by Ruby Dixon
"What…what if it goes to my brain?" Georgie asks.
This is a worm. This is not cool. I am not down with this. "Like that's any better than your heart?" Seriously?
"The khui is the essence of life," Vektal says in a reverent voice.
And then dumb Georgie takes the worm from him and he cuts a nick in her throat. And I watch the thing wriggle into it like a heat seeking missile.
Oh, hell no. I am not down with this shit. I have seen what worms do to an animal's heart. Hunters know you don't eat the diseased meat. You certainly don't sign up to become the diseased meat. I back away a few steps. Georgie's shuddering and gasping, and she collapses into Vektal's arms. A few other women make cries of distress, and then the men are everywhere, offering glowing cooties to them.
I am so getting out of dodge. Nope. Nope. Nope. I will figure something else out. There simply has to be another option. I stumble backward to the copse of trees that provide no protection. The other girls look at me curiously, then turn back to Georgie. She's our leader, so they're looking to her.
That's fine. If Georgie jumps off a cliff, it doesn't mean I have to, also. She may be blinded by big blue alien dick, but I am not. There's intense, throbbing pain in my foot but I ignore it. If it's not too late, I can go back to the ship, regroup, and figure something else out. I know I'm panicking. I know this isn't logical, but everything I've ever learned at my father's side is telling me that this is a terrible idea.
Parasites kill their hosts.
As I awkwardly shuffle past the others, I see the aliens gently leading the women forward, toward their doom. Gee, that's sweet of them. There's no proof this works on a human, and Georgie went down like a light. That is not normal. Hugging my furs tighter, I waddle away a few more steps.
And stop.
In front of me, slitted eyes glowing, is Raahosh. He eyes me.
"Don't you try to stop me, buddy," I retort at him, though I know it's no good. He doesn't understand English.
But he grabs my furs and tries to turn me around anyhow.
I jerk them out of his grip and continue forward. In the distance, I hear another woman cry out, only to fall silent. I shudder.
Raahosh grabs me by the hips and slings me over his shoulders again.
"No!" I say, pounding a fist on his shoulder. "I don't want it! You can't make me!"
He hesitates, and then to my surprise, he sets me down again. He gazes at me for a moment, and then reaches up to caress my jaw. I allow it, since he's not dragging me back there. His touch is oddly gentle, caressing up and down my cold cheek. Then he gestures at the ground, as if indicating that I should wait here.
"Fine. Whatever. I'm just not going back to that." I sit heavily in the snow, taking my weight off of my bad foot.
He turns and strides toward the dead sa-kohtsk and the group of hunters. I watch him disappear into the darkness and shiver. I'll wait for a few minutes, then move on. Maybe he's going to tell the others that I changed my mind, that he's going to guide me back to the ship.
Maybe this Raahosh guy isn't such a jerk after all.
I close my eyes and rub a hand over my face. It's freezing out here, and I'm so tired I could fall over and sleep, snow and all. My brain's getting foggy. There has to be another option, though. If I could think clearly, maybe I'd be able to come up with one.
My mind goes back to Georgie, and the way Vektal cut her neck. The gleeful wriggle of the thing as it burrowed into her. Her cry and then collapse. I shudder.
A figure appears at the edges of my vision. I just barely realize that it's Raahosh before a gigantic hand goes to my shoulder and forces me onto my back in the snow.
"What?" I sputter.
His knee goes over my shoulder a moment later, pinning me against the ground. His hand is cradled to his chest and I can barely see a glowing, snake-like filament wriggling there.
Then, he draws a knife from a sheath at his waist.
"Goddamn it, motherfucker! No!" I fight him, struggling against his weight pinning me down. But I'm weak and he's huge, and I'm barely able to bat at him as he lays the blade against my neck and carefully makes a cut at my collarbone.
"No!" I protest, but he's not listening. This asshole, this jerk, is forcing the parasite on me.
He's not my friend. Not at all. He's not letting me have a choice.
I fight against his hands as he leans in with the cootie.
"I will hate you forever if you do this," I hiss at him, trying to push him away.
He just gives me a hard look and then leans in. I hear a tiny hissssss as the cootie finds my skin, and then it's wriggling into me.
And I pass out from shock.
RAAHOSH
I tell myself that it doesn't matter that she'll hate me forever as I watch her unconscious body shiver and jerk, acclimating to the khui. At least she will be alive. My father and my mother never liked each other. Until the day my mother died, she cursed my father. Their mating was a supremely unhappy one, but they were still a family.
My human can hate me and still be my mate. I'm not going to allow her to choose to die. I won't. I'll keep her safe, even if I must keep her safe from herself.
I heft her small form into my arms and cradle her against my skin. She's so cold. So fragile. I did the right thing by forcing the khui on her. She wouldn't have lasted another day without it. Holding her close, I consider.
If I take her back to camp, when we return, she will be furious. She will tell the others that I forced her to take the khui.
Vektal, my chief, will not be happy. He says we must cater to the humans. Give them what they want.
It is…easy for him to say that when Shorshie looks at him with love and affection. Not so easy when your human looks at you with anger and disgust.
Raahosh is scarier than most.
If I take her back to the others now, they will be furious with me. My khui vibrates in my chest for my human, and for the first time in the last day, I let it hum freely. I resonate, and it feels incredible.
They cannot take her from me.
I turn and look back at the others, still huddled close to the sa-kohtsk. They will be there for hours yet. The humans will be asleep for a while. Maybe a day. I don't know how long it will take. There will be meat to carve up and bring back to the clan caves, and humans to escort and fawn over.
They will be distracted.
Instead of taking my human back to camp, I hold her closer and head in the opposite direction, out of the valley.
I'll take her and hide her away, and I won't return with her until she is full of my child and we are truly mated. Then we will return to the clan and be part of it once more.
Until then? She is mine and mine alone.
• • •
There's a cave out in the wild I like to think of as my own. Our clan cave supports many mouths and sometimes our hunters must range wide to feed everyone. Thus, we have a network of hunter caves dotted through the wilds that provide a resting place for any hunter who needs to stay out through the night. There are furs, fire-making implements, and sometimes a few other supplies to ease things. These caves are for any hunter to use, so long as they are left in the same condition as when the hunter arrived.
But this cave is mine and mine alone. I found it on a hunt when I was a small kit on one of my first forays into the wild on my own. The entrance is hidden by a large sheet of glacial ice in the brutal months, but right now it is merely bitter and the path will be open.
It's not far from where we are, and it has been on my mind for hours as I walk. My human weighs nothing in my arms, nor does she rouse. She will just need time to acclimate to the khui, I tell myself. There is nothing to worry about. She has been sick. It will take time. It still strikes fear into my heart, and my steps increase in speed.
My cave is just as empty as I left it. There are signs that a nesting animal stopped in, but it's empty now. I clear debris off the neatly-stacked furs in the corner and then lay my human
down amidst them. She shivers, her body trembling. The bone-chilling cold is gone from her skin, a sign that the khui is warming her, but still she quivers and shakes. I decide to build a fire, and spend time setting it up, trying to ignore the thrumming of my khui as it sings a song to the unconscious woman in my bed.
My bed.
My mate is in my bed.
I groan, hit by a wave of need so strong it makes me dizzy, and I close my eyes, willing myself to be strong. She will be awake soon enough, and then we can mate.
She moans with pain as she sleeps, and her foot twitches. I remove her coverings gently, then massage her small feet. They're dirty and small, without the bony protective ridges that cover vulnerable spots on my own skin. She has five toes where I have three, and at the sight of the purple, swollen ones, I remember that they are broken.
They must be set for the khui to heal them.
She whimpers, her head tossing, eyes flicking under her eyelids. I must do this while she's unconscious so as not to cause her more pain. Strangely, the thought of hurting her makes my stomach churn. I run my fingers over her toes and compare how the bones sit. Then I suck in a breath and set them. I fight back bile as the bones make a snapping noise, moving back into place. She makes a choking sound and slumps.
I manage to set all three toes and then carefully bind them with leather wraps to hold them in place before my stomach rebels. I barely make it out of the cave before I vomit. Then, I kick snow over the patch of sickness, disgusted at myself. I have set broken bones for my clan mates. I have set my own broken bones. Never have I been sick at the thought of causing pain.
Already this small female changes me.
My khui hums in my chest, urging me to return to her side. I do, and she looks small and fragile and miserable in my furs. Dirty, too.
I tell myself I should undress her to check for more wounds. That she will appreciate a clean mane and clean skin when she awakens. All the while, my khui thrums and pulses agreement. It wants me to touch her. To claim her. And I cannot resist its siren call.
I set up a tripod over the fire and hang a snow-filled cooking bladder over it. The snow will melt and warm, and then I can clean her. Now to tend to my mate.
Her filthy clothing is strangely made, and it takes me a few moments to pull it off of her body. Once I do, I toss it aside to clean later. There seem to be two parts – a long tunic that reaches her hips, and a tiny loincloth that puzzles me. Is it for protection? It barely covers her hips, and it's clear that the humans cannot handle the temperature extremes of being outdoors. Is that why she is so pale and unhealthy? Does she not go outside?
When she is naked, I see the differences in our bodies more plainly. My khui sings louder than ever in my chest, but I'm not about to fall atop an unconscious, sick woman and mate her, so I ignore it. Instead, I crush soap-berries into the warming water and stir. Then I wet my hands and slide them over her skin to clean her.
And if I am being honest with myself, also to touch her. My cock is hard as stone at the first brush of my skin against hers, but I will myself to ignore it. She is filthy, and weak, and tired.
And she hates me.
That enables me to be strong as much as anything else. I sweep my fingers over her pale flesh repeatedly, rubbing at dirtier spots and exploring. She is soft all over, her skin without the distinctive, protective ridges that we sa-khui have over our most vulnerable parts. She is almost entirely hairless, too, which I find odd. My people have a downy fur covering their skin, but hers is open to the cold. No wonder she shivers so easily. The only places she grows a mane is on her head, and between her legs. I remember Vektal telling us of the humans and their strange anatomy. He claimed his Shorshie has a third nipple between her legs. Does this one have the same? Curious, I slide a hand over her sex and push her lips apart with my fingers. Surely enough, a small nub is exposed. It is poised at the top of her slit, and gleams with arousal. Even as I touch her, the scent of her sex perfumes the air.
I need her.
I close my eyes and will myself to be strong. My khui throbs incessantly, full of longing. It reminds me of everything I have never had, and everything I have wanted for what feels like an eternity.
She will be my first everything. My first mate. My first lover. The mother of my children. My hand trembles a little as I release her sex, resisting the urge to stroke the soft folds that gleam with arousal. The khui is already working on her if she responds to my touch, even unconscious.
I hope she will awaken soon.
The thought of my mate awake springs me into action. She will need food and drink, and warm, fresh clothing. She will have questions…and she will be angry. For some reason, the thought of her anger amuses me. It's like she blames me for her predicament. As if I could control a khui and choose my own mate. I snort as I go back to scrubbing her dirty skin. Filthy water sluices off of her, and it takes many rounds of washing until her skin is a fresh color that I am satisfied with. I also clean her mane, and it's surprising to me because what seemed dark and unremarkable is now a dark golden color. It is soft and tangles easily, and I get out a double-toothed pick from my bag and slowly detangle handfuls of the wet locks until they’re clean and gleam in the firelight, and run through my fingers like the soft, feathery leaves of a sashrem tree. It's her most attractive feature, I think, because the rest of her is so soft and weak that I don't know what to think. Even her breasts are heavy but tipless. Her nipples are barely noticeable against her skin. It's strange.
I finish bathing her and pull an extra tunic and a skirt out of the bag I had on my shoulder. We took old clothing from the women of our tribe for Shorshie's humans, but when it became apparent that there were eleven humans and not the five we'd expected, the clothing became a precious commodity, and I hid what I could for my mate. I dress her in these as best I can, then let her sleep by the fire as I take a bite of travel rations. The food sticks in my throat. It's difficult to eat when my mate is right there, her legs covered by a long leather skirt. I could easily slide between her legs and claim her, and her body would welcome mine.
And then she would look up at me with more hate in her eyes. I shake the thought away, rub a hand over the bulge of my groin until the ache goes down, and then decide to hunt for my mate.
Fresh food. That will be what she needs. With that idea in mind, I haul myself out of the cave and pick up my hunting spear.
LIZ
Everything hurts. I feel like I just woke up from an all-night bender. My head feels swimmy, my skin feels hot, and my foot aches.
But weirdly enough? I'm not tired. Not the bone deep ache that has been my constant companion since arriving on this planet. I smell something fresh and fruity and turn my head, realizing that I'm lying in a nest of furs and the nice scent?
It's my hair.
That wakes me up. I sit up and glance around. I haven't been shower-fresh in weeks, and I suppose I got used to my stank smell. But my hair is clean and soft and brushed, and I'm wearing new clothing.
My nostrils flare and my breathing quickens. I'm wearing new clothing. Someone fucking undressed me while I was unconscious.
A heavy fur covers my legs, and there's a banked fire with a tripod of something that smells like tea over it. I sit up, confused.
As I do, a big figure enters the small cave and looms in the doorway.
Raahosh. He lifts his chin at the sight of me, awake, and then tosses a fresh kill on the floor of the cave. Then he puts his back to me and works on securing the leather flap that acts as a door.
The sight of him reminds me of why I was unconscious. The cootie. It's inside me. I whimper and my fingers go to the wound that should be at my throat, the wound that Raahosh cut for me when I changed my mind.
It's gone.
It's all sealed up. The thing is in me. I claw at my throat, desperate to remove it.
As I do, Raahosh storms over to me and grabs my hands, pulling me away. As he touches me, my chest starts to rumble. At first I
think it's my stomach, but the rumbling gets louder, until my breasts are practically vibrating with the response. I'm purring…for Raahosh.
Do not want.
I fight against him, now a mixture of furious and desperate. I don't want the cootie. I don't want Raahosh. I don't want any of this. I kick and snarl and fight against him as he holds my wrists. I try to reach for my throat, but he won't let me. He won't let me claw it out. The alien grabs my jaw and forces me to lock my gaze with his.
Then, he gives a small shake of his head. No, he's telling me.
Well fuck that. And fuck him. A moment later he releases my hands, testing me.
I slam a fist into the side of his face. "Dress me while I'm unconscious, motherfucker? Bathe me? Fucking force a cootie in me? I hate you!" Each shouted word is punctuated by flailing arms and kicking feet until I'm an unstoppable dervish of anger, beating against him.
His only response?
An annoyed sigh. Then, he grabs my wrists again, wrestles them behind my back, and pushes me into the furs.
"No!" I shriek even as my cheek hits the soft fur.
He mutters something in the alien language and then I feel cords moving around my wrists. The bastard's tying me up.
Just when I think Raahosh can't be a bigger dick, he surprises me. "I hate you so much," I snarl.
He finishes tying me, moves to tie my feet, and then returns to the nearby fire as if it's no big deal.
Panting, furious with anger, my gaze darts around the small cave. Where are we? "Where is everyone?"
He skins the carcass of the small animal and begins to butcher it, ignoring my questions. When he's satisfied, he cuts small pieces and then lays them on a hot rock. His lip curls as they sizzle and begin to cook, and his gaze slides over to me.
My stomach growls. Worse than that, my chest is still thrumming with the reaction of my cootie to him. If this means what I think it means…
I just acquired myself an alien husband.
Fuck.
This guy?
I moan, because this is not what I wanted. If I had to have an alien, why couldn’t I have a nice smiley guy? Someone with a grin that lights up at the sight of me and treats me like gold? Someone that looks at me like Vektal does Georgie?