why bring her hunting? You provide food every day and if you are injured or sick, I know how to check the traps. So why bring her out here where she does not belong?”

“Because I don’t like having my fate decided for me.

If I leave, it will be because I want to leave, and I’m not sure if that’s what I want,” Katie replied weakly from the bed, drawing their attention to her.

“Besides, being Kull’s pleasure-mate does not mean that I should not know how to care for myself here over the long-term.

Neither of us knows what might happen in the future. ”

Turning back to her, Kull adjusted the fur over her and smoothed it. “How are you feeling?”

Groaning, she rolled to face them and blinked at them groggily. “I feel like shit, and you two arguing back and forth on full volume isn’t helping. I never realized that someone could get so cold that it literally stops feeling cold and warmth feels like the fire of hell.”

“That is because you nearly froze to death,” Kull growled. “You should have said something long before it got to that point so that I knew when the cold became intolerable for you.”

“The cold is always fucking intolerable,” she sighed. “I’m a warm climate kind of girl and this sucks balls.”

He blinked at the expression. Was she speaking of some sort of treat fashioned into the shape of a ball? Was it something she wanted? He leaned forward and peered at her. “What sort of balls?”

“Big, fat donkey balls,” she said with a giggle that just made him more perplexed.

He probably should have worded his question better. She was somewhat delirious, and he did not know anything about human food. “Is this made of meat?”

He did not expect her to burst out laughing. He rocked back a little as he regarded her with confusion.

“Never mind,” she wheezed through her laughter. “Damn, that was good. Are they meat, indeed. Don’t worry about it, Kull, it’s nothing you can source here.”

His lips pursed but he decided to let that matter go for the time being in order to refocus on the most important thing at hand.

“Very well, then we will discuss how what you did was stupid and suicidal, and has traumatized... Ren,” he said, not wishing to admit how frightened he had been.

He could feel his younger brother’s startled gaze on him, but the male wisely remained silent.

“What were you thinking by not communicating your condition?”

“I was trying to help,” she grumbled. “Who wants to teach someone who does nothing but whine all day? So, I was trying to be considerate by being stronger.”

He shook his head in utter disbelief. Between his brother’s attitude and his female’s idea of the best way to “help,” they were going to send him to an early grave while he was still in his prime.

“This is as much as I can take,” he growled, surprising both of them.

Whirling toward his brother, he pointed a claw at him threateningly.

“You are to be a model member of this family and tribe. Cease your recklessness, and cease trying to amuse yourself at Katie’s expense.

She is here with us, and she is my pleasure-mate, so tolerate it.

And you,” he continued as he rounded back on her, startling her as he jabbed his claw within a short distance of her pert little human nose.

“Stop being so considerate and stubborn to the point of foolishness. Bend a little and ask for help. You are already a pain in my backside, and you knew that from the moment you came here with me, so do not push yourself to be anything less than that now. Be less considerate,” he growled.

With that he pushed to his feet and stalked to the door, only pausing once he reached it to look over his shoulder at the two staring at him wide-eyed. “Model male,” he barked with another glower at his brother. “And less considerate,” he repeated to her before storming out.

“Well, damn, what crawled up his ass?” he heard her say as the door swung closed.

He scrubbed his face with his hand again as the ulukskinon hummed through him, demanding that he be close to his mate after that scare. He shoved it aside and stormed to the cold storage deeper within his cave. Times like this called for root juice.