Barbarians Treasure: A SciFi Alien Romance Novel Read online

  Barbarians Treasure

  A SciFi Alien Romance Novel

  Ruby Dixon

  Copyright © 2020 by Ruby Dixon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Photo: Sara Eirew Photographer

  Cover Design: Kati Wilde

  Edits: Aquila Editing

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  BARBARIAN’S TREASURE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Author’s Note

  The People of Ice Planet Barbarians

  Want More to Read?

  BARBARIAN’S TREASURE

  Everyone knows Megan and Cashol hit it off the moment they resonated…didn’t they? But when Josie goes into labor, an off-hand comment makes Megan point out to her friend that no, things weren’t always so smooth. Just because resonance is immediate doesn’t mean it’s immediately perfect.

  But also…just because it’s an instant bond doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Sometimes it’s very, very right.

  1

  MEGAN

  “I am thinking I should go back to the Icehome beach,” Cashol says, lying flat in the furs across from the fire one night.

  “I think you’ll go over my dead body,” I say tartly. I macramé another leather-strap rug, my fingers busy weaving. “You just came back.”

  “Yes, but they will need help getting through the brutal season. You should have seen how terrible they are at surviving.” Cashol crooks a grin at me. “Their stews were far worse than yours, and Leezh and Har-loh are the most experienced cooks they have there. You should feel pity for them.”

  “First of all, Gail is there,” I point out. This is a game we play at night, just so Cashol can feel appreciated. He teases me, telling me that he’s going to leave my side again and tries to get me all riled up. It worked the first few times, but now it’s just an easy game between us, where he needles me and I snap back. He likes it when I’m sassy, apparently, and I get super sassy when I’m pregnant…or when he talks about going back to the beach. Right now, it’s both. “And second of all, Brooke is there, too, and she’s a decent cook. And thirdly, I will spank the hell out of you if you even so much as think of leaving my side before this baby is born.”

  “Will you, now?” My incorrigible mate gets a playful look in his eyes. “Perhaps I should threaten this more often if it means you will put your hands all over my tail-side.”

  “Like you need an excuse to get more groping,” I tease. “I barely keep my hands off you as it is.”

  “Especially my feet—”

  Holvek chooses that moment to join us in the cave. “Daddy, my net broke and we’re trying to catch more dirtbeaks.”

  I make another twist in the mat, adding a decorative braid around the edges. This one’s for Josie’s little house. Her storage area has a particularly cold floor and with this latest pregnancy, she likes to go barefoot thanks to feet swelling, so I’m making her a mat to step on. I’m always making mats for someone, because I like to keep my hands busy. Plus, it helps pass the time, and I’ve learned that when my hands are busy, my head is less busy.

  “Let me see your net, Holvek,” Cashol says, and I love that he changes to his dad voice. It turns me on to hear him so authoritative and protective of our son. They bend their heads together and I swear, they’re both identical. If I hadn’t carried Holvek for a whopping fourteen months in my body, I’d think he’s someone else’s child and not mine. The only part of him that looks like me are his five wiggly toes to his father’s three. The rest is pure sa-khui and a hundred percent Cashol.

  I rub my rounded belly and wonder if this next one will look like me or if I’m going to be surrounded by a bunch of Cashol clones for all my life. The thought makes me smile. Not a hardship there.

  “I can fix this part,” Cashol says, his fingers deftly moving over the loose area of the net. “I am not as good with tying things as your mother but I will do my best.” He gives me a sultry look from underneath his brows that even now makes me blush. He is just asking to be spanked. “And I hope you are not hurting the dirtbeaks? We talked about that.”

  “Masan wants a friend for his,” Holvek tells me, his stubborn little mouth quirking. “And I want one, too.”

  “Noooo,” I say with a shake of my head, lowering my mat so I can give my best mom glare to my son. “You know what I said about pets.”

  “No pets.” He looks crestfallen at the thought. “Not even a snowcat?”

  “You’re going to have a baby sister or baby brother soon.” I point at my jutting belly. Even though I’m nowhere close to delivering, my belly feels bigger than the last time I carried, and I fully admit to milking the pregnancy for all its worth. “The last thing we need is a snowcat in the house. You’ve seen how big Kate’s kitten is!”

  “It’s huuuuge,” Holvek tells me with wide eyes. “It’s almost as big as I am already. I bet I could ride him.”

  “You need to stay far away from him,” I say. Now I’m going to have mom nightmares of Holvek playing with the cat and the cat eating him. Holvek pouts again, but I shake my head. “No dirtbeaks, no cats. I mean it.”

  He looks at Cashol.

  Cashol looks at me. “We will…talk about it.” He pats our son on the arm.

  Oh we will, will we? I narrow my eyes at the two of them. Are they plotting for pets behind my back? I’m a little hurt that I’ve been left out of some secret conversation. I love my mate, and I love my boy. I always thought Holvek was a bit of a mama’s boy, but if he’s got secrets with his dad…I don’t know why I’m jealous, just that I am.

  Holvek looks at me with an innocent, inquisitive expression. “Mommy, what’s groping?”

  Oh, so sly. I’ve been mated to his father for years, and I know a subject change when I see one. Clever little squirt.

  Cashol speaks up before I do. “It is what your mother does to your father when she pretends to be mad but secretly wants snuggles.” He leans in toward our son. “Mommy thinks that she gets better snuggles that way.”

  My son giggles. “Does she?”

  “Of course not,” Cashol straightens, tossing out the newly repaired net. He gives me a clever look. “All of my snuggles are always the best snuggles to be had.”

  I snort, my sour mood leaving in an instant once more. Count on Cashol to tease me right back to happy. “You just be careful with the dirtbeaks, baby,” I tell Holvek. “Come give Mommy a kiss.”

  He races to my side and flings his little arms around my neck, kissing my cheek with a loud smack. Then, he runs to his father and does the same, and then gathers his net and runs back out the door, yelling for his friends.

  I’m left alone with my mate.

  Cashol gives me a slow, gorgeous smile that makes my heart flip over in m
y chest. “So…is it time for snuggles?”

  I giggle like a teenage dork, because my big, sprawling alien mate saying “snuggles” is the funniest thing ever. “I don’t know. Are you planning on getting a secret pet with our son behind my back? I might not want to snuggle after learning that.”

  He shrugs, getting on all fours and prowling across the floor of the hut over to my side. He leans in and nips at my neck, fake-growling like an absolute fool and I can’t stop smiling. “Masan has a pet. Farli has a pet. Kate has a pet. Our son loves animals. What is so wrong with teaching him about taking care of them as well as hunting them?”

  “We talked about this,” I say with a tiny sigh, because he’s sucking on my earlobe and nuzzling at my neck and I know he’s distracting me. It’s how he wins arguments. He’s too damn good at distractions. “A dirtbeak is dirty and a snowcat is too dangerous.”

  “Perhaps something, at least?” He nips at my jaw. “Something to keep a growing boy busy and to give his overworked mother some free time?”

  “Am I overworked?” I reach up and caress his cheek, leaning into his touch. “I didn’t realize.”

  “So overworked,” he agrees. “There is hardly time for Meh-gan’s poor mate, who suffers greatly from such neglect.” I snort, and he kisses my jaw. “It is true,” he murmurs, and the tease in his voice makes me smile. “So neglected I have not had a good foot rub in seasons and seasons.”

  I groan. And the truth comes out. “Is all of this angling so I’ll play with your feet?”

  “No.” He tugs at the neckline of my tunic, revealing my shoulder and kissing his way down. “It is all angling so you can warm my furs and play with my feet.”

  “Lucky me,” I tease, but his lips are so skillful that I don’t even mind he gets his way.

  * * *

  I don’t make it over to Josie’s hut to deliver the mat until later that afternoon, even though I finished it before lunch. I spend far too much time with Cashol, snuggling after all, and then there’s a minor emergency when Holvek smashes his finger while dirtbeak hunting and has to have his boo-boos kissed away before going to see the healer. By the time I arrive to visit my friend with the mat, I’m ready for dinner and an early bedtime.

  I scratch at the door, inwardly wincing because I can hear the noise from my hut next door. When no one answers, probably because they can’t hear me, I pause and then push aside the door flap, peeking in. “Hello?”

  Josie’s house is, of course, utter chaos. She’s only got one more kid than me, but with the noise, you’d think it’s twenty. Joha is chewing on one of Josie’s bone ladles and banging another against the floor. Joden is running in circles, screaming a song about multiplication tables while Haeden calmly works on lashing together a crib out of bone. Josie is in the middle of the chaos, folding soft leather towels and humming to herself.

  My friend looks up at the sight of me, her face lighting up. “Oh! Megan! I didn’t hear you knock.”

  “I figured.” Her house is always several decibels louder than everyone else’s but Josie never seems to mind. She just beams at me and pats at the empty seat next to her. “Come sit. Haeden, will you make some tea for us, baby?”

  “Of course.” The big, surly looking hunter gets to his feet immediately and moves to his mate’s side. He touches her belly briefly, plants a kiss atop her head, and then moves to the fire. Josie smiles at his back, as in love today as she was when they first resonated. She looks over at me as I sit next to her, and the hard rock seat has a fluffy pillow atop it so it’s not as firm on pregnant backsides.

  I notice Josie’s sitting on one, too, and her belly looks utterly enormous. She’s due any week now, with our birth times being harder to pin down thanks to the longer sa-khui gestation. She rubs her back absently as I settle in next to her and offer the rolled mat. “For your kitchen. So it won’t be so cold on bare feet.”

  Her gasp of pleasure is all the payment I need. Josie’s eyes shine with excitement and she hugs it to her chest as Haeden moves around the fire. “Oh, Meggers! You shouldn’t have!”

  “What, I’m going to sit around all day and do nothing? I’m not that pregnant yet.” I pat my much smaller belly. “This little one’s going to be baking in the oven for a bit longer.”

  “Plenty of time to think up a good name,” Josie teases. “What’s Cashol locked onto this week?”

  I groan. “This week it’s ‘Meganash.’ I said hell no.”

  My mate—my sweet, ridiculous, too-lighthearted mate—loves nothing more than to run a joke into the ground, all to make me laugh. When Holvek was about to be born, Cashol tormented me daily with terrible name combinations. Some people’s names fit great together—like Georgie and Vektal—but mine and Cashol’s? Not so much. There isn’t a combination that doesn’t make me wince painfully. Cashol knows it, too, which is why he keeps throwing it out there, the nut.

  Then again, it always makes me smile.

  “I mean, I don’t hate it?” Josie wrinkles her nose. “I don’t love it but I don’t hate it.”

  “It’s a no,” I repeat. “A firm no. What about you? Got a name for number three?”

  “If it’s a girl…” Josie glances over at her mate. “I thought about…” She lowers her voice. “Zalah.”

  Haeden straightens. “No.”

  Josie ignores his response. She just smiles at me. “We’re talking about it.”

  Zalah? The woman that Haeden’s first cootie resonated to and died? Josie’s told me all about it, and I thought she hated the woman. Heck, I thought Haeden did, too. But…I get it. When you’re pregnant, you also get sentimental. Josie’s probably wanting to honor his first almost-mate in some way. “Maybe as a middle name,” I compromise.

  “Do sa-khui even have middle names?” She looks surprised.

  They don’t. Which is kinda the point. I glance over at her surly looking mate, and I’m always surprised at how taciturn Haeden can be such good friends with my playful Cashol. Which reminds me… “Speaking of arguments you can’t win, Cashol told Holvek he can have a pet and so now my son is trying to collect a dirtbeak.”

  “Oh god.” Josie gives a shudder of horror. She grabs my arm, because Joden has paused near his father. “Don’t say that in his hearing or he’s going to want one, too.”

  Haeden quickly pours two cups of tea and sets them down on a little “table” next to Josie’s chair. He puts a fingertip under her chin, tilting her head up for a kiss, and then murmurs to her. “Shall I take the little ones out for a walk?”

  She gives him a melting look. “You are the best mate. You know that?”

  “I know.” He straightens, nods at me, and then scoops up Joha with one arm, and grabs a pile of cloaks with another. “Come, Joden. Let us get some dirtbeak nests for your mother.”

  “Dirt-beaks!” Joden chants. “Dirt-beaks! Dirt-beaks!”

  It’s a whirlwind of chaos for the next thirty seconds as Haeden ushers his rambunctious children out the door and then it’s just me and Josie. She holds a cup of tea out to me, and when I take it, her hands immediately go to the small of her back. She winces.

  I freeze. “Is it time? Should I go stop Haeden?”

  Josie waves a hand in the air. “I’ve got hours yet. Or days. It’s just the occasional contraction and a backache, you know? If this is anything like when Joha came, it’ll be another day at least before my water breaks. Haeden’s ready to get Maylak at a moment’s notice, but I told him to wait. So…dirtbeaks, huh?”

  “Or a snowcat.”

  “With a new baby on the way?” She’s shocked.

  “That’s what I said—no way.” I’m glad someone’s on my side at least. “Sometimes I think he deliberately works me up just to see me riled.” I shake my head, smiling wryly at the thought.

  “It’s so funny how things work,” Josie says, shifting her hips with a little grimace. Her hand flutters over her stomach, and I can tell she’s feeling something unpleasant, but if she doesn’t want to get the
healer yet, I’m content to sit here with her and talk. “Haeden and I had such a stormy beginning and now we’re pretty much in lock-step about everything.” She pauses for a moment. “Well, except the baby’s name. But overall, we just agree on everything.” Her smile grows. “Meanwhile, you and Cashol had such an easy beginning compared to ours.”

  I snort. “Are you crazy? Easy?”

  My friend looks surprised. “It wasn’t?”

  “Bitch, no!”

  Her eyes widen, and then she giggles. “Bitch, are you lying to me?”

  “I remember it very differently than you do, it seems,” I say, and then add, “Bitch.”

  Josie’s giggles get louder, and then break off with a little hiss. Her hands clench over her belly for a moment. “That was a definite shift of something.” She adjusts herself on her seat again, as if she can’t quite get comfortable, and then picks up her tea again. “Okay, well, I seem to recall just you looking over at Cashol one day and squealing with delight—”

  “Squealing?” I sputter.

  “Squealing, bitch,” Josie says solemnly, and then ruins it with more giggles.

  I can’t help it, I burst into laughter, too.

  “And I remember thinking how lucky you were that it was so darn easy,” Josie continues. “So if it wasn’t easy, then how do you remember it?”

  I think for a moment, trying to remember that early time. Maybe Josie remembers it as me finding my happy-ever-after instantly, but it wasn’t instant. It might have looked simple, but everything was more complicated. It always is. “You sure you want to hear this story?”