I grab my spear and race back out into the driving snow. The snows are piling up faster than I can make tracks, which worries me. If she came out here, I have no way of telling which direction she went. I can no longer see R’kh or R’khar’s tracks, either. I do not know if she joined up with them and left, or if she is yet nearby.
I imagine her lying at the bottom of an icy crevasse, and my heart feels as if it stops in my chest.
No.
I send a silent request to the ancestors to keep her safe. To protect her.
D’see is all that is good and sweet. She deserves a long, happy life.
“D’SEE!” I call again.
But as I trudge through the snow, I cannot stop thinking about how she cannot even make herself a fire. She does not know how to let the landscape guide her. She does not know the tracks to avoid.
She does not know anything yet, because I have not taught her, and this fills me with terror.
Night falls, and I make it to the nearest hunter cave. It shows no signs of anyone being here this day, which means if D’see left the fruit cave in a fit of anger at me, she did not make it this far. Frantic, I backtrack to the fruit cave, hoping that she has somehow turned around and returned to the warmth and safety of it.
When I return, it is just as empty as ever, though, and I am filled with despair.
Have I claimed a mate only to lose her this quickly? Are my last words to her to be ones of anger? D’see will never realize just how tightly she holds my heart in my hands, and I feel such grief that I want to collapse. I want to throw myself to the floor and cut my horns to show the loss of my mate…but she could be out there, wandering and afraid.
So I must keep going.
When dawn crests, the storm breaks and I concede that I must return to the cave again. I must wait for her to come back.
It is the only thing I can do. If D’see returns, I need to be there for her. I am defeated, though. Every step feels like agony in my spirit. D’see could be dead. I cannot stop imagining her in the snows, clutching at tinder, unable to make a fire. D’see frozen under a drift of snow. D’see lost and afraid, because she does not know the direction back to the beach.
Everything in me says to go out, to never stop searching for her. To go to the beach and get A’tar to hunt for her. And yet…what if she returns today and finds I have abandoned her? Will she go back out into the snows? I agonize over this even as I return. It is more likely for her to come back to the cave, I reason with myself.
It feels like giving up on my mate, though.
I rush back into the fruit cave, hoping against hope that D’see will be sitting on the ledge, swinging her pretty legs. If she is, I will cover her face in kisses and then not let her leave my furs for a handful of days or more. When I return and the cave is as empty as I left it, I want to howl with agony.
My mate.
My sweet D’see.
I have failed her.
CHAPTER 16
DAISY
Something drips on my nose, waking me from the darkness.
I reach up to brush it away and hot agony explodes through my body. Whimpering, I’m fully awake now, and I wish I wasn’t. I squeeze an eye open, trying to recall what happened. I fought with O’jek. I moved behind the waterfall.
The floor collapsed.
Shit. Is that where I am? I try to sit up, but it sends a blaze of pain through my arm again, and I realize I can’t use it. I landed on it funny, and now it’s frozen at my side and screaming with pain. I bite my lip, lifting my head to look around. My head hurts, too, an aching, low throb on one side, and I imagine I hit it pretty hard when I landed. I’m lying on rocks, with a bit of light shining down from above. I roll onto my back and I can see mist floating through the air from the waterfall. I touch my face with my good arm, and there’s something sticky on my cheek. Just brushing my fingers over my skin makes new pain blast through me. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, but poor O’jek must be worried sick.
I lick my lips. They’re dry and painful, like the rest of me. “O’jek?” I call out. My voice feels as if it doesn’t carry far at all, so I call again. I’m suddenly terrified that the waterfall is going to drown out my cries for help and I might be down here forever. “O’jek,” I cry out again. “Help me!”