by Amanda Milo
With a gunshot wound?
Between my dad and Charlie, I know gunshots spell infection and downtime. It’s not like the movies where the hero gets to run around and take bullets like tickles.
Don’t borrow trouble, just complete this and live to tackle the next crises. “All you have to do is have sex with the horny alien, Preta. No big deal. Man up!”
He stops moving.
So do I. My stomach drops as I lift my eyes and see dark emotion flash across his face. It seems impossible that he’d have known what I was saying, and yet thirty seconds ago, laying under a man that had just shifted from a dragon made out of a tree would have sounded a little more unlikely, so...
Male pride can be a dangerous thing to bruise. Seduce, my mind orders me, and this time, my words stay in my head and away from my mouth, thankfully. “Do you understand me?”
His face doesn’t change, yet I can swear he recognizes what I’m saying—I have got to be more careful. I clear my throat. “Talk to me,” I manage, and despite my throat feeling tight, my voice comes out normal. Calm. Like I lie back and let it happen every day. “My translator learns,” I explain as I tap my ear.
Instead, he puts his hand on my crotch and squeezes.
CHAPTER 12
PETRICHOR
Gaze on her, I speak. “You’re beautiful, even spindly as you are.” I draw the backs of my fingers down her face, and watch her eyes go hooded. Not from passion, I realize; she’s attempting to hide her emotions from me. I suppose this works, as I can’t tell what she’s feeling, but I can guess. I try to put her at ease. With my other hand at the apex of her thighs, I apply prevernal pollen to prepare her. The pollen-giving is yet another gift created by our Ruler, who had grand desires for our tribe’s successful matings.
It relaxes her even as it stimulates; her body bucks and her eyes go wide. She’s shocked. This is odd; I witnessed that her husbandman could do this much for her.
Has he never fully fed her? Perhaps they were being driven too hard by the hostile group.
I feel her body pull more pollen from me than I expect. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; perhaps her kind requires more, or perhaps it is because we don’t know each other well, and she is consciously controlling the amount because her body requires more to be prepared.
I am grateful her nose is no longer bleeding, though the blood remains, and has dried to her skin. Next to the bed is a pitcher of water, and a basin and rag. She lets me clean her as best as I’m able, my movements efficient, and when I’m done, I gently pat her dry with a spare cloth. My movements are slower now, and I’m examining the extent of her thinness. Absently, I stroke my thumbs along the too-prominent collarbone, gliding a light touch up her throat, and instantly, I feel her relax beneath me.
“Ryan?”
“He’s being treated,” I assure her.
Her brow turfs come together, and her pupils are very large and her eyes aren’t quite focused on me when she asks again, “Ryan?”
Odd. Oh… she’s acting pollenlogged! She took too much. It will wear off, but in the meantime, she might experience some confusion, but she will definitely be prepared for a feeding. I try again. “...I promise you they’re helping him. Right now, you require a feeding.”
Her arm comes up, bumping the one I have at her neck, and my hand slips, landing against the juncture of her jaw and throat.
She settles instantly.
It’s the grip; she wants to be gripped. This must be what her Ryan does for her when they come together. I try to think back on when she was attempting to initiate a feeding with her husbandman up against Mace’s leg; he had a hold on her face, and now that I concentrate, I think he did slide his other hand to her throat for a time too.
She… likes to be held this way. I suppose that’s not so very strange. I have seen female animals of all sorts that respond to their necks being restrained during mating, why not some valo tribes? It makes enough sense that I keep my hand there a moment, watching to see if she becomes distressed, and when she only relaxes further, I’m almost certain this is what it must be.
Touching her like this, I can feel her exhaustion, her depletion, and I’ve already been extremely worried for her condition, feeling some of what she feels only adds urgency: she must be fed immediately. With my free hand, I struggle to remove the last of her strange coverings. They don’t simply part at her thighs, or lift away, or anything normal. She’s as closed up as a bloom in the dark. I begin to wonder if she needs to be coaxed out of them, and learn this is so when my fumbling goes on long enough that she begins to attack at them herself. I watch in fascination as she reveals her outer layer possesses many teeth, and she drags a strange fastener across them to encourage them to open. I try to test this by tugging them in reverse, my ears pricking as I hear an odd zzzzip! It is unlike any hiss I’ve ever heard before, but before I can examine this further, she bats my hands away in order to complete her shed.
It’s an odd thing, what she wears. Most females are drab, and muted in color. Not so with my azibo. Her skin is the russet shade of washed sand, and her covering is garishly bright, either to serve as a warning or an attractant, I’m uncertain which. I can’t say I find it alluring; intriguing yes, but it isn’t… whatever she dyed it with to reach this hue must be quite deadly as you rarely see anything so bright unless it’s near to killing you. It’s the way of the forest. The meek and mild hide, the aggressive and wild will poison, attack, or eat you.
I look down into her face, drawn again to the blacks of her pupils, each surrounded with a tiny rim of color. She’s starved and done with waiting. She’s fully succumbed to the pollen and I’m relieved beyond measure, because it was killing us to watch her wither away. It doesn’t matter if she’s never been fed or if she’s simply gone too long without a proper feeding—she is safe here, and we will take care of her from now on. Flushed cheeks, writhing against my palm as I try to replace it over the new, soft, white inner layer covering that she has revealed—but she dislodges my hand when I try to touch this, and rips the layer off; she’s ravenous and won’t be denied.
This is understandable; she knows how badly she needs nourishment.
She proves this when her hand moves from where she was gripping my arm, to shove aside my loincloth and clutch at my rootstem. Hissing, I try to catch her; I can see the tendrils starting to grow and I’m not even inside her yet. “Wait,” I warn, but she’s beyond the ability to listen. I might be the first Kahav that she has ever been fed by, but her instinct has been triggered. She uses my base to drag my body to hers, and guides me into her warm, welcoming slit.
“Sunshine above,” I gasp, and my hips snap forward. My body hunches over hers as I try to make sense of everything I’m feeling.
She’s not hollow inside.
She’s squeezing heat and fluid encouragement and the shock of it has my rootshaft aching for immediate release. I’m eager to comply; I simply don’t know where to plant my tendrils. Carefully, I send them seeking and am not surprised at all to find they’ve elongated on their own while I was busy being engulfed by her exquisite sensations. Underneath me, she’s gasping, clutching at me, and attempting to gyrate her hips upward, which causes my tendrils to shiver inside her and I can’t venture to guess what she feels as she writhes in reaction, but if it’s half as pleasurable as what I’m feeling, neither one of us may survive this.
I cup my hand over her mound, and run my double thumbs down until I discover her bud hidden at the top of her petals. She makes a startled noise but doesn’t deter me as I slowly attempt to bring her pleasure.
To add to her new sensations, my tendrils unfurl inside her, gently sliding between her walls, brushing along her insides, making her squirm beneath me in a dance as old as the soils.
I wait, gritting my teeth against the urge to surge into her as her movements turn into impatient bucks of her hips and she reveals she has sharp edges on her fingers, like surprise thorns on a delicate beauty of a Loess flower. Sh
e digs these into me, and I’m shocked that my body responds, my own enjoyment heightening. It is pleasurable for her, as it should be, but I want nothing more than to spill my seed, and it’s not time yet. I feed her more prevernal pollen, readying her for implantation.
She is nearly at completion, yet there hasn’t been a blossoming, and I’m confused until it dawns on me just why that could be.
Our azibo has been fertilized by another.
Seed will not come forth from me—it can’t. I can still feed her though, and as my gaze sweeps down her naked form, I’m appalled anew that she’s been reduced to a state where her body has sunken in on itself in malnourished desperation.
If the sensation of the tendrils pleased her, the first hit of nectar drives her wild.
She cries out, and as her knees tighten against my sides, her back arches off of the soft leaves of the bed beneath her. I want to watch her. I want nothing more than to see this, but my vision goes dark as her body calls mine to release more, more-more-more. She is starving.
She reveals a set of exquisite inner muscles that clamp down and begin to flutter and draw out more nectar.
She’s going to drain me.
I feel sudden pity for her husbandman. This is why she is in such poor condition—I don’t know how long he has been alone, but there is no way a single husbandman can provide enough, and it must have caused him great amounts of worry and guilt.
I tense as I receive an odd, echoing shock; it’s from her. One of my tendrils seems particularly interested in the upper wall of her cavern, a fact I find curious because it’s driving her absolutely mindless. I feel moisture gathering at our joining; it is increasing her saturation level to a delightful degree. It is affecting her so strongly that I’m sharing in her sensations, and long ago, this was the mark of a good coupling. I clutch at her hip and her shoulder, wondering what more I should do to topple her over this peak she is experiencing when she bows her back off of the bed and begins to seize in obvious pleasure. “Drogan!” she cries out in ecstasy. her limbs shudder and she writhes and her body tightens, and tightens—
My heartstone speaks no translation for her cry, but I feel her sudden rush of affection and, almost giddy from it, I proudly repeat her exclamation, roaring “DROGAN!”
I hear a male’s shout, and dimly, all I can register is that it’s not mine.
As her eyes drift shut, body drowsy from the nectar my root is pumping, feeding into her, I watch her skin take on a richer tone.
She begins to look sun-kissed right before my eyes, and it shouldn’t be possible but she becomes more glorious.
My hand manages to brush reassuringly along the outside of her thigh once before I put everything into the concentration it takes not to collapse on top of her in exhaustion.
CHAPTER 13
PETRICHOR
The hollows on her body fill out as they should, and I talk softly to her—more in an attempt to keep myself awake than to fill the quiet. I want her to be able to rest, but I can also see that even slipping into unconsciousness, she is liking the sound of my voice, and it warms me to see her relax even further when I drop down on my elbows so that our chests touch, and she can feel everything I’m saying to her too.
Feel everything. Her stomach!
I roll off of her immediately, then laugh at myself. At this stage, the Sproutling will be exactly that; a tiny sprout, and thankfully, it and its mother will be fine despite my cloddish inattention. It isn’t as if I’m not familiar with young; a constant circle of life is teaming within the Salachar forest that the Kahav call home.
The Kahav. There are only three of us still lifegreen. I let my eyes climb up my azibo’s now beautifully curved body, and think now there are four. My hand finds her stomach, and in sleep, her hands slowly move to cover mine. Five.
Her husbandman makes six.
We’ve doubled our number thanks to them. And someday, she might bear Ammos, or Maceous’, or my own Sproutlings, and the Kahav will flourish once more.
I roll my eyes skyward and mutter, “May the Ruler never return.” Something the Ruler did killed off all the females. Like an early frost, they succumbed overnight. It was devastating. Woven males followed, wilting after their females.
The memories make me feel even more depleted, and my fingers tremble as I reach to pluck the most beautiful bloom from where it is growing over my heartstone. I gently sweep her hair back from her face, and tuck it behind her ear.
I doze next to her for a time, but I know her husbandman will want to be assured of her renewed condition, so I struggle to rise without disturbing her. Exhausted, I stumble out of the room, and go in search of the others. Upon reaching them, I manage the shaky announcement, “She has a Sproutling.”
Maceous looks unimpressed. “We could have told you that.”
Archly I challenge, “And you would know this how?”
“Because it pulls at us.”
“You’re not woven to her,” I say in consternation, my head feeling thick and my thoughts sluggish.
“We are to him,” Bortammos says pointedly. “His leg bled on our heartstones.” I turn around, and there is our new husbandman; mouth stuffed with gaius-gum. It will help control the amount of pain he is obviously experiencing, which is evidenced in the way he is clutching the injury site from the strange weapon the warring tribesman attacked him with. Gaius-gum will also keep his jaws stuck fast, keep him from calling out and alarming her, which from the sound of his muffled snarling, he might attempt to do.
I shuffle in his direction. To the others, I pose a question. “Why don’t I sense the Sproutling?”
Ammos removes a terran weed from between his lips. “Hmm. The Sproutling takes after our new tribesman. Greatly.”
Pondering what that could mean, and feeling weary in a way I’ve never experienced, I approach our aggressive new tribesmember. Even injured to the point he’s been rendered lame, he’s full of fury and indignant rage.
“Husbandman,” I start.
“FuCK awff!” he snarls.
Bortammos turns to me, eyes and expression arrayed in a clear wince. “He’s issued an aggressive order for you to depart.”
“That,” I nod slowly, not taking my eyes from the injured man, “I gathered.” I can understand him as clearly as I do her, because she blooded me, and the pair shares a language. For the same reason, Ammos and Mace will understand her thanks to her husbandman blooding them. The gaius-gum adds a challenge, however, and I appreciate Ammos’ effort to assist. I imagine in the time I spent with our azibo, this new tribesmember offered opportunity aplenty for them to learn his new nuance in speech.
“He has an attitude,” Mace offers, his tone dry as soot. “And we knew the first feeding would be taxing, but you look as if the lightest gale could send you crashing down.”
I try to nod, but feel as if my balance is interfering with even this. “It is lucky their tribesman is even conscious if he’s carried the sole feeding responsibility. She depleted me of nectar,” both Mace and Ammos swing me shocked gazes. “I venture he is too and this is why she's in the condition she is. He can’t feed her.” My vision feels like it’s furling black at the edges, and I try to blink it away. “Oh. Beware; she doesn’t sip pollen. She sucks.”
I bob my head at their wide-eyed expressions. When the three of us fall silent and focus on her husbandman, his eyes narrow and he puffs up, a feat to behold when he has no fur, or scales, or spines with which to offer such a defensive display.
“Tfry itf, affhoes!”
Ammos replaces his stalk of terran weed and peers at him. “It’s strange that there is no translation for this last one. Affhoes. I like the sound of it, I just don’t know what it means.”
“Something vile, I’d imagine,” Mace offers.
“I know,” Ammos says easily. “It’s about time we learned new curse words. It’s been ages and everything we say has gone stale.”
Yet another reason we found ourselves in our Guardian forms more
and more. Everything had gone stale. “What do we do with him?”
Mace stands and Ryan, I try to teach myself, begins that odd growling speech again. Mace pays him no mind. “He’s worried for the azibo. It should settle him to be reunited with her.”
“But he’ll wake her—”
“I don’t think he will.” Mace points to Ryan, then points in the direction of our azibo, trying to put him at ease as to where and why he’s about to be moved. They seem to be coming to an uneasy truce before Mace begins to lift him.
Remembering what I have clutched in my hand, I hold the tiny items out to Ammos. “Do you think you can make something in her size?”
Ryan takes one look at what I’m holding, and he loses his grip on sanity.
CHAPTER 14
RYAN
He had her FUCKING bra and panties! I’m cursing every one of them and their mothers when they haul me into the bedroom of their underground lair, but the breath leaves me when I see Preta, naked, raped unconscious.
Pain slices through my chest and the rage makes it impossible to see her for a moment—snarling at the creatures that are carrying me like the invalid I fucking am, I suck air in through my teeth and try to get my head on straight, and look her over for injuries. What I feel in this moment doesn’t matter. She—
I stare at her.
“MOTHERF—!” I might be hitting a high note on this one as my leg gets jostled. The asshole setting me down right now wasn’t even trying to be an asshole—even hurt, boiling with aggression, and yes, fear, I can tell that much. He tried to go easy.