3

Kaitlyn

He's gone again. His routine tells me I've been in this room, underground, for four days. He hasn't said a word after our screaming match on the first night. He sleeps outside the door, waiting for me to find the courage to escape. His heat, blasting through the crevice, is a temptation I can't resist. I huddle against the opening to bask in his warmth and listen to his rhythmic snores. When he wakes, I scramble to the nest of furs. I can't give him the satisfaction of being my source of comfort.

He leaves briefly and returns to put a steaming cup of tea through the crevice. No food, just a cup of tea. I guess I should be grateful I'm not eating because the waste bucket I found in the corner is almost full, and stinks to high heaven.

After he drops off the tea, he disappears for hours.

This is when I sleep…when the dripping of the icy stalactites threatens to drive me to hysterics. Maybe it's separation anxiety from my phone, a technology detox and I crave the radiation it gives off, or a bone-deep sense of helplessness, but I have no energy to move, let alone escape.

I'm under the permafrost for the first time and should be curious. There are two other crevices at the back of the room, but I'm too chicken to investigate them. Their entry points are wider. My claustrophobia plays images of my body wedged between rocks in a mental loop. Nightmares hold me hostage in the pile of furs. Starving, I'm weak and drowsy, so I sleep until he returns with his kill.

Next to a fresh cup of tea, he drops dead reindeer, foxes, and rabbits at the door to scare me. Their lifeless eyes stare at me until I kick their faces toward the wall. I sobbed over the first carcass for hours, but now I'm numb to the senseless violence. What does that say about me? I fear the biting flies that the decomposing flesh will attract more than the blood and gore.

The first day, I screamed at him to let me go home. The second I asked repeatedly why he kept me prisoner. By the third day, I'm quiet, watching him with weary eyes and a growling stomach. I'd hate him, but the vanilla-scented heat he brings is like warm cookies after a long trek in the snow.

Nah, I'd shank him for a box of cookies.

When he looks at me, he wipes his hand down his face. He looks at me with eyes filled with defeat, sadness, or, if I'm lucky, guilt. I don't know what he expected when he brought me here, but it's not this.

Great, now I'm crying again. I shouldn't waste my energy on crying.

Serik

My pleasure mates tricked me, hated me, and used me. But none of them starved themselves to death to escape me. Why am I so unlovable? Even with dushevnayasvyaz guaranteeing our compatibility, my mate chooses a slow and painful death. Am I so repulsive that she feels she must die to escape her fate? When I enter our home, my tongue ties in knots. Her suffering eats my insides and steals the words from my mouth.

I'm lost. How do I love her?

I've hunted every animal I can without help to tempt her to eat. She won't butcher the kill and instead chooses to starve. Do I dare go north to hunt sea creatures or take on a polar bear? Males usually cook for their human mates. Does she prefer her meat charred like Vera or in watery stews like Sydney? Manya and Patricika hated my cooking and preferred to butcher and cook meat themselves. Everything I did was wrong, so I haven't tried to cook for Chernyrozd.

She's fading away. I want my fierce mate back. If she makes herself sicker, I'll have to let her go—like when Vera was too injured to stay with Arytom. She left for human medicine, and dushevnayasvyaz brought her back.

I don't trust our soul bond to bring Chernyrozd back to me.

The seasons are changing from zima to niibin, which will bring the rest of my clan to the central grounds. I fantasized about introducing them to a happy and pregnant mate. Patricika will return with her human mate and a kit in her arms. Manya will return after a second happy zima season with Gleb, who is ten sun cycles my junior. I bet Sergei and Artyom will have pregnant mates, too. Their gloating will be insufferable—especially if my mate refuses to live.

Worse, they will bring the other unmated males of the clan to the central grounds for the annual mating chase.

My mate would rather die than be mine. Would she prefer mysterious Adrik, clever Kiril, or brave Marat? They are the Chuchunya closest to my age, but what if she prefers a young Chuchunya to order around like Manya controls Gleb? No other Chuchunya has a mouth full of fangs. They have smiles Chernyrozd would want to wake beside each morning. If Tatiana and Sveta cry and hide during the chase, then my mate will be the only unclaimed female in the clan… I won't have a chance in hell. How embarrassing to compete in a mating chase with dushevnayasvyaz symptoms and a mate who fights her biology to find a better male!

Over a thousand kilometers away on our northern grounds, the other males of the clan hunger for mates. I have no choice but to win her heart before they migrate south.

Today's my last shot at feeding her and proving I know how to provide for her. Instead of hunting, I gathered fiddleheads, ramps, and greens. I have dried berries, hazelnuts, and preserved cleavers syrup to dress it in my cold storage room. It's not as hearty as the rabbit meat, but Vera hums with pleasure over what she calls a ‘salad.' Artyom forages far and wide to bring his mate edible plants for her ‘salads.' If Chernyrozd likes this, my salads will become more impressive as the growing season matures. I will forage to the ends of the earth if she will eat.

I take a deep breath into my lungs as I slip through the crevice.

And nearly vomit with the stench coming from my mate…

Kaitlyn

"What stinks?" His question explodes through the entryway before his body emerges from between the rocks. His nose twitches over his protruding fangs as he storms around the cave. I scramble out of my covers to curl into a ball against the wall. He hasn't acted angry since the first day. What did I do? Of course, it stinks in here. I use a waste bucket without soap and water to wash myself.

"Oh mate, what are you doing to yourself?" He wails to the ceiling with his arms raised in surrender. How do I have control over my circumstances? I'm the victim! I have no tools for bathing or toileting. What did he expect? He drops the bucket he brought with him by the entrance. Green bits hang over the lip. I hope it contains veggie stir fry and not more shitty tea. "I can't let you wither away like flowers scorched by frost."

"Then let me go home," I whisper.

He roars at me. Bulging eyes, flashing fangs, and clenching fists at his side, he roars loud enough to shake the walls. Water dribbles from the stalactites onto his head. Pebbles and ice chips bounce down the walls. Is this cavern structurally secure? Are we in danger of a cave-in? I pant with anxiety. My heart races with claustrophobia. If he doesn't calm down, we will be crushed.

"This should be your home! I've bent over backward to please you! And you choose to wallow in self-pity—wishing for a freezing metal box that's infested with armed humans. You ran from them, remember? Am I so terrible that their guns don't seem so lethal?" He steps back, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. "How can you stand the smell?"

He pulls the furs from my makeshift bed and storms out of the room, muttering to himself. Seconds later, he's stomping to the far corner to collect my waste bucket. He points to it and shakes his head at me. Is that not a waste bucket? Where was I supposed to empty my bladder? When I open my mouth to explain myself, he shakes his hand at me and walks away. He leaves with the bucket but returns empty-handed.

"Now where will I shit?" I bolt to my feet and get in his face. Freezing and scared, I have nothing to lose. My hysteria fuels the flames of my temper. "The tea and the bucket were the only pieces of comfort I had in this hellhole!"

"The bucket is for collecting berries in the summer. I never thought you would shit in it," he yells. "I can't yell at you—"

"But you are! When none of this is my fault," I shout. As much as I hate him, I creep closer. The heat radiating off him is addictive. It's like when I would sit on the heating register as a kid and wait for the heat to blow out. I want to bury my frigid feet in his warm fur.

"I can't yell at you, because it burns my nose to inhale," he says, holding his nose. "I dumped the bucket and put the furs over the fire to smoke, but still smell something foul."

"When was the last time you disinfected your lair?"

"It's you," he snarls, sniffing at my snarled hair. "I can't believe it's you! I've been tormented for ‘smelling like a dog' since my teen years and when dushevnayasvyaz changes my scent, my destined mate stinks. I can't win!"

"If you let me go home to shower, I'll smell much better. I promise," I sneer. My pride is wounded. Allowing my captor to hurt my feelings makes no sense, but rage clenches my fists.

"You. Are. Home!" His shouts end with another earth-rattling roar. I'm scooped up by the waist, so I hang over his arms. Will he give me the secret to opening the rock crevice? Can I outrun him once we are on the other side? Disappointment weighs on my chest when he pivots and carries me deeper into the cavern. He holds me with one arm as he slides through the opening. My eyes squeeze shut as I'm yanked through. The scratching sound of the jagged rocks on my pajamas will play in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

I shift in his hold to soak in the moist heat of the room. Unbelievable that he can hold me with one arm and rummage through shelves with the other. Shelves! My anger—this time at myself—kicks up a notch. In this room are shelves of furs, bottles, and baskets of herbs. Steam rises from a giant pool of clean water. Another bedroom is beyond this bathroom in a wide-open doorway.

"Soap," he barks. He thrusts a lavender rock into my hands. It slips inside my palms, leaving behind smears of floral-scented residue. "Wash!"

I scream as he tosses me into the pool. My limbs sting with the sudden warmth. I allow my body to sink to the bottom, rejuvenating in the hot water. This heavenly room was a meter from me all along. My host is shitty for not giving me the grand tour, but he wasn't trying to kill me. How much should I bet the other crevice leads to some sort of food storage? I doubt there are taco kits and frozen pizzas inside, but anything would be better than starving.

I rise to the surface too soon. My pajamas suction to my body. I'm wearing nothing underneath them. A wave pushes me under again…because he's joined me.

Serik

"This opening in the rocks is the drain. If you need to relieve yourself and don't wish to walk to the surface, this is where you go. The current will take your waste away. The pool refills from the opposite wall. I have two soap rocks left from the zima season. Once the reindeer calf and the wild goat lamb, I will steal their milk and we will make more soap together."

"I had no idea," I say, scrubbing my belly. Shoving my hands down my pants stretches the elastic waistband to its limit, but I'm not undressing with him in the pool. Nor am I listening to more unflattering remarks about my odors.

"Really? I thought you refused to eat or bathe out of spite or protest. You didn't choose me, but I swear we are destined to be together."

"Slow down there," I say, soaping under my breasts and arms. "Just because you aren't a murderer and I'm not suicidal doesn't mean I'll fall into your embrace. I don't even know your name."

"Serik," he says, pausing the vigorous scrubbing of his head with a yellow soap rock. "It means support or partner. I like to think my parents hoped I'd find a partner to share my life…"

"Have you asked them?"

"They aren't around to ask." He turns his back and kicks a foot up on the far ledge. I'm fascinated by the way he washes between his toes—his perfectly human toes.

"I'm sorry for your loss. I'm Kaitlyn. No idea what it means."

"Probably beauty or makes lots of noise."

"I'll choose to ignore that remark, but if you can be rude, so can I. What are you? You're too human to be the abominable snow monster. However, you are too hairy to be human. Are you from the Stone Age and thawed from an ice block when the permafrost melted?"

"I'm Chuchunya," he says, switching feet. "Legend has it we migrated from the top of the world where the Bigfoot clans lived until the Clan Wars."

"Clan Wars? You mean to tell me there are enough snow monsters and Bigfoot monsters to have infighting?"

He lowers his foot and turns to me with a fang-filled smile. The yellow soap rock glides over his muscular pecs and disappears under the water. His fur is flat and translucent over a body-builder's physique. He has tiny, pebbled grey nipples. Guilt over checking out his nipples when he hasn't made a move on me, lodges a boulder in my throat. I'm curious—finally curious about something when I've been shellshocked for days—and it's his body. Maybe I do have a touch of Stockholm Syndrome.

"There is one Bigfoot left," he says with a toothy grin, designed to be smug but looks goofy on him. "Adrik joined the Chuchunya when we killed his clan. He was a kit, two sun cycles my junior, so my parents adopted him into our home. I hate him and the feeling is mutual. We spend our lives fighting for attention—first our parents' and then from the few females in the clan."

"What a world," I mutter to myself.

Serik holds out a hand for my soap before exiting the pool. I can't help but watch his erection bounce as he traverses the room. No way. I don't care what divine signs or biological symptoms he says make us mates. That beast won't fit inside me. From the shelves, he retrieves two large, fluffy white hides. He wraps one around his torso like a bath sheet, hiding his nudity.

"The rest of your sleeping furs need cleaning. You can have my room," he says, pointing to the large room off the bathing pool room. He drops the second fur at the edge of the pool, presumably for me to dry off. "I'll bring in the edible plants I gathered. Will you eat? Please…"

"I'm starving," I reply, treading water.

If it's night, then I can't escape to the anthropology lab. Having a functioning bathroom and dinner on the way warms my opinion of Serik. He's an asshole, not a kidnapping murderer. If he's lived alone for years with no family, he's grown feral—or at least into a shitty host. How many times have my brothers called me the same? I make them cook, sleep on my couch with my candy wrappers wedged in the cushions and watch my chick flicks after I leave them alone all day while I work. I never made them poop in a bucket though…that prize belongs to Serik.

"Once I'm dry, I will retrieve your furs from smoking on the surface. I should smoke those clothes too. I wish to hang them overnight—"

"Where will you sleep?" Happy to be clean is one thing. Sleeping together naked is another.

"Don't worry, the bathing pool will generate enough heat that you won't miss me." Do I detect a note of sadness in his voice?