by Calista Skye
We collect his art supplies, and I take down the picture of Bune. It’s pretty much done.
“Is this all you’ve been working on for the past weeks? I mean, you were always working far into the night.”
“There’s one more thing.” He takes a skin out of the stack of paintings and hands it over.
I hold it up. It’s Troga the dragon, black and lethal and slick. And dead. Her eyes are closed, and she’s lying on her back, all four clawed legs pointing up and her tail slack on the ground.
Someone is standing on top of her, as in triumph.
It’s me.
With my spear and my old worn dress that I had before I got this new white one. The likeness is pretty good, except my face isn’t quite photography clear. My hair is, though. Perfectly shiny and smooth, as opposed to the way it looks in real life with all its tangled, straggly mess. There’s an aura around me in that picture, an otherworldly light.
This is how he sees me. Strong and mysterious and victorious.
“I was going to use myself as bait,” Xark’on said. “And I would never see your triumph over Troga. So I painted it to enjoy. It warmed my heart to look at it and work on it.”
“You crazy man.” I sniff and bury my face in his striped chest. Then I give his pectoral muscles a good punch. “You would kill yourself just to trap Troga? Did you think that would be a triumph for me? It would be terrible! What would I be without you?”
“That also occurred to me that last day,” he says and kisses my hair. “It made me cranky. I suddenly didn’t know which bait to use.”
I embrace him hard. “Next time something is making you cranky, just tell me what it is. I always want to help you. And I know you want to help me.”
“Let’s go to your tribe and get married.”
Before we have Dar'ax fly us to the cave, Xark’on asks to be set down in Troga’s trench.
He takes his sledgehammer and strikes it down at the glass with gigantic force.
The glass doesn’t shatter.
It explodes in a tremendous shockwave that propagates along the trench and blows all the glass to a spray of shards and dust as far as I can see. The noise is horrific, like loud, angry static from some immense radio, as the shockwave disappears into the distance.
Xark’on gets on the dactyl, and we fly home to the cave.
The new girls are already there, eating from leaves full of steaming food, some of them in dinosaur skin clothes that they have been given by the old girls.
They all stare at us when we get off the dactyl and come walking hand in hand.
Sophia comes out with her newborn in her arms. She comes right up to me and hugs me with one arm, sniffling. “My freaking God, Caroline. I was so fucking worried. I may be a mother now, but there’s no way I’m going to ask you where the hell you’ve been. But now I understand why my mother did that. You’ve been doing good things, I know that. Who’s your friend?”
I sniffle, too, and hug her right back. “This is Xark’on. A new man for our tribe. And my fiancé.”
It feels good to say.
We get some food, too, and then we all spend a good few hours just getting everyone caught up on my side of the story, not touching too much on the bait situation. Xark’on is talking calmly with Jax’zan, Dar'ax, Trak’zor, and Ar’ox. As usual, the cavemen hit it off with talk of iron and forging and hunting.
I’m getting close to the end of my tale. “...sooo we need someone to officiate. You up for it, Delyah?”
“Sure thing,” our elected leader says without hesitation. “I won’t be as good as you, but I’ll give it a shot.”
I reach out to squeeze her hand. Now that I won’t be the only other single woman here, I’m glad she has the company of twelve other girls. Unless they’re married back home. But they can’t all be. “You’ll be perfect at that, like you are at everything else.”
She looks down with a shy smile. “I guess we’ll see.”
“Tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
I give her hand an extra squeeze. “Thank you.”
Eleanor comes over. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say, a little reservedly. She never seemed to like me much.
“That was really cool, what you did for us. We saw you climbing that glass wall. And the dragon came up right behind you and spewed fire. Shit, we were so sure you were dead. And then we saw you running. We could not fucking believe it. You’re a rockstar. I just want you to know.”
And just like that, she’s one of my favorite people. I stand up to hug her. “Thanks. It was a team thing, you know? Never could have done it without you girls and your expert rock throwing. You totally distracted that monster.”
“Yeah. And now we have food, and we’re not trapped. Except on this planet. That the spaceship over there?”
“That’s Bune,” I confirm. “That’s where the dragon came from. Just right after we were dumped on this planet.”
“So we know it still works. Any plans to go there and maybe check it out?”
“We’ve been there several times. But it’s huge. We’d have to make our way into the depths of it. And when we do, we have to be armed. We don’t think whatever it is that controls it is all that friendly.”
The rest of the day passes fast, and when the time comes to reveal Xark’on’s paintings, everyone is stunned.
“That’s insane,” Aurora says. “It’s like a freaking photography. And he did it with a stick?”
“He made it look just the way the world really looks because he knows of no other way,” I explain. “It’s an insane amount of work, so he’s not lazy.”
“Is this the dragon?” a very pregnant Emilia says, holding up Xark’on’s last picture. “It looks deadly.”
“It was. I think it came from Bune. We really have to deal with that spaceship.”
“We’ve been talking about that,” Sophia says. “And the guys have made steel for crossbows like Aurora’s. Now, we have to make twelve more. But the more we are, the better. But we can talk about that later. Now, I think we have a wedding to prepare?”
“A wedding, huh?” Tamara says, now on her fifth big leaf full of turkeypig stew and still chewing happily. “How does that work in this freaking jungle?”
36
- Xark’on -
Caroline is their shaman, the other tribesmen here told me. But a shaman can’t perform her own wedding. So one of the other women is taking over shamanic duties today.
And indeed, Caroline looks just like a divine apparition. She’s dressed in all white, a supremely fine fabric that flows around her legs. It’s an Earth tradition, they say. Well, then it’s one alien tradition I approve of. She was of great beauty before, but now she’s just heart-stoppingly, mythically alluring.
And she’s beside me, holding a bunch of simple flowers in her hand. She makes me feel raw and primitive in my usual trousers with the hammer attached. But anyone would look raw and primitive beside her.
The shaman says her thing absolutely perfectly. Has she perhaps lived with another tribe? Caroline’s speech is very good, but her melody when she talks is different from mine. Intensely wonderful to listen to, of course. But this other one speaks just like me.
“I do,” I state when prompted, wanting to get this introduction to the wedding over with. What will they make me do to prove myself? Something extremely difficult and deadly, of course. And that’s fine. Caroline deserves the very best man. I’m not even sure that I’m him.
“I do,” Caroline says, then says something I assume is the same thing in her own language.
She takes my hand, we turn our backs to the altar built in the middle of this clearing, and then walk a few paces while everyone slaps their hands together in some kind of congratulation.
“We’re married now,” Caroline says and looks up at me with those clear, shining eyes.
“Yes,” I reply. “That was the beginning. What are the trials?”
She smiles. “There are no t
rials. That was it. You don’t need to prove yourself more to me.”
I frown, smelling a trap. “But… It’s so easy!”
“It’s easy to get in,” Caroline says. “But now we both have to prove ourselves to each other every day.”
That’s more like it. Of course, being married to a woman must be costly to any man. “Daily trials, then. Very good.”
“We don’t really think of it as trials,” Caroline says. “We just call it ‘life’. I think you’ll find it’ll be plenty trying at times. But it’s infinitely easier when you’re not alone. Or so they say. I’ve never been married before.”
“Ah. So it’s not a trap.”
She laughs, a happy, melodic sound that fills me with joy. “Warrior, this is the ultimate trap. And we’re both caught in it.”
“You’re very alluring bait,” I state, not completely sure about the arrangement. “You can’t blame me for falling into this trap.”
She places a hand on my chest. “You’re pretty alluring, yourself, my love. Irresistible, as it turned out. The perfect bait to catch me. But I’ve been hiding something from you.”
“You have?”
“Yes. I wanted to make sure you were caught in my trap before I told you. Now, you can’t get away.
“I never want to get away from you, my love. What have you been hiding?”
She squeezes my hand, but she’s not smiling anymore. “You know that we mated many times.”
“Yes, I do. I know it well. Many times.” My crotch swells at the images that immediately come to mind.
“And you know why women and men can mate?”
I scratch my head. “It’s because the slit is perfectly shaped to accept the—”
“No. Well, yes. But why do we fit so well together like that? Why do you release the juice in there?”
“Because it feels good?”
“Yes, fine. Okay. But why does it feel good? Why can men and women do that?”
“It feels good, and the fit is perfect, and what else is there to do?”
“Gods, I never thought this would be so hard. Men and women mate because they can make something together, yes?”
“They can make those nice sounds? The moans? Especially the woman?”
Then I have mercy on her and give her a little smile.
She just stares for a moment, and then she gets it and slaps my chest. “Oh, you terrible man!”
I laugh, happy that I was able to keep a straight face for so long. “Yes, I am terrible. The mating is for making babies. I know that, don’t worry. The shaman told us many years ago.”
She nods. “And you and I have made one.”
I stare at my wife. All she holds in her hand is a bunch of flowers. “We have?”
“Yes. All the signs are there. Three seasons from now, we’ll have a baby of our own. That we made. It’s growing in here right now.” She touches her stomach.
I place my hand on top of hers. “In here? A baby that’s a mix of you and me?”
There are tears in her eyes. “Yes.”
I embrace her small body and squeeze as hard as I dare. Something is burning in my eyes, too. “Then my happiness will be even more complete. Though I don’t know how that will be possible.”
She sniffles. “For you and me together, anything is possible. Always.”
“It does seem that way.”
The women come over, and I saunter over to the other men, immeasurably proud. “It appears I have successfully mated with Caroline.”
“Well done, warrior,” Jax’zan says, holding his little newborn in his arms. “Then you have three seasons of terror ahead.”
I frown. “Of terror? Is it then difficult for the woman to be in this state? Does she become hard to deal with?”
“The state, itself, is not too difficult,” Trak’zor says. “It is the dread of the final part that makes us fear.”
And indeed, these words make me fear already. “Why?”
“It’s horrible,” Jax’zan says, shuddering. “The whole woman splits open, almost.”
“It’s not like the Lifegivers at the village,” Ar’ox explains. “They just open, and you take the baby out. Here, the entire thing has to come out of the slit. Look at Jax’zan’s daughter. All of her had to come out of Sophia’s slit.”
I frown. “I would say there isn’t room for that.”
“And yet, that’s how it is. We had a grueling night. I’d rather fight fifty irox than experience that again.”
I stare at the baby sleeping innocently in her father’s arms. She looked so small before. Now I see how truly massive she is. “That… comes out of the slit? But… how?”
“That’s where the terror comes in,” Ar'ox says. “My Emilia is soon to give birth. And I haven’t slept a wink for three nights, just worrying.”
“It’s mysterious,” Dar'ax says. “But apparently, a woman can do it many times. Even with two at a time.”
“Ridiculous,” I state with certainty. “One is bad enough. But two? Nonsense.”
They all nod in agreement. “It’s ridiculous. But that’s how it is. Three, even.”
I turn to look at Caroline. She’s throwing her bunch of flowers behind her, and the temporary shaman snatches it out of the air. Probably some way of paying her for her valuable service to us. I’d give the shaman much more as a thank you for wedding me to Caroline. It doesn’t seem like it should be possible for me to be married to her. But here we are.
All this talk of horror makes me want to be close to my wife, so I go over there and take her hand, which I now can do anytime I want, since we’re married.
“How is my husband?” she asks and squeezes my hand.
“Shaken, but I’ll survive.”
“Uh-huh. Did the other men tell you about the birth? They usually do. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as they say. It’ll be fine.”
“Still three seasons from now. I’ll only start to dread it after two seasons.”
She laughs. “Okay. Deal.”
“Dil. I wonder, the mating… Can it still happen? I mean, you now have a baby in there. So I suppose that…”
“Warrior, you better believe it can still happen. The baby is still smaller than a grain of sand. Her mother is expecting your full attention tonight and for many moons yet. I want to introduce you to something that is called a ‘honeymoon’. Because I think we really, really need the vacation after what we’ve been through. Nobody's using the treehouse, right?”
“Can I bring my colors and the brush?”
“Bring it all. I’ll make you an easel and a palette, and I’ll watch you paint long into the sunset and the night.”
Her words fill me with a new wave of happiness. “Maybe I can paint you, as well. I mean, while I’m looking at you.”
“I was going to suggest it. I’ll wear nothing, and you’ll paint me like that. This planet needs some porn apart from those ridiculous dolls the tribe shamans have.”
My crotch pulsates at the idea of painting a naked Caroline. Or maybe it’s just the thought of Caroline naked. Yes, that’s it.
I nuzzle her hair, trying not to make too much of a mess of it. My heart swells at the sheer improbable wonder of it all, the unbelievable and unprecedented turn my life has taken.
And Caroline is at the center of it all.
No, she is it all.
“I’m glad I caught you in my trap.”
She lays her head back and smiles up at me. As usual, my heart skips a beat. “And you know what, warrior? I'm really glad I stalked you.”
- - -
© Calista Skye 2018
Make sure to catch the Epilogue at the end of the book!
- - -
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading my book!
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Calista
Also by Calista Skye
Caveman Alien's Ransom: A SciFi BBW/Alien Fated Mates Romance
Being abducted by aliens was never on my bucket list.
But I guess the aliens didn't get that memo, because one night I was beamed aboard a UFO. It dumped me and a bunch of other girls on an alien planet.
A Jurassic planet where giant, murderous dinosaurs walk around, and everything wants to kill me.
My only hope of surviving is the first man I met here. His name is Jax'zan, and he's an alien.
And a caveman.
As in, the hottest super-alpha caveman who ever lived. He's big and strong and doesn't talk much, but he's saved my life so many times now that I've lost count.
My insides turn to hot mush whenever he fixes his smoldering eyes on me, and the scandalously sexy and unusual features his sensationally muscular body is rocking totally make me forget time and place.
There's only one problem: He's holding me for ransom. And he wants to repopulate his woman-less planet. With me ...
Expect steamy scenes, mysterious aliens with features like adult toys, deadly planets, and the love story between a BBW from Earth and a sensationally hot alien warrior.
Full-length romance novel with no cliffhangers and a happily-ever-after ending!
Epilogue
- Caroline -
“We saw that blinking light every night for several days. And we were pretty sure it was you.”
It’s early morning the day after our wedding, and the old girls and I are sitting right outside the cave, watching the first rays of the sun light up the top of Bune. The new girls are still sleeping. The cave is very crowded now, and we’ll have to build huts.