by Lizzy Bequin
Red blood.
Slaine’s pulse quickened.
All of the creatures of the world carried green-black blood in their veins. Only the ukkur bled scarlet. In fact, that is what the word ukkur meant in the language of the nith. Ukkur. Red blood.
So Ika was an ukkur after all.
But she would be a dead ukkur if Slaine didn’t do something soon. She was cold as a block of ice in his arms. Slaine hugged her close and tried to will his body heat into her icy skin, but it was no good. Even his ample warmth was not enough.
He stripped off his tunic and wrapped it around her, but with hardly any body heat of her own, it did Ika little good.
And the temperature was dropping swiftly.
The storm had caught up with them. Wind howled around Slaine’s ears and dense flurries of snow blasted his face.
A blizzard that was coming.
Soon the snowfall would be so dense that it would be impossible to see more than a few paces in any direction.
Slaine roared in an attempt to signal his brethren, but his voice was carried away by the wind.
He could not count on them having heard it.
He was on his own, and it was up to him to save Ika.
He looked down at the beautiful shivering creature in his arms. His heart swelled with pride. He knew that his Ika was an exceptional creature. But he never would have guessed that she could slay a full-grown abolith all by herself.
He would remember never to underestimate her again.
But how would he make sure there was a next time?
Slaine cast his eyes around frantically, searching for anything that he could use to keep his Ika warm. He wished Gunnar were here. He knew how to solve any problem. Or Thusar. He would know what to do.
But they were not here now.
Ika’s life was in Slaine’s hands, and he could not let her down.
His eyes lighted on the dead abolith.
Slaine stared at the great dead beast. Tendrils of steam were rippling off its body. Slaine had killed and butchered such a creature before. He knew that it was insulated by a thick layer of blubber designed to keep out the cold.
And this was a fresh kill. Its blood and internal organs would still be hot inside.
Slaine turned his eyes from the beast to Ika, then back to the beast again.
The gods provided, just as Slaine had known they would.
He drew his knife.
CHAPTER 19
Warmth.
In that place between sleep and wakefulness, Ika thought she was back in Rolf’s den. Somehow her old protector had found her, and he had brought her back to the familiar safety of her home.
But as her consciousness gradually returned, Ika realized that was not the case.
The warmth she felt now was not dry cavern air heated by a fire. There was no crackle of wood, no orange glow cast by leaping flames. In fact, there was no light at all, and the only sound was the slow, steady rhythm of her own breathing.
The heat seemed to press in from all sides, soft and wet against her skin.
Ika’s pulse quickened, and with each thump of her heart, more adrenaline surged through her system, bringing her to full alertness.
What the rot was this place?
Ika licked her lips and tasted the coppery tang of fresh blood. When she breathed in, she caught the musky scent of abolith in the humid air that filled the dark enclosed space.
Images came flooding back to her mind.
Memories of the last moments before she blacked out.
Ika remembered being naked. She remembered the intense, numbing cold as the wind drained away every last bit of heat from her body.
She remembered the spear in her hands.
The charging abolith.
And then…nothing.
Is that where she was now? Inside the belly of the abolith?
Had she failed? Had she flinched at the last moment? It must be so. She had not killed the abolith, and now the beast had swallowed her whole. That would explain the hot, wet tissue pressing against her body from every side.
Ika considered this for a moment.
No. It didn’t make sense. An abolith was equipped with two sets of jaws—one on the outside for catching prey, and one on the inside for gnashing the meat into an easily digestible paste.
Ika, however, was all in one piece.
Very strange.
Wherever Ika was, she needed to find a way to escape. He fished her hands through the enfolding darkness, searching for something, anything to hold on to, but her fingers found no purchase. Only slippery, squishy membranes that gave way under Ika’s touch.
Then she found something.
A slit of some kind.
Ika pushed at the edge of it, and a breath of frigid air penetrated through from the outside world. Cold air and just enough light to glisten off the enormous internal organs that surrounded her.
Gods, so she was inside the abolith, but—
There was a grunt behind her.
A powerful hand clamped around her wrist and pulled Ika’s hand back from the slit, cutting off the light and the chilly draft.
Ika gave a startled gasp, and her already labored heartbeat spiked.
Coarse stubble scuffed at her ear.
Something grunted.
“Ee-kah.”
It was a voice that Ika had never heard before, but she instantly knew who it was. She recognized the scent now. Recognized the shape of the hard, heavy musculature pressing against her back, conforming so perfectly to the curves of her spine. She had taken that to be part of the carcass, but now she realized what it really was.
“Slaine?” she gasped. Her voice was muffled by the surrounding tissue.
“Ee-kah.”
She was beginning to understand now.
One realization followed upon the next as the pieces fell into place inside her mind.
So she had killed the abolith. Ika remembered now. The knapped stone speartip had punctured the beast’s hide. The force of its charging body had driven the point straight into its heart, just as Ika had intended.
But the impact had rattled her. Combined with the weakness of her freezing body, she had been knocked into unconsciousness. With the winter storm blowing in, she would have died from exposure within a matter of minutes.
But Slaine must have found her just in time. He had given her shelter in the only warm place available.
The bloody innards of the slain abolith.
Ika shuddered in repulsion, and her stomach turned over inside her belly. It was disgusting, yet surprisingly effective. Her naked body, which had been numb as a stone from the cold had been brought back to life by the warmth inside the dead beast.
She had to hand it to Slaine. The silent ukkur was more intelligent and resourceful than he had let on before.
Ika placed her hand on the muscular ukkur arm wrapped around her torso and gave a little squeeze.
“Thank you, Slaine.”
“Slaine. Ee-kah.”
Okay, maybe not that intelligent. Nevertheless, Ika was surprised to discover that Slaine could speak as well. He was not exactly loquacious. He had only spoken two words. Still, that was infinitely more than she had heard him say before.
The strange, damaged ukkur was full of surprises.
Ika had been trying to escape from Slaine and his pack, but now she felt only gratitude that he had caught up with her in time.
Things could be much worse.
Ika still had her life. And a second wave of relief washed over her when she realized that she still had her ring necklace too. It was still fastened around her throat.
That little steel ring brought to mind Rolf, and Ika’s heart sank a little.
Once the storm outside had passed, Slaine would remove her from this grim shelter and return with her to his pack. Then she would be right back where she had started.
But for now it was just her and Slaine.
The ukkur obviously cared about her on some
level—enough to save her from dying. Maybe that meant she could persuade him to help her get back to Rolf.
It was worth a try at least.
“Slaine. What will you do with me when the storm is over? Where will you take me?”
The only reply was a grunt.
Perhaps the question was a little too complicated. So far, Slaine had only spoken two words. He had not even formed a full sentence. Ika needed to keep it simple. Something that could be answered with a mere yes or no.
“Slaine, will you help me get back home to Rolf’s den?”
Grunt.
Ika tried to figure out if that animal sound held some answer—a rising or falling intonation that might give a clue to its being an affirmative or negative answer. But she could discern nothing of the sort.
She repeated her question, a little more slowly this time, but she was met with the same inscrutable reply.
Okay, so much for that approach.
Ika sighed.
If she could not communicate with Slaine, then there was nothing else to do but wait for the storm to pass. Ika was a naked captive in his arms. And even if she could somehow manage to wriggle free, where would she go? She would freeze to death in mere minutes out there in the storm.
The only thing to do now was to wait it out. After that, whatever happened happened. For now, she was just grateful to be alive.
Her only wish was that their shelter was a little less disgusting.
It was not like Ika had never seen or tasted blood before. Of course she had. Rolf had taught her how to gut and dress wild game with her stone knife. Ika was hardly squeamish.
But this was a bit much.
Surrounded and encased in bloody innards, she swallowed against the nausea creeping up her throat.
Again, Ika reminded herself to be grateful.
She was safe, for now. Safe and warm.
Ika resigned herself to the situation. She pressed herself back against Slaine’s protective body. The touch of his living warmth was more appealing than dead guts.
But as she squeezed herself against Slaine’s hard muscles, slippery with gore, something long and hard wedged in the cleft of her butt and throbbed against her tailbone.
Ika instantly knew what that was.
“Slaine!”
The ukkur grunted, and this time Ika could hear the smile in that sound.
Powerful arms coiled more tightly around her. Scratchy stubble and soft lips brushed at her ear, raising goosebumps even in this unlikely situation.
And Slaine’s pelvis started to move.
The ukkur rocked his hips, sliding the length of his hard meat along the groove of Ika’s butt with increasingly long and forceful strokes.
“Slaine!” she cried, but her voice sounded muffled inside the abolith. “Slaine, what are you doing?”
The ukkur grunted again and redoubled his humping.
Ika should have been angry at him. Yet there was something in his movements—an awkward jerkiness to each thrust—that suggested Slaine’s hips and pelvis were not entirely under his control. The humping motion was some kind of instinct, a reflex that perhaps even Slaine did not understand.
And to her great shame, Ika found her own body reacting in unexpected ways too.
Though she was no longer cold, her nipples were now as hard as two granules of ice. Her other nub was affected too. The one between her legs. It was as hard as a little pearl at the top of her slit.
Slaine’s fingers moved to her crotch and touched her there.
“No,” Ika gasped. “Not here, Slaine. Please…”
The ukkur ignored her. Perhaps he did not understand. Or perhaps he simply could not control his strange urges. Gods knew, Ika was having trouble enough keeping her own urges in check. She didn’t know how much more rubbing she could handle before she finally caved.
But what were these urges? This weird need to rub and to be rubbed.
Ika did not understand.
She only knew that the hot, bloody insides of a dead abolith were no place to be doing whatever it was that they were doing.
Still, Ika couldn’t seem to help herself. As Slaine’s fingertips swirled harder and harder around her tingling nubbin, Ika’s hips began to swivel and gyrate of the own volition, grinding her soft butt against the ukkur’s hard pole.
An accidental shift, and that hard member slipped between her thighs. Its hot, throbbing length glided against Ika’s slit.
“Oh gods…”
Slaine pumped harder and faster, running his erection through the gap between Ika’s thighs. She found her legs spreading wider, as wide as the confines of the abolith’s guts would allow. Her inner folds were exposed, and the top of Slaine’s shaft dragged against her tight hole, which was now spilling its arousal in shameful abundance.
They were so close now. On the verge of some epiphany.
How does this work? What are we supposed to do?
Slaine’s breath tickled her, raising goosebumps on top of goosebumps. His tongue traced the convolutions of her ear. He growled and nipped at her like a wild animal. And through it all, those taut, powerful hips kept rolling, stroking his arousal against hers.
How? What?
Ika’s hole opened slightly, and the tip of Slaine’s member snagged at her rim. For one heart-stopping moment, Ika thought that long, thick meat might penetrate her there.
But the hole was too small and too slippery.
Slaine’s pole glanced away.
A jolt of arousal shot through her, like the stroke of a feather tickling her insides. Ika mewled and shuddered and felt the inner walls of her hole flutter with fear and need.
Images flashed through Ika’s mind, quick and random.
Gunnar’s finger probing her hole.
Thusar’s cock pumping her mouth.
The way her hole bled with the moon. Red blood. Ukkur blood.
A cross section of her and Slaine together inside the abolith.
Creatures inside of creatures inside of creatures.
Slaine’s pelvis drew back, and once again the tip of his member became aligned with Ika’s hole. Again the tip snagged. Again Ika’s inner walls pulsed and rippled.
“Wait!”
Her hand darted between her legs. She meant to swat Slaine’s pole away. She was too afraid of what was going to happen. Afraid that his girth would damage her.
But instead, her fingers unintentionally kept Slaine’s tip from glancing off of her, and this time when Slaine thrust, his thick ukkur meat penetrated Ika’s wet hole, stretching her out and filling her up. He plunged deep, not stopping until the blunt end of his club knocked against a barrier that Ika hadn’t even known was there inside her until now.
She yelped from shock and a touch of pain.
Gods, Slaine felt so big and hard inside her. Ika had never experienced such a feeling of fullness. She was stretched and stuffed with Slaine’s hot, rigid prong.
But the insertion had not torn her apart as she feared it would. Ika’s hole was more pliant than she realized. The entrance expanded wide to accommodate Slaine’s ample girth, and her soft inner tissues conformed to his shape.
And as Slaine started to move inside, the pain subsided into pure bliss.
The ukkur rocked his hips, plunging into Ika again and again. At first his strokes were slow and uncertain. This experience was as new for him as it was for Ika.
Soon, however, Slaine found his rhythm.
He pumped her with slow but forceful strokes that jolted Ika’s whole body. His arms gripped tighter around her her ribs, steadying her as he thrust into her again and again. His hand seized one of Ika’s mounds, kneading her flesh and pinching her erect nub.
“Slaine,” Ika moaned thickly. “Gods…”
Her language had been reduced to the ukkur’s same single-word utterances, it seemed.
She sent her hand between her legs and splayed her fingers so she could feel him sliding in and out of her. Her hand reached lower, touching the smooth heav
y balls that must be where his sap was stored.
Ika wanted that sap.
She wanted Slaine to spill it deep inside her hole.
Her fingers clutched at him, rubbing and massaging his sacs just as his own much bigger hand was squeezing her breast.
Slaine grunted.
Ika squeezed harder. She wanted that sap so badly. In her mind’s eye she pictured the hollow places inside her filling with a flood of that hot, sticky fluid.
Slaine growled at her ear.
Even without words, Ika understood his meaning. She was squeezing his sacs too hard. So, even the brutal ukkur had a tender place. A weakness. A defiant, disobedient fire sparked in Ika’s heart.
She grinned and growled back and squeezed a little harder.
With a savage snarl, Slaine chomped his mouth on the place where Ika’s neck sloped into her shoulder. She could feel his teeth, hard and sharp, especially the long tusks protruding from his lower jaw.
Slaine bit down, and Ika barked in pain.
That bite did not break the skin, but it was enough to let Ika know he was serious.
She relaxed her grip on his balls, and Slaine growled his approval but did not release his bite.
He was pounding into her hard now. His taut pelvis smacked against her soft bottom with each thrust, and other squishy sounds came from the warm tissue surrounding them and protecting them from the outer could.
“Oh gods,” Ika whimpered. “Slaine, it’s coming…”
That feeling of overwhelming pleasure was welling up inside of her again, but this time it was different. This time Slaine was driving Ika toward her climax with his cock.
The head of Slaine’s member buffed deliciously against that tender spot on Ika’s front wall.
The lining of her channel swelled with bloodflow, squeezing tightly around Slaine’s pummeling member.
When Ika’s climax came, it curled her toes and drew forth ragged sobbing sounds from her lips. The sensation radiated outward from her center, making her limbs quiver and twitch with spasms of pleasure.
Slaine tensed behind her.
He pushed deep, grunting and shuddering.
His cock pulsed inside her, unloading gouts of hot, thick fluid that coated her insides and leaked from her stretched hole.