We're a good distance away from our treehouse when Sterre lifts her head, her small ears pricked, and her tail fluttering.
"She hears something," I hiss to Kaspar, grabbing at his belt. "Hold up."
He pulls out a knife, holding his spear in one hand and the glass-shard blade in the other as he steps in front of me. "Stay back, Sunshine. Let me handle things."
Before I can comment on that, Sterre throws her head back and makes the loudest, ugliest, crankiest-sounding howl I've ever heard. It's sharp and dissonant, like nails on a chalkboard, and I wince. She repeats it a second time, louder than the first, and then begins to pace around us.
"Is that her battle cry?" I whisper to Kas. "Have you ever heard that before?"
"Never," he admits, and then his next words are drowned out when Sterre lets out another wail. Jesus Christ, I've never heard anything more off-putting than that. I move a few steps closer to Kaspar, just in case.
Sterre screeches again, her head pointing at the sky.
In the distance, it's answered. This call is deeper, gruntier, but no less unsettling.
Sterre raises her hind legs into the air and howls again, tail thrashing.
Uh oh. I tap on Kaspar's back. "Babe. We need to go."
"Is something wrong with her?" He looks at the carinoux, puzzled, and it occurs to me that maybe all that time in space doesn't make him an expert on animals.
I grab his arm and haul him backward. "I'll explain along the way. Let's head back to our ship, hm?"
Kas nods, moving protectively behind me as Sterre screeches again and the answering cat responds, this time louder. I know Sterre won't eat my mate, but I have no guarantees with a strange carinoux.
Especially when they're both in heat.
I should have guessed that Sterre was going into heat. She's been unusually affectionate lately, constantly rubbing against me and bringing me food, and so loving that she wants to be petted for hours on end. She grooms me at every chance, and while she's normally affectionate, lately she's been pacing near the door of the ship, too. I thought it might have something to do with the visitor but maybe it's that she smelled another male in her territory?
We hustle back in the direction of the ship, and when the cat-screeching is in the distance, Kaspar laughs and lets out a sigh and slows his steps, falling into place next to me. "You think she's mad there's another carinoux in her territory? I thought they were more social than that."
"She's not mad," I tell him. "She's horny."
"That's her horny sound?" He mock-shudders. "Thank god you don't screech like that when you want my cock."
I shoot him a look. "You'd still do me."
"Well, yeah. Of course." He gives me a sly grin. "But I'd just find things to stuff into your mouth."
I chuckle despite myself. "Let's just head back to the tree for now. It's not like we were seeing signs of the enemy anyhow. And I don't know if Sterre's howling is going to call every carinoux in the forest for a cat orgy. You don't know anything about their heat cycles, do you?"
"I do not," Kaspar admits. "You think this happens often? Once a season like a normal ovulation cycle or something else?"
Once a season? I open my mouth, ready to point out that a woman should BE so lucky as to only get her period four times a year. But then I snap my jaw shut as a new realization hits me.
I haven't had my period since we got here.
And while it's normal for me to be irregular, it's not normal for me to miss for three months. The last one I had was back on the Star, just before I climbed into the pod with Kaspar.
Either I'm really, really irregular…or…
Shit. Shit shit shit. I touch my stomach, thinking about how Sterre's always rubbing against it.
This…this is a problem.
56
KASPAR
Alice is extremely quiet as we return to the ship. I don't even tease her on the way back up the rope. I just watch her carefully from below and offer encouragement. When we get up top, I haul the rope up and get out the ingredients for a meal, since food is a distraction we both like. That and sex, but I don't think Alice is in the mood for sex. Her expression is distant and vaguely miserable, and it hurts me to see her distressed.
I move to her side and tweak one of her top knots. "Don't be so sad, Sunshine. She'll be back. Granted, she probably won't come back until she's gotten it all out of her system, but she'll be back soon enough. If I know anything about protector-kin, it's that once they've bonded to someone, they always return."
She draws her legs up and hugs them to her chest, a small ball in the captain's chair. "Thanks, babe."