Raven's Return - Ruby Dixon Page 0,20

for you."

"I found the female in a cave," Juth continues.

R'ven gasps. "You snuck up behind me and put leaves over my mouth and made me pass out! That's a little different!"

"Mine," Juth says plainly.

"Bitch, I will cut your heart out of your chest if you even try it," R'ven snarls, her voice losing the sweetness. Both Juth and I look at her in surprise. Her face flushes, and she gestures at me. "Tell him that he can't just claim a girl."

"She is not yours to claim," I repeat. "No one can claim a hyoo-man female. They must be resonated to or choose to go to a male's furs."

"And fuck you if you think I'm going anywhere with you," R'ven adds hotly. "Jesus. This is what I get for being nice." She dips the cup in the tea again and hands it to Pak, glaring at his father. "Tell this kid his dad sucks."

I bite back a smile. R'ven's indignant response makes my jealousy ease, and I relax a little. I am surprised that the outcast made me so very angry with his words. I have not felt jealousy over a female before. It is a new sensation, and I am not certain I like it. There have been many pretty, interesting females on the beach since we arrived, but I told myself they were not for me. Even so, I grew attached to R'ven and began to imagine her as my own.

Of course she has not resonated to Juth. He already has a child. He would have a mate, as well, though perhaps she did not survive the Great Smoking Mountain's second death.

Juth gives me a sly look. "She should be outcast, should she not? The female has no horns, she has no strong arms, and she has no claws or tail. That makes her one of my people, not yours."

"We're all the same people." R'ven presses her fingertips to her temples. "This man's logic is giving me a headache."

"Why does she babble strange words?" Pak asks, chewing on another mouthful of food. "Is something wrong with her head?"

"She is a hyoo-man," I explain to them. "They are a different people, and they speak a different tongue. And because she is hyoo-man, the law of the beach no longer holds here." I ignore Juth's scowl, confident in my words. "We are no longer on the islands. Just as you are no longer outcast, that law does not hold. You can join our new clan on the beach, but you cannot claim a female."

"Tell him there are other women on the beach," R'ven says. "He can't have me."

"You would give him another, then?" I turn to her, amused at how readily she offers up her friends.

She scoffs. "No. But he can hang around them and see if he resonates. At the very least, get a pair of pants." She flicks her fingers at him.

"He will not resonate. He has a son already."

"You speak of us?" Juth asks, gaze flicking back and forth between R'ven and myself. "Pak is not my son by resonance. He is my son because we are the only ones left in outcast clan."

"Aw," Raven says, her expression softening. "Well now I almost feel bad. Almost." She leans over toward Pak and Juth. "You can come home with us." She staggers her words, her volume increasing as if that will somehow make them understand her, and I bite back a smile of amusement. "You're safe now. SAFE."

Juth just blinks at her in that blank way of his. He turns back to me. "Is she your female, then?"

R'ven makes a frustrated sound in her throat, but I only smile. My female? I wish she was. "She does not belong to anyone."

A wily look crosses the outcast's face. "That is where you are wrong. I found her on the beach. She is mine. It is the law."

R'ven gives me a cross scowl. "Really starting to dislike this guy."

"It is mere stubbornness," I tell her, unwilling to get riled up at Juth's words. He is not taking R'ven, no matter what he thinks. I will put a stop to that. "He wishes to barter, that is all."

"That better be all." She hugs the furs closer to her chest and glares at Juth.

Juth watches us both as we talk, his eyes narrowed. "Why is it that she babbles nonsense but you can understand her? And she can understand you?"

"The hyoo-mans have different words than we do," I explain to him. "One of