Sam's Secret (Icehome)

Sam kneels by the egg and brushes more of the snow off of it with her fingers, hissing when her skin sticks. She tucks her hand into her sleeve and uses it to clean more of the surface off. "It's an alien," she agrees, her face intent. "He's got some lights flashing underneath him in the pod but I don't see any weapons." She bites her lip. "Should we leave him? There's a yellow light in there and for humans, that means a warning."

I am proud that her fear is fading, but I hesitate. My instinct is to protect Sam, and that instinct tells me to walk away from this pod. To take her back to the fruit cave and press my mouth to hers until she reaches for me. But since that cannot be, I force those feelings away. "Let us talk it through. Why do you wish to open it now?"

Sam crouches next to the egg, her teeth worrying her upper lip. She bites at it in a way that makes her look as if she is snarling, and I would find this adorable if my cock were not throbbing in response each time she does. "What if we leave it and the aliens come back for it? Remember Liz said they narrowly escaped the ones that dumped them here."

"Mmm." I have heard the tales many times, and she is not wrong. "Can we push it with us? Move it so it is in hiding?"

She shakes her head. "You don't understand, Sessah. If they dropped it here, they can find the pod no matter where we move it. They have trackers that can find it wherever it goes."

She is right, I do not entirely understand. The only tracking I understand is that of prints in the snow. My face heats and I feel foolish. She will think I am slow-witted if I ask her to explain again. Mardok and Har-loh understand the space-cave things, but they are beyond me. "I see."

Sam gnaws on her lip again. "And if that yellow light is a problem, I'd hate for someone to asphyxiate right under our noses."

"To what?"

"Sorry," she breathes, reaching out to put her hand on my knee. "To suffocate. If he's not getting enough air."

Her hand remains on my knee and I find it difficult to concentrate. I like that she is touching me more. Even if it is in small steps, she is trusting me. I will take whatever I can get. I force myself to pay attention, to not focus on the hand on my leg. "What if we open his egg?"

"Egg?" Sam's brows furrow and she giggles at me, and it sends a shiver up the length of my cock. "It's a pod."

"Pod, egg." I shrug. I do not see the difference, but I want to call it an egg again in the hopes she will keep laughing. I am addicted to the sound. "If we open it, what then?"

"I don't know. He wakes up?" She gives me a helpless look. "But at least he won't suffocate."

"He will not…but he will need a khui and you and I are not enough to take down a sa-kohtsk alone."

Sam thinks for a moment, her fingers twitching on my leg. All of my attention is focused there, to the spot just above my knee, to her soft hand and the calluses that scrape at my hide. Nothing has ever felt so good. "The islanders don't hunt sa-kohtsk, remember? They just hunt whatever."

"So we hunt him a puny khui. What then?"

"I don't know," she admits in a small voice. "We bring him back to the tribe?"

And if he resonates to someone, will that not be a betrayal? I would feel deeply guilty if this cat-faced stranger were to resonate to Flor or Day-see and R'jaal, O'jek and I'rec are left without a mate. Was this how the other females felt when Day-see arrived? Did they find it unfair? But is it fair of me to leave this male slumbering in the cold simply because it does not suit me? "What happens if we do not open it?" I ask. "Just so we think of all the angles."

"You're right," Sam breathes. "I'm glad you're here. I'm all panicky and not thinking straight." She squeezes my leg. "I wonder if it's a response to when I was in the pod myself."

"We can sleep on it. Come back in the morning," I offer. "So we do not leap before we think about it."

"But what if he dies?" A note of panic rises in her voice again. "What if he dies and we're responsible?"

"Sam." I touch her chin, forcing her to look me in the eye again. "If he dies because we walk away for a brief time, then it is nothing more than bad luck. Look at the snow atop his egg." I gesture at the thing. "Look at how much is crusted on. This is not one day of snow. This is many, many days of snow. If he has been here this long, he will remain for another night."