Cherishing My Chuchunya: A Snow

Monster Romance (Snuggling under

Snowdrifts Book 3) Marilyn Barr
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By Marilyn Barr
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Copyright © 2024 Marilyn Barr. Created by humans.
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are
products of the author’s imagination.
Front cover image by Novel Cover Art. Edited by Lill Farrell
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 Table of Contents
Dedication
Content Warnings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chuchunya Glossary
About the Author:
More Books by Marilyn Barr
 Dedication
To all Moms: Birth Moms, Adopted Moms, Stepmoms, Single Moms, Chosen Moms, Pet Moms, About-to-be Moms,
Moms with strained relationships, Longing-To-Be Moms, and Grieving Moms. The world spins because moms turn it.

Content Warnings
Cherishing My Chuchunya is best described as a ‘breeding romance.’ Patricika wants motherhood more than anything
and her book contains consensual sex with multiple partners (on & off page, one committed male at a time), pregnancy, birth
(on page), and lactation woes. Other possible triggers include kidnapping, sex toy use, hunting, bloody violence including
murdering mobsters & villains, parental death (off page,) and an on/off relationship. Please read with caution and put your
mental health first.
 Chapter 1

Patricika, three years ago

I don’t care who kidnapped him first…he’s mine now. The violent men will never beat the man with the dark hair and
gentle hands again. What did this man do to inspire such violent anger? From what I have observed, he scrapes, brushes, and
digs in dirt for hours. He smiles at shards of bone and pottery he finds buried in the permafrost. The bigger the fragment, the
giddier he becomes. I’m happiest when he jumps up and dances around the square holes he makes in ice. Maybe the violent
men are jealous of how he can swing his hips, glide on his feet, and make shapes with his arms.
I certainly am.
While I’m no better than the violent men who kidnapped him first, I couldn’t stand at the window of the dilapidated
cabin and watch his torture another day. Not when it was so easy to slip Belladonna tincture into their open bottles. Their guard
drank as much of the putrid liquid as the other two last night after a session of beating and yelling at the dark-haired man. I’ll
never understand why it was important to point their star-finder box at the carnage and force the dark-haired man to beg for his
life. How would the stars save him?
They couldn’t. His life depended on me.
“Shush, don’t try to talk. Your mouth is full of blood,” I whisper when he moans in my arms. “It is safe to rest. I have
you now.”
His eyes flutter closed, and his chin falls into my lap as if his head is too heavy for his neck. He’s not dead, because he
raises the bloody stumps of his fingers to my cheek and smears blood on my fur. Did they have to take his fingernails? Nobody
uses their fingernails more than this man. I’ve watched him scrape the ice for hours, gently clearing mud from a shard of bone.
Running his slender, hairless hands over the ground, he caresses the Earth until she gives him her treasures.
How many days have I laid inside a snowdrift begging my body not to freeze while I’m captivated by his soothing
hands? Whether he holds a delicate brush, tiny trowel, or nothing at all, he lovingly digs with the reverence of a father washing
his kit. What would it be like to be cherished by someone instead of rutted and discarded at the annual mating chase?
My bowl of cooling water and woven grass pad are laughable preparations for my captive. How silly to think I could
wipe the blood from his face, and he would spring to life, grateful to be healed? Several of his ribs are bruised if not broken,
so his abdomen juts out as if heavily pregnant. His face…his handsome face…is misshapen with lumps of inflamed muscles
and the caverns of broken bones. I can’t gaze into his blue eyes because they are swollen shut. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have
his bright smile and expressive eyes shine my way?
“What the hell is this?” Denis’s voice rings with rage from the mouth of my section of his dyla weturanya. I haven’t
visited his section two kilometers below the permafrost since I started watching the dark-haired man, even though Denis’s
sleeping chambers are twice as warm as the ones I claimed. I can’t honestly sleep in Denis’s furs while denying him the chance
to impregnate me. We are together this zima season to provide kits for our dying clan, but I can’t. My heart won’t let me. As
much as it pains me to let my clan down, to break Denis’s heart, and to smash his dreams of having a family, I feel the betrayal
of my infatuation with the dark-haired man more.
We’ve never met, but my soul knew his soul at first sight.
“He’s injured,” I whisper. My fingers stroke his forehead, clearing the strands of hair matted to his skin with dried
blood. “I brought him here, so I can nurse him to health.”
“You brought a man to my dyla weturanya! A hairless man? How could you? You are mine! I won you!” He thunders.
I squint at him because I’ve never seen him possessive…of anything. This is not the gentle Denis I thought would share
a zima season with me. The Denis I grew up with makes beaded art, weaves leather belts, and spends his time in quiet
concentration. This Chuchunya male’s eyes blaze with fury when Denis has never raised his voice at anyone or anything.
Whether he’s stung by a wasp or bitten by a caribou, he laughs and shrugs off the slight. Who is this creature who paces with
anger and flashes his fangs at me?
 “I know I have no right to bring him into your home—”
“Our home,” he sneers in my face. I growl when he rains spittle onto the dark-haired man in my lap. Before I answer, I
wipe his face with the mat Denis wove by hand.
“I live here by the grace of your invitation. As soon as he is stable, we will leave.” I whisper. The dejection in my
voice hangs between us like fog.
Our short relationship is dead and rotting quickly. He can’t pretend we have dushevnayasvyaz—not when he admitted
that he never felt more than sisterly love for me after the mating chase. His body didn’t heat to warm his home. He smells the
same instead of emitting sweet pheromones. When he ruts me, his knot doesn’t inflate. How can we birth kits without his knot
to keep his seed inside me? We will never conceive, so why go through the motions?
No loving dushevnayasvyaz. No knot, so no hope of kits. No reason to stay.
“Is this where you disappear to each day? Don’t lie to me. I can smell whether you are in your cave or not,” he says to
the doorway. The beads on his leather loincloth clank as he shakes with rage. “If he’s been rutting you, why didn’t I smell a
change? Have you been seeded by both of us the whole time?”
“He doesn’t know we exist—”
“Oh, that’s rich,” Denis sneers as he whirls around. “He’s in your arms!”
“Men beat him half to death. He will dismiss us as a dream. I’ve never spoken to him. I hid in the snow as he worked.
He’s a craftsman like you… Only I don’t know what he makes. I never asked him.”
“Too shy? Patricika, asking me to believe you were too timid to approach him is more insulting than asking me to
believe you never let him rut you,” he says, his beads clanking as he jams his fists onto his hips.
“That hurts,” I say, hoping the man in my arms can’t hear Denis. My temper ignites. It’s my duty to the clan to birth kits
—whether I find a love match or not. We have less than a dozen members after the clan wars and the collapse of the meeting
island up north. The pressure to increase our numbers falls on the females to choose a male—any male—to rut her. No one is
making love or chasing a true mate. Why should indiscriminate sex be a slam against only me?
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “That’s not fair. Can’t you see I’m hurt too?”
His ornate boots kick a divot on the cave floor. Of all the Chuchunya, he’s the only one to wear boots and body
coverings like a human. Because I refuse every gift from Denis except food, I own very little. I wrapped my two furs around
my captive. My spears rest against the wall and I use my bucket for every purpose. I have no herbs to season my food,
ornaments to hang on my body, lavish leather clothes, or any of the luxuries a mating with Denis was supposed to bring.
…because I’m obsessed with a hairless one.
“It’s okay,” I say even though it isn’t. “I’ve been faithful to our mating despite refusing to consummate it. Don’t you see
how bringing a child into this cave would be a disaster? We argue over everything.”
“We would work harder—”
“For the good of the clan?” I stare him down because we have admitted the truth to one another before. We want
dushevnayasvyaz—the clan be damned. How many times did we lie side-by-side in the dark and confess? We want to find a
human to mate like our leader, Timor, and his mate, Polina. What Chuchunya doesn’t dream of finding the one soul that
completes them?
We were one conversation away from searching for mates as a team, but the dark-haired man couldn’t wait. The violent
ones would have killed him. His life force hangs by a thread. I can’t prove it, but I feel that he’s mine—so I took him. Timor,
Denis, the violent ones, and the rest of the Chuchunya clan can kick rocks.
“You love him?” Denis’s face falls as if I killed his family and, in a way, I have. As one of four remaining females of
child-bearing age, I’m the hope for any male of my generation to have a family. I wouldn’t put it past Denis to plot with his
brother, Artyom, to share me, so they both have a chance of being fathers. Our clan leader would love that plan, but Denis and I
admitted we want more than cooperation from our life partners.
We want love.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. I owe Denis that much. As soon as my infatuation for this man grew, I rejected Denis’s
advances without giving him a reason. Denis never forced himself on me, despite having clan law on his side. We don’t love
each other. We barely get along. It’s my fault for not moving in with Timor’s family when I knew our mating was a failure.
That’s what I’m supposed to do. I imposed on Denis’s hopes and dreams to stay closer to the hairless one. “I’m drawn to him,
but we’ve never said a word to one another.”
 Denis stomps away. The clatters echo as I slide my bucket beneath my human’s head. Cupping my hand in the water, I
rinse the blood from his hair. Luckily for him, the violent ones’ fists focused on his abdomen and not his head. There’s no herb
or bandaging that will save someone from a head injury. Every other body part will heal itself eventually in a strong body. My
dark-haired male is strong, despite his docile profession. Denis is flabby with his preference for handicrafts over labor, but
this man’s body is toned. While my fingers tangle in his wet hair, my other hand wanders over his shoulders and chest.
The steady beat of his heart soothes me more than a mother’s lullaby.
My body suggests I could fall deeply in love with him. Could he be my dushevnayasvyaz? How will I know without his
body changing? Is this pull to care for him, love? Denis’s return interrupts my thoughts. He’s burdened with furs, baskets, and
wood. The wood is tossed onto the fire carelessly. Sparks blow upward. Before I realize what I’m doing, I curl my body over
my male’s head. Denis clicks his tongue at my actions, but keeps his verbal barb to himself. He drops the bundle of furs, cloth,
and leather strips to my side.
Two small baskets hold brown, dried herbs. The third contains grey goop males use on their wounds. The recipe is
known only by Denis’s family line, so the brothers give a basket to everyone at our northern migration celebration.
“Will you share your salve with him?” I ask with my heart in my throat. The stuff is precious. Artyom and Denis
wouldn’t use their stash to heal themselves in the niibin season to conserve this goop--despite knowing the recipe. I doubt the
ingredients are available now. The heaviest snow hasn’t melted. “I can’t thank you for healing him…not if you ask for mating in
return.”
“Not yet,” he says, gruffly cutting the hairless man’s clothes from his battered body. The human twitches, but otherwise,
doesn’t react to the removal of his coverings. Goop splats on his pale skin as Denis tends to his blooming bruises. “Thin fabric
for the weather, no fur, what a Stupid Svoloch. I’ll make you a deal. He gets the best care I can provide—healing, food,
comforts, and time with you. You will put yourself in his place and realize how I would treat you if you carried my kit. Keep
your heart open and I will show you I am the better male to provide for you. He’s small, thin, and one of them. I doubt he
knows the migration routes. What can he possibly offer you I can’t?”
“You have a deal,” I say, planting a kiss on the injured male’s forehead. Denis winces, but I don’t care. “He can offer
dushevnayasvyaz. As soon as he wakes, your home will fill with his mating scent.”
 Chapter 2

Adam
I could be under the cabin. My swollen eyelids open a crack to take in a stone wall, a heap of soiled fabric, and a pile
of baskets. I’m certainly not in the cabin. Why steal my clothes, nurse my wounds, wrap me in furs, and hide me in a cavern
under the house? Seems too elaborate for the Tarzio family. They are the bullet in the head, steal the clothes, bury the body
under the house type of associates. However, they can’t blackmail Dad for interest if I’m dead.
Why did he borrow money from them? I ask myself for the thousandth time. Why couldn’t I get student loans like every
other college kid? We are in debt to a crime family. I am the collateral. It’s not like we bought a car they can repossess. Instead,
Dad hid a ring that proves the crime boss killed more than thirty people in a restaurant fire.
Toes wiggle. Fingers bend. There’s pounding in my head and throbbing on my left side. Bonus points for surviving with
all my limbs attached. My thumbs are broken, but I’m grateful for the pain. No nerve damage. I risk turning my head and
notifying my captors I’m awake to verify the base of the cabin is above me and find stalactites hanging overhead. It’s too dark
to ascertain if I’m in a cave or a root cellar. My tongue runs over my teeth as I count them. No gaps. I’m a lucky S.O.B.
“Drink,” says a growly voice in the shadows. A man’s hand thrusts a stone mug into mine. My wrapped, inflamed digits
are so thick, they fill the gap between the handle and the cup. The cup scalds me through my bandages, but I welcome the burn.
My body screams for mercy as I boost myself onto my elbows, so I don’t choke. I take a giant gulp and shutter.
It’s blood slurry. Gross.
Salted blood from a fresh kill is an old remedy for hypothermia. The iron will keep my body from bleeding out and the
protein will accelerate my healing. The drink, combined with the furred sleeve and beaded bracelets on his arm, confirms I am
no longer in the clutches of the Tarzio family. How did I escape? Is this good Samaritan in danger for rescuing me? I’ll never
forgive myself if I led a gang of killers into a First Nation’s settlement.
“Thank you,” I croak between gulps. My throat feels badly bruised. I hope my vocal cords aren’t permanently damaged.
If I can’t lecture in the fall, the university will be suspicious of my injuries. I’ve been able to keep my past from my current
employers, but for how much longer?
“Don’t talk,” he whispers. “She hasn’t slept in days, tending your moaning carcass. The least you can do is not disturb
her.”
My hand freezes with the mug halfway to my lips. The lump of furs I held upon waking rises and falls in rhythmic
undulations. My head swings between the sleeping ‘her’ and my host. Will he believe I was unconscious for the last few days
and excuse my rudeness? Hospitality usually doesn’t extend to sleeping beside the host’s wife, so I’m horrified that he found
me in bed with her. Or worse…is this his daughter? That thought makes my waking nude with my arms around her worse.
“Drink,” he says with a tip to my mug. His hands are grey and twice the size of mine. The rounded fingernails are
surprisingly clean, so he isn’t a homeless vagrant. Many men lose their employment and eventually homes to the melting
permafrost. They wander the tundra in an attempt to live off the land before the Arctic climate kicks them a second time, and
they turn to a life of petty crime and poverty. My hosts aren’t a homeless couple, but part of a village nearby.
“She and I have an understanding,” he says to placate me.
“Your wife? Daughter? While I’m grateful for your patience with me, I hope I’m not a thorn between you and a family
member. I’m sorry but I don’t recognize you if we have met before. It’s very dark in here.” Each word grates my windpipe. I
finish my drink because cold, congealed clots taste worse than hot blood.
“You’re awake,” a feminine voice says behind me. The lump shifts. A slender hand brushes my arm. “Ignore Denis. I
rescued you. He doesn’t control me. I’m my own keeper and I brought you here.”
“Thank you,” I say, shifting my hips to face her. I bite the inside of my cheek against the pain that shoots up my flank.
Maybe we should speak back-to-back. It’s not like I can see clearly until someone turns on a light. My heart jolts with
recognition. Perhaps we know one another from the university. I teach hundreds of students a semester. She could be a familiar
student or a recent graduate. “Why did you save me? Do we know each other?”
“Not yet,” says the sultry voice at my back. “Do you feel different?”
“Different as in, not dead? Yes,” I say with a chuckle that ends in a cough.
I lift my hand to brush my shaggy hair out of my eyes before it sticks to the wounds on my face. The top of my head is
wrapped in primitive bandages. Herbal goop surrounds each finger, wrapped in layers of bloodroot, cohosh, and other leaves I
can’t identify. The digits are secured by sinew threads that smell of smoke. Could they be made of reindeer innards? Who
makes sinew instead of buying string?
“I took extra care of your hands,” says the feminine voice with a new hint of shyness. What I wouldn’t give to turn my
head enough to see her within the mountain of furry blankets! “Your hands are important to your work. I don’t know what you
seek in the dirt that makes you so happy. I wanted to be sure you could continue after we are—”
“Patricika, stop!” Scolds Denis. “He’s not who you think! You can’t force what isn’t there!”
“Denis,” she says with a huff. “You know you aren’t the one for me and yet, here you are.”
“Fine, I’ll go gather more wood since nobody is showing dushevnayasvyaz symptoms,” Denis snaps, before sliding
through a crevice in the rocky walls. Huh, no ladder to climb out of this chamber. No doors or windows, either. Where will he
find the ventilation for a fire, so we don’t suffocate? We must be deep under the permafrost, or my skin would be blue with
frostbite.
“I guess saving me was all your idea. I can’t thank you enough, but I must ask why. I’d love to look at you, so I can
remember where we met before. You seem familiar but if I twist to face you, something pulls under my arm,” I say, lying on my
back to rest my achy arms. My joints are hyperextended from how the Tarzio brothers strung me up. This should be awkward,
lying in bed with a stranger, but my elbows bother me more.
“Denis will be okay once he gets over his jealousy. He’s more emotional than most males.”
Males? Dushevnayasvyaz? Maybe this is a fever dream and I’m still hanging in the dingy cabin. I make a fist with my
right hand and pain radiates up my arm. They wouldn’t hurt like hell if I was asleep. The elder Tarzio brother started his torture
by breaking my thumbs. Not dreaming. Where is my anxiety? The sense of dread that my father’s debt collectors will catch me
and my natural struggles with social situations are strangely absent. How am I at peace in a stranger’s bed?
“Am I high on drugs?”
She giggles. Not a feminine twitter like I’m about to be attacked by a flock of obnoxious songbirds. No, the sound is
throaty, husky, and rattle-my-bones sexy. My cock awakens, but the healing gash on my thigh prevents the ornery organ from
receiving enough fuel to embarrass me.
“Nothing I gave you will affect your mind. I wanted you to remember how we met forever.”
“Wait, we haven’t met before? Did you go toe-to-toe with the Tarzio brothers for a stranger? Do you know the danger
you are in? I better warn Denis in case they wait for him outside this hole. He could be dead!” Pain detonates between my eyes
as I struggle to stand. The room tilts. My knee gives out halfway up and I fall on my ass, hard enough to clack my teeth together.
I may lose a few before my escape after all.
“Please save your strength and don’t rip your bandages. Nobody waits to ambush Denis. Besides, he’s pissed enough at
me to rip apart an army of hairless ones. If the men who held you weren’t dead already, he’d kill them for sport.”
“Hairless ones? Males? Patricika, why do you use these terms instead of men, thugs, or assholes? You aren’t a
university student, are you?” My mind spins faster than the cave walls. My tongue swells where I bit it. I’m at her mercy but my
concern for her safety makes me sound gruffer than I like.
“I don’t know what a university is, so I’m definitely not one. I’m the other half of your soul,” she says. Her furred
sleeve brushes over my chest before her hand plants on the far side of me. I stare at her pointy, grey nails. Are her hands grey,
not inside grey gloves? Do they make gloves with realistic nails attached to the fingers? Her fuzzy sweater brushes my
bandages. My eyes roll back in bliss. When was the last time I held a woman in my arms?
I’ve never held anyone with a laugh that sets my nerve endings ablaze. My head turns to come face to face with my sexy
rescuer. The air leaves my lungs. Long, curly lashes frame her sky-blue eyes. They fan over furry cheeks! The fur frames her
thick lips, which curve at the top like a bow. She’s the epitome of curves and softness…encased in fur.
Not furry clothes.
Fur sprouts from her skin.
My heart pounds. A scream builds in my throat. I’ve read about mutant people who isolate themselves from the
civilized world. They are the product of incest, live primitively, and kill anyone dumb enough to be captured. As an
anthropologist, I’m more curious about such people than judgmental. As long as Patricika and Denis aren’t cannibals, I don’t
believe I’m in danger. Somehow the tabloid stories don’t match my English-speaking hosts’ behavior.
“Are you human?” The question slides out in a whisper. My rude hand slides to the side of her face as if I can feel her
fur through my thick bandages. I’m fascinated by the human way she angles her cheek to be cradled by my palm.
Our noses rub as she shakes her chin. My smooth skin nestles in her short, grey hairs.
“Not human,” I repeat.
“Chuchunya,” she says. “My clan crossed the Arctic Circle centuries ago and claims the tundra as our home. You are
under the permafrost in Denis’s dyla weturanya.”
Chuchunya are legendary creatures in Siberia which explains why her names for things blend old Russian and First
Nations’ words. I pull at the far corners of my mind to remember more of the Chuchunya legends. From unevolved
Neanderthals to aliens, I’ve read a thousand reasons why they exist…but never a credible source that cryptids actually exist.
Sasquatch sightings are common west of here, in the boreal forest, but those cryptids don’t burrow under the ice…because they
aren’t real, right?
A very real pair of lips presses against mine. Call it a moment of weakness, an exploration of a new species, or a
reaffirmation I’m alive, but I kiss her back. My lips nip at the stranger’s mouth with wild abandon. Her kiss is as shy as her
voice. I hold her tightly so her breasts press against me, even though she could slip away with a gentle nudge. My tongue stabs
into her mouth. She tentatively mimics my licks, as if unsure what to do. I glide my tongue along hers. Her throaty moan echoes
in the cave and penetrates my haze of lust.
She may be the furry one, but my answering growl is feral. It burns my injured trachea. My hips twitch with the urge to
grind against this woman—female Chuchunya—I just met. A stinging pain blasting up my spine dumps a cold bucket of water
over my burning libido.
I break the kiss.
Our panting fills the cave. She dips her head to the crook of my neck and sniffs.
“What is it?” I ask when she presents furrowed brows and pouting lips at me.
“You aren’t emitting the pheromones. You don’t smell right. I mean…you smell amazing, but not like I thought you
would. You still smell like a male.”
“I should hope so. Did you think your kiss would change me into something else?” I’m concerned for her. She seems to
be my age, but does she know about the outside world? She doesn’t know what a university is and expects me to change forms.
Is she educated at all? Are there other people in her life?
“Is a kiss what our mouths did? Yeah,” she says, withdrawing to her side of the furs. She brings her knees to her chin.
Her protective posture breaks my heart. I’m such an ass for taking advantage of her. “I thought you would turn into my
soulmate.”
Holy shit, I stole her first kiss. What happened to observing and protecting, without corrupting isolated settlements? Not
only did I break the anthropologists’ credo, but I went against my moral code. I know better, so what possessed me?
‘Soulmates’ rings in my ears. Do I believe in soulmates?
“Aren’t we born as soulmates or not?” The question flies out from the melee in my mind. Soulmate was the last thing I
thought she would ask me to be. If we are different genera, we can’t procreate. We know Homo sapiens mated with
Neanderthals and possibly Homo erectus. I shake my head. She can’t be a primitive human species any more than she can be a
mythical cryptid. I’ve fallen into the arms of a troubled woman, too simple to see her need of rescue.
However, her mention of soulmates shakes me to my core.
It feels right…or like a concussion.
 Chapter 3

Patricika
Kiss.
He reached into my mouth and withdrew my heart with his kiss. When Denis claimed my body at the mating chase, he
didn’t kiss me. In fact, I can’t remember anyone kissing at a mating chase. I slowed my running for Denis to catch me and he
pounced. On hands and knees, I tried to relax so his invasion didn’t hurt and after a few thrusts, it didn’t. However, I didn’t
have the passion and heart-pounding desire my mother promised I would. I didn’t experience those feelings until this stranger’s
kiss.
Without dushevnayasvyaz, we can’t join the clan. A human will never be accepted. I will fail to increase our numbers.
Motherhood is my life’s purpose. My mother told me as much after the clan wars took half our adult Chuchunya but before the
Great Collapse took the rest. Before she sank to the bottom of the sea, she instilled the importance of birthing future Chuchunya.
Not just my duty, but how much she loved raising me…how sorry she was I didn’t have a dozen brothers and sisters. The way
my parents’ dushevnayasvyaz blazed, they should have had a thousand kits.
I should call Denis, carry this man to the nearest hairless one’s settlement, or just dump him at his campsite where the
bad men stole him. A smart female would forget this male and focus on the one willing to give her kits, pretty gifts, and a
comfortable home. My choices are limited in a small clan. Even adopting Ardik from a rival clan we killed in the clan wars,
didn’t mean I had a soulmate. Adrik belongs to one of the other females—Sveta, Tiana, or Manya. Why does it feel like this
hairless male is mine? His body doesn’t warm the dyla weturanya, scent the space, or steal his mind with the need to rut. If I
crawled onto Denis like I did this male, I’d be trapped under him, seeking his knot.
A knot means kits. Does a hairless male have one?
“I’m sorry I kissed you. I didn’t know it was your first,” he whispers around wheezes. I pour him another mug of blood
slurry to heal his throat.
Oh, how I miss his speaking voice?! If those men broke his commanding voice, I’ll dig them up to kill them again.
Every time he would yell into the forest as I spied on him, a chill would run up my spine. Fantasies of his commanding me to
drop to my hands and knees to present myself to him, rocked me to oblivion dozens of times. Those daydreams and my fingers
proved I’m not broken. I can experience bliss like a female in heat…just not at a mating chase. Is it because this male was
missing from them? Is there more for me than a shared vessel between Denis and his twin, Artyom, in the hopes of birthing
multiple sets of twins to fill the clan’s membership?
“I’m not,” I say with more conviction than I hoped to show him. I hate that he has regrets. “I doubt I would get kisses if
you hadn’t.”
“Now that’s a tragedy,” he whispers, but the smirk he wears warms my heart. “I’m honored. Thank you.”
“Rest and let me take care of you. You must be whole before we return you to…to…” I trail off when the words stick in
my throat. In all the times I watched him dig, he was alone. His having a mate in his dyla weturanya builds a growl in my
chest. I swat thoughts of killing a hairless female from my mind.
“Adam,” he whispers. “I’m Dr. Adam Ruther, anthropologist. I study—”
“In the dirt, I know,” flies out of my mouth before I can stop myself. His smirk widens to brighten his whole face. My
Gods, he’s handsome. The intelligent sparkle in his eyes tells me he caught my slip and knows I watched him in the forest.
“Please don’t strain yourself by talking. You must rest.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, snuggling deeper into the fur nest I built for him. Even if I return him to his world, I’ll have his
scent. I glow with pride when his eyes flutter closed. His bandages are made by me, the herbs ground by me, and the warmth
between the furs is mine. When he struggled to breathe, I held him and mopped his fevered brow. He whispers because of the
herbal tea, I poured down his throat.
I should help Denis smoke the meat from the deer we waited to gut until Adam woke. The blood slurry will heal him
faster than any other remedy. I don’t want him to be healthy enough to leave us, but he must be whole to choose. My partnership
with Denis is mutual desperation, not love, and the opposite of dushevnayasvyaz. We both know it. Despite our clan leader’s
wife’s advice to ‘enjoy the kit-birthing process instead of complicating it with dushevnayasvyaz,’ Denis and I decided to
continue our search for love.
He's just pissed my search has ended. It’s obvious.
As Adam’s breathing evens out, I stroke his thin fringe from his brow. How can a male have such soft fur? If I hadn’t
felt his arousal against my thigh during our kiss, I’d question my judgment. His features go slack in sleep and his age drops in
half. I bet he was a troublemaker as a boy. Would his kits be troublemakers, too? A longing unfurls in my belly like a flower, a
beautiful bloom that won’t close unless it’s plucked. With a sigh, I grab his empty mug—pleased he drank all the blood slurry
—and head up to the surface to find Denis.
“Hey,” I whisper as I approach the fire. Denis stabs the blaze like a hunter giving a mercy blow to a lame deer. His
posture hunches forward. The beads in his mane rock over his shoulders and clank together.
“He’s asleep again,” Denis grumbles between pokes. The reindeer’s skin is stretched over a frame to dry. Meat hangs
on poles over the tips of the flames. Denis has done everything needed until the roasting is complete. There is nothing left for
me to do to help him…besides confess the truth.
I was wrong.
“Yeah, thank you for preparing the blood slurry while I slept. I don’t know when I dozed off,” I reply, squatting next to
him.
“Anything to help,” he says, but without his usual confidence behind the words. He doesn’t want to help Adam. That
much is clear. But if the roles were reversed, he could count on me to help him…his loyalty makes what I’m about to say
worse.
“You were right. He’s not mine.” A sob prevents me from continuing.
“You were right. I’m not yours either.”
“I love him,” I whisper to the desolate tundra because I can’t look at Denis’s face. Will I find compassion, hope, or
resignation?
“I know,” Denis says, patting the snow pile he sits upon. “How did he react to you not being a hairless female?”
Our kiss flashes through my mind.
“Calmly,” I reply and swallow all my poetry down. Denis has a soft heart and doesn’t deserve my rubbing my
happiness over his nose. “He will keep our secret. Should I let him go?”
“Would you keep him? He can’t give you kits. You would be giving up motherhood—” I silence him with my fingertips.
I’ve heard the arguments in my head since I saw Adam was in trouble. I don’t need Denis to speak them into being.
“Dushevnayasvyaz will find a way.” Bitterness digs my toes into the snow. Why couldn’t Adam be mine? Why must my
mind and my heart go different ways?
“But he’s not giving off the heat or smells,” Denis reaffirms. I nod because if I talk, I’ll sob. He pats my back in a
brotherly gesture. “Then consider my deal. I’m still willing to share you. Even with a hairless one. We will be a larger family,
but he’s strong enough to help Artyom and I provide.”
“There is no love between you and me, Denis.” I jump to my feet, so he won’t touch me again. The thought of lying with
him, or his brute of a brother, raises the hairs on my neck. My skin crawls with revulsion. What seems like a simple solution
isn’t good enough anymore. What happened to my sensible, level-headed brain?
Adam’s kiss poisoned it.
Now my mind is full of hearts, rainbows, and starry skies. I’ve turned myself into Denis.
I wander around the fire, looking at the miles of cruel landscape. Besides the bursts of wind blowing snow off the
dunes, the tundra holds its breath. Will I betray my species and smash my dreams of having kits for Adam’s toe-curling kisses
and gentle hands? Why must I choose? Hatred boils under my ribs for the peaceful nature before my eyes. I’ll grow as bitter as
the frigid winds if I stay with Denis and Artyom. How beautiful I will look with a permanent scowl adorned by Denis’s beaded
creations!
“What’s it like?” Denis’s question pushes the rage from my mind. His face has fallen with sorrow when our eyes meet.
“What does love feel like? Wonderful, like our parents said?”
“More if you can believe it,” I reply. His mood lifts and the familiar hope shines in his blue eyes. Why couldn’t I love
Denis? He’s as gentle as Adam, an excellent craftsman, and not enough. He doesn’t know what a kiss is, even after rutting me at
the mating chase. He never tried to build pleasure or connection between us. Our rutting certainly didn’t blaze hotter than a
forest fire, like the moment I touched Adam. I pity Denis, so I give him all I can bear…my words.
“Love blinds you like the sun’s first rays over the horizon, surrounded by the colors of the new possibilities of the day.
Then it warms your skin from head to toe, like their sun shines just for you. Finally, it sparkles with all the mystery and majesty
of the stars in the darkness. Little pockets of light and beauty remind you the dark sky will brighten again to colors, so not all is
lost. Denis, as I watched him work with his tiny brushes, I discovered how I want to be handled. I yearn to be touched and
loved by his fingertips. Talking to him, allowing him to see me, intensified the longing…despite how hopeless all looks on the
outside.”
“Good,” he grunts before throwing his stick into the fire.
“Good?”
“You deserve nothing less. When this is over, you will tell our kits of love. The clan will be large enough for them to
find dushevnayasvyaz, but they must know the love they seek. I’m honored that our kits will have such a wonderful mother.”
My heart shatters. He doesn’t understand. There will be no ‘our kits’ because I can’t let him touch me again. My dreams
conflict with themselves and his indifference will force me to choose. Our clan leader’s wife is a hairless one, but she could
breed with Timor’s dushevnayasvyaz. Can the bond between groups work if the roles are reversed? With Denis’s support, I
could confess to Timor and Polina. Maybe Adam could join our clan. Denis’s grip on his dream of a family with me crushes my
plan to bits. I’ll be accused of putting a fantasy before my duty to Denis and the clan…
...which is exactly what I’m doing.
Guilt rots my insides. Denis stands and places his arm around my shoulders. It’s a shackle to his side. I bite the inside
of my cheek to keep from crying. If only I could buck off his arm and storm inside…his home. As a female, I have no dyla
weturanya to house Adam. Would Adam take me to his in the hairless world? Could I be happy hiding in his cave, never seeing
the outdoors for fear of discovery? Do I dare ask about his home?
Who am I kidding? Adam's not good at hiding. He was nearly dead when I found those men beating him. His fierce
enemies hunt him. Our clan can’t get involved in the hairless world. Everywhere I turn are more reasons to forget Adam and
his kiss. If I carried his kit, could we keep the little one safe?
Tears fall from my eyes. If I get the miracle of motherhood, I can’t allow the hairless world to take it away.
“Come on, Patricika,” Denis whispers. “I can be as gentle as him. Tell me what to do. With practice, I can make our
mating easier…better. Give me a chance. My hands will touch you better than his…because my touches will be real.”
“And Artyom? Am I to trust your cantankerous, aggressive, terrifying—”
“I’ll coach my brother too or be the one to tell him we’re not including him. I will show you the benefit of staying with
your kind and keep you fat with kits for the rest of your life.”
“That’s not what I want,” I say between sobs.
“Me either, but we must give us a chance.”
 Chapter 4

Patricika
The guilt from Denis’s gifts threatens to devour me. When will my rejection burrow its way through his thick skull?
Every trinket he puts beside my furs at night returns to his craft area the next day. If it wasn’t for his slinking around in the early
morning, I’d sleep in Adam’s furs.
Each day Adam grows stronger and livelier. The injuries cleared from his voice, so his timbre echoes with masculinity
in our shared sleeping chambers. I moved him there after I agreed to give Denis a chance…which was my second mistake.
Giving Denis false hope was the first. My infatuation with Adam grows beyond a friendship with the sweet beginnings of love.
I bolt awake each morning, anticipating the opening of his bright blue eyes. After a day of completing the central grounds’
chores, I fall asleep between whispered secrets in the dark. Why can’t my life be this way forever?
“Hey, beautiful,” he says in his grouchy, morning voice. “Is it morning already?”
“For me? Yes. For you? You could always claim to need more healing sleep,” I say with a giggle. I giggle a lot now…
and I annoy myself. It’s his magic. I’ve spent most of my life fighting my feminine status to hunt with the guys, but Adam makes
me want to embrace my softness.
“And miss out on the fun you planned for today? Never,” he says, rubbing his eyes.
“We’ve got a few days before the hazelnuts mature, so today we hunt rabbits. Their pelts make the softest foot and hand
coverings in the zima season and the stew…yum,” I say with a little hum at the end. Rabbit stew is my favorite food. I should
cook stew for Adam and Denis tonight. Adam, because I want to impress him. Denis, because I owe him for the colored
baubles that he left at my bedside this morning. Useless trinket. What did he expect me to do with them?
“Are those grapeshot for rabbit hunting?” Adam asks as he sits up. His hair is matted on one side from sleep while the
other stands on end. My palms itch to smooth it down despite how adorable he looks.
“No, I don’t know what grapeshot is.” I pause to chew my lip. It’s embarrassing how many things he knows that I don’t.
He must think I’m an idiot. My heart sinks. There’s no way a stupid female could win his heart…not with the giant words he
uses and his important job discovering artifacts. Sigh, there’s always Denis if Adam leaves. “Denis left these by my furs early
this morning. Honestly, I don’t know what to do with them.”
“Never mind, grapeshot is for guns. I doubt Chuchunya hunt with guns,” he says, holding out his palm for the baubles.
He rolls them and runs his fingers over the carvings. “There are two different designs on them. They’d make excellent
checkers.”
“What’s a checker? I’m sorry I ask you to explain every word you say.”
Soft, tentative touches of his thumb and index finger lift my chin when it falls to my chest.
“My job is more than the digging you watched,” he whispers with the smirk I love. I don’t care that my spying was
discovered. It brought us together. “I teach too. I’m a lecturer. I love to teach…maybe too much.”
We sit frozen in time. His fingers never leave my chin. Will he kiss me again? I’m afraid to breathe and break his hold
on me. If I close my eyes, will he close the distance between us? Do I tilt my chin or wait for him to turn my face into a kissing
position? That’s what he did before…but can someone be kissed in any position? All these questions sit behind my lips like
melted snow about to crash through a beaver dam.
A stalactite falls into the neighboring bathing pool with a crash.
“Checkers,” he whispers, dropping his hand to his lap. “Checkers is a game played between two people where they
capture one another’s pawns. You would pick one design while I’d pick the other. I know exactly what we could use as a
board.”
“Firewood?” What? Or a board like a cutting board? He calls himself a teacher, but I hesitate to ask more questions.
Everything he says is a mystery and I want to learn everything about his world—something I can’t have if I annoy him with too
many interruptions. I hate how I want him to see me as a smart female when I come up short in every conversation. A hairless
female would know checkers and their boards.
“Board as in a special surface, not a board for burning,” he says. He grabs the cane Denis carved for him and struggles
to his feet. “I bet I look like a newborn reindeer.”
“That’s not how I see you,” I say with my cheeks heating. No, his slender frame holds long, lean muscles. While he’s
human, he’s not hairless. The sparse black curls over his chest and legs are a curious texture, in contrast to the soft Chuchunya
down that covers me. I have the strangest urge to rub myself against him like a fox scenting her den.
“I’m glad,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He does this curious gesture when he has more to say but won’t open
up. I know if I’m patient he will tell me. Adam loves to talk. His knees buckle and snap straight as he limps from the room
without asking for help. I’m attracted to his flavor of pride—he’s self-sufficient without being competitive or aggressive. It’s
him against his injuries, not Denis, with a quiet strength I can’t help but admire.
“This woven mat has ten squares along the edge, so it’s a compromise between the eight square board we use back
home, and the twelve square board used in Canada,” he says, holding up a grass matt we usually use to cover wet areas in the
bathing pool chamber. “See we put the baubles from Denis on the squares, your design on your side, and the other on mine.”
“Draughts?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Draughts,” I say with slightly more confidence. A boulder drops into my stomach as I offer my guess at what the
checkers game resembles in Chuchunya culture. “Are you talking about playing draughts?”
“Yes,” he says, lighting up as if the sun rose over a snow dune. “Some countries call this game, draughts. It makes sense
that the Chuchunya would call the game draughts with the Old Russian roots within your words. Does that mean you know how
to play? Would you play with me?”
“My father played with the other males during the zima seasons of my childhood. Females weren’t allowed to play…or
were too busy with the kits. The rules are foggy with the loss of the adults and the small number of Chuchunya left.”
“I’m sorry to upset you. We can go hunting if you need—I can’t believe I’m suggesting we kill something as a less
tragic alternative to checkers but I—”
“Would you teach me to play? Aren’t you afraid I will be terrible at it or hurt myself?”
“Hurt yourself playing checkers when I’ve watched you handle knives, poisons, and arrows? Humans teach their
children to play checkers when we don’t trust them with sharp objects.” He drops the mat to sit in front of me on my furs before
gingerly lowering himself onto the opposite side. The baubles clink as he removes a handful from the bag and spreads them
over the darker squares of the woven mat. “It would be an honor if you allowed me to teach you to play.”
“Yes, please,” I say, hating how small and shy I sound.
“Easier to see on the dark squares,” he mutters as he arranges pieces on alternating squares. “Okay, you get one move
per turn. You can slide one piece diagonally to the next square, like this. Or you can jump over mine if it sits in your way with
an open space on the other side, like this. If you jump my piece, you get to keep it. The goal of the game is to collect all the
pieces.”
“What happens if I run out of board?” The question flies out but at least I didn’t interrupt him. I hate how often I cut off
his explanations with questions. How did I become so comfortable around him?
Dushevnayasvyaz! Oh, shut up stupid heart.
“You become queen,” he says, placing one of my pieces on top of another. It shimmies before sliding to the side.
“Maybe turning them over would be a better way to designate a queen.”
Denis carved identical marks on both sides.
“I guess Denis didn’t want to make me a queen,” I say drily.
“No, I guess not,” Adam says with laughter breaking his words.
I can’t help but laugh with him. Every Chuchunya male’s dream is to have a queen to spoil. The task of every female is
to find the male whose idea of spoiling matches hers…according to my mother. Denis’s trinkets, Artyom’s wandering
adventures, Sergei’s supplies, and Adrik’s mysterious ways are what they offer females. And I want nothing to do with any of
them because they follow the old ways. I can’t look up to any of them adoringly because I’m either tougher than them or
terrified they will rip me apart.
“What about you?” My eyes shift downward to the board as soon as the question flies out. His hands are gentle with the
clay pieces as if he’s handling blue jay’s eggs.
“I can become a queen…err, king in the same manner,” he says, setting up his baubles to mirror mine. He mistakes what
I’m asking. Playing any game with Adam is fun, and learning to play draughts is a privilege, but I want the man. “Let’s try a
round.”
I slide a piece forward one diagonal space and glow with pride when he copies my move. Our pieces dance around
one another, like hawks circling a kill.
How would Adam treat his queen? Would he glide his fingertips over her skin with the appreciation he has for these
pieces? My eyes stray to his fingers with each of his turns. Would he teach her all he knows and listen as she teaches him? He
wins my respect when he doesn’t let me win our first game. We play three more games back-to-back and lose whose turn it is a
hundred times as we talk about everything and nothing. If we could play this throughout the zima season, the dark days would
fly by. Our laughter rings throughout the dyla weturanya until my stomach growls for food.
“We are tied at two wins apiece, but I want to eat, so we must hunt,” I say. “I refuse to eat our dried rations or
preserves when there’s fresh meat on our doorstep. To eat our stores while the weather is great is as irresponsible as…as…”
“As Artyom?” He asks when I say the same name at the same time.
“Exactly,” I say with another vapid giggle. “You always know how to finish my sentences.”
“You’re the queen of this dyla weturanya,” he says, wincing as he stands.
“What? What did you say?” I jump to my feet. Did he read my mind? Will he ask me to be his queen, partner, or…
dushevnayasvyaz?
“I meant I’ll follow you to our next activity and help where I can,” he says slowly, the quick workings inside his head
churning. “While I am in your care, I am your humble servant.”
“Of course,” I say with a casual wave of my hand. Luckily, my mouth snaps shut on explaining what I want to ask…
Could we be together? If not in this life but in a fantasy one where we share this dyla weturanya and the rest of the world
doesn’t exist?
Adam offers his elbow, and we ascend to the surface without running into Denis. The moment my fingers touch Adam’s
arm, lightning dances through my body. I’m zapped with our every touch.
Denis must be with Artyom or foraging. His bow and quiver of arrows hang above where mine live on the floor, so I
lend them to Adam. If he notices Denis refused to allow me to hang my weapons, he has the manners not to say anything. My
hunting is a thorn in Denis’s pride even though he doesn’t hunt enough to provide for one Chuchunya—let alone a family.
I don’t let go of Adam until we crouch behind a bush, so he can’t slip on the frozen ground. He’s made such progress
with his healing that I wouldn’t forgive myself for the setback of another injury. In my way, I’m as careful with him as he is
with me. I wouldn’t call us ‘gentle souls’ like Artyom and Denis. Our feelings aren’t hurt by teasing or heated discussions. We
understand the predator and prey relationship. However, I tenderly lower Adam to the ground before joining him.
“There’s a fluffy one,” he whispers as he points through the stems of the bunchberry bush.
I nod. We nock our arrows. Adam is slower than me but perhaps he’s out of practice with the provided food in the
hairless one’s world. He said a magical place called ‘grocery’—which isn’t gross according to his description—spoils him. I
shake the thought from my head and draw back my string. Adam follows suit but doesn’t anchor his arrow. My arrow flies true
and strikes the rabbit in the rump.
Adam’s arrow lies in the mud…less than a meter in front of the bush.
“Hooray!” I celebrate my perfect shot. Adam’s puzzled face warms my heart as much as his horrible lob. “Finally, there
is something you don’t know!”
“I’m sorry—”
“I’ve been waiting for my turn to teach you something.”
“That bad?” His cheeks blush pink as his eyes swing to the side.
“Terrible,” I say, cupping his flushed cheeks in my palms. “And it makes me the happiest female on the tundra!”
 Chapter 5

Adam
“Is it awful that you pelting me with hazelnuts made for the best day of my life so far? I’ve enjoyed every minute of my
recovery and I have you to thank. If only the autumn chores could last forever.” We’ve spent the day shaking hazelnuts from
their trees onto fur blankets. Patricika climbed the trees to shake the upper branches while I did the same below. She makes
every chore fun and every conversation stimulating. My ribs ache from laughing and I’ve lost my voice.
“Then tonight’s your lucky night,” Patricika says while recoiling her hair onto her head.
I want to say something like every night with her is my lucky night. Despite not sharing more kisses, I find myself
thinking sappy comments and worse—excuses to be in her presence.
After we dragged the blankets of hazelnuts back, she let me use the bathing pool first. I rushed as much as my injuries
allowed and sat facing the wall until she finished bathing. While she laughs at my modesty, I know she secretly loves that I treat
her body as her precious gift. Freshly clean and smelling of flowers, Patricika is more beautiful than a heavily adorned fashion
model. I could watch her twist locks of grey hair around twigs for hours. The way her arms raise to reveal her curves and the
scrunch of her nose in concentration is a gorgeous picture I wish I could paint.
Not that I have any artistic talents whatsoever. That’s Denis…my rival for her attention.
I wish I could hate the guy, but he’s fair and too damn likable.
“The moon is full, so it’s bright enough to fish for walleye,” she says, thrusting a twig at me to secure the back of her
hair inside her hairstyle. She’s so soft. I capitalize on every excuse to touch her. Why am I like this? I’ve never felt the desire to
touch a woman’s hair, but she has me on my knees to style it for her. “I have these adornments from Denis that will make
perfect lures.”
“Will he mind if you use them to lure fish instead of wearing them?” My hand freezes. I’m not healed enough to rock the
boat under my hosts. I stopped looking for escape routes, too.
“Are they mine or his symbol of ownership?” She doesn’t wait for my answer before she leaves with whisps of hair
dangling down her back. I grab my cane and limp after her into the main room of the cavern.
I hear her arguments with Denis when they think I’m asleep or out of earshot. She sees his gifts as payment for goods,
not promises of affection. Both parties declared, rather loudly, that they have no feelings for one another…which shouldn’t
ignite hope in my heart. Denis wants the dream family they discussed before Patricika started spying on me. Nothing more. But
can I give Patricika the ‘more’ she wants? Do I want to? What would a life with her look like?
Bliss.
No department budgets, whining students, forced lectures, magazine interviews…no mobsters hunting me…just
exploring and laughing in nature.
“Where are you going?” Denis pokes his head out of the crevice separating the sleeping chambers from the main room.
Patricika doesn’t answer or slow her strides—a clear signal he’s not invited.
“Fishing for walleye,” I reply, earning me a nasty glare over her shoulder. “The moon is full. We can find our way to
the pond, but the fish won’t burrow in the mud to hide from the sun. Want to join us?”
He curls his upper lip in disgust. I must give the guy props for not refusing outright when everyone in this cave knows
he hates hunting, fishing, and chores in general. Sometimes I wonder if he’s happier when we are outdoors, and he can devote
his full concentration to his crafts. His art is stunning, but at what cost? I can’t imagine Patricika sitting around while he works
any more than I can imagine him pretending to enjoy the adventures she craves. They’re a mismatch…but does that mean I’m
her match?
She says so.
“Just go,” he says, pulling his head into the other chamber before I can answer.
 I shrug toward the main room’s outer crevice…just in time to catch Patricika’s fading shadow on the other side. With
my cane steadying my gate, I limp up the long hallway to the surface. Skirting around stalagmites in my path, I catch up with her
at her wall of tools. She hands me what I assume will be my fishing rod, a net woven with reindeer sinew threads, and an over-
the-shoulder bag. I’m not making the mistake of analyzing the origins of the bag…again. Last time I surmised my bag was an
herbivore’s second stomach with descending intestines still attached.
“You won’t win my heart by including him, you know.”
“I know,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. How do I say I’m softening the blow of her rejection? “I’m polite to my
host.”
“I love and hate that about you,” she says, stomping into the night air. “Sometimes I wish you would pummel him into
the ground to impress me, and other times I’m impressed that you don’t.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not going to pummel anyone into the ground to win you,” I say. With all the violence
swirling around my dad in my childhood, he sheltered Mom and me from the worst of it. I became the centerpiece when I went
to college, but I was a grown-up. I’m far from a pacifist, but I don’t start violent confrontations—especially with primitive
clans like the Chuchunya. Preserving their way of life is invaluable to the anthropologist in me.
She snorts and speeds her steps. I have no hope of keeping up with her…but the view of her behind against the darkness
is breathtaking. My teeth bite into my lower lip to stifle my groan. She’s a ten out of ten. The northern boreal forest wears the
colors of fall in a technicolor backdrop. The gold of the maple leaves glow periwinkle. The red and burnt orange leaves in the
daylight have cooled to purple and dark green. It’s like I’ve stepped through a portal to a fairyland. I lose myself in the
harmony of insect chirps and owl calls.
What could I do to spend more of my life surrounded by beauty like this? I’ve wanted to study anthropology since my
teens and thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I entered the university’s laboratory—a laboratory I no longer visit. I hate
the way I’m treated in the lab—like an outsider. Am I an outsider in the boreal forest?
Splash.
“Patricika!” I call after her as I scramble down the beaver foraging path. More splashes and Patricika’s curses blister
the night’s song. I push my cane’s limit as I use it to leverage my weight over downed trees and rudimentary beaver structures.
“Are you alright?”
“Fine,” she snaps when I part the reeds surrounding the small lake. “I’m fine. I was better at following the beaver’s
trail than I thought—” she pauses to shriek her frustration “—I broke my rod.”
I can’t laugh. I can’t laugh. She’ll skin me alive if I laugh.
Patricika slaps the chest-high water with her two pieces of the fishing rod. In reality, the rod is nothing more than a
dwarf birch trunk that’s shaped into a crescent. Wouldn’t her eyes bug out at some of the high-tech rods humans use with metal
spools, tension lines, and guide loops? While the dwarf birch trees don’t grow south of the boreal shield, picking one up on
their next northern migration will take minutes…like a trip to the sporting goods store in the big cities.
“What’s so funny?” She blasts the question while squeezing the water from her hair.
“Fishing rods,” I retort.
“As long as it’s not me,” she says, swatting away my hand when I offer to help her onto the bank. Insistently, I clutch her
elbow to guide her out like a gentleman.
…And fall head over heels….into the murky water.
As I claw my way to the surface with all four limbs whirling, her throaty laughter curves the corners of my lips upward.
I stand to slick the hair off my brow and out of my eyes. Not that the fringe bothers me, but I want to listen to her for a few more
seconds. I’ll never tire of the music she makes when she’s happy.
“That’s not what I planned to do,” I say with a chuckle of my own. My cheeks blaze hotter than a campfire. “Let’s try
that again.”
She grabs the rod out of my hand instead. “No thanks, I prefer my rescue a little more graceful.”
“Someday, when I’m healed,” I say, scrambling onto the banks behind her. “I’ll dance with you in my arms and show
you how graceful I can be.”
She answers with an eye roll, but I tuck the promise into the deepest recesses of my heart.
“It’s not my fault I fell,” she blusters. “It’s the beavers. Their foraging path gets shorter every niibin season.”
“That’s because of the successful reintroduction of wolves into the forest. As the wolf population grows, they hunt more
beavers. The beavers can’t travel as far from the lake without meeting hungry wolves. It’s healthy for the ecology and food web
stability of the region because their destruction of plant life is localized,” I say, excited to have some knowledge to share with
her. Her eyes sparkle as she listens intently…or is she laughing at me?
“You can stop me at any time. I won’t get offended. I know I talk too much about narrow topics. Everyone tunes me out
—including my students—but you have my permission. Just say to shut up,” I say before I can stop my runaway mouth.
“Shut up,” she says. She sits on the edge of the water with her feet swept to the side, winding sinew around the rod.
“Wow, I’m sorry I—”
“Stop babbling about talking and go back to what you were saying about the beavers destroying the plants and the
wolves,” she says with her fingers over my lips. “Whoever doesn’t want to listen to you is a waste of your time. I love to
learn…from you. You treat me better than a dumb female you must protect from her own stupidity. I like how I feel when you
talk about real things.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, are the beavers confined to the lake the reason why the walleye aren’t as active?”
“Walleye love the steep drop-offs at the base of the dams, so they live in harmony with the beavers. It’s the rising
temperatures of the lake water. Walleye loves cool water,” I reply, arranging my limbs to sit beside her on the bank.
“When I was a kit, I’d fish for walleye with my parents all niibin—” She pauses to cast our line into the water. “Is the
water temperature too warm? Because as I’ve grown, the season shortened to one or two nights a year—after the first snow
flurries.”
“It’s a cycle,” I say, digging deeply into my memories of ecology class. “The snow melts at the end of zima, which
floods the lower areas and allows for channelization between big rivers and small ponds like this. The walleye eat the new
fish, reproduce, and grow fat. Chuchunya catch the slow ones. As the summer—niibin—heats the area, the water evaporates.
This cycle is disrupted by pollution and climate change. The water level drops too low for the fish to grow big.”
“So, the force that melts the permafrost, endangering the Chuchunya, threatens the walleye too.” Those sky-blue eyes
shine at me like I have the power to save the world. I wish I could blow over the tundra and freeze everything, but I’m only a
man. “Should I stop fishing for walleye or stop hunting?”
I wait for the eye roll that never comes. A fish tugs her line. Without asking for assistance, she lifts it from the mud,
rebaits the lure, and ties up the fish in seconds. I’m not helping—I’m a companion. The thought hits me like a ton of bricks.
She’s interested in dialog…about climate change, the permafrost, and the issues threatening the forest. With her meager
resources and primitive existence, she’s willing to cut her lifestyle for the planet. I’m more than impressed…I’m enchanted.
“The Chuchunya are in balance with nature, so you don’t have to change anything. I’ve watched you break down a
carcass and use every piece. Nothing is wasted. That’s what makes the Chuchunya lifestyle different, special.” It’s on the tip of
my tongue to tell her I find her special too. Her skills and dedication to the animals she kills make her the exception among
hunters. However, it’s her abundance of moral fortitude and intellectual hunger that makes her an exception among the women
I’ve met.
“Where does the moose fit in? You know, with the beavers and the wolves,” she says, wrapping my arms around her.
We scoot and squelch on the muddy bank until she’s reclined in my lap. We hold the rod as a unit.
I whisper in her ear everything I know about moose ecology. She listens as I rattle on about their weight stomping the
snow to insulate the permafrost, their spot in the food chain, and their dwindling numbers due to deforestation. Her questions
are insightful. Her anecdotes are funny…except for her description of how she hunts a moose alone. Picturing her lying below
the massive animals is terrifying, but I know better than to say so. She’s survived every encounter without my protection.
“The animal’s relationships form a… sort of…” I flounder when the term escapes me.
“A web? They form a web of predator and prey,” she says in a husky, drowsy voice.
“That’s it! A food web is what scientists like me call it. You knew just what I wanted to say.”
“That’s because I’m your other half. My soul knows yours. Yours knows mine.” She rolls to her side to cuddle my arm
and relinquishes control of our fishing rod. My leg twinges with pins and needles with her every exhale, but her peaceful
features are worth every pinch.
We listen to the music of the forest because I don’t know what to say after the verbal bomb she drops. The urge to
impress her, love her, and promise a future with her drums through my veins. Damn body! I can’t dance with her under the
moonlight when I can barely walk. It’s a physical manifestation of how I’m torn between two worlds. Will we get the chance,
or should I leave as soon as I’m healed to stop my foolish heart? Which is heaviest on my conscience—the damage to her place
in the clan, my need for an orthopedist, or the way she fits in my arms?
“We got one! Look something tugs the line,” I shout with excitement. I probably woke every predator in a two-kilometer
radius, but I caught my first walleye. “Not bad for a city boy.”
“Fantastic,” she says in a voice thick with drowsiness. “We can hang them to dry while we sleep.”
“Or we can catch a third, and I can show you how I make Fish En Papillote,” I say with a kiss on her brow because I
can’t resist. “It’s when I wrap fish and herbs in a packet to roast within the fire.”
“Only if I get to teach you how to make akutaq with some of the skin.”
Ugh, I choked down Alaskan ice cream the first time she made the goop, but I’d love to learn her recipe. I doubt she
uses processed ingredients from a grocery store. How can they store whale blubber without refrigeration? She won’t find a
whale in the finger lakes down here. Watching her will give me a glimpse into the past, lighting my brain on fire…and warming
my heart too.
Patricika isn’t the domestic sort…which makes her cooking for me extra special.
Snuggled under my damp jacket, we catch six more fish and watch the sunrise. The extras are for the cooking lessons
and winter preparations…right…not because we don’t want to leave the forest’s beauty, our enlightening conversation, and
our cozy embrace…ever.
 Chapter 6

Adam
She’s everything I’ve wanted in a woman.
The thought floats through my mind more often as my concussion clears and my body heals…not less. Every day is a
fascinating display of ancient courting rituals, primitive survival skills, and anthropological treasures. I no longer wonder how
our ancestors survived in the Arctic Circle without modern conveniences. Witnessing their hunting, gathering, tanning, and
crafting has taught me more than all my years of education.
Patricika excels at every task. She climbs trees to shoot reindeer with a bow and arrow she made herself. She brews
herbal remedies to restore my body faster than Western medicine. With herbs she wildcrafted herself. The gift of knowledge
from this woman, whom I once thought uneducated, humbles me.
There is one problem with this sabbatical. I’m not just a scientist.
I am a man.
Without exchanging more kisses over the weeks, Patricika and I grow closer than she is with Denis. We finish each
other’s sentences and whisper to one another through the night. I know our snickers wake Denis, but he doesn’t acknowledge
our secret conversations. He’s still trying to win her, though. With every Chuchunya courting gift, she breaks or loses “on
accident,” a warm glow builds in my chest. I must be lost in a testosterone haze because I look for simple gifts to present to
Patricika too.
When Denis wants to sit and craft with beads, clay, or leather, I’m happy to escape with her. The best days are ones
like today when Denis’s brother Artyom visits. Patricika and Denis agree they aren’t ready to introduce me to Artyom, so the
brothers spend the day alone. Patricika says Artyom is a storyteller and trades goods for gossip.
I don’t care. I have her all to myself.
“Come on, three legs!” She yells from the top of a snowdrift. Before I can mount the hill, she sits and slides down the
other side. Her sultry laughter is the lure I need to follow her. My dirty trousers will be soaked, but my body is compelled to
follow her sounds. I’d follow her to hell and back…which scares me to death.
With two hands holding my cane over my head, I slide down the hill with the grace of a three-legged bull, which I guess
I am temporarily. She waits for me, lying at the base of the hill, so I curve my path to end beside her…and miss. Pain wraps
around my pelvis as I twist my hips to the left. I can’t kick her at this speed with my weight behind the strike. She will be badly
hurt. Instead, we collide hip-to-hip. I roll over her, but she grabs my furry tunic as our chests brush. We flip. The momentum
leaves her straddling me with desire blazing in her eyes. Our sexes align. I harden with anticipation and bite my lip against the
building growl in my chest as her body yields to mine.
Damn, I want to kiss her again…but is that wise?
“I’ve been saving this for the right time to give it to you,” I say, to stop myself from taking advantage of her. Six months
ago, I would have crunched the heart-shaped walnut shell hanging around my neck to smithereens. How many other simple
treasures did I crush under my loafers on campus? I lift the sinew cord over my head and place it over hers. I’ve watched
Denis give her dozens of gifts…if she reacts to my walnut shell with the unimpressed crinkle on her nose, it will gut me.
“When I saw the shell’s outer ridges, it didn’t seem special but when I turned it over—” I pause to turn the bobble in
her hand “—I saw the heart inside and knew you had to have it.”
“Because you have my heart,” she whispers. My God. Her smile shines beautifully in the low Arctic sun.
“And you have mine,” I whisper. Wait, what? Did I accidentally pick up a Chuchunya engagement ring? We’ve
essentially confessed our love, and I can’t find it in me to care. I love every second I get to spend with her. She loves to learn,
and I love rediscovering the natural world through her eyes. She’s sharp and too curious for her own good. The teacher and
naturalist in me is in heaven.
How irresponsible! A million doubts swirl in my head. Where will we live? Do I have to leave the university and live
with Denis forever? Is it fair to keep her in my apartment? Could I disappear from my father after all he’s risked putting me
through school? My dreams have come true because of the sacrifices he made.
My mind clears with the dark thoughts scattering to their corners like roaches when her nose rubs mine. The sensation
is different with my patchy beard. I haven’t shaved for weeks. I kiss her gently, with the intent of sharing a walnut shell’s worth
of affection. My body has other ideas. Bandages no longer impede my hands as they smooth over her body. She hides
voluptuous curves under her fur. Her rounded hips fit into my palms as if we were made for one another. My healed thumbs are
crooked, so they sit along the ridge of her pelvis. I’ve been reshaped in her care to fit her every need.
She breeches my mouth with her tongue first, but the duel is even. With the two-sided yearning, this kiss is not my taking
advantage of her. The questions and doubts that plagued me seconds ago don’t seem to matter anymore. We will make it work.
Her hand works through the tangles in my overgrown hair to massage the back of my scalp. My hands inch backward to grab
her ass to press her more firmly against the tenting of my pants.
“Let’s go somewhere warm before we lose control,” flies out of my mouth.
“Warm? Can’t you feel the sun’s rays? Release your cock and let me keep it warm for you,” she says against my lips.
There’s the difference in our species again. Denis could take her on the snow, but my dick may get frostbite and fall
off. It’s too cold for my thin pubic hair. I’m not fuzzy with down beneath my fur. I’m wearing furs we tanned together. Sinking
into her heat could be worth the blackening frostbite later…stupid cock. No, we must slow down. I sit up and hold her to my
chest. We must stop, but I don’t want her to think I don’t want her. Not when I want her with every fiber of my being.
My chin rests on the fluffy grey bun on top of her head. I love nothing more than watching her spin her waist-length hair
with twigs to hold the style. They perfume her mane like the forest as if she’s a winter goddess of pine and fir trees. A tear
drips from my eye as the realization hits me that our situation can’t last forever. I close my eyes to memorize the feel of her in
my arms. Soon the winter weather will be too brutal for me. What do Chuchunya do when the seasons turn? They don’t
hibernate in centrally heated apartments with coffee and donut holes, like the rest of Canada. They depend on dyla weturanya,
dushevnayasvyaz, and other Chuchunya secrets Patricika keeps to herself.
With one more inhale of her fresh scent, I open my eyes to reality…and a familiar landmark. A Scots pine tree stands in
the shape of a Capital ‘F.’ The harsh western winds have blown the branches to the side with the two largest off-shoots parallel
to the ground. The top was struck by lightning to create a flat, unnatural edge. I always set my camp next to this tree. The ‘F’
stands for father… Guilt lodges in my chest like a boulder. He would be disappointed I’m throwing away my career to play
Neanderthal, corrupting Patricika, driving a wedge between her clansmen, and bringing the threat of the Tarzio brothers to her
doorstep…err, cave entrance. If I love her, I must let her go.
“What’s wrong?” She asks when her proposition is met by my silence.
“I found one of my landmarks,” I reply, pointing to the bent tree. “It reminded me of the responsibilities I have at the
university. I teach classes, write papers, and report on the discoveries I make here—”
“Leaving? You won’t write about the Chuchunya, will you?”
“I’ll never tell,” I declare with a kiss to the “V” between her worried brows. “My department doesn’t know about the
men after me. The university can’t discover my injuries and how I miraculously recovered from worse. I would never give you
away—give away the secret of your people.” And they are people. Furry, trapped in ancient times, and secretive people. The
relationship between Denis and Patricika, Denis and his brother, and I suspect the rest of the clan are as genuine as those
between the students at the university. I can’t ruin their existence and reduce their status to laboratory specimens.
“But you feel pulled to return,” she says with glassy sky-blue eyes.
“The men who attacked me—”
“You don’t have to talk about them. I’ve never asked why because I thought we had time to dig into your mind. If you
tell me now, it will sound like a goodbye,” she says against my chest. Her sniffles chip away at my heart. Who do I disappoint,
my father or her?
“My father borrowed money from them to send me to school. He risked his life for my dream. He didn’t think they
would come after me. If I’m not working at the university, his sacrifices are for nothing. My beating and the blood on your
hands were for nothing.” I raise my voice over her sobs. My hands smooth her back as my arms tighten around her. She’s right.
This is our goodbye. I won’t last the winter on the Arctic tundra, even if Denis sticks around to help us. A clean break is best
before our intimacy passes the point of no return.
The wind picks up to howl through the trees. Snow smacks me in the face, and I welcome the sting. My chapped cheeks
will drink my tears. Patricika and I fit in every way that doesn’t matter. Same interests. Long, meaningful conversations without
awkward gaps. Kisses, more exciting than fireworks. Those things wouldn’t help us when the temperatures dip to negative
forty-five degrees Celsius. I’m not built for her world. She’s not welcome in mine.
“I’m not saying goodbye twice,” she says, pushing off my shoulders to stand. Her shadow falls over me like a blanket
of condemnation. “I also know where your camp is. Take my hand and I will return you.”
“Return me?” My legs won’t move, and it has nothing to do with my injuries. Logic says I must take this chance to get
checked out in a rapid-access clinic. My thumbs could be deformed for life if I stay. Can I drive a car across the tundra if she
migrates? I shake my head, throwing my overgrown hair over my face. I can’t think of staying with her.
“Return you to whoever takes care of you—”
“No one takes care of me. In fact, no one has ever taken care of me the way you do,” I say, taking her offered hand. I try
not to pull while I stand, but she stumbles, nonetheless. She can’t take care of me for the rest of our lives—my pride won’t
allow it. I need advanced medical care. “All I have waiting for me is my work. I swear. What about you? Will you go back to
Denis?”
“I’m trapped in Denis’s dyla weturanya until the next mating chase,” she says absently. We trudge toward the Capital F
tree at a snail’s pace. “When we return to these grounds and the crocuses bloom, I’ll mate again…if Denis doesn’t force the
issue sooner. With you gone, he will have no reason to stop pursuing kits. Mating with him is my purpose…now.”
“Will you run in the next mating chase?” My temper ignites and fills my heart with an inferno of frustration. She’s not a
brainless, soulless vessel for sperm!
“I must,” she says with a clearing of her throat. “Clan law dictates a female must be sheltered by a male. I must find
someone…better suited to care for me if I’ve ruined my arrangement with Denis. As much as I wish we were compatible, we
are physically as different as night and day.”
My stomach sours. Someone else will touch her. We want each other, but maintain boundaries to protect our hearts. A
better male will take her body while her heart is mine…and it is mine. No question about it. Will he treat her well?
“Physically? Was your pleasure in my bed an act?” Will she experience all the pleasure I want to give her? If she’s hurt,
I’ll—I’ll—not know about it. Because of my so-called honor and stupid humanity, I missed my chance to show her all the love
I hold in my heart for her. I’m a dumbass.
“What I feel is immaterial,” she snaps. “Our relationship is forbidden, so without dushevnayasvyaz symptoms, I can’t
argue with the leaders to accept you.”
“Can you refuse to run?” I clear my throat to cover the fury and fear in my voice. The surprised look she shoots me says
she knows I’m angry about her moving on. Those beautiful blue eyes cut me to size. I can’t judge her culture’s rituals or sexual
norms. We both know I’m bitter I didn’t sample her…savor her…savor what we could have…
“Why would I? Our clan is dying out. I’ve wanted nothing more than to be a mother since my first monthly bleed. Denis
gives me my space, pretty trinkets, and a cozy home. It’s not like I have options,” she snaps.
Options. I’m the option. Love is an option. I don’t understand enough of her culture to argue. Maybe Chuchunya parents
don’t teach about romantic love. Maybe Patricika’s soft heart and flowery words are an anomaly in her clan.
“So, you will allow Denis to fuck you all winter, and then what?” I can’t stop my mouth from asking the questions that
burn my insides. There is no answer she can give that won’t stab me through the heart, but I must hear the words. I can’t
wonder what happened to her for the rest of my life.
“I’ll run in the mating chase. When I’m caught, I’ll submit to him,” she says with a shrug.
Our footsteps crunch over the snow. My campsite should look like a pile of trash because of the redecorating the Tarzio
brothers did before they took me, but it’s neat as a pin. New grids are laid out on the ground. The hand tools rest in buckets.
Behind my collapsed blue tent is a high-tech red unit with ‘University of Alberta’ printed on the side. A portable satellite
antenna stands guard.
A blond ponytail swings between the tripod legs. Holly saves my excavation from missing the deadline. She’s the type
of friend who would seek me out when I stopped replying to emails. My counterpart is covering my ass before our boss,
Kaitlyn, finds out I’m not making my weekly reports. Holly probably thinks I’m hunting a discovery in a more primitive setup
—and in a way she’s right. I made the discovery of my career, but I’ll take the Chuchunya secret to my grave. We share a
camaraderie since we maintain the university’s satellite lab on the tundra, but she can never know about Patricika.
“Holly’s not mine,” I whisper to stop the assumptions from running away with Patricika’s heart. She replaces the glare
on her face with a blank stare. “I have never mated or fallen in love with that female. She’s a friend.”
“I have no right—”
 “Not true,” I whisper. We stop. I take her hands in mine. An ache spreads up my thigh where my cane leans on the gash
that’s not healing. “If the world would let us be together, I’d fill your life with hybrid kits. They would have your fighting spirit
and my love of ancient artifacts. You would tie the shaggy, brown manes of our daughters in pine twigs and teach our boys how
to shoot—”
“And tie the boys’ shaggy manes in pine twigs and teach our girls how to shoot arrows,” she says with giggles at odds
with the streams of tears flowing down her face.
“We would have loudest, rowdiest dyla weturanya on the tundra,” I whisper before kissing her softly on the lips. Her
eyes are closed when I pull away. A sad smile sits on her ruby mouth. “Goodbye, my love. If you ever are in trouble or if we
ever meet again, please—” I stop because I don’t know what I’m asking. I want to be the one who answers her questions and
shows her new things. I want to be the one who makes her dreams of kits come true, but I can’t lay this on her shoulders—not
when she’s letting go.
“I won’t hesitate,” she finishes my sentence like she always does because she knows my heart, maybe even my soul.
My throat closes with agony as she drops my hands. She turns first and steps away. Perhaps it is the Chuchunya way and
she’s asking me to chase her. Her silent footsteps are slow enough for me to catch up. My thigh burns and my ribs ache as if
complaining they need medical care in response to my errant heart. I stand between two worlds.
What would Dad do? If it were Mom walking away, he’d run after her in a heartbeat. But Mom never knew of the
Tarzio brothers’ vendetta. She died peacefully in her sleep instead of at their hands because of his secrecy. Even though Dad
reconstructed jewelry for the mobsters without asking about the stones’ origins, he never shared their dealings with Mom. Why
would he? She used to joke about never receiving jeweled gifts. I bet he didn’t want her gifts to be mistaken for mob prizes.
The less she knew the easier she was to protect…just like Patricika. The less I involve her in the modern world, the easier she
will stay hidden.
There’s my answer. Dammit.
“I’ll love the memory of you forever,” I mouth to her retreating shadow. When I can’t see her anymore, I advance to my
campsite. My cane sticks in a rut and I trip. It shatters into a hundred pieces as I fall to the ground. My body lays, defeated, on
the frozen mud. Time to process my grief alone. My heart has until the crocuses bloom to heal…so I don’t lose my mind when I
think of the mating chase…and the love of my life under someone else.
“Holly? Holly!” I shout with a touch of the anguish I feel inside. “Holly help! I need a clinic!”
 Chapter 7

Patricika
“Where is she? I’ll wring her neck!” Artyom’s shout wipes the misery from my mind and replaces it with fear. I pull my
furs over my head in a dumb attempt to hide. Artyom misses nothing—let alone my giant shape.
“Leave her alone. It’s not her fault,” Serik tries to reason with him. I imagine the buck-toothed male trying to hold back
the much bigger aggressor.
“Denis is gone because she pines after a hairless one! I should rip her to pieces like she ripped apart our family!” His
shouts advance quickly toward my nest. He knows the combinations of Denis’s locks because he often stays with us. He tells
stories late into the night and sleeps in our furs. Why aren’t we going to be a family?
When was the last time I saw Denis?
After Adam left, I threw myself into my grief. I sleep or sob in my furs without watching who comes or goes. My
stomach growls. When was the last time I ate? I run my hands over my ribs and wince. They stick out. A cramp blooms on my
left side where my body tries to eat itself. Gag. The thought of tasting food sours the cravings. I roll on my belly to smother the
pain. The walnut shell around my neck digs into my breast. Does it want to wound my heart too?
“Artyom, I won’t stand aside while you harm a female. Know that if you strike Patricika, you will leave me no choice
but to strike you in her defense. I love you like a brother, but females are sacred. I’ll—” Ugh, the treat belongs to Sergei the
Bully Blowhard. I close my ears to his lecture. The male is an infuriating mix of tirades and tantrums. I’d tell him to stuff his
‘protect the females at all costs bullshit’ if I weren’t terrified of him. Big temper…bigger Chuchunya. He will pulverize
Artyom if they fight.
I groan as I rise from my nest for the first time in a few weeks. My mouth tastes like rotten meat. Crust pulls out my
lashes. The temperature has dropped considerably, and it’s time to migrate north. These idiotic males are probably looking for
help corralling the Caribou who pull our sleighs. Knowing Denis, he is kilometers from here to avoid refusing them. He hates
physical activity, but hates refusing Artyom more. He’s more likely to braid the harnesses than capture the animals. It takes all
sorts to fill a clan, so I don’t mind Denis isn’t the epitome of male Chuchunya.
Sergei is, and I want nothing to do with him. Too dangerous.
“Step aside, Sergei,” Artyom shouts with a grunt at the end. If he pushed Sergei, he’s a dead male. I spring to my feet
and my knees creak with disuse as I make my way to the slit in the cavern wall. “Denis was my only family! He’s all I had
left!”
Was?
“Stay back Patricika,” Serik says as I emerge from the sleeping chamber. He lights one torch in the atrium. Eerie
shadows fall on the angry faces of my three male visitors. “We have devastating news and Artyom is beside himself.”
“Beside myself? Beside myself? I’ve lost myself! A polar bear mauled my other half and it’s. All. Her. Fault!” Artyom
stabs his finger in my face with each word. I blink and process while he continues to berate me.
Denis is dead.
“He was with you,” I murmur. I drop to a cross-legged seat on the stony floor. My arms wrap around the nearest
stalagmite. Denis refused to remove them for safety. He said fewer animals would wander into a cave with rocky cones in the
middle of the floor. Denis was always safe. My vision tunnels to the water dripping down the rock column as shock claims my
mind.
Denis never hunted bears—or any predator for that matter. He left dangerous activities to Sergei and traded his beaded
charms for fur. Denis knew his limits and wouldn’t put himself in danger. We had a deal. He lives to father our kits and try to
find happiness without love. “Denis wasn’t hunting bears. He was listening to Artyom’s stories.”
“That was two weeks ago,” Artyom hisses. He vibrates with the growl building in his chest.
 “If she thought he was with you, and you thought he was with Sergei—” Serik tries to reason with Artyom.
“I haven’t seen him for months,” interjects Sergei.
“We can’t blame Patricika for his accident,” finishes Serik.
“He knew better than to hunt without a partner. He knew better than to attack a mother in her den. Why would he do
something so stupid?” Artyom wails his plea to the ceiling. Sergei catches him when his legs give out. Artyom swats at his
friend before slamming his fist into the floor. Small cracks, coated with his blood, are left behind when he storms outside.
I know exactly why Denis would do something so foolish. To impress his female who won’t leave her broken heart to
interact with him. How many gifts have I rejected, advances have I smacked away, and times have I barked at Denis to leave
me alone? I wanted to wallow in my grief without thinking about how my behavior affected him. Of course, he would want to
prove himself before we migrate. The further north we go, the fewer resources he will have at his disposal. He forages, but
can’t hunt or fish. If he wanted to prove he was the best male for me, he would have to show he could feed me after the snow
buries the plants—which means hunting.
Artyom is right when he accuses me of killing Denis. I might as well have pushed Denis into the bear’s den. Logically, I
doubt Adam could kill a mother polar bear protecting her young either, so Denis was wrong to pick that challenge to prove his
worth. He must have been desperate.
“Patricika,” Sergei’s whisper and hand on my shoulder make me jump. He recoils with shame written on his face. His
temper must be cool to show remorse. “Patricika, we’re going to reclaim Denis’s body. Stay here, okay?”
“The bear’s den is close,” Serik adds, pushing between Sergei and where I’m hugging the rocky cone. “If she runs this
way, we will feel better knowing you are safe behind a rock wall.”
“We found Denis a few days ago, but had to wait for the mother to leave with her cubs. When we checked yesterday, the
den had been abandoned, and the area smelled of the hairless ones.”
“At least they were kind enough to scare away the bears and leave Denis behind,” Serik adds.
“Let’s hope that’s all they did,” Sergei whispers grimly, “for the bear’s sake.”
I hear their words, but they don’t arrange into thoughts. Grief, shock, and fear cloud my judgment. Denis isn’t coming
back. I have no partner. I do, but Adam’s miles away…probably moved on as I should. I have no kit, no mating partner, and
nobody to love me. What a mess I’ve made…and I’ve killed my one chance to fix my situation. I may have never grown to love
Denis, but I would have loved our kits to pieces.
Now their memory can join the ones I wanted to have with Adam.
I can’t take anymore. I’m not strong enough to hold my world together alone.
Serik rubs a hand down my back before jutting his chin at Sergei in a gesture to leave me. They take my silence for
compliance. Their heavy footsteps fade into the daylight above. They will skirt around the bear’s territory until they can drag
Denis’s body to safety. Someone will bathe him—probably Artyom—and dress him in his burial shroud. The duty should fall
on my shoulders, but I don’t deserve the honor. Not that Artyom will let me have it anyway. He knows about Adam and how I
rejected Denis for a hairless male who rejected me.
I deserve the misery of Denis’s funeral because of my mistakes. His mangled corpse will haunt my nightmares, along
with Adam’s goodbye, and my dashed hopes of having a family. I’ve failed my mate, my clan, and my deceased parents…even
myself. I had one job. Procreate. My heart got in the way, so I couldn’t spread my legs for another rut. A few minutes with
Denis could have created a legacy and given Artyom a reason to spare me.
Must I mate with Artyom now?
Fear fuels my legs as I storm out of the cave. The sun’s punishing rays burn my eyes after staying in my dark hole. It’s as
bright as the first time we emerge from our zima shelters with the season change, except this brutal storm is full of betrayal, not
snowflakes. Rocks and shards of ice pierce between my toes as I stumble behind the males. They talk amongst themselves, so
they don’t hear the racket I make. Shrub branches slap my legs and draw blood. I’m beyond physical pain. I have no emotions
left.
There is a downed, hollow log that I guess is large enough to house a polar bear family. But I would have never
guessed bears were here. There are too many hairless ones. Hairless males prowl back and forth with yellow ribbons to mark
their claim on the space. A whirring sound cuts through the natural sounds of the forest as their red structures rise. Short sticks
hold a thin string several centimeters off the ground…with Denis’s corpse in the center. I’ve seen these rectangular markings
before.
Adam makes them before he digs.
 These men are anthropologists, intent on digging around Denis. Chuchunya are about to be revealed to the human world
if someone doesn’t do something. Two men hold the same weapons the violent men used to threaten Adam. The weapons shoot
like bows and arrows but with the power of fire. I’ll never forget how Adam jerked when they shot at his feet to make him
walk to their cabin.
If one of these men shoots at the Chuchunya males, the males won’t know what to do.
I can’t allow them to die too—not when I can warn them of danger they don’t understand. I run to the trio huddled a few
meters away. A fallen fir tree hides their meeting but threatens them with needle sticks. If it weren’t for Serik’s pained cry, I
wouldn’t have found them. “I saw Denis,” I say between huffs of air when I reach them.
“Good,” Artyom sneers. His response reminds me of Denis and how he would use the word to shock me. “You’ve seen
what you started—”
“Artyom, fighting amongst ourselves doesn’t help. We must tell Timor,” Serik replies, wedging his body between
Artyom and me.
“I say we kill them. With Patricika, we are evenly matched,” Sergei says with a rumbling growl.
“They have weapons of fire,” I say, pointing to the male facing away from us. The barrel of his weapon juts to his left
side. “That man’s stick will kill all of us before we reach Denis. We need to fight hairless ones in the hairless way.”
“You would know all about hairless ones, wouldn’t you?”
“Outsmart them if you are capable of it,” I snap back at Artyom.
“She’s right,” Serik says. “We are empty-handed, and don’t flex your claws at me. Did anyone think to grab a bow,
arrows, or slingshot? That’s what I thought.”
“Which one is your hairless mate? He’s not here, is he? Stupid Svoloch. You traded my brother for a hairless male who
disappeared the first chance he got. You couldn’t keep my brother happy when he wouldn’t harm a soul. You fought with my
brother who couldn’t kill a bug, and inspired him to take on a bear. How will you fix this? Where’s your hairless mate to give
me back my brother?”
“Stop berating Patricika before they hear you,” Sergei growls.
“Give me a sun cycle,” flies out of my mouth. I have no idea if Adam has the power to do what I ask or if he will listen
to me. I must have faith…because my heart never lost it when he left. “Adam will be here to retrieve Denis’s body. He will
make these humans go away. They work in the same manner as him. He will know what to do.”
 Chapter 8

Adam
So this is depression.
I expected it to be what I see on TV…empty pints of ice cream everywhere, not leaving my bed, and outbursts at
neighbors who dare to check if I’m still alive. Instead, my workaholic nature took over. I’m coping with a diet of energy drinks
and regret. I haven’t visited my Yellowknife apartment in two weeks, rotating the three outfits I keep hanging off the back of the
lab’s building. When was the last time I showered? Yeah, I reek of depression. I feel sorry for Holly and Kaitlyn who have to
breathe the same air as my funk.
Or my growing frustration… I’ve scoured the internet, online museum archives, and academic tomes for
dushevnayasvyaz. The word doesn’t exist. Anywhere. I’ve emailed linguists, archeologists, and even a few looney Chuchunya
witnesses. The closest definition I can gather is dushev is Russian for soul and svyaz is close to an ancient word referring to
heartstrings, marriage bonds, or soulmates. Patricika said repeatedly that she wasn’t bonded to Denis. Do I dare hope she was
referring to what grew between us? Or did she look for one in me and I came up short?
I’ve cataloged the pottery shards and metal objects of interest I collected in the boreal forest, complete with
measurements and photos, and sent them to our main laboratory for electron microscopy and a CT scan. Part of me wants to
return to Alberta and test the glazes on the mass spec myself. There are more distractions in a large lab. The high-tech
equipment dazzled me when I first enrolled as an undergrad, so maybe they will recharge me. But when the pottery has run the
gamut of my diagnostics, it will be sent further east for carbon dating, and I will be left behind…again.
The rest of me waits for giant footsteps in the snow around our storage container mini-lab, looks for twig-secured
hairstyles through the windows, and longs for one last embrace. I second guess my decision to leave Patricika every five
minutes and regret not telling her how I feel every fifteen. I let her slip through my fingers. Who better than an anthropologist to
blend with the ancient customs of a primitive civilization?
We are a perfect match, dammit.
How many times did I tell her she’s beautiful? Not enough, I’m sure. Two comments characterize my dating history:
“You aren’t emotionally available” and “You’re always working, even when we are together.” I didn’t fall into those traps with
Patricika, did I? I put my best foot forward, and thanks to the Tarzio brothers, I now have a best foot to place next to my cane. I
would sacrifice my best foot to see her one more time.
“Move it or lose it,” Holly, my coworker, says before shoving me away from the microwave. “There’s not enough room
in here for a mooning teenage girl, so snap out of it or go home to mope.”
“You think I’m moping?” My beard tugs when I turn to look at her because it has grown to tangle in my shirt buttons.
With a wince, I set to unknotting the mess at my throat.
“I know moping. My sister looked like that when our favorite boy band broke up in 2005. She also made that face when
our hunky neighbor ran over Fluffy, two months after he got his driver’s license. Seriously, go home,” she says, opening the
microwave door between us and chucking a black plastic dish inside.
“Well, my favorite band is still together—although the lead singer just recovered from pneumonia. I’ve never had a pet,
and I avoid teenage drivers like the plague,” I quip over the microwave button’s beeps.
“Then you’ve been dumped,” she says with a giggle. She pulls her blond hair into a ponytail before releasing it behind
her shoulders. “I’m sorry but I can’t think of you dating, let alone being dumped. I mean, the students call you “Alberta Jones”
after the “Indiana Jones” movie hero—and not just the female ones. You could have your pick…”
“Good guess,” I grouse. I don’t want to think about student infatuations. I’m in my early forties. The thought of kissing
someone half my age makes me gag. “The perfect woman walked into my life and turned around when she found I couldn’t give
her the life she wants.”
“A gold-digger, eh? That’s why I stick to fictional men, well, monsters,” she says, opening the microwave again. I get a
blast of garlicky steam as she stirs her pasta-for-one.
“Monsters?” I sputter my previously carbonated energy drink across my desk. Is she joking? Is she a mind, reader,
psychic, or brilliant judge of facial expressions?
“Monster romance books,” she says with a laugh. “What did you think I meant? It’s not like a dragon circles overhead
to carry me away to his lair. I’m going to eat my nuked pasta in my office, and you better be gone when I come out. Go home.”
Did she find a Chuchunya to kiss and get ditched for a mating chase, too? Maybe there is something with people who go
into anthropology or maybe just anthropologists who spend their lives isolated on the boreal shield. I hope she buys I was
surprised she liked to read monster romances and doesn’t guess I’m surprised to find another cryptid admirer. Mopping the
pink droplets of energy drink from my latest stack of notes gives me time to formulate a response.
“Calling this box an office is a stretch. Just because there are floor-to-ceiling boxes of documents between us doesn’t
mean we have privacy. Don’t get too involved with your fictional monster-men over there.”
“I’ll growl and swoon if it will make you retreat to Yellowknife in embarrassment. Seriously, you look like hell and
smell worse. Kaitlyn will get your report in plenty of time to put her name on top of it. Go home,” she says, waving a saucy
fork at me. With an elbow bump to my shoulder, she heads to her side of the trailer.
Why couldn’t I fall for Holly? She’s sweet, a workaholic, and boring as all get out…just like me. Our relationship
would be easy because outside of work, she reads, and I hide from my past. Neither of us has layers of intrigue or things to
teach one another. No mystery but no complications either…like mating chases or dushevnayasvyaz. Even if she’s not the one
for me, I owe it to Holly to not stink up the office. The microwaved garlic may have been an act of self-defense.
“I’m out of here,” I call as I grab my leather jacket. Ha! The brown bomber is something a movie hero would wear. I
have the hairstyle. I just need the hat and whip to complete the persona. I’d embarrass the hell out of my students if I stepped
into class the first day dressed as their nickname for me. I chuckle to myself as I fumble with my keys to the aged SUV I can’t
seem to upgrade. The rust bucket was my first big purchase with my salary.
“You said to never hesitate to ask for help, but I’m told I never listen. So, I’ve stood out here hesitating for hours,” says
the voice from my dreams. It infiltrates my clothes and sinks into my skin. Is my mind playing tricks on me? My pulse doubles
in pace and intensity to drown out the natural sounds of the forest. Her reflection peeks from behind a tree in my SUV window.
My keys slip through my fingers and clank on the ground.
“Hesitating for hours because I told you not to? Well, don’t run into my arms and kiss me like you’ve missed me as
much as I’ve missed you,” I reply with a croak. Fear of rejection keeps me facing my car. My eyes squeeze shut and my lips
tremble as I bottle all the misery I’ve experienced since leaving her. I laid my cards on the table. Is she here for me? She said
she needed help. Is it too much to ask that she needs my help to soothe her broken heart after we made a grievous mistake?
“Denis is dead,” she says instead of playing along.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” My head drops. The bang of my forehead against the frame of my car door isn’t enough to
distract me from the hurt in my soul. It doesn’t matter what she asks of me. I already know I’ll do anything for her. Feeling the
loss of someone special will do that to a man. My brain registers disappointment while my stupid, romantic heart hopes she’s
here to replace him. Who am I to think I could step into Denis’s home and offer her romance using his resources before his
funeral? Do Chuchunya even have funerals?
“Men like you have his body,” she says, much closer than before. Her large hand warms the back of my shoulder as she
reaches for me. The heat sets my body on fire. I inhale deeply to fill my lungs with pine, wilderness, and her.
“What do you mean by ‘men like me?’ Hunters? The Tarzio brothers?”
“They don’t talk like you, but make the string rectangles on the ground and dig in the middle. They put up fabric
structures like the red one your female friend used when she took over your space.”
Scientists, possibly from the University of Alberta, have Denis. Archeologists? They could be scientists studying
climate change who happened upon his corpse. Her arms wrapping around my middle interrupt my thoughts. The twigs from
her hair tangle and tug at mine. Her body leans on me. My God I want to be her strength. I want to be the one to fix this for her
—give her closure for her disastrous relationship with Denis, and keep her secrets. If only she’d let me be the one to keep her
safe, I’d jump at the chance.
“We can’t talk here. My coworker, Holly, will look out the window to make sure I’m gone. Climb in the back and I’ll
take you to my place in Yellowknife. We will have privacy while I figure out who has Denis.” My voice shakes with need.
Lucky break, I drove the SUV instead of my skimobile. My back windows are tinted. The idea of her inside my place brings my
cock to half-mast. I crouch to collect my keys and open the doors with record speed.
 “You have another dyla weturanya south of here?”
“Please hop inside. I’ll explain on the way,” I say with a glance over her shoulder. Holly may be a monster
sympathizer, but she’s an anthropologist without a tenured position at the university. The grant money to excavate Denis or to
study Patricika would set up her career for life with all the pasta-for-one meals she could nuke…in a gold-encrusted
microwave.
Patricika climbs into my backseat, all curves, and long limbs. Damn, I forgot how she hides a sexy body under her furry
down. But it’s more than lust. She understands my multiple residences more than any human female I’ve dated. Patricika’s clan
migrates with the seasons to survive, just like I live in the city when I lecture in the fall but in the wilderness when I’m
excavating in the spring and summer. For the winter, I split between my campus apartment until the end of the semester, and I
can retreat to my isolated place in Yellowknife. Being on the move keeps the hunters a few steps behind—whether they are
cryptid hunters after videos of snow monster existence or mafioso sons after cash.
The little squeal from the backseat, when I turn over the ignition, goes straight to my cock. With her scent in my nose,
her arms around my neck, and the prospect of her in my home, I hope I can concentrate on the road.
“What’s that light? What’s making that noise? How do you make it move—push or kick? Show me everything, Adam,”
she whispers in my ear. Her husky voice blowing my name through my hair is intoxicating. I wish I had kept up my appearance,
so the skin beneath my ears was bare. Would her lips brush over me or just her words?
“I’d love to—” My words die in my throat when she reaches around to tug my seatbelt. She should probably wear one
as well, but I’d rather she share mine. Too bad one of us must drive and the other must avoid detection by other drivers.
Dammit.
“This is the ignition. It fires up the engine which powers the car, the way your breakfast powers you,” I say while
revving the engine to make the aged vehicle cough and sputter instead of purr like a sports car. Her childlike enthusiasm is
infectious. We leave our dark moods behind as we speed down the muddy paths to the highway.
“Are we eaten? Is this thing alive?” Her questions are devoid of fear. This brave, strong woman climbed into a beast’s
mouth without question…because she trusts I can protect her. Knowing how intelligent Patricika is, I bet fear lives just below
her skin, but her faith in me was stronger. What a gift…I must do everything I can to deserve her trust.
“No,” I say, holding back a chuckle. “Look, the tires can’t change course unless I move the steering wheel. The vehicle
slows when I step on the brake pedal and goes faster when I step on the other pedal—the accelerator.”
“Like the reins on Caribou?”
“Yes, but a vehicle like this one is made of metal and plastic, and runs on gasoline…all things you don’t know…” I
glance in the review mirror and my heart skips a beat at her bright smile.
Her pupils are wide, as if her body is fighting to take in everything. She’s not frustrated, scared, or disappointed in the
least. She wants to learn. I’m interesting, or maybe even fascinating to her. I could become addicted to this feeling…maybe I
already am. What I say holds meaning to her despite cars not being a part of the chuchunya lifestyle. Driving an SUV holds no
purpose for her, only the enjoyment of unraveling a mystery and discovery…just like my younger self in my many science
classes.
“Will you teach me?”
“I won’t let you down,” I say breezily, with a wink in the mirror. Retrieving Denis, teaching her about my world as she
taught me about hers, or earning a spot in her dyla weturanya, I’ll be the man she needs. I may not be as fast as a chuchunya
male, but who needs running shoes if your woman walks? I’m training for a mating chase…my way.
 Chapter 9

Patricika
Cars, trucks, sport utility vehicles. Adam commands our motorized sleigh down the roads as fast as lightning, whizzing
past trees and snowsqualls. He could migrate from our northern homes to the southern meeting places in a few hours. What
fascinates me the most is his relaxed demeanor. He holds the steering wheel with one hand while the other points out the inner
workings of the beast. He turns his head to talk to me or throws it back to laugh at my jokes. In truth, I’m telling jokes to melt
the fear freezing my brain.
I want to learn about this vehicle and the buildings we pass. How do they stay warm without giant fires? When he turns
on the wiper blades, I nearly jump out of my skin. Humans have tamed metals to clear the snow from their vision. Amazing!
With the push of a circle, he turns off the vehicle. Silence replaces the roaring in my ears. He climbs out to open the door to his
dyla weturanya, and the vehicle stays still as if waiting for his next command.
“I’ve made sure no gasoline or electricity can reach the engine. No need to worry it will move on its own,” he says as
he reaches into the SUV for my hand. We giggle and jog from the box to his dyla weturanya. “This is my central cave. I hope
you like it.”
“I’m shocked you live above the surface,” I say as I try to take in the small space. The top is solid and white, as if he
lives under a slab of limestone, but that’s impossible. I stand on my tiptoes to brush my fingertips on the bumpy surface. Some
of it crumbles onto my fingers like brilliant white sand. He runs to the corners, lighting the biggest flashlights I’ve ever seen.
His home warms without a fire, too. “How do you create light and warmth without fire? You don’t have torches…or are these
larger flashlights too heavy so they sit on the floor?”
“In the city, there is electricity in the walls, so we don’t need batteries. We have plumbing too.” He waggles his
eyebrows to make me laugh. He’s more handsome than I remember. His injuries healed without scars. The puffy bruising
around his eyes is gone, revealing rich blue centers. While Artyom and Denis have the deepest blue eyes of the chuchunya, they
lack the happy crinkles at the corners like Adam. His blue eyes aren’t cold but remind me of the clear skies of summer when
lazy days of eating huckleberries last forever.
“Plumbing? Is that fruit?” Seeds grow from seedlings. Do plums grow from plumbing? He drags me by the hand into a
tiny room with a too-bright light. This floor resembles a dyla weturanya, hard and cold. He pulls back a curtain and gestures to
a white box with a silver rock hanging above it.
“Plumbing isn’t related to plums, although I love how your mind works. You have a flair for linguistics. Did you know
that? No, never mind, it’s a human thing, but a wonderful thing. It means your mind is quick and clever and—”
I place my fingertips over his lips to stop him from digging a deeper hole with his words. He wouldn’t insult me with
such admiration written on his face. I didn’t expect he would kiss my hand, though. The soft press of his lips and the rasp of his
beard are familiar in a chuchunya way, but also of our time together. He clasps my wrist to hold my hand against his mouth
when I try to take it back. His kisses trail down my middle finger, the center of my palm, and onto my wrist. Each drag of his
lips sends sunlight through my body. I’ve never had affection like this…
I don’t know what to do with it… He’s not mine. We don’t have dushevnayasvyaz, but my body readies itself for
mating all the same. Why him? I hope he can’t smell my arousal like a chuchunya. He never did before, but was that because
he’s human or because of his nose injury? His other hand reaches up to cradle my head. My eyelashes flutter closed to breathe
him in. He’s got a strong odor, but not the pleasing vanilla of a chuchunya male in dushevnayasvyaz…more like the sharp smell
of cooking meats without the smokey undertone.
“Oh God, please don’t breathe my scent yet,” he whispers. His cheeks are bright pink above his beard. He drops his
hands and hangs his head against my shoulder. It’s my turn to touch him, but I shamelessly run my fingertips down his spine. So
smooth and strong. “I haven’t showered in ages.”
“Shower? Is that visiting your bathing pool?” In this small room, not breathing him in is a challenge. Too bad for him.
He can’t stop me because I like his scent. I like how his body differs from a chuchunya male’s body—thinner, shaped like a
tree instead of a mountain…as if implying he would bend to a female partner instead of being an immovable, uncompromising
landmass.
“It’s what I brought you in here to see,” he says, turning a crystal at waist height. At his command, rain falls from the
silver fixture I thought was a rock or empty flashlight. Surprise takes the air from my lungs. “It’s not magic or sorcery, if that’s
where your mind goes. There are pipes or plumbing in the wall that bring the water. Plumbing is named after the metal first
used to make pipes. When I turn the knob, I’m opening the gate at the top to let it flow naturally…as naturally as upward
flowing water can be.”
“Cold as ice,” I say with a shiver. I retract the hand I put under the spray and clench it between my breasts. “No wonder
you haven’t bathed.”
“The spray will warm up once the hot water reaches our spot in the pipes. It takes a few minutes,” he says with a laugh.
He grows quiet and his stare darkens. “I haven’t found the energy to bathe because I’ve been depressed since we parted. When
you came up behind me, I had hoped it was to invite me to come back with you.”
“Adam,” I whisper, shaking my head. We haven’t buried Denis yet. The clan thought I was trying to mate with Denis
and if I show up to his funeral with a different mate, it would dishonor his memory. Artyom will kill Adam. This is too messy.
“What I had with Denis wasn’t love but it needs closure.”
“And that’s what I will provide for you,” he replies with a half-smile. I haven’t forgotten how much I love his lop-
sided smile.
The silence stretches between us but doesn’t grow awkward. Nothing between Adam and I could ever be awkward. We
just get each other. I turn my back to him and rub my hands under the water as it magically warms. I don’t want to think about
mating choices, Denis’s body in the wrong hands, the upcoming funeral—talk about awkward—with Artyom’s judging glares,
or why I can’t stay in Adam’s mystical world where travel takes minutes not days and pipes carry water where he wants it to
go. I bet if Adam’s people had designed the northern meeting cavern, my parent’s generation of Chuchunya would still be alive.
“It’s warm now, but not for long,” Adam says, stepping around me and under the spray…without clothes. He must have
undressed while I played in his rain.
I’ve seen his form many times as I nursed his injuries, but to see his long limbs moving under his control sparks
something in my low belly. He faces the wall as he runs his hands over his mane under the shower’s water. All my melancholy
thoughts are rinsed clean as the rivets of water glide over his strong shoulders and muscular back. Without fur to create bulk,
my staring seems more scandalous.
“Will you hand me the soap, allow me to turn toward you to get it myself, or join me under the water to help wash?”
I’m sorry, what? I have a choice? A real choice? Not just slowing my run to be tackled by one male or another, based
on who I think will hurt me the least, but a choice not to participate at all? I know in my heart if I hand the soap to Adam, he
will continue without disappointment. If I tell him to get it himself, will he show me if his cock is hard for me? Do I want to
know? Am I taking too long to answer his first question because I’m imagining what his cock looks like when he's aroused…
and worried he might not be aroused?
Nobody in the clan will know, so this choice is entirely mine.
As soon as my trailing leg clears the knee-high ridge around the shower’s base, Adam snaps a blue curtain in place.
The too-bright light mutes to a seductive blue glow. Startled by the movement, I grip Adam’s shoulders in case I slip. He
stiffens, muscles bunching. My heart pounds.
“I’m sorry I—”
He clamps his hands over mine.
“Please don’t stop,” he whispers. His husky tone reminds me of how he sounded when he first awoke in my furs. “Your
touch haunts my dreams. I hear your laugh everywhere, but you aren’t there when I follow the sound. Even if it is a platonic
scrub between friends, don’t stop.”
His words touch my heart and bring tears to my eyes. I’ve missed him terribly, but I thought the pain was because the
corners of my world remind me of him. His scent lingers on my furs. As much as Denis scrubbed the bathing pool, he couldn’t
remove the memories I have of bathing Adam’s battered body. The games we played on the tundra live on in my mind as I
walked over the snow. The southern grounds will never be the same for me…but maybe it’s not the memories, but me that
changed.
My hands slide up his shoulders and cross over his collarbone. I tuck them under the opposite forearms. His biceps flex
beneath my elbows. I step forward so my right foot touches the outside of his. The inside of my thigh cradles him against me.
My breasts smash against the flanks of his back. I nuzzle his soaked hair to the left, so I can plant tiny kisses on the right side of
his neck. I love how we are nearly the same height, so I don’t feel like prey.
He stands still as if I have control over him…and the sharing of power is what I dreamed mating would be.
How many ruts have I endured when I wished the male would go slower, gentler, or at the correct angle? How many
injuries have I nursed while my partner has preened for his friends at the mating chase? Do I dare wish to have something
different—an equal partnership in all ways? I can’t help but think that Adam would listen and adjust if I told him his rut hurt
me. His hands handled the smallest clumps of dirt with such care. I can’t help to wish he would treasure me in the same way. If
I could have anything in this life, it would be a partner who treated me like I was someone to cherish…but is love enough to
give up motherhood, the clan, and perhaps the outdoors?
Those diligent hands rub along my forearms without force. He’s letting me know he’s involved without telling me
where to move next. I’m leading this adventure and he’s happy to follow me. His reassurance makes me bold. My left hand
drifts upward to bury my fingers in his beard. I tilt his jaw backward and to the side so I can capture his mouth. We kiss like
starving scavengers given a morsel to share. My tongue collects the taste of him, and I groan with longing.
Our position is such I’m pinning him. A dominant female. Has such a beast ever existed? I can’t control myself. My
hand holds his face in place while the other smooths over the flat plane of his stomach. Just below his navel, the bulbous head
of his cock bumps my pinky finger. I glow with feminine prowess. This arousal is for me, to do what I please. He wants me, but
will proceed at my speed. I’m dizzy with power over this man who can command not only beasts but metal and water. He
hisses as I grip his shaft. My arms are long enough to explore all of him. Do I risk him falling into a mindless rut if I kneel at
his feet?
“Tease,” he whispers when I loosen my grip. “This will end before it truly begins if you keep that up.”
What? I have a split second to feel dejected when he turns in my arms. He switches our positions, so I’m enveloped in
warm spray. His soap is smoother than chuchunya soap, or maybe the hairless hands gliding over my fur make it seem
smoother. My fur is translucent when wet and doubts creep into focus. Do I look as pleasing as a hairless female? I guess it
doesn’t matter if Adam is infatuated with Chuchunya, but if not, am I what he wants? I’m jolted out of my thoughts when he
palms my breasts.
“Sensitive?” He asks with a smile that tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Too bad I don’t.
“I’m surprised,” I confess. The way he tugs my nipples feels almost as good as a well-placed rut. How many other
places on my body can sing when touched by expert hands? “I’ve never thought to touch myself there.”
“What about your partners? Don’t tell me Chuchunya don’t believe in foreplay?” His questions whisper over my jaw
between nibbles and kisses. He continues to knead my breasts as he steps between my feet. His arousal brushes against my
pelvis. Do I lift onto my tiptoes to slide his cock into my body? Fear of making a mistake takes root at the base of my spine.
How does a couple have sex while standing?
“Come back to me,” he whispers in my ear before nipping my earlobe. Why does his bite feel so good? “Forget your
other partners. Forget every experience you had before and focus on the here and now. I plan on surrounding you with so much
love I brand you as mine inside and out. Everything that has happened in the past doesn’t matter because from here on, we are
together.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I say, leaning back to rest my head on the wall. Sounds wonderful, but as far from the truth as
the frigid tundra is from this steamy shower. Adam has a point in his romantic murmurings. This moment is stolen. Nobody
knows where I am or what I’m doing. If I ruin the relationship with Adam by being a terrible lover, it’s not like we have
dushevnayasvyaz to hold us together. We will part ways.
“Just wait, love.” His hands leave me. His body heat vanishes.
Where on the tundra did he go? My head snaps forward in irritation…and I giggle. Thick mounds of foam cover his
form as he quickly cleans himself.
“With the soap fluff you’ve worked over your body, you look like you could be a Chuchunya,” I say, my hands over my
mouth.
The dark promise in his eyes steals the giggles from my belly and replaces them with yearning. “But I make love like a
man.”
 Chapter 10

Adam
Leading her from the bathroom to my bed, I run my hands over every inch of her. The way her whole face lit up as I
taught her about my shower, makes me feel ten feet tall. I want to remember this moment because it’s not likely we will be
together here again. Part of me perseverates on losing her. I want our lovemaking to be perfect, so she won’t leave…or won’t
forget me when she does. I will fill her memories of me with kisses, discoveries, and how hard I’ve fallen for her. She kisses
me with the same fierce longing as if we know this is hello as much as it is goodbye.
We drop onto my bed in a tangle of limbs and sloppy kisses. My knee screams at the odd angle it bent to fall gracefully,
but my lust-drunk mind groups the pain with the pleasurable sensations. When I’m old and every joint aches when it rains, I
hope my mind takes me back to making love to her.
“Just a second and I’ll get into the position,” she says, climbing onto her hands and knees. “I’m wobbly on your tall
stack of furs, but I think it will work. Do you want me to move to the floor?”
“If you insist on being on your knees, you need to move closer,” I say, while rolling onto my back. There is no way I’m
rutting her like an animal. Having her in my arms will end in a few short minutes. I’m savoring every drop of time she feeds
me. I muffle my laughter at her shuffle in my direction. “A little more,” I add when her shin brushes my thigh.
“If I move toward you anymore, I’ll be straddling you,” she snaps in an adorable huff. Her glare ensnares my laughing
face and I get a limp-wristed swat on my bicep.
“Riding me is where I want you, my love,” I say, grabbing her hips. Her legs squeeze my sides as I move her to sit on
my stomach. The squeak of protest from her lips is so pretty and feminine I harden to steel. “This way I can reach you.”
“Have you done this before?” Her brows lowered to form a ‘V’ between them. Frown lines crinkle her face. She
squints one eye as if pulling out her bullshit detector. Have Chuchunya males never prepared her for penetration? I was nervous
about measuring up to the size and stamina of a Chuchunya, but it seems I have more tools than I thought. I’ll dazzle her with
foreplay and worship her body as she deserves.
“The human way,” I say before latching onto her nipple. I squeeze her ass and grind her damp sex against me when she
tries to wiggle away. If no male has touched her sensitive nipples, my tonguing them will make her jump out of her fur.
“Oh. Oh! OH!” Her claws dig into the pillow beside my head. I hope she shreds the cases. When she loosens her grip, I
switch sides. My fingers tease the abandoned bud to double her pleasure. “Adam!”
“We are just getting started, but please scream my name until you lose your voice,” I whisper. I knead, twist, flick, and
love her nipples while watching her facial features loosen with bliss. She rocks and smears her nectar on me as if seeking
release. “Can I give you more?”
“How? You’re out of hands,” she says between pants. Rushing toward orgasm, her brilliant mind still catalogs
everything around us. She’s working out the puzzle of pleasure I’ve designed while I’m distracted by her beautiful facial
expressions.
“That’s where you help. Show me what feels the best. Teach me,” I whisper. I dislodge her right hand from the pillow
to replace mine over her breast. We tease her hand-over-hand. She adds the second hand without my instructions. “Good girl,”
I praise her.
Her answering whimper is the sweetest noise I’ve ever heard. Deep breath. Dampen down the fire ignited in my balls.
This is for her. I can’t burst prematurely and convince her I’m the best lover for her. Massaging her hip muscles, I work my
hands around the junction between her legs. My thumbs rub lazy circles on her labia. Her body slows its jerking to match my
tempo.
“You’re soaked for me,” I say with a groan. I bite my lip as I dip my thumbs inside to continue my circles at the sides of
her clit.
“I want you,” she says between pants, “when I never want sex. What are you doing to me?”
 “Loving you,” I reply. My thumbs meet to squeeze her clit between them. “This is what loving, longing, and devotion
can give to you—what I can give to you.”
I work her clit gently between my thumbs. She jolts as if I electrocuted her. I ease my hands back to her hips. Did I try
too much too soon? Is she too virginal and sensitive? Does a Chuchunya female not like their clits touched like a human
female? Doubts, questions, and embarrassment flood my psyche. My mouth is dry as a desert. I’m at a loss for words…for
once.
“More,” she growls. “Do that again.”
“With pleasure, love,” I reply with a sigh of relief.
I resume my ministrations with my erection at half-mast. One good point of my panic is I can outlast her with the restart.
One thumb circles her clit while my index finger pumps inside her tight channel. Her tentative nipple rubbing escalates to
violent pulling and twisting.
Note: My lady likes to get rough after a slow start.
“I feel—I feel—Adam!”
“Let go, love, I’m here to catch you,” I whisper, adding a second finger to her pulsing vagina. Her internal muscles
squeeze my fingers with violence as she reaches her climax. A groan escapes my lips as my hips buck with frustration. I can’t
wait to join her, but I can’t risk my chance to impress her.
When she shakes with the force of her release, I withdraw my hands. Gathering her in my arms, I lay her beside me. Her
head rests on my shoulder. Tears drip from the corners of her eyes and onto my collarbone. I kiss along her hairline, and she
returns my affection with feathery licks of her own. Her fiery kisses inch toward my nipple and my body reminds me we aren’t
finished.
“That was beautiful.” Her breath raises goosepimples on my chest. “I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and earth-
shattering pleasure. Thank you for sharing your way of rutting with me. It was amazing.”
“Was? We aren’t finished, love.”
I claim her mouth before she can reply. I don’t want to hear protests, compliments, or impossible promises of forever.
We will communicate through passion. Our tongues duel in a dance that could create a thousand different syllables if we put
our voices behind them. I cup her jaw to hold her lips in place for my kisses while the other presses the dimples at the base of
her spine. Nobody knows of those dimples—thanks to her fur—and now they are mine. She jerks her hips in silent invitation
for more.
“Will you mount me now?”
“God yes,” I say with a groan.
As I roll toward her, she’s climbing onto her hands and knees. Not this again. I can do better. She should expect better.
Part of me is angry that her idea of sex is impersonal. It’s not just the position but the males not prepping her for their invasion
or reaching forward to rub her clit as they rut.
That ends today. No more mating chases. No more loveless Chuchunya breeding.
Dammit, I want to be the one to breed her. The realization blasts through my mind and tears a growl from my chest. I
grab her shoulders and pin her to the bed. Kissing the shocked expression from her face, I kick her legs apart. I release her left
shoulder long enough to guide my cock through her drenched labia. Missionary position sex will shatter my knee, but I’m too
feral to care. My eyes roll back in ecstasy as I bump the underside of my head against her clit. Her throaty noises are so sexy, I
can’t resist sliding balls deep in one stroke.
Resting on my elbows, I check her face for discomfort, resistance, or disappointment. Her elbows glide up my chest as
she reaches for my face. My eyes flutter closed as she traces my brows, cheekbones, and lips with her slender fingers.
“I love that I can see how happy I make you,” she whispers, wiggling her hips.
“I don’t want you to doubt who claims you. Instead, my face will star in your fantasies.”
“Then move,” she growls with a harsh buck upwards.
The crackling in my joints is comical as I thrust into her welcoming heat. The pleasure of joining with the love of my
life overshadows the pain shooting up my left side. Sweet, smart, sassy, and strong, Patricika is everything my adventurous soul
desires. How will I measure up to Chuchunya standards when I don’t know what they are? Can I claim a cave? Yes. Can I hunt
with a bow and arrow? With some practice. She mentioned her leader has a human wife and hybrid children. I bet I can give
her the babies she desperately needs to save her clan and fill the hole in her heart from her deceased parents. I thrust as hard as
I dare to make her dreams come true.
Her eyes flutter open to meet my impassioned gaze. Something ties us together—body, heart, and soul. Our tentative
relationship grows to a power stronger than the sum of our individual life forces. I’m home. Flashes of us raising children,
keeping a home, and growing old together fill my mind. I risk balancing my weight on my right arm to cup her jaw. She can’t
look away when she’s so close to climaxing. The clench of her muscles around me is a blissful stranglehold. She grits her teeth
as she fights to control her body and her orgasm’s pull toward oblivion.
“You can let go. I’ll be here when you float back to reality. I will fight with everything I have to keep us together.”
Her mouth widens in a silent cry to flash her monstrous fangs. How beautiful is it to have such a fierce female
submitting to my primal urge to mate. The simmering at the base of my spine intensifies and pours energetic lava through my
nervous system. My mind short-circuits. I pump my seed into her until I’m a wrung-out washcloth. I’ve cleaned our friendship
away and replaced it with the offer of a future as mates. Will she accept? Did I do enough?
With a groan, I roll to her side. All my ailments roar for attention. I’m going to be sore for days…will I have a nurse to
help me through the healing? She arches her back with a delicate stretch and a jaw-cracking yawn.
“I know I’m boring you,” I say with a chuckle.
“Never,” she replies with intensity in her sky-blue eyes. “I’m filled with questions and excitement when I’m with you. I
want to hear everything you say, watch everything you do, and—”
“Touch everywhere we are different?” Damn, I’m as shameless as an asshole on prom night.
“I’d rather watch you touch, me but okay,” she says with a coy smile. How can she shrink herself to be the docile role
expected of her culture? If she were human, she would run a business or municipality. I can’t help my face-splitting smile back
at her. My afterglow is bright enough to power all the Northwest Territories. “Am I supposed to be this tired? I’ve never felt
exhausted after mating. It’s like I’ve run from the southern foraging grounds to the northern dyla weturanya. What did you do to
me?”
“I don’t just deposit my seed into you. I assured your pleasure and made you climax…twice,” I say smugly. She
answers with another yawn. “Your body could let go of reality and focus on feeling good because, deep down, you trust me.
Now let me do my second job as your male for the evening. Sleep and I will watch over you.”
“Why aren’t you drained? That’s so not fair,” she says, rolling onto her side. She snuggles against my chest and my arm
automatically cuddles her close. Nothing compares to the rapture of sinking inside her, but the way we fit together, snuggled in
my bed, is overwhelming. I’m overcome with the destined ‘rightness’ of our bodies’ positions.
“You can clean up in the bathroom first, and then I’ll hold you until you fall asleep—”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere far, love,” I say with a kiss to her forehead. “I’m going to load my truck with everything I’m taking to the dig
and then hop on my laptop to gain control of Denis’s excavation. Once I establish myself as the researcher in charge, I can hand
over his body to you and clean up the human side of his discovery.”
She leaves my side and the cold spot left behind is troubling. I hope taking control of the dig is as easy as I made it
seem. I don’t want her to worry, but opportunities like this go to the highest bidder. What are the odds that some anthropologist
is sitting on a pile of money and looking for a project? Post-docs are usually broke—unless a pharma company or large
university funds their research. Could an eager upstart from a huge university pounce on the dig before I claim it? It would have
to be the most tenacious researcher in the largest university in the world…and even then, I’d fight tooth and nail to sabotage
them.
 Chapter 11

Patricika
“Dammit!” Adam’s expletive wakes me from the deepest sleep I’ve ever enjoyed. He sits upright in the dark bedroom
with the sheets pooled around his hips. His hairless pale chest glows in the darkness. My grey fur keeps me camouflaged, but
Adam would be wolf bait if we slept under the stars. “They found the apartment. Remember when we hunted rabbits in the
forest, and you heard the wolves howling in the distance?”
“Yeah,” I reply as I work the crust from my eyes. Did I drool? There’s crust at the corner of my mouth too. How
embarrassing! Did I leave a puddle or worse on his furs? “I asked you if you would fight at my side.”
“We will have to fight our way out of my apartment to the jeep. Luckily, it’s my habit to park on the other end of the lot,
so the Tarzio brothers don’t figure out which car is mine.” He grabs a cloth from a stack of clothing on the bedside table that
wasn’t there when I fell asleep. “I have one bulletproof vest. I want you to wear it.”
The bulletproof vest is a network of scratchy fibers. I preen as Adam fits it over my breasts and down my back. His
arms encircle me as he locks the buckles tight. It’s snug and oddly reassuring, like I’m wearing his hug. He’s not a big,
terrifying male like Sergei—shiver—but he uses tools to magnify what strength he possesses. I’m in awe of this male. If only
he was mine.
“I don’t have a bow and arrow,” he says, smearing a hand down his face. “There’s no chance that you’ve shot a gun,
have you?”
Bewildered, I shake my head. What’s a gun?
“Long shot,” he says as he motions for me to follow him to a smaller room. There’s hardly room to stand and a wall of
clothes takes up most of the overhead space. He pulls out a black bag and slips his lightbox, the one he calls a laptop, inside. I
know his laptop means everything to him from his days without one in Denis’s dyla weturanya.
“We will wait in the closet until they break in. With any luck, it’s random car thieves and not the men hunting me. If
nobody breaks through the door, we’ll go back to bed.”
He opens a small black box and hands me a booming weapon like the men who captured him waved around. This killer
must be called a ‘gun.’ He grabs a second one from a similar box and loads it with tiny metal arrows. I’ve watched his
torturers use them to scare him, so I understand the basic principle. You point the muzzle where you want the tiny metal arrow
to go. I guess the fire and sound behind the mini-arrow cause it to do more damage than big ones. Adam’s eyes brighten as I
hold it by the larger base with two hands.
“You are a surprising Anne Oakley,” he whispers with a chuckle. “Do you know what buttons to push?”
I hope Anne Oakley is someone impressive…or not. Jealousy roars inside me. Is there another female in his life that
can use these life destroyers? My grip tightens as I imagine myself tearing a hairless female to bits. Wait, he’s not mine and I
have no right to defend my imaginary claim on him. Our mating proved that he belongs to another dushevnayasvyaz. While he
made me feel more loved, special, and cherished than any Chuchunya male, he didn’t knot me. Is it because he doesn’t have a
knot, or I didn’t coax his body to implant a kit? My mind is awake enough to swirl with questions I can’t discuss while we fight
for our lives.
“This is the safety latch. I’m moving it out of the way, so your weapon is live. Please don’t shoot me,” he says with his
sexy half-smile.
“Stay faithful and I won’t,” flies out of my mouth before I can stop the words.
“No problem there,” he replies with a brief kiss. I chase his lips for more. He is like the first berries of spring—so
sweet after months of bitter tastes I overindulge myself until my belly aches. “This is the trigger. If you press this button, the gun
will fire—like releasing the string of your bow. Okay?”
We exchange nods as we climb into the tiny space. My breasts smash against his chest. His pine-soap scent fills my
nose. The heat blooms between my legs at our close confines. What if the scent of my arousal leads the intruders to our hiding
spot? Rotating my stance so my gun points at the door wedges my hip against his semi-hard cock and my scent intensifies. Why
is our hiding place so small? Why couldn’t we hide in the bathroom where I could rinse off when I get too worked up?
The apartment door explodes open.
Adam’s breathing deepens. I wish I could hold him, but I don’t dare move my hands from their place on the gun. If I
forget which button fires it, and hurt Adam, I’ll never forgive myself. I want to be someone’s equal partner. Here’s my chance
to prove to myself what I deserve. He’s not mine, so it’s up to me to protect him for whoever is fortunate enough to mate with
him. He will cherish her from head to toe and give her a happy home to raise many kits if I don’t mess up. I hate this mystery
female with every fiber of my being, but I can’t betray her.
I gulp to slow my pounding heart. This is no different than hunting a polar bear with the clan, wrangling reindeer to pull
the sleds north for the winter, or stalking moose by myself. I’m not hunted if I’m not running. I’m crouched in my hiding spot
like a lynx on the tundra.
“Where are you, Ruther?” A gruff voice calls between bangs and crashes on the other side of the door. “Your father
missed another payment. He’s missing a lot of them actually—”
“Missing them since we took over a jeweler’s shop two doors down,” says a second voice. They share a laugh that
drips with evil.
They have the same accent as Adam, which is different from the hairless ones of the tundra. Adam says his words are
American, so these men must be from his foreign land. Could it be more Tarzio brothers? I killed three to rescue Adam. How
many more brothers could there be? Their poor mother. To push out so many large male kits and they grow up rotten…
The door flies open. Adam and I fire our guns. My mini-arrow flies through the empty doorway, but Adam shoots
through the tiny opening above the door’s hinge. His finds its target and a body thumps to the floor. A door swinging shut
muffles a masculine scream.
“Down,” Adam whispers tersely as he pulls my arms to the floor. Mini-arrows blow holes in the closet door over our
heads. Shards of wood rain onto us, so I tuck my head under his arms. Adam grunts at the impact of one of the mini-arrows. He
holds me tighter when I try to check where he’s hit. Anger blazes to life under my skin at the thought of these men hurting him
again. He digs in the dirt for discoveries about the past! How can they hate him so much? Do they see him as the rabbit and
themselves as wolves?
Well, we aren’t prey…
I extend my arm along the floor with the gun angled upward as if I’m shooting my arrow from underneath a rotted log or
snowdrift. The back of my hand rests on the itchy carpet with the muzzle pointing upward. Calling from my experience where I
wait for moose to jump over me, I relax my arm muscles. No other Chuchunya is brave enough to hunt the giant moose this way.
They fear death by trampling. I know if I hit the sweet spot two-thirds down the moose’s underbelly, they will crumble
backward.
The door oscillates, giving me glimpses of the man who stands over his injured partner. Blood sprays from the downed
man’s neck with each beat of his heart. Will the partner choose to flee or meet my mini-arrow?
A drip of Adam’s blood falls onto my shoulder.
I gasp and lock eyes with the intruder.
The man charges and I have one shot before what’s left of the door swings shut.
My angle is perfect, and I hit the charging man in the upper thigh. He freezes mid-stride to grab his crotch. His chin
jerks upward and leads his frame backward. I fire a second time and hit the underside of his fatty jowls. His body drops like a
sack of hazelnuts. He lies still with his legs at unnatural angles. Not even twitching. The rushing air of Adam’s heating unit fills
the room…along with the thunder of my heart.
“Don’t look at the bodies—I don’t care how fierce a huntress you are. Something changes you when you see your first
dead person. We’ve got to run,” Adam says, rising to his feet with my arm in tow. He cries out as he throws his laptop bag over
his shoulder. The other arm is cradled against his body and bleeding. “The bullet grazed my arm as it whizzed past, so you can
stop looking at me like I’m about to die. Thanks to your sharpshooting, we’re going to escape. I just want to be out of dodge
before the cops show up.”
He tucks my hand inside the elbow of his injured arm and tugs me around the room. We use the bedsheets to wipe off
the handles of our guns. Adam tucks them into the hands of the attackers before tucking their guns into his laptop bag. Before we
leave, he wedges his toothbrush into his shirt pocket and takes the towels from where they hang with the shower curtain.
“Removing evidence that we were here first,” he says with a shrug, and then winces in pain.
 Evidence for whom? Where are we going in the middle of the night? Doesn’t Adam need medical care? Are his wounds
bad enough to pull him away from me again? The questions come to a halt when we reach his jeep. He unlocks his door but
doesn’t have the strength to pull it open. I reach around him and open it under his glare. He bends his head to remove his laptop
case, but I take it with me to my side. As I climb in, I gently place it on the backseat. Whatever the lightbox does, he is willing
to die for it. The least I can do is treat his treasure with respect.
Like Denis’s beading and leather smithing station… I swallow a lump in my throat.
I haven’t thought of Denis for hours…
“What’s the plan?” I ask as Adam fights to shift the jeep’s middle lever.
“We’ll return to the field lab, patch up my arm, and figure out how Dr. Vera Thompson already has an excavation permit
application submitted to the Canadian Conservation Institute for Denis’s exhumation. Do you think you will learn to drive as
quickly as you learned to shoot a gun?” He volleys his question with a sexy smile I can’t refuse. “Climb onto my lap.”
“I’m driving this thing!” Do I dare? Do I have a choice? My protests die on my tongue as he jerks backward with a flick
of a lever under his seat.
“I’ll control the pedals and lean on the steering wheel if you get into trouble. It will be easy. I drove on my dad’s lap
when I was a little tike. I believe you can do this.”
And just like that, all my fears are buried, and curiosity blooms from their compost. If I could spend my life at his side,
I would never be bored. He has so much to teach me—and the patience to answer all my questions. I never feel like a nuisance,
a stupid female, or someone unworthy of answers. While I’m not allowed to love him, I can’t help but love who I get to be
when I’m with him. I don’t hesitate to climb onto his legs and grab the steering wheel. My hands are steady as he backs out of
the parking space. Under his tutelage, we head north.
For the thousandth time, I question my desire to be a mother. Adam can’t or didn’t knot me, so having his kits is
impossible. Is that so bad? Maybe I’m meant for shooting, driving, showering, and everything else he has yet to teach me.
Maybe I’ll find the same joy in digging the rectangles of dirt, as he does. Is a childless mating my destiny? Not with the clan’s
survival at stake. I must take part in the mating chase after Denis’s funeral. If another mate is my destiny, why is a hollow pit
swallowing my heart?
 Chapter 12

Adam, 2 weeks later

“I have to go,” Patricika whispers between kisses. She untangles herself from my embrace and the confines of my
sleeping bag. A cold spot blooms without her warmth. “Artyom can’t find me here when he arrives. The worst of the
snowstorm is over, and the search for Denis’s body will resume.”
“Why can’t Artyom find you with me? I sent the staff back to Yellowknife, so I’m the singular human here. He knows
I’m in on the Chuchunya secret from when I stayed with Denis. A direct handoff will not only keep your secret from the modern
world but also display I’m trustworthy to your clan.”
I hate how she bristles at my idea. She turns her shoulders away to conceal the shake of her head, but I catch it.
Somehow, I failed to measure up to her standard for being her mate. If only I knew what I did wrong. “We can’t be together. I
thought we established that when we parted last time,” she says with a huff.
My heart sinks. Did the last two weeks mean nothing to her? We made love and cuddled for weeks inside this tent while
the snowstorm raged outside. I kept her warm, fed, and happy with minimal equipment. My old leg injuries flared, but I didn’t
let them slow me down. Didn’t she imagine what I could provide with an underground home and time to gather supplies? We
talked about everything as if our time apart was minutes, not months. I helped her relax and laugh in her time of mourning.
Doesn’t that prove I have the emotional fortitude to be her person? Is she rejecting me because I can’t breed her?
That seems too shallow for her. Whose words fill her head?
While I directed Matt and his two graduate students to wrap Denis’s body, I kept her hidden and safe. Using the
impending snowstorm as an excuse, I broke one of the cardinal rules of archeology—never disrupt the site before taking
photographs. Because of my reputation at the university, or because I outrank him, Matt didn’t question me. Even though he
found Denis, once I showed up, I became the lead researcher. I have until Dr. Vera Thompson, the American scientist
equivalent of a chihuahua with a chew toy, gets here to misplace Denis.
“We did agree our relationship wouldn’t work, and then I missed you. I realized what we threw away. When you came
back, I thought—”
“I came to you for help. You can’t throw it in my face. You said you would always help the Chuchunya,” she snaps
while twirling her long hair into a knot on top of her head.
A knot. She wears a knot. Fuck my life.
“Noted,” I say, fascinated by the way she stabs the twigs into her hairstyle. Each movement is how I wish to stab the
idea that conception requires a knot. “I get it now. You came for Denis or the clan. However, you climbed into my bed for us.
You kissed me for us.”
“Chuchunya don’t kiss. We rut and knot,” she says, exiting the tent and stepping into the crisp morning air. I scramble to
pull on an outer layer before running after her. If it weren’t for the crunching of snow, she would have disappeared into the pine
forest.
“Wait, Patricika, we aren’t finished,” I call after her. My bare feet sting, and my thigh burns as I hobble after her
without my cane. I pull the pine trees as I use their branches as ballast. Damn knees, why today?
“We are finished,” she volleys back without slowing her strides. The hitch in her voice is the tiny window that
motivates me to continue to fight for us. She doesn’t want to leave my side any more than I want her to go.
“You would throw away the love of a lifetime because I don’t have the knot to please you? Well, newsflash to me, you
screamed my name and coated me with release more than once!”
“The knot isn’t about pleasure. Sex isn’t about pleasure. Not for me,” she says between sobs. Her sorrow muffles each
syllable with decreasing volume as she struggles to speak. “Not for female Chuchunya.”
“It’s about kits? I’m not enough if I can’t impregnate you?” I stop walking because I can’t struggle through the snow and
yell at the same time. My lungs burn. My heart hammers in my chest.
 “Yes,” she says, turning to show me the tears running down her face. “My clan is dying. My sole purpose is to breed. I
grew up wanting nothing else, and that was before the catastrophe that took my parents—took my—choices—took my life.
Please don’t make me choose between honoring the memories of those I love and loving you.”
“If you leave, you choose a loveless life—not just for you, but for me too,” I yell. My voice cracks on every third word.
Our relationship slides through my fingers with each shake of her head. My feet tingle with the beginnings of frostbite as I
shuffle across the snow to her.
“I’m leaving because I can’t carry Denis by myself!” She turns away but doesn’t take a step. One step and I would back
off. But deep inside our souls, we both know she’s making a mistake.
“When will you see you aren’t alone? When will you see what is in front of your eyes—a man who wishes to be your
partner?” I grab her shoulders to spin her around to face me.
The bells of a reindeer sleigh ring from the southeast. The engines of a Skidoo or two rumbles from the west. Humans
surround us. I have a few seconds to make my case. She can’t slip through my fingers again.
“Really, how will you carry his body for kilometers? You haven’t the strength in your leg. Your arm muscle is
shredded,” she says while tentatively removing my hands from her.
“So, I’m not masculine enough for you. It’s not that I’m human or from the modern world. I can teach you all the things
you want to know—technology, skills, history, and ecology, but you don’t want that kind of man. You want a beast of a male.
I’m too weak and broken,” I reply, taking a step backward. “I mean, how can I run in a mating chase when I can hardly walk,
right? How could I think I was good enough for you when I didn’t hunt you down in the middle of the woods? Silly me for
asking for your consent like a sentient being and thinking your orgasms meant you had feelings for me.”
“I don’t feel that way,” she whispers to her toes. “You aren’t weak or broken.”
“But not a contender in a mating chase either,” I say with a sarcastic chuckle. “For someone who doesn’t appreciate her
status as a broodmare, you fight to keep yourself as one.”
“The penalty is shunning,” she calls after me.
“Who cares? You won’t introduce me to any of them. We sneak around, too afraid to confess what we are. How can
shunning be worse than this? To be shunned means you chose me,” I say with a wave over my head. We can’t stay here and
fight. She’s determined to call the ‘real males’ to fetch Denis’s body. I won’t waste my breath begging her to stay and hide.
Hide from my research team. Hide from her clan.
The engines grow louder. It’s selfish to keep her when they will discover us. I step gingerly from tree to tree, using the
branches to pull me along. Bitterness seeps into my bones as the needles the trees shed line my way. Dragging my body weight
tears at my shoulder injury, but I refuse to fall on my face. Despite her words, she sees me as an impotent, weak, feeble man. I
don’t need to strengthen her claim. When my angry thoughts dissipate enough to listen to her footsteps, I’m met with bells and
the sounds of the forest.
She’s gone.
I stand dumbfounded, staring into the trees until a hand on my shoulder startles me back to the present.
“Dr. Ruther? Sorry to swat your shoulder, but you weren’t responding to your name,” says a middle-aged stranger. The
female is dressed in tactical gear as if we’re engaged in warfare against the fir trees. If she’s a thrill seeker, masquerading as
an anthropologist, I have news for her. Fieldwork in my profession is anything but glamorous. If she does more than comb
through the soil with a paintbrush for the next few weeks, I’ll be shocked.
“Adam, please,” I say absently. I rub the back of my neck and cast a final glance at where Patricika disappeared. “Who
might you be?”
“Vera,” she says, removing her furry glove to shake hands. “I’m Dr. Thompson from OSU. We exchanged emails about a
corpse found in the melting permafrost.”
“No, you aren’t,” I grouse. I fold my arms over my chest. This woman is more than double the age of the post-doc in the
OSU staff directory. I don’t have the patience for shenanigans. Her leather gloves, expensive snowsuit, and studded climbing
boots remind me I’m standing barefoot in the snow. The slight breeze would be pleasant if I weren’t wearing thin cotton pants
and a T-shirt. “Canadian Conservation Institute has secured this area. I must ask you to leave.”
“I’m not her exactly. I’m her delegate, Dr. Lisa Barbahall,” she says with an insistent shake of her hand between us.
That name I recognize from the directory. I can’t get over her beady black eyes. Her face reminds me of a ferret’s snout. “Vera
sends her apologies, but she couldn’t leave home.”
 “Funny that. Vera never mentioned a fear of travel or a reason she must stay in Ohio in our email exchanges,” I say
without unfolding my arms.
Does some past-her-prime interloper plan to steal the dig I stole from Vera? I think not. I’ve seen this ploy where an
inexperienced post-doc travels to a dig only to find a colleague of theirs reached the site first and finished the excavation. The
young scientist with the grant money is stuck paying the bill while the elder scientist who got there first writes the paper and
collects the glory for the discovery. Fooling Vera into believing Denis’s body disappearing is one thing. Pulling a fast one past
this nefarious lady will be a miracle.
Maybe I’m still raw from Patricika’s hasty exit—even though part of me is relieved this woman never saw her—but I
hate Dr. Barbahall and the type of scientist she represents.
“It surprised me too, but as soon as we climbed onto the sleighs, she became quiet. One minute she was behind me and
the next minute, her sleigh was untethered. I assume she went home,” she replies without eye contact. “Why do you care,
anyway? Your job is done here. This dig is now the property of The Ohio State University.”
“Actually, no,” I say with a smug smile that pulls her from the space between us. “I found some pottery here that we
haven’t proven aren’t First Nations. Until the results come back from the lab, I must supervise all excavations in the area. If
this turns out to be sacred ground, I will have no choice but to shut down your project.”
She makes a face like she just ate a lemon.
“Well, the more the merrier. It’s not like we aren’t all on the same team. This is to better our understanding of the origin
of Homo sapiens on the North American continent. If this specimen is an Australopithecus, then we can show the Bering Land
Bridge Theory wrong. We will know primates were in North America long before the Ice Age.”
“And I’m guessing you are just the scientist to rewrite the origin theory,” I say drily.
“Silly man,” she says, stepping into my space. I back away before her hand rests on my chest. She at least has the
decency to look embarrassed by her newest tactic. “We are getting way ahead of ourselves. Let’s help the workers extend the
camp, unpack my sleigh, and have a meal first.”
“Should we backtrack your path to look for Vera, or at least call her? I know the cell signal is spotty, but I have a
satellite phone. We must try to find her. What if she’s in trouble?”
“I’ll call her mother after we eat. I bet the little tike called for a ride home hours ago,” she says with a laugh. I
followed her back to the campsite—not to feed her, but to call Vera’s last known location, an inn south of Yellowknife. Dr.
Barbahall’s cackle raised the hair on my arms. I was suspicious before, but her attitude suggests she doesn’t have a heart.
She can have mine…I don’t want the pain it brings anymore.
 Chapter 13

Patricika, Present Day

“And that’s the story,” I say to my ‘roomies’ as Vera calls us. A chill floats through the main room of Sergei’s northern
dyla weturanya where he’s hosted our mini-clan this zima season. Our three couples have spent months hiding from the tundra
snowstorms, playing draughts, and exchanging skills…all while my kit grew inside my belly.
Wild eyes stare at Adam and me from across the meeting room’s circle. Dr. Vera Thompson and her best friend, Dr.
Sydney Decker, giggle at every description of Vera before we met her. They grew quiet when Adam reached the part where he
met Dr. Barbahall—days after she tried to kill Vera. Thank goodness their mates, Artyom and Sergei, are out hunting Dr.
Barbahall or they may have stopped the story. Anything that upsets Sydney upsets Sergei and an upset Sergei is a terrifying
Chuchunya.
Our story took place three years ago, but I lived every moment again as I told it to them.
“Now you know why Adam came to both your rescues. He wanted my heart,” I declare. Please don’t ask any
questions…
“I already had your heart—” Adam groans as he shifts beside me “—I needed to earn your trust. Someone should sew
seat cushions for these boulders.”
“Grab a porcupine quill and sinew, and have at it,” Sydney says drily with a sweep of her arm. “All the chores in this
dyla weturanya are equal opportunity tasks.”
“So, is that why you helped me return to camp for my surgery… you had Adam on the dig site to kill me if I told the
secret of the Chuchunya?” Vera’s quiet question speaks with the thunder of hurt. She clutches her beading project to her chest
for emotional protection. “I thought we bonded together because we were the only females at the last meeting before Artyom let
me go. Clan law says the group should have killed me, so I couldn’t tell the Chuchunya secret. Artyom would have defended
me to his death too. It wasn’t until you stepped in that the males listened to me.”
“Don’t get all weepy,” I say, rushing to Vera’s side to hug her. I’d make a crack about her ‘whore moan’ levels, but
she’s not pregnant and upset over her non-condition. “I saved Artyom from getting pummeled by Sergei because I owed Denis.
I still do. Then Sergei handed you that pine branch to hobble away…and…you looked like the last time I saw Adam. The
image of him chasing after me by stumbling from pine branch to pine branch is burnt into my brain.”
“Being with Patricika has been a peach,” Adam says with a chuckle. “I’ve been tortured, stabbed, shot, blown up,
burnt, and I’ve lost count of the broken bones.”
“Isn’t Patricika’s body count at four at this point in the story?” Sydney asks with a giggle. I wish she wouldn’t rock and
laugh while she’s shaving arrows. She makes me nervous when she uses Sergei’s giant knives.
“Four plus the one where she blew his balls off before killing him! Maybe Sydney didn’t pick the fiercest Chuchunya.
Adam did! I demand a recount,” Vera says, joining in the giggles.
Everyone laughs at Adam’s terrible dumb luck.
“I’m not taking credit for any of your injuries,” I say, wagging my finger at him. I love his relaxed posture and easy-
going conversation. After nursing his burn wounds for the last few months, my hope of his full recovery without returning him
to the human world waned. We know his enemies won’t hesitate to kill him if I leave him at a human hospital. “You jump into
danger every time I turn my back. You don’t have new injuries because we are stuck under the permafrost until the niibin
season.”
“Speaking of zima roommates,” Vera says with her brow lowered and frown lines around her mouth. “When you found
me searching for Artyom after my surgery, you were with Polina and Serik. Then, at my first mating chase, you caused a fight
between Serik and Adrik. Why did you run in the chase if you belonged with Adam?”
“We weren’t together,” I say with a shrug. “After Denis’s return, Adam and I didn’t see another for over a year.” I lock
eyes with Adam. It wasn’t a casual decision, and my shrug is to shake the guilt I carry—not downplay my actions. I hope he
knows that. He knows I chose Serik at the mating chase and we fought about my choice, but are the wounds I inflicted healed?
Or do they heal slowly under bandages and salves like the burns to his body? How much have I put this man through?
“We were together, but I was out of sight and therefore out of mind,” Adam says with a scowl.
“I couldn’t come between you and Artyom when he stunk of dushevnayasvyaz. However, I owed it to my family to
mate. I feared Sergei—no offense, Blondie—”
“None taken. We all know I’m a badass, the female worthy of the biggest and the strongest Chuchunya,” Sydney says
with a mocking wave as if I’m dismissed.
We groan at her parroting of her mate’s greeting. He never fails to tell everyone he’s the biggest and strongest
Chuchunya, as if his mountainous size weren’t obvious. Sydney’s one-fifth of his weight, but matches his bravery and strength
with her little body. Between her blond pigtails is a quick mind, too. We’ve become as close as her decade-old friendship with
Vera in the last few weeks. I’m happy for our fiercest protector and her humongous mate.
“In a clan on the brink of demise, I didn’t have many options. Kiril and Marat are my cousins, gross. I needed someone
young enough to be gentle and stupid enough to believe I wanted them,” I say with a shrug. “Adrik was a decoy to get Serik
jealous. I needed to force his rut to the surface because I couldn’t risk him seeing I didn’t want him…that I didn’t want anyone
at the chase.”
“Then why run?” Vera asks with all the naivete I’ve come to associate with her.
“Because sex is fun, and kits are too. Getting pregnant requires a male, which requires a chase,” I reply with more
bravado than I feel. I know I must tell the ladies this story before I give birth. With a kit, I won’t have time for stories with
adult themes. I waited until I grew to the size of a house because I would cry every time I tried. Vera said it was my pregnancy
‘whore moans,’ but I never asked what those were. Given Sydney’s definition of ‘whore’ hit too close to my awful behavior
toward Denis, Adam, and Serik, I don’t need to know what ‘whore moans’ are to know I deserve them.
“If you needed a young Chuchunya, why not Gleb? His rut was so strong that Sergei had to pry him off me. If it weren’t
for Sergei, he may have raped me,” Vera says with a shiver.
“Gleb is the youngest Chuchunya male, but not the dumbest. I didn’t want the guilt of using Gleb’s dyla weturanya when
he’s been working on it with Sergei for years,” I say with a headshake.
“Yeah, and everyone knows Sergei has the best dyla weturanya,” Sydney says with a smirk. She will never let Vera off
the hook for taking advantage of Sergei’s loneliness to get luxuries last zima season.
Truth be told, I pushed harder to live in Sergei’s triple cave because I knew Sergei takes care of his shit. The bathing
pools are crystal clear. The common areas are odor-free—thanks in part to his vanilla fer-o-moans—whatever those are. He
also has baskets of food, healing herbs, tea blends, soaps, and other supplies. His place is as cluttered as Denis’s caves but
filled with practical items, not beads, shells, and art.
“Aww, I’m glad we are all living under Sergei’s roof and reaping the benefits,” Vera says. “I think this is what
Artyom’s and his father wanted when they discovered it decades ago. Three families of the next generation raising kits and
having fun together during the long zima season.”
“Yeah, we’re stuck for almost another month. How do you not go nuts and dismember each other? At least Sergei and
Artyom get to leave and hunt for Dr. B,” Sydney says to the stairs to the surface with a sigh. “I’m not worried about them…but
the snow’s blowing harder against the door than this morning."
“That’s another question,” Vera says, turning to Adam. “If you suspected Dr. B had ditched me on the tundra, why didn’t
you show up to her trial in America? Were you bitter because Patricika was shacking up with Serik?”
“Yeah,” Sydney says with narrowing eyes. She picks up the next shaft to whittle into an arrow. “Unless you are an
elephant with a three-year gestation period, there is more to the story. You had to reunite and have sex before Adam rescued
me. You told me you were a few weeks along when we met, not a few years.”
“Yes, and yes is the short answer,” Adam says, standing again with a wince. He shuffles over to where Vera and I sit.
“Dr. B made several remarks that indicated she thought you were dead. I did go to America to testify against Dr. B, but never
made it to the courthouse. That’s why I wrote the letter to the judge. I hoped my notarized testimony would put her away for
good—considering my circumstances.”
“Can I get you some herbs for your leg? I can’t remember the last time you had some tea,” I interrupt, looking over my
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be mentioned, but these will suffice to indicate the light which
Chronicles throws upon the conditions of the post-exilic community.

Much more important, however, is the insight we gain into the

methods and principles, the ideals and the ideas which prevailed in
Temple circles in Jerusalem during the third century b.c. Chronicles,
like all distinctive books, is necessarily eloquent of its author’s mind
and character. Now the Chronicler was a Levite of the Levites, and
no doubt typical of his class at this period. But we know that this
period was of the highest importance in the formation of the Old
Testament, and it was precisely at the hands of the orthodox Levitical
circles that many books of the Jewish Scriptures, especially the
Laws, the Histories, and the Psalms, underwent the revision which
brought them approximately to their present form. It is therefore
extremely valuable that we should be able to study the psychological
characteristics of a typical Levite of that age. From this point of view
hardly any part of Chronicles is without significance. Thus the
midrashic stories, whatever their value otherwise, at least reveal a
great deal regarding the mental and moral outlook of the writer and
his contemporaries.

“Chronicles,” it has been said (Bennett, Expositor’s Bible, p. 20),

“is an object-lesson in ancient historical composition.” But it ought
also to teach us that history is something more than the record of
occurrences. Facts are fundamental, but of profound importance
also is the attitude in which we approach them.

To sum up the whole matter of this section. Compared with

Samuel‒Kings, Chronicles is of little or no value as a record of the
history of the Judean kingdom. Where it differs from those books, in
almost all cases the earlier account is the more accurate and
trustworthy. In what Chronicles adds, there may sometimes be found
traditional developments of genuine historical facts. Even if they
should prove to be few, it is possible that there may be among them
some points of high importance for our understanding of the Old
Testament records. Finally, as a product of the Greek period,
Chronicles is very valuable in illustrating the methods, ideals, and
temperament of the Levitical classes of Jerusalem about that time.

These results are disappointing only if we insist on treating

Chronicles as a manual of early Judean history instead of as a
remarkable and in some ways unique religious work.

§ 8. The Religious Value of Chronicles

Chronicles has suffered by comparison with the fresher, more
human, history in Samuel and Kings. It has seemed to modern taste
somewhat dry and uninspiring. To the superficial reader any religious
feeling in the book is devoted to the concerns of a ritual that has long
since passed away, and with which we might in any case have little
sympathy. And, of course, the contrast is still more unfavourable if it
be made with the books which contain the noblest utterances of
Jewish faith. Job in his anguish crying “though He slay me yet will I
trust Him”; the Psalmist fearless of all ill since God is with him;
Hosea who wrote of God “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the
knowledge of God more than burnt offerings”—these stand on a
higher spiritual level than the Chronicler. None the less, there is
virtue, and even great virtue, in Chronicles, and failure to perceive it
only argues lack of insight on our part.

In the first place, if Temple ritual and observance of the precepts

of the Law bulk too largely in the Chronicler’s conception of the
religious life, he had much excuse for his attitude. In his day and
generation, faithfulness to Jehovah and to that moral and spiritual
interpretation of life for which the worship of Jehovah stood,
inevitably involved participation in the organised services which
centred in the Temple. Whatever its imperfections, the Temple at
Jerusalem in his time was performing a great religious work in
keeping alive zeal for Jehovah and His Law in the face of much
degenerate heathenism. Moreover it is an unfair and a false
assumption to suppose that his manifest devotion to the ritual
necessarily or probably meant that his religion was mere formalism
or his creed poorly conceived. Behind the parade of the formalities of
worship burns a living faith. The freedom with which the Chronicler
has retold the history to conform with his religious views is indeed
the measure of the force of his beliefs. We have already noted (p.
xlix) as regards one midrashic passage that it is essentially a sermon
on the need for trust in God. The Chronicler was passionately
convinced that virtue is rewarded and vice is punished. He believed
in a God supremely just yet merciful, One who rules directly and
personally in human life, destroying evil, guiding and fostering all that
is true and good. “The might of nations counted as nothing before
Him. Obedience and faith in Jehovah were more effective
instruments in the hands of Israel’s kings than powerful armies and
strong alliances.” It is easy to smile at the Chronicler’s belief that
piety is necessarily rewarded by worldly prosperity, and sin by
worldly misfortune. But, if the life and teaching of Jesus Christ have
led us to a deeper interpretation of life, that does not lessen the
virtue of the Chronicler in maintaining his faith in God’s justice and
vigilance, despite all the cruel evidences of the prosperity of the
wicked. His doctrine of reward and punishment was crude, but after
all he was striving, as best he knew how, to maintain the great
central conviction of religion that “all things work together for good to
them that love God.” Everywhere his work is dominated by the sense
of right and wrong, and a clear-eyed perception of the absolute
distinction between them. He brings all men and all things to a moral
and religious test. The imperishable worth of Chronicles will ever be
that it is the record of a man’s endeavour to present, in terms of
national experience, the eternal laws of the spiritual realm.

Finally, since the Chronicler was retelling the past in terms of the
present, we know that these beliefs of his were not rules applied in
theory to history and ignored in present practice. They were the
convictions by which his own soul lived. No one can afford to
despise a man who was prepared to walk by the light of such a faith
amid the difficulties and the perils which surrounded the enfeebled
Jerusalem of that age. As Curtis says, “it was under the tutelage of
men like the Chronicler that the Maccabees were nourished and the
heroic age of Judaism began.” We must not allow any distaste for
legalism in religion to blind us to the virtues of the post-exilic Jews.
The very rigidity of the ritual and the doctrine was essential to the
preservation of the nobler elements in the faith. In the memorable
words of Wellhausen (Prolegomena, pp. 497 f.), “At a time when all
nationalities, and at the same time all bonds of religion and national
customs were beginning to be broken up in the seeming cosmos and
real chaos of the Graeco-Roman Empire, the Jews stood out like a
rock in the midst of the ocean. When the natural conditions of
independent nationality all failed them, they nevertheless artificially
maintained it with an energy truly marvellous, and thereby preserved
for themselves, and at the same time for the whole world, an eternal
good.” Chronicles may justly claim to have played a part in that
extraordinary triumph.

§ 9. Name and Position in the Canon

Name. The Hebrew title is Dibhrē Hayyāmīm, literally The Acts
(or Sayings) of the Days. In the Greek Version (the Septuagint)
Chronicles was regarded as supplementary to Samuel and Kings,
and so received the title “[Books of] the Omitted Acts”
παραλειπομένων or “the Omitted Acts of the Kings (or Reigns) of
Judah.” This name, moreover, passed into the Latin Vulgate, “(Libri)
Paralipomenōn.” The title Chronicles seems to be due to a remark
made by St Jerome, who, in commenting on the Hebrew title, wrote
that the book might more appropriately be styled the “Chronicle of
the whole of sacred history” (Prologus in Libros Regum, edited by
Vallarsi, ix. 458). The use of the phrase is also suggested by a
similar expression (literally “the book of the Acts of the Days of...”)
found some twenty times in Kings, and commonly rendered “the
book of the chronicles of...” e.g. 1 Kings xiv. 19. On the whole,
Chronicles is a satisfactory title ¹.
 ¹ It is, however, open to the objection that an inexperienced
reader may make the mistake of supposing that these
references in Kings to “the book of the chronicles of the kings
of Israel [Judah]” are references to the canonical Chronicles.

Division. The division of Chronicles into two books (as in the

English Versions) probably originated in the Septuagint (LXX.); the
MSS. a and b both mark the division. It entered the English Version
through the Latin Vulgate. On the other hand, Rabbinical evidence
(Talmud, Baba Bathra 15a; and the Masōrah) and the Christian
Fathers testify that among the Hebrews the book was undivided: so
Origen (apud Eusebius Church History vi. 25, 2) and Jerome
(Domnioni et Rogatiano).

Position in Canon. In the English Version Chronicles stands next

after Kings, the Historical Books being grouped together. This
arrangement was derived from the Septuagint through the Latin
Vulgate. The order of the Hebrew Bible is different. There the books
are arranged in three sections, of which the first contains the Books
of the Pentateuch, the second includes the Historical Books from
Joshua to Kings, while the third (Hebrew “Kĕthūbhīm”) contains
Chronicles. The books of this third section seem to have been the
last to receive Canonical Authority among the Jews. Kings thus
appears to have been taken into the Canon before Chronicles.

In the Hebrew Bible the “Kĕthūbhīm” (Hagiographa) are usually

arranged thus:—first the Poetical Books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job),
next the Five Rolls or Megillōth (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations,
Ecclesiastes, Esther), and lastly the three books Daniel, Ezra‒
Nehemiah, and Chronicles. This is the usual Hebrew tradition,
though it is surprising to find Ezra (which begins with the closing
verses of Chronicles) put before Chronicles. The wording of Matthew
xxiii. 35, however, “From the blood of Abel the righteous (see
Genesis iv. 10 f.) unto the blood of Zachariah (see 2 Chronicles xxiv.
20 ff.)” suggests that as early as our Lord’s day Chronicles was
regarded as the last, just as Genesis was the first, book of the
Hebrew Canon. It is probable, therefore, that Chronicles found its
way into the Canon after Ezra‒Nehemiah, the latter book being
needed to represent the post-exilic period of the history, whereas
Chronicles covered ground already occupied by the books of Samuel
and Kings.
 § 10. Text and Versions of Chronicles
Text. The Hebrew (Masoretic) text in Chronicles is, on the whole,
well preserved, although by no means free from textual errors
(compare 1 Chronicles vi. 28). Many of these occur, as one would
expect, in the lists of proper names. Olstead (in the American
Journal of Semitic Languages, October 1913) has given reasons for
holding that occasionally the original text of Chronicles may have
suffered from assimilation to the text of Samuel‒Kings. Further, we
note a few phrases and passages which seem to be scribal additions
(see § 3, p. xxii). An interesting scribal omission of late date is noted
on 2 Chronicles xxviii. 20. In passages which are parallel to the older
canonical books Chronicles has occasionally preserved a superior
reading, e.g. 1 Chronicles xx. 4, Hebrew and LXX. “there arose war
at Gezer” = 2 Samuel xxi. 18, “there was again war ... at Gob”; or
again, 1 Chronicles viii. 53, “Eshbaal” = 2 Samuel ii. 8 “Ishbosheth”;
or compare 1 Chronicles xiv. 14, note on go not up.

Versions. (1) Greek Versions. What is commonly called the

Septuagint (LXX.) of Chronicles is now recognised to be not the
original LXX., but a later Greek translation, which most scholars
(especially Torrey, Ezra Studies) consider to be the rendering of
Theodotion. [For criticism of the view that it is Theodotion’s rendering
see the article by Olstead mentioned above.] In the main this
rendering is a close reproduction of the Masoretic text, and of little
value except for determining the official Hebrew text of the second
century. The old LXX., unfortunately, no longer exists for 1
Chronicles i.‒2 Chronicles xxxiv.; but for 2 Chronicles xxxv., xxxvi. it
has been preserved in 1 Esdras i.—a fact of great good fortune, not
merely for the textual criticism of that passage, but for the light it
sheds on the relations and characteristics of the Greek Versions.
 (2) The Old Latin Version was made from the old LXX. which is
now lost except for the last two chapters of Chronicles, as stated
above. It would therefore be of great value for criticism, but alas! only
a few fragments survive.

The later Latin Version, the Vulgate, made by Jerome, is of small

value, as it represents only the official Hebrew text.

(3) The Syriac Version, known as the Peshitṭa, is of even smaller

value for textual criticism. Unlike the close rendering of other books
in the Peshitṭa, Chronicles constantly has the characteristics of a
paraphrase rather than a translation. One example will suffice. For
“Joel the chief and Shaphat the second,” 1 Chronicles v. 12, the
Peshitṭa has “And Joel went forth at their head and judged them and
taught them the scriptures well.” The Peshitṭa is further noteworthy
for curious omissions (and substitutions), e.g. 2 Chronicles iv. 10‒22;
xi. 5‒xii. 12 (for which 1 Kings xii. 25‒30, followed by 1 Kings xiv. 1‒
9, is substituted).

For further information regarding the text and versions of

Chronicles, see the edition by Curtis, pp. 35 ff.

§ 11. Literature
Of the more recent literature on Chronicles the following is a list
of the principal works which have been consulted in the preparation
of this volume.

J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena (1885), especially chapter vi.

W. H. Bennett, The Books of Chronicles in the Expositor’s Bible

(1894).

F. Brown, Chronicles in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (1898).

W. R. Smith and S. R. Driver, Chronicles in the Encyclopaedia
Biblica (1899).

I. Benzinger, Die Bücher der Chronik (1901).

R. Kittel, Die Bücher der Chronik (1902).

C. F. Kent, Israel’s Historical and Biographical Narratives (Student’s

Old Testament, 1905).

W. R. Harvie-Jellie, Chronicles in the Century Bible (1906).

E. L. Curtis and A. A. Madsen, Chronicles (the International Critical

Commentary, 1910).

S. R. Driver, Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 517‒540 (8th

edition 1909).

W. R. Smith and S. A. Cook, Chronicles in the Encyclopaedia

Britannica (1910).

C. C. Torrey, Ezra Studies (1910).

A. T. Olstead, Source Study and the Biblical Text in the American

Journal of Semitic Languages (October, 1913).

Students interested in the Hebrew text should consult Kittel’s

edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew; Kittel’s Chronicles in Hebrew
in The Sacred Books of the Old Testament (edited by P. Haupt);
Torrey’s Ezra Studies, and the commentary by Curtis and Madsen
mentioned above; also Arno Kropat, “Die Syntax des Autors der
Chronik,” in the Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
(Beihefte) xvi. (1909).

N.B. The commentary on Chronicles according to the text of the

Authorised Version was edited in this series by the Rev. Professor
W. E. Barnes, D.D., in 1899. For this new edition which is based on
the Revised Version the present writer is entirely responsible. He
desires here to acknowledge the courtesy of Professor Barnes who
has kindly permitted the retention of notes from the first edition.

W. A. L. E.

September 1st, 1915.

 THE FIRST BOOK OF
THE CHRONICLES

Chapters I.‒IX. GENEALOGIES.

Chapter I.
The Genealogies of the Peoples.

The historical narrative of the books of Chronicles commences in

chapter x. with the record of the defeat and death of King Saul on Mt
Gilboa.

The first nine chapters are occupied almost entirely by a series of

genealogical lists. Starting from the primeval age, the line is traced
from Adam to the origin of Israel, showing its place among the
nations of the ancient world. Attention is then confined to the
descendants of Israel, amongst whom the genealogies of Judah
(particularly, the line of David), of Levi, and of Benjamin, are given
prominence. Finally the ancestry of Saul, and a list of inhabitants of
Jerusalem is recorded.

The modern reader is inclined to regard these statistics as the

least important section of the book, but the fact that the bare lists of
names are so foreign to our taste should serve at least as a valuable
warning of the difference between our outlook and that of the
Chronicler. It is in the highest degree important to understand the
motives which caused the Chronicler to give these lists of names as
the fitting introduction to the history, since the same motives operate
throughout the book and determine the standpoint from which the
entire history is considered.

(1) In the first place the genealogies were not recorded by the
Chronicler simply for the archaeological interest they possess. They
served a most practical purpose, in that they helped to determine for
the Jewish community of the Chronicler’s time what families were of
proper Levitical descent and might claim a share in the privileges
pertaining thereto, and—on a wider scale—what families might justly
be considered to be the pure blood of Israel. How serious the
consequences entailed by the absence of a name from such lists
might be is well illustrated by Ezra ii. 61‒63 (= Nehemiah vii. 63‒65),
“the children of Habaiah, the children of Hakkoz ... sought their
register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they
were not found: therefore were they deemed polluted and put away
from the priesthood.” On the other hand the Jew who could
successfully trace his ancestry in the great lists knew himself
indubitably a member of the chosen people and was confident of his
part in the covenantal grace and in all those hopes which the faith of
Israel inspired and sustained.

(2) The practical aspect of these lists was thus essentially

connected with high religious sentiment. They were an expression of
the continuity of Israel, a declaration that the Present was one with
the Past, a witness and an assurance of the unfailing grace of
Israel’s God. The genealogies therefore are in perfect harmony with
the spirit and purpose of the Chronicler’s work—see the Introduction
§ 6.

(3) Finally, in the lists of place-names and genealogies of

inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, various facts of great historical
interest are preserved—see Introduction § 7, pp. xlvii f. and (e.g.) ii.
42 note.

Chapter i. contains the genealogies of the earliest age, showing

the origin of the nations. It concludes with a list of the chiefs of
Edom. The names are those given in the genealogies of Genesis i.‒
xxxvi., but the lists are abbreviated to the utmost by the omission of
statements of relationship. Evidently the Chronicler was able to
assume that the connection between the names was a matter of
common knowledge.

1‒4 (compare Genesis v. 3‒32).

A Genealogy from Adam to the Sons of Noah.

¹A DAM, Seth, Enosh; ²Kenan, Mahalalel,

Jared;
1. Seth ... Noah] This genealogy of ten antediluvian patriarchs
follows Genesis v. 3‒32 (P), the “Sethite” line as compared with
Genesis iv. 17‒24 (J) where the descent is traced through Cain.
There is some ancient connection between the list and the
Babylonian tradition of ten kings before the Flood (see Ryle,
Genesis, pp. 88 ff. in this series). For the symbols J and P, see the
Introduction p. xx.

Enosh] A poetical word which, like Adam in prose writings, was

used as a generic term for “man.”

³Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech; ⁴Noah, Shem,

Ham, and Japheth.
3. Enoch] Hebrew Ḥanôkh. In verse 33 the same name is more
correctly rendered Hanoch, but the Revised Version not unwisely
has here retained the famous name in the form (derived through the
Vulgate from the LXX.) with which the Authorized Version has made
us familiar; compare Genesis iv. 17, and v. 21.
 5‒23.
The Genealogy of the Nations.

The table which follows is taken from Genesis x. 2‒29. It is

geographical rather than ethnological, i.e. neighbouring nations are
regarded as having the same descent. The world as then known is
divided into three areas of which that in the north and west is
assigned to the Sons of Japheth (5‒7), the southern to the Sons of
Ham, and the middle and eastern to the Sons of Shem (17‒23). Had
the arrangement been according to actual descent the Semitic
Zidonians, for instance, would not be described as the offspring of
Ham (verse 13).

The passage, when analysed, divides as follows: 5‒9 (a general

table of the descendants of Japheth and Ham), 10‒16 (an appendix
to the descendants of Ham), 17 (a general table of the descendants
of Shem), 18‒23 (an appendix to the descendants of Shem). Of
these four sections, the general tables, verses 5‒9 and 17, belong to
the “Priestly” narrative of the Hexateuch, whilst the two appendices,
verses 10‒16, 18‒23, are from the earlier narrative known as J. For
a full examination of the many interesting questions raised by this
account of the origin of the nations known to the Israelites the reader
must be referred to the commentaries on Genesis where such
discussion is appropriate (see Ryle, Genesis, in this series; or more
fully Skinner, Genesis, pp. 188 ff.). Here a few remarks of a general
character must suffice.

With the exception of Nimrod the names are those of nations and
tribes (e.g. Madai [Medes], Javan [Greeks]) or countries (e.g.
Mizraim [Egypt]) or cities (Zidon). The names are eponymous: that is
to say “each nation is represented by an imaginary personage
bearing its name, who is called into existence for the purpose of
expressing its unity, but is at the same time conceived as its real
progenitor”; and the relations existing or supposed to exist between
the various races and ethnic groups are then set forth under the
scheme of a family relationship between the eponymous ancestors.
This procedure may seem strange to us but it was both natural and
convenient for a period when men had not at their disposal our
scientific methods of classification. It must have been specially easy
for Semites, like Israel, who in everyday life were accustomed to call
a population the “sons of” the district or town which they inhabited.
But in truth the practice was widespread in antiquity, and, if a parallel
is desired, an excellent one may be found in the Greek traditions
respecting the origins of the several branches of the Hellenic race.
Whether the ancients believed that these eponymous ancestors
really had lived is somewhat uncertain. Probably they did, although
such names as Rodanim (verse 7) and Ludim (verse 11) where the
name is actually left in a plural form (as we might say “Londoners”)
makes it difficult to doubt that in some cases the convention was
conscious and deliberate. The notion that the chief nations of
antiquity were differentiated from one another within some three
generations of descent from a common ancestor, Noah, is plainly
inaccurate. Equally untenable is the primary conception assumed in
this table that the great races of mankind have come into being
simply through the expansion and subdivision of single families.

It must not be imagined that these facts in any way destroy the
value of the table. Historically, it is a document of great importance
as a systematic record of the racial and geographical beliefs of the
Hebrews. Its value would be increased could we determine precisely
the period when it was originally drawn up, but unfortunately it is not
possible to do so with certainty. Arguments based on the
resemblance between this table and the nations mentioned in the
books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah are inconclusive; nor does the fact
that the general tables (verses 5‒9, 17) now form part of P, the
“Priestly” document, help us greatly, for we cannot argue from the
date of the document as a whole to the date of its component laws or
traditions, which of course may be much earlier. Religiously, the
worth of this table is to be seen in the conviction of the fundamental
unity of the human race, which is here expressed. The significance
of this may best be felt if we contrast the Greek traditions which
display a keen interest in the origins of their own peoples but none at
all in that of the barbarians. Ancient society in general was vitiated
by failure to recognise the moral obligation involved in our common
humanity. Even Israel did not wholly transcend this danger, and its
sense of spiritual pre-eminence may have taken an unworthy form in
Jewish particularism; but at least, as we here see, there lay beneath
the surface the instinct that ultimately the families of the earth are
one, and their God one.

5‒7 (= Genesis x. 2‒4).

The Sons of Japheth.

⁵The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog,

and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and
Meshech, and Tiras.
5. The sons of Japheth] The writer begins with the northern
peoples.

Gomer] to be identified with the Gimirrai of the Assyrian

monuments, the Κιμμέριοι of the Greeks, who migrated from South
Russia into Asia Minor (Pontus and Cappadocia) under the pressure
of the Scythians (Herodotus I. 103; IV. 11, 12; compare Ezekiel
xxxviii. 6, Revised Version).

Magog] In Ezekiel xxxviii. 2 (Revised Version) judgement is

denounced on “Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh,
Meshech, and Tubal” who is represented as accompanied in his
migration by the “hordes” of Gomer and Togarmah (verse 6), “all of
them riding upon horses” (verse 15). Magog represents therefore
one of several tribes of northern nomads, possibly the Scythians.

Madai] i.e. Media or the Medes. Of the many allusions in the Old
Testament to this famous people, the first is found in 2 Kings xvii. 6;
compare also Isaiah xiii. 17; Jeremiah xxv. 25; Esther i. 3; Daniel i. 9.
The Median Empire dates from the 7th century b.c., but the Medes
are referred to by Assyrian inscriptions of the 9th century, at which
time they seem to occupy the mountainous regions to the south and
south-west of the Caspian Sea. They were the first Aryan race to
play an important part in Semitic history.
 Javan] the Ionians, a branch of the Greek peoples. They were
already settled in the Aegean islands and on the west coast of Asia
Minor at the dawn of Greek history. Being a seafaring nation and
having a slave-trade with Tyre (Ezekiel xxvii. 13; Joel iii. 6 [Hebrew
iv. 6 “Grecians”]), they became known to Israel at an early date. In
some late passages of the Old Testament (e.g. Zechariah ix. 13;
Daniel viii. 21, xi. 2) Javan denotes the world-power of the Greeks,
established by the conquests of Alexander the Great and maintained
in part by his successors, in particular the Seleucid kings of Syria.

Tubal, and Meshech] compare Isaiah lxvi. 19; Psalms cxx. 5.

They are mentioned together Ezekiel xxvii. 13, xxxii. 26, xxxviii. 2, 3,
xxxix. 1; and are to be identified with the Τιβαρηνοί and Μοσχοί of
Herodotus III. 94, who are the “Tabali” and “Muski” of the
monuments. In the time of the later Assyrian Empire they lived as
neighbours in the country north-east of Cilicia, but at a later period
the Τιβαρηνοί (Tubal) lived in Pontus, and the Μοσχοί (Meshech)
further East towards the Caspian. (The Meshech of this verse is to
be distinguished from the Meshech son of Shem mentioned in verse
17.)

Tiras] Not the Thracians (so Josephus Antiquities of the Jews I.

6), but most probably the Tyrseni, a piratical people frequenting the
coasts and islands of the north Aegean. They are mentioned among
the seafarers who assailed Egypt in the reign of Merenptah.

⁶And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and

Diphath ¹, and Togarmah.
¹ In Genesis x. 3, Riphath.

6. Ashkenaz] In Jeremiah li. 27 “the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni,

and Ashkenaz” are to be summoned against Babylon. The home of
the Ashkenaz is therefore somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Ararat (Armenia); and they are apparently the Asguza of the
monuments, and perhaps may be identified with the Scythians.
 Diphath] The LXX., Vulgate and some Hebrew MSS. have
Riphath (so also Genesis x. 3), which is to be preferred. The identity
of the place or people is not yet ascertained.

Togarmah] Perhaps in Armenia, but the evidence is inconclusive.

That it was a neighbour of Gomer, Tubal, and Meshech appears
probable from Ezekiel xxvii. 14, where Togarmah is mentioned as
trading with Tyre in horses and mules. Compare also Ezekiel xxxviii.
6, and the note above on Magog.

⁷And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish,

Kittim, and Rodanim ¹.
¹ In Genesis x. 4, Dodanim.

7. Elishah] Ezekiel (xxvii. 7) addressing Tyre, “Blue and purple

from the isles of Elishah was thine awning.” Elishah has not been
identified with certainty. It has been supposed to be Carthage.
Another suggestion is Alashiya (of the Tell el-Amarna Letters) which
may be a Cilician district, or perhaps rather Cyprus; compare the
note on Kittim below.

Tarshish] generally now identified with Tartessus, a Phoenician

town in the south of Spain. This is supported by the various
references to Tarshish as a Tyrian colony rich in minerals and far
from Palestine (see, e.g. Ezekiel xxvii. 12; Jonah i. 3; Psalms lxxii.
10; 2 Chronicles ix. 21). To identify it with Tarsus, the famous town in
Cilicia, is in some ways attractive, but is on the whole less probable.

Kittim] The inhabitants of Cyprus are meant, “Kittim” being

derived from Kition (modern Larnaca), the name of one of its oldest
towns. In later times Kittim (Chittim) is used vaguely of Western
islands (Jeremiah ii. 10; Ezekiel xxvii. 6) or nations; “the ships of
Kittim” (Daniel xi. 30) are the Roman ships; “the land of Chittim”
(Χεττιείμ, 1 Maccabees i. 1) is Macedonia (1 Maccabees viii. 5).
 Rodanim] No doubt the Rhodians are meant; their island was
celebrated even in the days of Homer. On the spelling Dodanim
(Revised Version margin; Genesis x. 4), compare the note on
Diphath above. The Hebrew letters r (‫ )ר‬and d (‫ )ד‬are easily
confused.

8, 9 (= Genesis x. 6, 7).
The Sons of Ham.

⁸The sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, Put,

and Canaan.
8. The sons of Ham] The southern peoples are next enumerated.

Cush] The Hebrew name here transliterated Cush is several

times translated “Ethiopia” (e.g. 2 Kings xix. 9; Isaiah xviii. 1) no
doubt rightly. On the inscriptions of Asshur-bani-pal frequent mention
is made of Ku-su (Ku-u-su) “Ethiopia” in connection with Mu-ṣur
“Egypt.” The Cushites were not Negroes but a brown race like the
modern Nubians (Soudanese). The “sons of Cush,” however, seem
to be tribes located mostly on the Arabian side of the Red Sea, verse
9 below.

Mizraim] is without doubt Egypt. In form the word may be dual,

and it is generally said to mean the two Egypts, Upper and Lower.

Put] This people is mentioned among the helpers of Egypt in

Jeremiah, in Ezekiel (twice), and in Nahum. In Ezekiel xxvii. 10 it
appears among the auxiliary troops of Tyre. Put used therefore to be
identified with the Libyans of the north coast of Africa, but more
probably it denotes the Punt of the Egyptian monuments, i.e. the
African coast of the Red Sea.

Canaan] the eponym of the pre-Israelitish population of Palestine

west of Jordan. Actual racial affinities are here disregarded or
unperceived, for the Canaanites (except the Philistines and
Phoenicians on the strip of coastland) were Semites and spoke a
language closely resembling Hebrew. That they are here reckoned
as Hamites and made a “brother” of Egypt is due perhaps in part to
the frequent dominations of Palestine by Egypt, but more probably to
the political and religious antagonism between Israel and the
Canaanites, which suggested that they ought to be most closely
associated with Egypt, Israel’s traditional oppressor. Note that in
Genesis ix. 25‒27 (where hostile feeling against Canaan is
prominent) “Canaan” is not said to be the son of Ham, but takes
Ham’s place as a son of Noah (Ryle, Genesis, p. 127).

⁹And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah,

and Sabta, and Raama, and Sabteca. And the
sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.
9. the sons of Cush] According to some authorities Seba and
Havilah were tribes or districts on the African coast of the Red Sea,
whilst Sabta and Raama and Sabteca were in Arabia. It is somewhat
more probable that all (except Seba) were located on the Arabian
side of the Red Sea.

Seba] In Isaiah xliii. 3 and xlv. 14 Seba (the Sabeans) is

mentioned along with Egypt and Cush, and in Psalms lxxii. 10 along
with Sheba. Probably a district on the African side of the Red Sea is
meant.

Sheba, and Dedan] Also in verse 32, where see note. Sheba is
frequently mentioned in the Old Testament (e.g. Jeremiah vi. 20; 1
Kings x. 1 ff. = 2 Chronicles ix. 1 ff.; Isaiah lx. 6) as a distant land,
rich in gold, frankincense, and precious stones. It was a flourishing
and wealthy state, at one period (circa 700 b.c.) the centre of power
and civilisation in south Arabia. Dedan was probably a merchant
tribe, specially associated with Sheba (compare Ezekiel xxxviii. 13).

10‒16 (= Genesis x. 8‒18b).

Appendix. Other Descendants of Ham.