I will provide for her. I will protect her. I will give her anything she wants.

Another memory rolls around in my brain, images from when I was young, and my father held my mother tightly in his arms after one of my baby sisters died. She had also cried like this, and my father held my mother close to him, making quiet sounds in her ear until she stopped.

I whimper softly and pull my mate close to my chest, cradling her against me. At first, her hands push on my body as she tries to free herself from my grasp, but she is already exhausted from fighting me earlier and quickly gives up. Her head slumps down to my shoulder, and I bring my hand up to run down her hair. The feeling of the strands through my fingers is just as intriguing as it was before though I can’t enjoy it as I might since she is shaking in my arms.

My mate continues to sob.

I hold her for a long time, rocking her back and forth, my arms gently wrapped around her. I don’t know what else to do. The strange painted-on coloring around her eyes makes dark circles all the way down to her cheekbones. It smears further across her face as she wipes at her eyes.

When I try to offer her more food, she begins to sob again, so I guess she isn’t hungry. The sun completes its descent, and the cave darkens. She finally stills, but tears still run down her face. Only the light from the fire shows me that my mate’s eyes are still open and staring blankly off to one side. I feel my own fatigue setting in as the night covers the grasslands outside.

I have to move—my legs are numb from inactivity and having her sitting on me. I lift her and place her on the ground next to me and stretch, trying to ignore how she has startled again. I stand but only take a minute to get my legs working again before I rebuild the fire, bank it for the night, and turn back to my mate.

She is watching me with red, swollen eyes. I have to swallow hard because of the strange feeling in my throat when I look at her. She pulls her knees up to her chest and places her chin on them, and her eyes move to the flickering flames. I drop down to my hands and knees and approach her again, moving slowly this time so she doesn’t startle. Her look is wary as I get closer, but she doesn’t try to get away.

I reach out and run the tips of my fingers over her leg, feeling the strange, almost rough texture of the material. There is no fur on it, but it doesn’t feel like any leather I have ever felt. I move my other hand to my waist where my fur is tied around me to have some comparison. My clothing is much softer than what she is wearing. She cringes a bit, and all of her muscles become tense as I touch her. I shift a little closer, trying to figure out just what she is thinking as I look into her bright blue eyes, but I have no idea.

Moving to her side, I reach out and run my hand over her hair again. She doesn’t try to push me away this time though another shudder runs through her body. I stroke the soft strands just a few times before I realize there are tears falling from her eyes again.

I look at her more closely, but I still don’t know why she cries. Taking a deep breath, I realize I’m too tired to figure it out now and decide to go to sleep. I get up on the balls of my feet first, then reach one arm underneath my mate’s knees and wrap the other arm behind her back as I stand. She lets out a little yelp as I lift her but then goes silent. I turn and carry her to the back of the cave where I sleep.

At least my bed is something she can appreciate. I had dug out a long, shallow trench and filled it with dry grass from the steppes. Covering the grass are several of the furs I have made over the many seasons I have been here. The bed is deep and soft; the furs are warm and comfortable, and I will hold her and keep her safe throughout the night. The corner of my mouth turns up as I carry her to the spot where we will sleep, and I kneel down to lay her on the furs. It is very dark here in the back of the cave, and I can only barely see her trying to look around me to where the light from the fire can still be seen.

She makes no effort to remove her strange clothes for sleeping, and I’m not sure exactly how they come off. I decide to let her leave them on if she wants but quickly remove the fur wrapped around my body and toss it off to the side.

My mate’s eyes go wide, and I hope she can see my strength. I smile at her slowly and then kneel down beside her to get into the furs. I place one hand near her shoulder and toss my leg across her waist.

My mate’s eyes fill with tears again as she screams and begins her barrage of indecipherable noises. Her hands come up to cover her face as she shakes her head back and forth when I crouch above her. I don’t understand what has upset her so much, and I quickly look around to make sure the bed is as I left it.

It seems fine, and I remain confused as I crawl the rest of the way over her body and place my back near the wall. As I reach out and grab for her, I am met with her struggling resistance and more shouting. She turns so her back is toward me and tries to get out of the bed. I hold tight as she wriggles against me, and my grip on her body doesn’t falter as she continues to cry and scream.

I take in and let out a long breath, wondering what I should be doing to calm her, but I am at a loss. Without knowing what else to do, I pull her back tightly against my chest and wrap my arms around her waist. From the firelight, I can easily see the entrance to the cave and further protect her from anything that might seek to harm her in the night.

Remembering the hyaenodons from earlier in the day, I hope they have moved far enough away not to hear her. If they can hear her, I hope the smell of the fire will keep them away from us. She is fighting me so much, I can’t let go of her to cover her mouth. Her fingers pull at my arms, but I don’t release her. She wrestles with me but doesn’t win. I am resolute in my desire to keep her safe even if she seems determined to do something to hurt herself. It doesn’t require much strength to hold her, and I think she is probably already exhausted from her previous tirade. Before long, she begins to slow her movements, and shortly after that, she drops to the furs.

Glad she’s finally decided to let me protect her, I relax my grip a little and pull my arm out from underneath her. I place my hand on the side of my head to prop myself up and look down at the woman who will now share my bed.

Even in the dim glow of the firelight, I can see how stunningly beautiful she is. Maybe it’s because it has been so long since I’ve seen another person, but I don’t think so. I wish I could see more of her body, but her strange coverings obscure most of her skin; only her hands and face are visible.

I inhale deeply through my nose, and her scent is unique. She smells sweet, like overripe fruit, and I realize the scent comes from her hair, but not her skin. I lean a little closer and sniff at the base of her neck.

Everything about her is unusual; her clothing, her hair, the color around her eyes, which is now mostly smudged away. I find it enticing and exciting.

She turns over to look up at me, and her eyes are red-rimmed from crying. My chest clenches to know she has been so sad, and I again wonder what I can do to make her feel safe. She stares at me with apprehension, and I decide to try to comfort her the way my father had comforted my mother in the past.

With my arm still around her waist, I slowly move my hand up and down her side. I hope the sensation of touch will calm her, but her body tenses instead. She wraps her arms around herself, and I think she might be cold; her clothing doesn’t seem thick enough to keep her warm. I reach down and pull one of the furs up around her, but she still doesn’t relax.

I have no idea what she needs, and I wonder what might have happened to her to make her so sad.

I suddenly realize that she must have lost her tribe just as I have. Though I don’t know how she got where she is, I do know there are no people anywhere near here except for me. I haven’t seen another person since the fire drove me from the forest. Though I had looked for many days through the blackened tree stumps for signs of other survivors, I had found nothing but the bones of my people.

Now that I comprehend, my heart aches for her. I know what it is like to feel alone though I have grown so used to it, I try not to think about it now. I wonder if she has been alone for a long time and decide she must not have been. If she had, she would have been more receptive to me as her mate. She is frightened of me, and though I have tried to show her I will keep her safe and provide her with a home, she is still scared.

She must miss her family and tribe terribly. Maybe she even had a mate in her tribe, and she misses him, too. There had been no females my age in my small tribe, and I had been waiting for one of the girls to begin her womanhood before I took her. I had been several seasons older than the one closest to me in age, and there were no other tribes nearby to trade mates. If an older woman’s mate had died, I might have mated her instead.

But they all died at once, and I had no one.

I remembered how frightened I had been in the beginning. The fire had destroyed the berry bushes in the forest and the homes of the rabbits I liked to hunt. I was a man but had only killed larger animals twice and then with the help of the other men. I nearly starved before finding the freshwater lake among the pine groves and figuring out how to catch the fish at the edge of the water.

Looking down at my mate, my fingers reach out and brush strands of her beautiful long hair away from her forehead. The softness distracts me from her sorrow, and I pinch a few of the strands between my fingers to hold them out and look more closely. The firelight brings out the slight tinges of red in a few of the strands, but it is the texture that intrigues me the most.

As I look back at her face, I can see she is still frightened. Releasing her hair, I reach up and let the tips of my fingers touch the tear stains on her cheeks. I feel like crying for her—lost and alone out on the steppes. I touch slowly her cheek and jaw before my hand finds her shoulder and the incredibly smooth tunic covering her. Like her hair, I find it fascinating. I have never felt anything as smooth and soft. It’s lightweight, too—as if it were made from strands of a spider’s web.

I stroke her hair again to feel the difference between its softness and the texture of the clothing and find myself again fascinated by how soft and beautiful it is. I know I am very lucky to have found such an attractive mate though I am really just thrilled to have another person with me. As I take a deep breath, I inhale the scent of her hair, and the combination of sweet fruit and possibly some kind of flower confuses me—it is still too early in the season for buds to be blooming. Pulling her close to me, I run my nose from her hairline to her temple.

Definitely fruit.

She tenses again, and I’m reminded that she is sad and frightened about the loss of her people. I look into her eyes and tilt my head to the side, wanting her to know I understand. I touch my nose to her temple again—gently bumping her skin in a show of companionship.

Her tongue darts over her lips, and she makes her rhythmic sounds again. She is not as loud this time, but the noise is strange and unfamiliar to me. I continue to watch her closely until she stops making the sounds and lets out a long breath. She sniffs and turns away from me again but seems to have settled down somewhat.

I lay my head next to hers and strengthen my grip around her body. I keep my eyes open and watch the entrance to the cave until I hear her breathing slowly and regularly with sleep. Only when I’m sure she is no longer awake do I allow myself to do the same.

I wake during the night.

At first, I’m confused by the presence of the body next to me. Though in the tribe we shared communal sleeping areas, I have slept alone for so long I forgot how warm and comfortable it is to have someone share a sleeping area. I smile to myself and nuzzle into her hair for a moment before I remember my duty to protect her.

I rise up on my elbow and look around the cave. I survey the normal, darkened shapes in each corner and verify there is nothing out of the ordinary. The fire is down to coals but still brightly burning without any danger of going out. I let my fire extinguish my first season alone, and that had nearly caused my death. I certainly won’t let it happen now that I am responsible for a mate.

The second time I wake in the night, my mate is crying out in her sleep again. At first I think she has woken up as well, possibly disoriented to find herself in a different home and without her tribe. However, her eyes are closed while her mouth makes those sounds, and her muscles tighten in distress. Again, I hold her to me, hoping to offer her comfort even if I can’t fix whatever is wrong with her. After a minute she calms, turns toward me, and lies in my arms.

As I begin to fall back into slumber myself, it occurs to me that my mate is going to need a lot of care. If I want her to like me, I’m going to have to show her that I can take the place of her tribe. I’m sure I can be enough for her if I make sure she has shelter, provide enough meat for her to cook, and of course, put a baby in her. A list of things to show her starts forming in my mind and continues into my dreams.

The next time my eyes open, there is faint light coming through the opening of the cave. I raise myself up on one arm and look down at my mate as she continues to sleep, wrapped up in my furs. Her eyes are closed, and she looks so peaceful as she lies there that I don’t wake her even though it’s getting late in the morning, and there are many things I needed to point out to her.

For a while, I also stay in the furs and just watch her sleep, memorizing the shape of her jaw and the shade of pink that covers her lips. As sunlight peers through the rocks, her hair shines around her face, and I can’t help but touch it and revel in its softness again. First, I push it off of her forehead, and then I smooth it over her shoulders. It seems to have tangled somewhat in the night, but it’s still just as soft as before. I tuck it gently behind her ears, and her eyes finally open.

My mate blinks a few times as her eyes focus on me. I smile just a little – careful not to show my teeth – but her eyes still get wide as they dart around the small cave. I can see the tears start to well up again, and I know I will have to show her everything as quickly as possible. She is obviously not impressed with what I have, and I can’t blame her. I have only barely provided for myself over the seasons and haven’t even thought about acquiring the things I would need to support a mate.