by Ruby Dixon
Great, now I’ve got Stockholm syndrome.
He pushes down the mountainside, moving down the steep slopes as if they’re nothing. We pass through another copse of trees, and I realize for the first time that we’re heading the wrong way from the crash site. I haven’t been paying attention, dazed from hunger and cold. But this is wrong. Everyone up there is waiting for me, shivering and starving. I can’t leave them.
“Wait,” I say, tapping on his shoulder. “Vektal, wait!”
He pauses, and as he does, I slide off his back. I shiver immediately at the bitter cold, but I make him turn so I can point up the hill, back to the direction that I came. “We have to go that way and rescue the others.”
He shakes his head and points down the hill. In the direction he’s pointing, I can see thick trees and more greenery. He wants to go down the mountain.
But I can’t leave everyone behind. I insistently point back up. “Please. I need to go up there. There are more people. More women. They’re hungry and cold and don’t have anything.”
Vektal shakes his shaggy head and mimes eating. Then he points at the forest below us, down the snowy slopes.
I waver. Do I let him take me farther away to eat? Or do we immediately go up to the others and still starve? I hesitate. They probably already think something’s happened to me.
My stomach growls again. Vektal gives me an exasperated look. He says the food word again. “Kuuusk.”
I bite my lip, thinking. I glance back at the mountain. Everything in me says I need to insist. But I’m feeling so weak and starved. I can convince him to go back later, can’t I? Once I’ve gotten something to eat?
And won’t it be better to show up not empty handed?
With a heavy sigh, I look back at him. His glowing blue eyes seem to be burning holes into me. “Kusk then up the hill, okay? Let’s get enough kuusk for everyone.”
Maybe a belly full of food will swallow my guilt.
• • •
VEKTAL
When my mate climbs atop my back again and wraps her small, soft limbs around me, I have to fight my pleasure. She’s cold and hungry and upset over something. The need to please her eats at my insides. I’ll bring down a meal for her so she can gorge and regain her strength. Right now, her pale skin is even paler, and I worry she’ll sicken and be too weak to accept a khui.
I have plans for my sweet mate. Whether she likes it or not, she’s going to take a khui. I’m not about to lose her now that I’ve found her.
The valley blossoms with teeming wildlife. I can tell from my mate’s easy grip on my neck that she doesn’t see the skulking snow-cats in the distance or the form of the sickle-beak hiding behind a nearby tree. My hunter’s gaze picks them out, and I search for a safe spot in which I can leave my mate without worry for a short time. She’s too weak to hunt for her own food or to defend herself if something should attack.
There’s a large boulder I can use for a lookout on the far side of the narrow valley, and I head there, pushing through the ever-deepening snow. Though the weather doesn’t bother me, my mate’s shivering increases the longer we are out. She won’t be able to travel far unless I get her something warmer to wear. So, food first, then skins so I may dress my soft, fragile Shorshie.
I’ll protect her with my life if I must.
The need to claim her resonates in my chest, my khui reminding me that I have found my mate and not yet claimed her. I pat my chest as if to tell it I know. I know she is mine. Communicating with her is difficult, and she is frightened and weak. Once she is strong and we can share more words, she will see what I have been trying to tell her. Then she will spread those soft, pink thighs for me again, and I will have her on my tongue. I will bury my cock inside her and feel the resonance reverberate between both of us.
My cock grows hard at the thought, and so I force it away.
Once I get to the boulder, I gently set Shorshie down. She climbs up on the rock when I gesture to it. “Stay here,” I tell her.
Of course, she tries to follow me.
I gesture that she should stay again, and she gives me a panicky look. “Sheorshie Vektal?”
“I’m not leaving you, sweet resonance,” I tell her, brushing a finger over her pale cheek. “It’s dangerous.” I point at the lurking creatures that are even now watching us. I point out the scythe-beak and then the snow cats. I even point out a lurking quill-bundled rodent that will be her meal. It takes a few moments for her to recognize the creatures hiding in plain view, blending amidst the snow. When she sees them, though, her eyes go wide, and she gives me another frightened look.
“You will stay here,” I tell her. “I’ll hunt something for you to eat.”
She babbles something in her weird language. “Hly sht thse thngs r hugednt leev me!”
“It will be fine,” I sooth. I bundle the cape tighter around her small shoulders. She responds by reaching for one of my knives, a question in her eyes. I nod and hand her a bone-handled one that I created myself. Now she has protection.
It’s clear she feels better with it in her hand. She crouches down on the rock and nods at me, gripping the knife. I brush my fingers over her cold, hairless skin again and then pull my sling from my pack. I keep a few smooth stones at hand and put one in the pouch, then whirl the sling through the air, taking aim. My arms flex as I let the stone fly, and I’m pleased to see that the rodent flops to the ground, staggered.
I approach it before it can recover and slice its throat with a motion of my knife. Then, I cut a slit in the neck to drain the blood and another in the belly to remove the offal. I leave the heart and other tasty bits for my mate, then bring the entire thing back to her. I’m leaving a trail for the snow cats to follow, but they won’t attack as long as they scent me. Their memories are long, and they don’t like the taste of sa-khui flesh. We are a bitter meal.
I return with my prize and display it to my shivering mate.
She wrinkles her nose and gives me a confused look.
“Not familiar with quilled beasts, are you?” I say, because it feels good to talk to her. I lay the kill down on the cold stone she’s crouching upon and notice she flinches backward. “It’s dead, sweet resonance. Look, I have saved you the choicest parts.” I pull open the belly flap and reveal the heart and liver. They’re still warm, though they’ll cool fast in this weather and won’t taste nearly as good. “Just avoid the quills in the fur. We’ll get you something larger for a cloak. There are furred dvisti in this area that will make a fine meal.”
Shorshie stares at the kill blankly. Then she points at it. “Yewspectmiteweet thet?”
Is she not familiar with this food? She ate the meal bar easily enough. I pull the heart out and hold it to her lips. “Here. Taste.”
She nearly falls off the rock in her haste to move backward. “Ohmigodfckno!” A moment later, she points at the dripping delicacy held between my fingers. “Fckincookthtshit!”
I tilt my head at her. “What is it? What are you saying?”
She mimes a gesture, holding her hands out like she did over the fire. Then she points at the food. “Fiiiiir,” she tells me. “Cookhit.”
This time my lip curls. “You want to burn the food? Do you not understand what this is?” I toss the heart into my mouth and chew to show her. Flavorful blood bursts across my tongue, hot and sweet.
Her face crumples, and she gags. Her hand goes up, and she gestures for me to put it away. “Hmigod.Grss.”
“Eat,” I tell her sternly. She’s too weak to be picky about her food. “I’ll burn it for you later if you like, but you must eat now.” I slice another thick portion of the creature’s flank off and hand her the meat. I force her small fingers to close around it, ignoring the fact that she makes that gagging noise again. “Eat so you have strength for the rest of the day.”
She shakes her head.
I take a bite and show her, then insist she eat as well. Her stomach growls, and she gets a pained look on her face. “Hopesl
ikesushi.” Shorshie makes another face and then takes a bite, grimacing the entire time.
I’m pleased. She’s not, but at least I’m getting food into her. She doesn’t like the tasty organs, then. I eat them, ignoring her little sounds of distress, because a good hunter does not waste meat. I carve more tasty tidbits and feed them to her, and she protests the entire time, but at least her belly is filling. She drinks all of my water and then motions that she’s still thirsty.
I nod. One thing at a time. Caring for Shorshie in such a dangerous territory is something that must be handled carefully. The last thing I want is for her to accidentally run into a snow cat near its den . . . or worse, a pack of hunting metlaks. I must carefully guard her and not let her out of my sight. It will mean slow hunting and an even slower return to the tribal caves, but I am prepared to do whatever it takes.
“Come,” I tell Shorshie, hanging my kill from my belt so the meat can freeze in the chill weather. That will keep it until later. I offer her a hand so she can get down off the rock.
She climbs back onto my back, and I realize again just how small and fragile she is. I can carry her as if she weighs nothing. This is not good. Even the daintiest of my tribes-mates could crush her like a twig. It rouses my protective instinct, and I fight the urge to snarl at the thought.
Shorshie will be safe, no matter the cost.
We trek through the snow for some time, and I’m pleased to see that she’s quiet, observing the world around her. She doesn’t call attention to us. She doesn’t complain or demand more things in her strange language. She doesn’t ask questions when I break a tree limb from a nearby sapling and backtrack, sweeping it over our prints to hide our trail. She’s a silent observer.
But I still worry she does not even know the basics of how to fend for herself. Her request for more fire lingers in the back of my mind and worries me. I find an unfrozen stream, heated by the ground itself. It smells of rotten things, but the taste will be pleasant enough and the heat will be nice on weary muscles. It’s also a test to see how much my Shorshie knows. There are things that even the smallest of kits know about the wilds that I worry she does not.
Sure enough, she trots trustingly toward the stream, getting far too close. So much for my test. I grab her by the arm before she can step near the bank, and she hisses in pain.
I’m instantly abashed at my own strength. “Shorshie?” If I’ve hurt my mate, I will be sick with self-loathing. My khui seems to recoil in agreement.
“Sokay,” she says, breathing heavy. She winces and flexes her wrist. “Hrtfrmcrash.”
I take her small hand in mine, and she trustingly lets me examine her. She is mottled with bruises on her arm, the flesh swollen. She is hurt, and I never even realized. I am furious with myself for missing something so obvious. “I am sorry, my Shorshie. I will not be so careless again.”
I lead her away from the stream and look around for something to bind her wrist. I pat my clothing, looking for loose fabric, but she laughs and shakes her head. She jabbers something else at me and points at the water, indicating she’d rather drink than fuss with her wrist.
All right, then. I can show her how to drink. I glance around and find a broken stick at the base of a tree. I pick it up and indicate she should observe me. Then, I get as close as I dare and toss it into the water.
For a long moment, there is nothing. Then, the water boils with activity. I watch Shorshie gasp as the mud dwelling fang-fish attack. Her surprise is chilling to me. The land is not hospitable many months out of the year, but even the smallest kits know that the foul-smelling warm streams are crowded with dangerous creatures. A fang-fish can strip the flesh from a full-grown dvisti in a matter of moments. Shorshie would have been dead before I’d blinked.
The thought makes me pull her closer to me. She trembles and pushes closer, terrified.
“Watch,” I tell her.
“Watch,” she agrees, looking up at me with huge, white-rimmed eyes that do not sing with khui-color. It reminds me of her vulnerability. Her fragility. This must be corrected, and soon.
I pull out my traveling pouch. No hunter leaves the tribal caves without one, and in it I have several of the red snow-berries that are so plentiful. I grip two of them, smash them between my fingers, mix the juice with a handful of packed snow at my feet, and then lob the entire thing into the current of the stream. Then I look at Shorshie again. “Watch.”
She watches, her face intent. I see her surprise when the water begins to flick and the fang-fish swim upstream, fleeing the waters and the berry-taint they hate so much. “They do not like the juice,” I tell her. “They will not return here until the moons go down once more. Now we can drink.”
She looks at me curiously, and so I show her by moving toward the water. I dip my waterskin in and fill it, then indicate that she can drink the water directly from the stream.
“Sokay?” she asks cautiously. “Noh mnsters?”
I nod to whatever nonsense she’s saying and drink again, then wash my face in a cupped handful of water.
That gets her attention. “Wash?” she asks, plucking at my vest. I see she’s now clutching my bone knife in her hand, no doubt frightened of the fang-fish. But her gaze is on my face, and she mimes my gesture from a moment ago. “Wash?”
“Yes, you can clean yourself,” I say, taking the knife away from her before she can hurt herself. I hand her a few more of the berries, instead. In addition to being a taste the stream-dwelling fish dislike, they make a fine soap. I indicate that she can lather with them, and she looks excited.
“Vektal wash?” she asks, then speaks another nonsense stream of syllables before repeating the words and miming bathing. “Vektal wash?”
“Are you afraid to get into the stream alone, my resonance?” I tease. “Shall I stand upstream so the fang-fish devour my carcass before yours?”
She gives her head a tiny shake indicating she doesn’t understand, but there’s an excited smile on her face. “Wash?” she asks again.
I nod and begin to remove my leathers. I’ll wash my mate gladly. I watch her graceful form as she undresses, stripping out of her own strange leathers. For the first time I realize they’re covered in stains, and they reek of offal. I’ve been so enamored of Shorshie that I haven’t paid the slightest bit of attention to the fact that she’s dirty. No wonder she’s so excited at the thought of washing.
My resonance mate is chattering up a storm, shivering and rubbing her arms as she gets naked. Like her hand, her tiny feet have too many toes and are oddly shaped, but I don’t point this out. I love every ounce of her strange body, even if she is furless and tailless. My khui starts to resonate with pleasure at the sight of her, and I finish stripping off my leathers and then wade into the water.
“Hoboy,” she breathes, still standing on the bank. She’s staring at my groin. Pleased at her attention, I stretch and rub a hand over my stomach. My cock grows hard at her stare, and my body surges with resonance. Is this Shorshie’s way of encouraging mating?
“Come to me, then, my mate.” I gesture her forward. “I will fill all your needs.”
GEORGIE
“Hung like a horse” really never had much of a meaning until now.
I try not to stare, and fail.
I can handle fangs. The tail. The suede-like bluish-gray skin. Heck. I’m cool with the horns that curl around his head like a badass crown of some kind.
And I tell myself that I should realize that a dude who’s seven feet tall will have an enormous cock. It’s size appropriate. I’m almost prepared for that, though the sight of it growing erect still makes my thighs clamp together in trepidation.
I’m not prepared for ridges.
He’s got freaking ridges on his cock.
Just like the upraised texture along his chest, his brows, and his arms, he’s got the bumpy, knotty ridges along the top of his cock. His very big, very thick cock. In addition to those ridges, he has an additional one that almost looks like anot
her horn, except it’s blunted at the tip instead of sharp. Small miracle, that. So, okay. He’s got a textured, huge cock with a bony, protruding knob an inch or so above it.
I feel like there’s an alien bingo card somewhere that just got checked off. Horns? Check. Tail? Check. Crazy-ass cock? Check check check.
And since I’m staring, he’s giving me heated looks with those glowing blue eyes of his. It’s like he’s daring me to touch him.
And . . . okay. I’m a little curious about what all that equipment would feel like on a girl, but I’m more interested in bathing than playing hide the sausage. I eye the water he’s now thigh-deep in, and he crosses his big arms over his chest.
Right. My turn. I’m still scared of the fish from earlier, but if he’s in the water, I assume it’s safe. I move closer to where he’s at, though, just in case. And I am shivering with cold, so I need to either get in the damn water with him or re-dress.
I look at my filthy clothing and decide to get in the water. I can still smell blood and the mess from the hold on me, and I desperately want to get clean. So I take a leap of faith and get into the water.
It smells like rotten eggs, which I’ve heard is what underground hot springs smell like. I don’t care. The water’s warm like a bath, and considering that it’s snowy and bitterly cold, I love it. I moan as it hits my limbs and then I sink deeper, trying to submerge my entire body into the scalding water.
It feels amazing. Right now I could kiss Vektal for bringing me here, scary fish and all. I splash water over my limbs, rubbing at them to get rid of the nasty smells of the last ten days of captivity.
Vektal moves next to me in the water. He says something, then hands me more berries. He motions that I should squeeze them and then rub the juice on me. And maybe I don’t move fast enough for him, because he takes the berries from my hand and squeezes the juice onto my shoulders. Then his big hands start rubbing it into my skin.