When we part, Beh narrows her eyes a little as she looks up at me. It is a look I have seen on her face before, usually right before she tries to do something I have never seen her try before. It is a look of resolve and determination.

“Beh,” she says as she points to her chest. Then she places her hand on my shoulder. “Ehd.”

I tilt my head to the side and hug her gently.

“Beh,” I repeat.

She smiles, leans closer, and places her lips against mine briefly.

“Kiss.”

I frown. I hope she isn’t going to start making that snake noise over and over again. Reaching up, she touches the tips of two fingers to my lips and then to her own before she repeats the sound again. I watch her eyes dance around my face. She sighs and then points to herself and then me, saying our name-sounds again.

Strange mate. I smile at her so she knows I accept her oddities.

Beh sighs, this time in frustration.

“Kissssss,” she says again, touching our lips with her fingers before she leans in and gives my mouth a quick peck. “Kiss!”

I tilt my head the other way so I can see around her and wonder if there is more of the stew to eat.

“Kiss!” Beh wraps her arms around my neck and comes very close. I can feel her breasts touching my chest. She touches her lips to mine… “Kiss,” … again … “Kiss,” … and again … “Kiss.”

She leans back and I whimper, trying to move closer to her face so I can repeat the motion. I want to taste her to see if she now tastes like the stew we had for breakfast, but she places her hand on my chest and pushes me back. I frown again.

Beh presses her fingers to her lips, makes that sound, and then touches my mouth again. I lean in a little—hoping she’ll put her mouth on mine. This time I’m going to be quick enough to taste her.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she takes my hand and places my fingers on her lips, then makes the sound again.

“Kiss.”

Then she places my fingers over my own mouth. My eyes narrow. I don’t understand this game she is playing.

“Kiss,” she whispers softly. With my palm on her mouth, she makes the sound over and over again. She touches her chest, says her name-sound, does the same to me, then goes back to the snake sound.

I watch her lips as she makes the sound and notice how her lips spread wide, her teeth nearly come together, and I can see her tongue touching the back of her teeth through the little space between them. My mate has very nice, straight teeth. I run my own tongue over the back of my teeth and hiss like a snake.

“Sssss…”

Beh’s eyes widen and she smiles broadly. Then she cries out, startling me. She wraps her arms back around my head and attacks my mouth with hers. Her tongue runs over mine with more gentility than her original motion would imply, and I am glad to find out she does taste like the stew.

She breaks away, and we smile at each other. My muscles tense up in anticipation of her doing it again, but she sits motionless, just watching me. When I lean forward, she leans back and makes the sound.

“Kiss.”

Again, I am a little distracted by her tongue on the back of her teeth and the way she sounds like a snake. Well, almost, but not quite. The first sound is harsher, and her tongue flicks the top of her mouth when that part of the sound comes out. I try to move my mouth and tongue the same way.

“Kzzhh.”

Beh squeals with joy and plants her mouth on mine again. When she breaks away, the sparkle in her eyes is beautiful. She makes a lot more sounds but still ends with the same noise.

“Kiss.”

“Kzzzzzz.”

I am rewarded with her lips and tongue and her hands wrapping into my hair.

“Khzz!”

The warmth of my mate’s mouth covers mine, and it sends tingles of sensation through the rest of my body as her tongue traces over my lower lip. The game that annoyed me in the beginning is now my favorite thing to do. Every time I make the sound, she touches her lips to mine, and I make that sound as often as possible.

At night, I make it over and over again.

Beh pushes my shoulders lightly with her fingers as she breaks away from me with a laugh. She makes more sounds, but none of them are the hissing sound, so I sigh and go back to my work. The spear I used to kill the antelope is still in good shape, but I’m fixing it up anyway. I use a long sliver of flint to slowly shave off flakes of wood to make the point sharper.

Beh sits beside me on a rock near the water, running a stick through her wet hair. The lake water is almost too cold for bathing, but Beh does it anyway. Now she smooths out her hair, and as much as I would like to distract her with placing our mouths together, I love how her hair feels when she’s done. I also hope she will do the same with mine as well. Earlier, I dunked my head under the water and shook out my hair, but it was too cold for me to get in.

Throughout the summer, Beh continues to push me into the lake to wash off, but it isn’t so bad when the water was warm. She uses soaproot to help get the dirt off of my body and out of my hair, though she still never lets me help her. She doesn’t want me to see her without her strange clothing in place, even when the sun beats down and it is hot in the cave.

Now the weather is beginning to cool again, and summer is departing quickly.

I glance at Beh as she continues to work through the snarls in her hair, and I work the flint against the wood. Her arms are raised up above her head, and I like the curve of them, and I think about touching them. Thinking about her arms leads my eyes to look to her shoulders and back and finally to the curve of her backside.

I swallow hard when she drops her stick and has to bend forward to retrieve it. My heart beats faster, and my tongue pops out to moisten my lips.

My hand hurts, and I realize I’ve nearly cut myself open with the flint. Luckily, I haven’t—it’s just scratched. I’ve managed to dig a gash in the upper part of the spear, though. It’s fixable, but it looks strange. The little chunk that came off is an odd shape—almost like two tiny fingers next to each other, but held slightly apart.

Looking up at Beh, I see her running her fingers through her hair, and I wonder if the little piece of wood was bigger, would she be able to use it to untangle her hair?

“Khzz?” I know I am pushing my luck—she just put her mouth on mine when she started on her hair, and she isn’t even done yet. She looks at me sideways and narrows her eyes before she leans over and presses her lips quickly to the side of my mouth. I frown. It’s nice but not what I want.

Beh giggles and makes more mouth sounds.

Once she is done with her own hair, I discard the spear and flint and kneel close to her. I bow my head toward her, and she uses the stick to smooth out my own hair, which just touches my shoulders now. Once she is done, we collect her most recent clay pieces—a fairly large bowl and a lid to go on top of it—and head back home.

Beh holds her bowl in her arms as we walk across the field, and I walk beside her. As we get close to the edge of the woods, I stop and pull up a clump of yellow nutgrass I noticed on our way to the lake. Beh ends up a little ahead of me, and I watch her from behind as she walks.

I like the way her hips move, and my mind wanders, thinking about what they might look like bare. More importantly, what would it look like if she were bare with my hands wrapped around her hips, pulling her back against me.

Is she going to let me do that any time soon?

Trying to force the thought from my mind, I sigh and move to catch up. As I get close, I notice there is a tiny hole in her clothing up by her shoulder. I can see the little strap of pink underneath it. Without actually thinking about it, I reach out to poke at it.

Beh glances over her shoulder at me, and I give her a little smile. She smiles back and turns her eyes back down the meandering path. I poke at the little hole again—my finger fits just inside of it, and Beh looks over fast enough to see my finger inside the little hole at her shoulder.

Her face immediately contorts into an expression of sorrow, and she lets out a long moan followed by a lot more sounds. The bowl is still in both hands, but she seems to be trying to both hold it up and touch the hole I have found. She stops abruptly and turns, shoving the bowl into my arms as she continues to make noise and closely examine the little tear.

My mate is upset, but I hope now she’ll make something out of the antelope fur I gave her. I would even give her my own fur wrap if she preferred, but it wouldn’t fit her very well. It would probably fall right off of her.

That idea didn’t sound all that bad.

Finally, looking to her face, I see her tears.

CHAPTER EIGHT

That night, I hold Beh tighter than usual and make sure she is sound asleep before I let myself doze. She didn’t cry as hard as she did before, but there were many times during the evening when she had tears in her eyes. I know how frustrating it is to have to make new clothing, but I don’t understand why it upsets her so much.

I don’t like it when my mate is sad, and I don’t know what I am supposed to do to make her happy again. I consider my previous plan of doing everything I can for her all the next day, but I also remember how that turned out the first time I did it. I need something better.

A gift.

When people in my tribe were mated, they gave each other gifts. Men would bring their best furs and women would bring their nicest collection baskets to show they would be able to help sustain each other. I’d given Beh all the furs I had made recently—the large antelope hide, the smaller pieces of rabbit fur—and had even tried to give her my own fur, but she hadn’t worn it, nor had she made anything from the other furs. I showed her all the flint knives I have that could have been used to shape the fur into wraps, but she never used them.

Beh has to know winter is coming, and she will need warm clothing. I often put the antelope fur over her shoulders when she is shaking from the chilled air. The strange clothing she has is not thick enough—even the especially weird material of her leggings. Though it feels thick and sturdy, it has no fur and doesn’t seem to be warm.

I shift a little in our bed, pulling Beh’s head into a different position on my shoulder. She sighs in her sleep and snuggles against me. Her hand lies on my chest near my shoulder, and her fingers twitch against my skin.

What could I give to Beh?

I fall asleep with this thought in my head, and while I sleep, my mind continues to consider it. I dream of Beh.

She is sitting by the edge of the lake and pulling tangles from her hair. As she sits, the part of her clothing that covers her arm suddenly rips and falls to the ground. She wipes at her eyes and continues with her hair. She looks out over the water and sniffs. I know she is still sad, but she is trying to forget her torn clothing as gooseflesh appears on her now bare arm. A moment later, the other arm loses its covering. She stands, dropping the stick she had been using, and the leggings she wears also shred and fall to the ground at her feet, which are suddenly bare.

Beh covers her face with her hands and lets out a sob. I want to go to her, but I am not what she wants, and I know it. With shaking fingers, she bends over to retrieve the stick, sits back on the rock, and continues to run the stick through her hair.

My eyes open, and I check the darkened cave. The fire is low, so I wriggle out from Beh’s embrace and add wood to it. I check outside, and the night is clear, quiet, and cold. There is still some time before dawn. Before I crawl back to the warmth of furs and my mate, I add several more logs to the fire so we will have good cooking coals when we wake.

I run my nose over Beh’s temple and use my hand to brush hairs from her forehead. I think of my dream and wonder if Beh is sad because her clothing is falling apart, and it reminds her of her life before I found her. No clothing lasts forever, and hers seems particularly flimsy.

I hold her closer and wish I knew what to do. We can try to look for her old home, but I don’t even know where to start. If it would make her happy, though, I would try to find it for her. I also know that if we find it, her tribe may not accept me. I recall the one and only time I ran across other people since my tribe was wiped out from the fire.

There were many of them, and they all walked in a line across the steppes. I had only just found my cave the season before, and I was out hunting with my spear. Working alone, I could never get close enough to the animals to use the weapon. When the people came into view, I cautiously approached them, but as soon as they saw me, four of the men in the front ran at me. They screamed and shook their spears, so I ran away.

What would I do if we did find Beh’s tribe and they chased me away but kept Beh? I look down at her face, which glows red in the firelight. What if I had to come back here again, alone?

A quiet whimper escapes from my throat at the thought. I do not want to lose Beh. I want her with me. There is no way I am going to let her go looking for her tribe if there is even a possibility they won’t accept me with her!

I remember my dream again and the sad look on her face. It makes my chest and stomach ache to think of it. I don’t want her to go away and back to her own tribe and leave me alone again. It’s not even about being alone anymore—I know I don’t want to be without Beh. Having her here to warm the furs with me at night and gather food with me during the day is the most important thing in the world.

For me.

A cold shiver runs through me as I realize there is something more important. I want Beh to be happy. If she would only be happy with her own people again, I would have to let her go back to them—even if they would not let me join her.

There is nothing more important than Beh, and if making her happy means my own sorrow, I will have to accept that.

I don’t sleep the rest of the night.

The afternoon sun is warm even though the air is getting colder each day. Nights are longer, and it won’t be many more days until it is cold enough for snow. The steppes are fairly dry though, and there usually isn’t too much precipitation during the winter, but winter nights can get very cold, even without snow.