Alien Mate by Cara Bristol

Author:Cara Bristol [Bristol, Cara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Cara Bristol
Published: 2017-04-09T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Torg

My mate staggered a bit as we left the tavern. I’d tried to warn her of the ale’s potency, but she’d finished off her tankard. I blamed myself for her inebriated state; I shouldn’t have poured so much. Dakonian females rarely touched the stuff. Groman, Loka, and I were all surprised when the females insisted on going to the tavern. Love-smitten males that we were, we’d indulged their unusual request.

Loka’s female barely touched her ale, while Groman’s held her liquor much better than my mate. Starr giggled and clung to my arm.

“Perhaps we should skip the tour,” I suggested. We’d spent more time in the tavern than we should have. “We can do it another time.” The sun had begun its descent toward the horizon.

“It will be dark soon,” Loka agreed. Groman nodded.

“No, I want to see the rest of the…town,” Starr said, and then burst into giggles.

I didn’t understand what was funny about that.

“I want to see it, too.” Tessa bobbed her head enthusiastically.

The other one, Andrea, nodded.

Groman and Loka shrugged. “All right,” I conceded. “But we should be quick.”

“Goody!” Tessa clapped her hands.

“We’ll just peek in all the huts, promise,” Starr said.

“All of them?”

“The hall of records first!” She staggered across the snow toward the building I’d pointed out earlier. Tessa ran up to her, and they linked arms. Andrea joined them. They giggled. We three men followed.

A cold, empty fire pit lay in the center of the records hut. We did not heat the hall of records because if the hut went up in flames, we would lose everything. Shelves bowed under the weight of hundreds of leather-bound tomes. Sheets of paper, wells of ink, and binding supplies were provided on a table for whoever needed them.

“Where’s the book where you recorded our mating?” Starr asked.

“Here.” I stepped to a book stand where the tome of vital statistics lay open so the ink could dry.

Starr peered at the book. “It doesn’t look like hieroglyphics at all!”

“That’s what I was expecting, too,” Andrea replied. The two of them huddled around the book.

“It’s a regular written language.” My mate sounded surprised.

“Only not one I’ve ever seen,” Andrea said. “It’s nothing like Terran Universal or any of the dead languages. The symbols are completely different.”

Their other friend, Tessa, took a peek, shrugged, and moved to Loka. He wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Is this our record?” Starr pointed to the latest entry, still wet.

“Yes.”

“What does it say?”

“It has your name and mine and the date you arrived.”

“Are we in the book?” Tessa asked.

“Yes,” Loka said.

“We are, too,” Groman added.

Starr ran a finger next to the list of recent entries. “Are these the matings with the Terran women?”

“Yes.”

She nibbled her lip. “Your language looks…challenging.”

“Do you not wish to try to learn it?”

“No, I still want to.” She rubbed the side of her head, behind her ear. “Too bad the implant doesn’t instill reading ability, too.”

“We’ll start slow and easy.” I moved to a shelf and searched among the titles for a few of the smaller books.

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