by Atlas Kane
It had taken Cade several days to learn that this world allowed for Occupations to be learned and mastered in the same way that combat classes were. With his Chimera Lord combat class, he was able to acquire a single trait from the creatures he defeated in combat each time he leveled up. Said traits were incredibly powerful.
His most recent acquisition, Alpha’s Fitness, gave him a boost to his Constitution Attribute as well as a passive increase in stealth. The advantage of such improvements were easy to see, but more exciting was the active skill he could choose with each new trait.
With Alpha’s Fitness came Alpha’s Call, a party buffing skill that granted a 10% increase to Stamina regeneration, Health regeneration, and total damage output for two minutes.
A wounded party member meant that healing was a priority. Cade activated Alpha’s Call, his skill bursting from his lungs in the form of an epic shout. Minda winced at having announced their presence for any predators that may have been close by.
Cade knew it was a risk, but he would rather face new predators than deny Minda the advantage the skill offered.
“I know. That was loud,” Cade admitted, peering through the jungle to see any signs of disturbance. “Let’s get moving. I say we make camp at least a half mile away. I will take the lead. Just please, Minda, tell me if you need to stop.”
She nodded, her normally playful face drawn in pain. Her beastkin ears lay flat, trembling slightly. So he started out slowly, crossing the stream and moving away from the source of water, hoping to find some place quiet enough to wait out the night in peace.
Antinium was a hard enough place as it was. He would make certain his Minda was fully recovered before they faced any other challenges.
2
More of a Recon, Really
Despite the cost to security, after fifteen minutes of travel, Cade had to help Minda walk.
Her body was already recovering from the venom, but her leg was still reacting strongly. It throbbed with pain and remained stiff. The woman was tough as an MRE bag, but he saw it written plainly all over her face. If they didn’t stop soon, she would pass out.
So he hobbled beside her, moving through the forest in search of a suitable camp.
Finally, they found two smooth-skinned trees that had fallen together, one’s limbs spilling to the side and creating a living cave. It was shallow, but that did not matter. It would provide some structural shelter, ensuring that Cade only had to keep watch from one direction.
“Your tent, love. Please, summon the tent, and no, you won’t be helping me set it up. I can manage well enough,” Cade said, his voice hard but eyes soft as he took in his companion’s state.
More indication than the black circles under her eyes or how her white fur somehow seemed less radiant than usual was how all she did was nod in compliance. This was her job, something Minda relished and excelled in. But here she was handing him the tight roll of their travel tent with a weary smile on her face.
She found a place nearby and sat down, watching the radiant forest while Cade busied himself with the tent. In a half hour and a dozen elegant strings of curse words later, it was done.
“Saggy, definitely ugly, sure, but that is a blasted tent. Am I right?”
Minda shook her head, disappointed but happy to have some place cool and cleaner than the forest floor to recline in. She stood, then paused, her brow creasing as she held up her hand and summoned something from her Inventory.
“Almost forgot. I found a new herb yesterday. It is like the one that covers your scent but more powerful. This one not only covers our natural odor but will act as a deterrent,” she said, crushing a handful of dried leaves in her palms and limping around their campsite to sprinkle the herb.
The fragrance was subtle, but acted upon Cade immediately. Yet the effects were different than he had anticipated given what Minda had told him. It smelled like rosemary if it were lighter, perhaps mixed with citrus. His mind became clear at once, the fatigue of the day burning off like dew in the sun.
Cade’s skin tingled slightly, almost like he’d chewed a handful of coffee beans, something he’d done more than a few times in the service. Still, that wasn’t the effect that seemed so out of place.
“Do you feel it too?” he asked, catching Minda’s eye as she completed her circuit and ducked into the tent.
The woman lay on the pile of furs Cade arranged there, and smiled up at him. “Yes, I do. But you’ll have to ignore it, okay? Not only are we on a hunt, but I am not yet recovered.”
This is not a hunt, Cade complained to himself. More like a recon. When she recovers, I will have to remind her of that.
Rather than argue, he slipped inside with her and produced a few plantains and a waterskin.
“Here, eat and drink what you can. Then sleep. It should help you recover faster,” he said.
Minda did eat, and he could not help but notice the precise articulation of her jaw as she did so. Each time her mouth parted, his heart sped up, the pink of her gums and white of her teeth acting like carnal signs of her health.
The herb the woman had sprinkled may ward off predators, but it had an altogether different effect on humans. Energized and alive, his mind crackling with potential, Cade could think of nothing else but fucking. He watched for any movement in the forest, but his mind refused to focus. Instead he imagined every woman and every position possible, and of course, loved every minute of it.
A soft purr came from his woman’s chest, a chest he knew well. Her firm breasts and the fine layer of velvet fur that covered them came to his mind. Lucky as a duck in a pond, Cade thought, and fought the urge to go to her. She needed rest like he needed distraction, so he allowed his mind to wander.
He thought back to another girl, one so much like Minda in frame though he never had the chance to truly get to know her. On leave after basic training, and in a college town filled with young and spoiled kids who had no idea how lucky they were, Cade partied with a group of friends. It was his first true kegger, at least in how he’d imagined them. Not just a group of friends in the woods near his home, a boom box and sleeping bags enough to survive the night.
No, this was in a college town, hosted at a rental house that had at least eight people staying there, the front and back yards filled with people. Music tore through the night, way louder than was legal, yet no cops came to stop the party.
Earlier in the night, a girl had stopped by his friend Michael’s dorm room, just an acquaintance, and there to pass on a message from some other girl. Her eyes had flickered over to Cade’s, and she smiled coyly. Then she was gone, left to party like all the other students. And Cade asked Michael nineteen different ways where they might find her again.
In that same music-permeated backyard, Cade spotted her. She was a short, thin brunette, a slip of a girl, but with eyes that were round and thirsty. She was dancing with another guy, and Cade’s heart fell like a meteor when she saw her kiss him. Feverish and wild, the girl was as drunk as everyone else, and Cade watched as her hips moved with the music, grinding on the man.
He was about to turn away and leave, when the song ended, and the faceless bro said something in her ear and left. She continued to dance by herself, and knowing it was his last night before he had to go back to the Army, back to a unit he knew nothing about, and to a barracks full of swinging dicks, he approached her.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asked, hoping she would at least recognize him. He knew it wasn’t a good line, but they never were. Just say hello, he’d told himself. And against all odds, it worked.
The girl’s eyes lit up in excitement. They talked a bit, then danced, and then Cade was the guy she was kissing. All thoughts of the other bro, who’d ruined his chances by leaving this girl alone, were gone.
After a minute or an hour, she whispered a few words in his ear. “Want to go back to my room?” she asked, and Cade grinned like a fool and walked with her.
The fog of drink and encroaching exhaustion made
their progress somewhat of a mystery. But before he knew it, Cade was being snuck into a girl’s dormitory, and watching a gorgeous chick fumble with her locked door.
Then they were inside, they were kissing again, and falling into her single bed. “My roommate’s gone for the night. We should be fine,” she said. Cade had never heard such a beautiful promise in all his short life. Clothes fell to the floor, and her skin was smooth and flawless.
This girl, whose name Cade forgot too many years ago, had the firm body that made one think of a deer. Tiny breasts and a petite frame, she was not the type of girl Cade would normally fawn after. But her eyes flashing up in the near darkness, her hungry mouth, and the heat of her skin riled him.
He found her sex with his hand. Knowing only one way of touching a girl from his experience with no more and no less than three girlfriends, he pushed one and then two fingers inside of her. Her pelvis ground into him, urging his motions on.
They continued to kiss and Cade thrummed that instinctual beat inside of her, finding and keeping a rhythm that sang to her bones. Then in a surprisingly short amount of time, literally three or four minutes, her mouth parted and she moaned.
The girl’s abdomen went rigid, her hips rocking subtly as she came in his hand.
She smiled and blinked at him in surprise. “Holy shit!” she’d said, without shame or elegance.
So as any young person would do, they repeated the process. She came a second time maybe ten minutes after, this one longer and harder, her waters soaking into her bed.
“Just fuck me,” she urged, impatience in her voice.
Cade froze. “Do you have a condom?” he asked, hoping beyond anything she did.
“No, that’s supposed to be your job.”
He cursed himself, fingers still inside her. “Who cares. Let’s just do it,” she said.
For years after, Cade had no idea why he remained disciplined in the face of such outrageous temptation, but he told her no.
They tried sleeping, but that turned into more grinding, and the two were at each other’s junk again. The diligent ministration of two fingers helped the girl cum six times in the course of another hour, perhaps two. Each one grew in intensity, lasting a few seconds longer than the last.
Then, teasing her once more, the girl got angry. She pushed Cade back on the bed, climbing on top to mount him. He felt the wet of her graze along his shaft. She pressed against his belly, covering him in her excitement, and then descended.
As soon as the tip of him brushed her sex, and he felt the last of his defenses crumble away to dust, the doorknob rattled. Keys jangled in the hall and a slurring voice cursed a few feet away.
The girl threw a blanket over both of them a second before a very drunk roommate burst in.
Cade laughed to himself, thinking back on a night where though he’d gotten more than he deserved, he still fell asleep with a fitful, raging hard-on.
But that was the way of life. The things that happened back on Earth, just like here, always seemed so out of his control. Every gorgeous woman he bedded or fell in love with was a complete and total accident. And never since had he found such a trigger-happy girl. Six times?! he thought, giggling to himself like a teenager. Only Minda might be able to pull that off. Though when he recalled how she climaxed, it wasn’t the shallow shuddering of a girl no older than nineteen, it was the focused surge of a practiced woman.
The rest of the day passed in fits of such unwarranted fancy. Every time he thought his mind was clearing once more, the wind would change and the potent herb would settle upon his thoughts again. He felt truly accomplished for allowing his gorgeous friend to sleep. It took every ounce of courage and discipline he could muster to remain her guard, to allow her the rest she needed to recover from the venomous attack.
The sun was falling, and Cade’s thoughts had drifted to Bellows, the great boar they’d all befriended, and to Satemi and Ketzal. What are the two women up to? Are they worried? he mused. He hoped they could trust that he and Minda would be fine. Thinking of the two other heavenly women in his life sent him spinning off on another tangent, which he was thankfully saved from by a soft clearing of a throat behind him.
“You up then? How are you feeling?”
“Groggy but good. My leg doesn’t hurt anymore, and I could eat,” Minda finished, sitting up in the tent and rubbing her face.
Cade brought out two venison steaks, some of the last of their meat from a great hunt he and Minda had gone on just a week before. Satemi had seasoned and grilled them special for this trip. That they came back out of Cade’s spatial Inventory was a miracle worth praising. “Still warm, girl. Eat up.”
And they did. Their dinner was thoroughly demolished. The steaks first, and then fruit, all washed down with a very light jungle wine Satemi had been brewing since their arrival at Camp Casmeer.
Minda groaned, rubbing her belly in satisfaction, then fell back again to the furs. She stared up at the sky, a string of clouds burning with the last of the day’s sunlight. Sorbet, Cade thought. Definitely not a poet today, but those clouds look like nothing else but lumps of delicious sorbet.
He thought of sharing his thought with Minda, but when he looked down at her, he saw her eyes were filled with electricity. Her pointed teeth were chewing on her bottom lip.
“So…” he said lamely, and she growled at him softly.
Minda’s voice came out low and filled with gravel. “I want you, Cade, and I curse that damned herb for making this so difficult. I want to take you now, but the rules of the hunt forbid it.”
Cade laughed. At least I’m not the only horny bastard in the tent now. But his answer was more tactical. “You know, Minda, a hunt is a very specific activity. The goal of a hunt is to kill beasts and gain resources. It is, no doubt, quite sacred. But this is anything but a hunt.”
She grinned wildly, her arms stretching above her head as she moved over the furs.
“I think the herbs are working. On the animals of the forest that is. I haven’t seen more than a bird all day,” Cade said quizzically. “I’m just gonna close up the tent then. We are safe enough, surely.”
He heard her laugh softly behind him as he fastened the tent flap in place, blocking them off save for a few golden threads of light that fell through the gaps in the tent.
“The hunt must be respected, Cade. There’s no way I could let you touch or taste me,” Minda said. Her words were laden with honey, and he knew her own resolve was weakening.
He turned and lay beside her, enjoying the heat of her body. “It’s simply not a hunt, Minda. But you know I will respect you. Where did all of this come from, anyhow? You were a scientist in your previous life. Why the sacred huntress role now?”
She turned and leaned against his chest, her fingers splaying over his sternum. “I was a scientist, but all has changed since coming to Last World. When I first arrived, there was an old man who was very kind to me. He helped me survive, and he taught me many things.”
“I’m sure he did.”
Minda punched him. “Not like that, fool. He could have been my grandfather. He was the one who showed me how to respect a hunt. When you seek to harvest even a single animal, you must respect the hunt in many ways. Abstinence is one of those ways.”
“I think he just forgot what it is to be young enough to care,” Cade teased, expecting another rebuke.
Instead, Minda grinned, her teeth glowing faintly in the low light. “You would be surprised. Imenda was his lover and had been for years. Those two. They would rouse the village at times.”
The two of them laughed, and she even went so far as to make an exaggerated impression of their cries of passion. Then Cade told her of his day, the fits of relived glory in his previous life, even telling her of the girl he somehow didn’t sleep with but pleased so many times.
“Sounds like me when I was younger. I might have beaten that record too, though who can count when your brain is filled with orgasm?”
Thinking of
a younger Minda made Cade pause. “So how old are you? I know you are young here, but how old were you when you died? And to be fair, I will say I was thirty-five. No judgement, just curious.”
“We have no shame around age like some cultures. A woman at the old village had trouble admitting she had fifty years to her name before she passed. I was thirty-eight when I died.”
“Thirty-eight! Old woman!” Cade teased, mind blown how her flawless features could have survived so long. But I changed too, improved and healed when I chose my class and improved my Attributes. She must have been the same.
She laughed and shook her head, some old memory taking hold of her mind. “Weird to say it, but dying was the best thing to happen to me. Just a freak accident too. Not a dramatic standoff like Satemi’s death. I was just walking home from the lab, too late as usual. An AI transporter glitched after being hacked, and I was run over. But the life I led before… it was just so boring. It was like I’d already given in, you know?”
The woman’s honesty touched Cade in the deep well of grief he still held within him. It was easy to forget past lives, the pain and regrets that colored them, especially when striving each day to survive. “I know all about that. I was a sack of crap when I died. Went out in a fight trying to help someone though, so I suppose that was worthwhile. But everything I’d done that was in any way significant or enjoyable ended years ago. I was dead already.”
He lay on his back and stared up at the glowing amber leather of the tent above them. He sighed and rubbed his hands, working at an ache that had formed.
Minda sensed his shift in mood and threw a leg over his belly and held him close. “You aren’t dead now. I see the way you are living each day. You have passion again, Cade, and purpose. Nothing else is required.”