“Are you… okay?” she asked tentatively, reeling from an abrupt end to a fast-building pleasure. The hem of her dress fell down her hips, and she was grateful for this belated modesty.
“Yes,” he said in a strange hollow voice. His hand slowly adjusted his clothes, the movement unsure like he was blind or sleepwalking.
“Zoark?” The alarm made Addie’s tone sharp.
He looked at her out of dull vacant eyes that tracked nothing. “I’m fine,” he said without inflection. “I think… I need to get home. I’m about to crash.”
“That good, huh?” Chuckling, Addie looked around for their discarded things and picked up her sling sack that was laying on the ground.
The women were probably long gone, wondering what had become of her. Either way, no one seemed to be coming to look.
She picked up his spear and placed it into his hand. He took hold of it, obedient, and wavered on his feet.
“Uh-oh.” She pulled on her underwear and sweater. “Can you walk?”
He nodded but made no move to go. He looked lost.
“Guess I’m in charge of directions. Follow me, warrior.”
Chapter 28
Zoark remained invisible over the next several days, and Addie could only presume he was sleeping it off in his teepee.
His prolonged absence was making her worried, and since checking on Zoark in his home would not go unnoticed by the ever-present busybodies like Illied, Addie decided to catch Oh’nil alone to ask him what she wanted to know.
She might ask him about Melmie, while she was at it. She still seethed over a grown man mating a teenage girl. No, it was not her business, and no, she couldn't let the matter slide.
Chewing on her bottom lip and devising ways to ambush Oh’nil, Addie came back to her teepee after an outing, only to find Melmie sitting there in distress. Oh’na was present as well, holding Melmie’s hand in an awkward grip of sympathy.
“What? When?” Addie questioned after broken snippets of tearful explanations began to make sense.
“Today.”
“But it’s good news!”
Melmie cried harder. “No! I wanted to get my own home! And pawi was so angry when I told her. She said I was lying, that it wasn’t Oh’nil who didn’t want me, that it was me refusing him and telling tales!”
Chele harrumphed from her corner.
Addie lowered to sit next to Melmie.
Evidently, Oh’nil had refused to mate with her, and he must have informed her earlier today.
Firmly convinced that Melmie was all the better for it, Addie thought about Oh’nil and wondered if his reasons to refuse a mate were the right ones. Qalae, while making covert goo-goo eyes at the red-haired warrior and secretly swallowing contraceptives, was taking no real steps to break the impasse and choose him over the chief. Addie suspected she never would. Oh’nil should move on with his life. Just not with Melmie.
“If that is indeed his decision,” Chele intoned from the corner, “your pawi will soon know the truth. After Oh’nil will have informed the High Counselor.”
Melmie nodded, downcast. “He said he would do it tonight.”
“Will they recall the mating?” Addie asked.
“They can’t force a man to mate if he chooses not to. But he can be punished for it.”
“Punished?” What outrageous customs.
“Yes. The High Counselor deemed the mating necessary for the good of the tribe, to bring the warrior to his full potential as a protector. Oh’nil can’t expect to refuse his duty and get away with it.”
“But you said people could marry whomever they choose. That people here had free will!”
