Raven's Return - Ruby Dixon Page 0,26

the tribe, though? I understand it. No one wants to sign up for being seen as “less than” by a group of people. All his life, he's been treated as an outcast, and I don't blame him for thinking that won't change when he joins the others on the beach. After all, I have the same fears. I hide who I am so I can fit in…and it's worked up until now.

Because now I want to kiss U'dron and “share furs” with him, as they like to call it here. I want to share his hut with him and do all kinds of lascivious things. I want to scratch all the sexual itches I've been having, and I want to do it with him. He's so damn attractive to me, and not just because of his appearance—although that is fine as hell—but because I feel like he sees me for who I really am underneath. I'm not a hippie child, I'm not a stripper or an ex-con, I'm just a girl that's a little lonely and has never had anyone to rely on in her life.

I want to tell him the truth about who I am, but I don't know how he'll take it. If he doesn't like it, he'll tell everyone else in the tribe about it and then they'll all know my secrets. I chew on my lip as I go through another round of patty-cake with Pak again, only half-paying attention. Eventually my truth is going to have to come out, but I was hoping to wait until I resonated to someone, because then they couldn't boot me without booting whoever I was attached to.

Wanting to tell the truth because I'm crushing on someone wasn't part of the plan. I don't feel right hooking up with U'dron with a big lie hanging between us, though. A few kisses are one thing—we've all played a few rounds of spin the bottle back on the beach. But actually sleeping with someone? Someone that's probably as big a virgin as U'dron? That could make him feel betrayed…or worse, defiled.

Ugh.

I worry about these things all day, even as I watch U'dron from afar. He skips the net as he fishes, wearing it tied at his waist, and opts for spear-fishing instead. He meets with Juth a few times on the shore, speaking quietly, and then they both work together—one herds whatever it is they're hunting over to the area that the other is in, and the second hunter pounces and stabs. It's an effective hunting technique, and when we make an early evening meal, there's thick slabs of pale fish meat, more than enough for all of us to eat our fill. I sprinkle a few herbs on them as they sizzle on a rock, and I notice both Juth and Pak can't take their eyes off the cooking food.

"Will you sing for us tonight?" U'dron asks me after we eat our fill.

I'm surprised at the request. "Tonight?"

He nods. "It would bring me great joy."

I look over at Juth and Pak, but what they think doesn't matter, really. It's U'dron's intense gaze that decides me. I flip through a mental jukebox, trying to decide on what would sound good without any sort of accompaniment. I can't think of a single thing that would sound good with my thin voice, so I do “What a Wonderful World” instead. I want to sing something filthy and sexual—like most of my repertoire—but not with Juth and Pak sitting right across from us.

U'dron breaks into a wide smile when I finish the song. "I like that one."

"I do too." There's something innocent and pure about it. Maybe it was a better choice than singing “I'm a Slave 4 U” and giving U'dron hot, meaningful eyes all night, which was my original thought.

Man, you can take the girl out of the strip club, but you can't take the strip club out of the girl.

Pak shows his dad the “new game” I taught him, and U'dron insists on me showing him, too. It feels a little strange to be playing patty-cake with a grown man, but it's quickly obvious to me that U'dron's just using it as an excuse to monopolize me. He sits across from me and folds his legs under him, sitting close enough that our knees touch, and the first smack of his hand against mine makes me think all kinds of filthy things. So do the secretive little smiles he shoots my way.

God,