by Milana Jacks
The others do the same.
I cut another slice and bring to the fire. “What?”
“Nothing,” a male says and makes his way through the guys. Hart’s brother.
“Hi again,” I say.
“I found a stick.” He hands me a paintbrush.
“Perfect. Thank you.” I slice four cubes of meat and stick them on the brush, then stand so I can hold it with the brush away from the fire and still cook the meat.
The males stand back again, their eyes wide, hands over their mouths.
“Why are y’all being weird?” I ask. “Do you not barbecue anything? Is it the stick?”
Hart walks up, eyes a blaze of orange. “We don’t consume our own flesh or the flesh of another predator.”
What’s he saying? Wait, what? Ooooo! I throw the kebab into the fire. Bile rises in my throat, my belly along with it, and the chewed-up meat is stuck in my throat. I wanna swallow it so I don’t vomit, but I can’t. I put a hand over my mouth and close my eyes. Gross. Gross. Gross!
“Is our flesh not appealing to you anymore?” Hart asks.
I snap my eyes open and shake my head.
“Why not?” I can’t read his emotions from his eyes, but I sure as hell can read the pinch of his lips. He doesn’t appear or sound happy. If I say it’s appealing, it means I wanna eat them all up, and they might kill me. So that’s an automatic no. If I say it’s not appealing, I might offend them. I’d rather offend. “Not anymore.”
“A moment ago, it was delicious.”
“I didn’t know it was a who, you know. Why would you bring me this?”
He doesn’t answer, but his shoulder bulges, bone trying to push forward. Oh no. Hell no.
“Hart, listen. We have a…a giant misunderstanding. I’m sorry I ate a piece of your male. Can we forget about the whole thing?”
The males are looking between their Kai and me.
“Unlikely.” Hart walks back to the throne and sits, a stern expression on his face. “Leave us,” he says firmly to his males.
Some of them shuffle toward the exit, others linger, still staring at me. Slowly, I walk toward the throne and stand on the disk I know drops into Hart’s chambers. I hope he makes us disappear from here. Suddenly, his chambers are the safest place to be in this world.
I ate one of their people. This means I’m a designated predator, and I know what happens to predators among a throng of other predators. They get slain.
Chapter Eleven
Hart
When I brought back a piece of Sor’s flesh on the bone, never in million moons did it cross my mind that my gentle flower-loving alien would eat it. Never. I am shocked to my very core and unsure how to approach her dietary requirements. Which was why I asked my males to leave us alone.
In addition, I need some time to think and come up with something for tomorrow’s games. Are they still going to compete? I don’t know. Who wants a male-eater in their bed? Only me, hopefully.
I extend a hand and groan, for Sor managed to tear out a chunk of my muscle right above the hip, the tender, flexible muscle where the hunting-form transition begins. The female takes my hand, and I notice hers is clammy. Inhaling, I smell her fear.
Ark is lingering by the door.
“You want to die?” I ask. “Because if you try to harm her, I’m gonna kill you.”
“You’re too weak now.”
I am too weak to fight him now. “I’ll let my alien female consume you, then.”
He laughs. “Unexpected turn of events.”
“I’ll say.”
“What now?”
“Now you quit the games, Ark.”
“Fuck no. A predator on my cock sounds great to me.”
“Until she bites it off,” my alien says.
Woooo.
Ark’s eyebrows rise.
I tug on Stephanie’s hand, and she lands on my lap. “Ark, I suggest you get another predator. This one is taken.”
“Two days of games left.”
I sniff her hair. She still smells delicious, like something I wanna both fuck and eat. How can that be? I drop the throne into my chambers and close the opening at the top, but stay sitting on the throne. Stephanie turns in my lap, propping her bare feet on my thigh. My eyes follow the curve of her leg, my hand moving to squeeze her thigh. Smooth, leaf-thin skin. “I’d never have guessed you’re a predator.”
“I’m not, really. It’s all a misunderstanding.”
“I saw you eat one of my males with my own eyes.”
“I thought it was beef or something.”
I smile. “We don’t eat what we don’t know.” I touch my nose. “We can smell food that’s for consumption.”
“Well, apparently, we can’t.”
Blood keeps trickling down my side. I’m getting light-headed, but I enjoy her sitting on my lap, so I linger a bit longer. I also enjoy talking with her. She fascinates me, and I want to learn more about her people. “On your planet, which species is at the top of the food chain?”
She scrunches up her nose. “The humans.”
“See?”
“It’s not like that for us.”
“How is it like? Every planet has a species at the top of the food chain, deeming that species a predator and all others the prey. Otherwise, survival isn’t possible. The food chain hierarchy is universal. All planets have them because every species has to eat. Energy doesn’t create itself.”
“That’s true. Hmm.” She’s looking at the ceiling, so I lift my gaze too. There’s nothing there.
After a while, when I’m still searching for what she’s looking at, she says, “Let me put it to you this way. If you landed on Earth, people wouldn’t eat you.”
“What would they do?”
“First, they wouldn’t let you land because we classify your kind as predators and you aren’t allowed on the planet.”
If not permitted to land on Earth, Ark, on his warbird, has likely hunted human ships carrying passengers, female passengers, to be exact.
“And second,” she continues, pausing as I wipe my thumb over the inside of her thigh. “If you did end up landing, we’d be afraid you’d eat us.”
Her arousal reaches my nose, and I wiggle it, pleased my touch arouses her. “How would you know to fear us?”
“All dual-forms predate on humans.”
“Dual-forms?”
“Your animal form.”
I bristle. “I am not an animal. I am a hunter. It is a natural part of me, not some sort of form.”
“Oh, I’m sorry for offending you. We only have one form.”
I accept the apology. She doesn’t know better, and soon she will learn. “You’ve seen another dual-form on Earth? People like me?”
“No, but we study other species. We know.”
Feeling more light-headed, I blink, my vision blurring. A whine at the back of my throat escapes.
“You’re injured.” She hops off my lap and extends a hand. Frowning, I shake it, wondering why she needs to greet me again.
She chuckles. “No, silly, take my hand. I want to help you stand.”
Groaning, I stand on my own, and the room swims. I stumble around the throne. The female tucks herself under my arm and guides me to the bed. I crawl over it and sigh, reaching for the medical panel to initiate a repair system when she starts yanking my verto. She wants to mate. Right now? Really? The sight of my blood must make her horny. She also wants to eat me and fuck me.
“I think you might be a goddess.” I don’t know which one, and I don’t care.
“A goddess? Nah, I’m an IT tech. Can you prop up a little so I can remove the kilt?”
For once, I do as I’m told, and she strips me naked. Weapons clatter to the floor.
“Can you also turn the lights on? I can’t see in the dark.”
How can a predator not see in the dark? Strange, strange species. I pull up the panel and turn on the lights. The walls twinkle, and I dim them.
“Bri
ghter, please.” I do as she asks because I can’t wait to experience whatever it is she has in mind. She’s after something, but I don’t understand what.
“Oh my God.” She puts both hands over her mouth, her gaze glued to my side, near my hip bone, where a piece of flesh is missing. I look too. “What?” I ask. “It’s nothing. I survived and won the first night.” Blood’s soaking the bed. I’m losing consciousness. I need to get the repair system going. Why is the alien fascinated with my wound? It will heal.
She looks around the room and throws up her hands. “Where the fuck is gauze or towels or a fucking hospital?”
She’s becoming hostile. “Easy now, killer.”
“But you’re missing a chunk of your body.”
“I know, which is why I need to initiate the repair system.” I squint at the panel glaring at my face.
“What are you waiting for?”
“For you to back away from the bed. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t mate you in my current condition.”
“What?”
“Mate.”
“I don’t want to have sex, Hart.”
“Then step away from the bed.”
Stephanie moves back, and I lock my jaw so I don’t scream or grind my teeth. Here goes. I hit the panel and initiate the repair. It starts from the top of my head, absorbing the blood in my hair and fixing even the tiny broken ends of my hair, moving down my face, searing into cuts on there, over my neck, down my front. My muscles start twitching, bones rearranging, my hunter ready to come forth, but I can’t leave this form now. It could knock me out, and my female would mate me if I weren’t injured.
I close my eyes and imagine how I’m gonna mount her, how my hook will detach from my dick and latch on to her womb, and still I can’t escape the searing pain. The repair laser lingers around my hip, and it feels like thousands of needles are jabbing my wound. It’s duplicating my flesh to make new flesh.
Stephanie watches me, her expression one of horror. “What is happening to you?”
“Repairs,” I say from between clenched teeth.
She steps forward.
I put my hand up. “Stay back.”
The skin repair is the most painful. My claws dig into the bed as the repair system starts dragging my skin over the wound, then duplicating it, stretching, relaxing, making new skin to close the wound. Blackness seeps into my vision, I concentrate on her face, see if her image can keep me conscious. Mounting her. Breeding. Keeping. Taming this predator would be my life’s purpose.
The repair system blinks.
I breathe out, then in because the hip repairs are coming and that’s the biggest wound, meaning a longer repair time, and more pain. I brace for the worst, and it comes. The repair system sears to the bone. Not realizing Sor damaged my bone, I scream in pain and become a hunter.
I’m angry at the pain.
My vision is red.
I lift my nose and extend my flank, allowing the repair system to work. Lying down, I keep sniffing, swallowing the whimpers of a wounded animal. I wanna lick my wound, but if I healed that way, it would take too long, and I don’t have time. I must hunt tomorrow and on the final day of the games.
From outside the repair system, Stephanie’s fear penetrates my brain. But that’s not all. The lingering scent of her arousal drives me mad. Mine mine mine. Skin stretches over my hip, and I roar, digging my claws into the bed, shredding the mattress. Feathers burst from it, and I keep clawing, biting at the feathers flying around me, mad I can’t mark her. I want to mark her now, not after the games.
The repair system beeps, signaling its retreat.
Once clear of all lasers, I hop off the bed.
Stephanie steps back.
I peruse her.
She keeps moving back, and I corner her against the wall. I sniff her leg, up her thigh, tuck my nose under the fur covering her, and lick my teeth because the smell here calls to me. I take the fur between my teeth and tug.
Stephanie shakes her head. “Bad Hart,” she says.
I tug the fur again.
“No.” She tugs back.
I think she likes my other form better. I reshuffle my bones to stand as a male on two feet. Her eyes drop to my shaft, and I step back so she can observe my fitness, ensure all injuries have been thoroughly healed, and I’m fit to mate.
Stephanie moves around my body. She touches the back of my thigh and runs a hand down my leg, and my dick starts leaking semen. I enjoy the feeling of her hand on my skin.
“Wow, it’s completely healed.”
I grab her wrist and turn slightly, moving her palm over my thigh and up over my ass, to the front over my hip, and I close her palm over my shaft. There, I let go of her hand, and she moves it up and down, then grabs me with two hands. She strokes, spreading my fluid all over my dick. I swipe some of my seed and mark my lips, then hers, telling her in the language of my lands, I’m gonna mark her as mine, promising her I will win the games and her affection, something much harder to win than the games.
She licks my seed and swallows.
“That’s a good pup,” I tell her. “You want more?” I’m not asking, really. I press my lips against hers and kiss her, depositing my seed on her mouth so she can lick it off. And she does. “What a good pup you are.” I unlace her fur in the front and part it to feel her breasts, the same places my pups will suckle in the near future.
I squeeze her nipple, and Stephanie whimpers. I keep my mouth brushing hers as she pumps between my legs, and then I twist her nipples, scenting her arousal blossoming in the room.
“Yes, pup, keep pumping. How much seed do you want, hm?”
Stephanie drops to her knees, her small, clawless fingers splayed over my thighs. Her wide tongue feels smooth over my length, and she licks from the base to the top, lingering on my hook, circling it, then lapping up the seed seeping out of the opening. Her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she wraps her lips around my top, then starts moving her mouth over my dick, effectively making me fuck her mouth. I’d never experienced anything like this or even thought about it, but I catch on quickly.
I press her against the wall more so that her head rests against it, then spread my legs wider and pump into her mouth. “You’re a greedy pup. You want all the seed.”
While she holds my thighs, tearstained big brown eyes stare up at me. I fuck her mouth, enjoying how it feels when my hook hits the back of her throat. It stimulates seed production even more, and my balls tighten, drawing up. As if she knows, she grabs them and gives them a squeeze. My body locks, and I stop moving. Ohhhhh yes. My seed rushes into my shaft’s channel, spurts out, and fills her mouth. She gulps, and I hold her throat, making sure she swallows every last drop. She does.
I crouch at her eye level and lick my seed off the corner of her mouth. “You ate all my seed.”
Red colors her cheeks.
“This is all very…alien to me. But I like it. I’m keeping you. You’re mine. The games? Charade to keep my males occupied. When I win, and I will win, I will mark you, female, and you will give me pups. Do you understand?”
I lean back so I can look into her expressive eyes.
“Yes, Alpha,” she says.
I kiss her mouth. “That’s a good girl. Tomorrow, I’ll bring you more flesh.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary.”
“It is. Day two is provide-for-the-female day. We hunt for whichever food you like best. I’ll bring you a treat. You want Ark?”
“Oh noooo. Is there chicken?”
I don’t know what that is. “No chicken.”
“Beef?”
“No.”
“A rabbit even.”
“Ark?”
She takes my face between her palms and kisses my nose. “Ark brought a dress. Makes me think there’s another woman somewhere. Is there?”
“If there is I’ll find her.”
Stephanie nods. “I’m tired, Hart. Are you tired?”
Yes. “No,
I’m never tired.”
She smiles. I think she knows I’m lying.
I peck her nose too. It seems like something females of her species like after they swallow seed. All the seed. In the back of my mind, I’m plotting how I’m gonna secure more of these females for my males, even knowing they’ll kill each other competing for this one.
Chapter Twelve
Stephanie
In the morning, we’re back in the hall, and Hart lounges on the throne, stroking my thigh in the same way I’d pet a kitten on my lap. Except, I don’t purr. He purrs, quietly, like a sated big cat hanging from a branch, enjoying the sun. I think he’s faking the resting state. I think he’s taking the temperature in the room, from the males who’re glancing our way. Though I notice none of them meet his eyes, only mine, I try not to acknowledge them and their painted faces and bodies. I try not to show fear when their bones visibly move under the skin, when the muscles flex, bulging in unnatural-to-me ways.
Hart leans in and brushes his cheek with mine. His beard rubs my skin as he whispers at my ear, “Your diet puts me in a difficult position.”
“It’s really not my diet, Hart. I also eat potatoes.”
“Today’s task is to provide. It means we have to provide the finest food, not only to prove we’re great hunters, but to show our skill and catch a difficult-to-catch prey.”
“There. You said prey, so it’s not one of your males.”
“Ark isn’t one of mine.”
I turn in his lap and see he’s staring forward, so I turn back to Ark, who stands at the bottom of the steps. He dips two fingers into some ink and paints a line across his throat. Under me, Hart’s body tenses.
“What’s that mean?” I ask.
“He knows I’m coming after him.”
“And?”
“His tribe and my tribe have warred ever since we walked this land. There have been brief periods of peace here and there only to rest the males. A truce has never been signed in blood until he and I signed it.”