by Cara Bristol
“You go first.” I gestured. “The tunnel will be narrow, but it will descend to a large chamber where you’ll be able to stand.”
“Okay.”
Doubled over with my head down, I followed her. Damp, warm air scented by minerals filled my nostrils. The baths were deep under the mountain, about a quarter tripta. Lamps burning an oil obtained from kel fat kept the passage lighted enough so that we didn’t fall.
“I hear rushing,” she said.
“We’re almost there.”
Moments later, we entered the main cavern, lit by more oil lamps. Vapor clouds hovered over bubbling pools of heated mineral water. Mist condensed on the walls, running in rivulets into the pools.
Steamy air seeped into my bones and cleared my head. We didn’t come here just to bathe; the pools rejuvenated us, or at least made us feel that way.
“Which pool should we use?” Starr asked.
“Can you swim?” I asked.
Starr bit her lip. “No.”
“The middle one, then. The far one is quite deep; you would need to tread water.”
“What about that one?” She pointed to the closest.
“That one is not as warm. You will like the middle one better.”
Starr and I disrobed, and I wrapped our clothes in a kel hide and placed it on a rack to protect it from the mist. Everything in the chamber got damp. If we had to tromp back to our cave in wet garments, we’d catch a chill.
Naked, Starr padded toward the pool, her curves jiggling. For one so tiny and slender, her attributes were lush: generous buttocks, wide hips, full breasts. She was, to my appreciative eyes, perfect. To be called skinny was an insult, but my slip that one time had pleased her to no end. The intricacies of the female mind baffled me. Perhaps when we got more females and learned their ways, they would be easier to understand.
She stepped into the pool, waist deep for her.
“There’s a ledge at the far end where you can sit,” I suggested.
Starr waded in and submerged to her shoulders. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the rocky edge. “Good gods, this feels so wonderful,” she groaned. Her yellow hair floated on the water, frothing at her shoulders.
I joined her on the ledge. The shallow water lapped at my abdomen, barely covering the crown of my cock, which had grown rock-hard. It took very little provocation on her part to get me hard. I’d expected frequent relations to alleviate the rampaging lust; instead it had produced the opposite effect. The more we coupled, the more I wanted to. Even now, visions of pulling her atop my lap so she could ride me to sweet oblivion crowded into my mind.
She sighed, a pleasurable sound, almost like satiation. I was far from sated. We were still getting used to each other, figuring out each other’s ways. I reached out and covered her hand. Her bones were so delicate, her hand so small, I engulfed it in my massive paw.
“This is nice. Thank you,” she said, her eyes still closed. Lamplight bathed her face with a soft glow. She looked relaxed and serene. Oblivious to my need. We’d coupled twice during the night, but desire panted within me, hot and heavy. It never fully abated.
“So Icha brought you a mating gift,” Starr said.
Well, that doused my desire by a measure.
“Us. She brought us a gift,” I lied. Icha had intended her offering for me, and it was no gift. However, I knew better than to say so. I hadn’t had a mate for very long, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have survival instincts.
Starr opened her eyes. “What did she bring?”
I released her hand and rubbed my neck. “Food.”
“Have you heard how Yorgav is doing?”
“Actually, yes. The healer says he might recover,” I replied, omitting any mention that Icha had lost interest in him and appeared to have set her sights on me.
“I’m glad.” Starr stretched, arching so that the rosy tips of her breasts poked out of the water, and thoughts of Icha evaporated into the mist. My mate slipped off the ledge into the deeper center of the pool and submerged. When she reappeared, her yellow hair had darkened to a light brown. Water lapping at her breasts created the illusion the mounds bobbed on the surface.
Starr scrubbed at her scalp with the pads of her fingers then ducked under the water again. She stood up, and, with slow strokes, ran her hands along each arm from shoulder to wrist then moved to her breasts. Extra thorough, she palmed the undersides before rubbing circles around each mound. When she slipped her hands beneath the frothing water and widened her stance, a shaft of heat shot into my groin. I knew exactly where her hands were. Why hadn’t I volunteered to help her wash?
Starr peered over her shoulder. “Would you do my back?”
I dove off the ledge with a splash. I thought I heard Starr giggle. I hauled her against my body. My manhood prodded her spine as I dragged my palms over her breasts.
“That’s not my back,” she chided, but wiggled so that her rounded buttocks teased my cock.
“You missed a spot.” I pinched her nipples between my thumbs and forefingers then snaked a hand downward to cup her sex.
She gave a little moan. “What-what if somebody comes in?”
I hoped that wouldn’t happen, but it could. “Then, I’ll kill them.”
She giggled.
I explored her folds and found the little nub of her pleasure center. I’d learned a lot during our couplings: she preferred face-to-face, she liked long, slow strokes, and her wetness increased if I circled her clit before sliding my middle finger into her slick channel.
The beat of desire drummed. Blood pounded in my ears and throbbed in my cock. A primitive urge burgeoned within. Before I knew what I was doing, I bit her where her shoulder joined with her neck. Starr cried out but pressed harder against me and lolled her head, baring the delicate slope.
I licked the spot and tasted salt. Minerals in the water? Or blood? Remorse curled in the pit of my stomach, but it didn’t prevent me from nibbling a path to her shoulder. Her skin was so soft. I slipped a second finger into her tight channel. She squeezed, and a shaft of lust shot straight to my groin.
“I need you so much,” I growled against her ear. “Need you now.”
I removed my fingers, lifted her, and prepared to thrust into her.
She wrestled away and pushed at my chest.
Dismay and shame twisted in me. One’s mate needed to be wooed, not rushed. I knew that. Desire had overruled my good sense, my concern for her.
She planted her palms against my chest. “Sit on the ledge,” she ordered, but the smile in her eyes, the glint confused me. I didn’t know what to do—except obey—so I scooted to the pool’s edge.
Starr closed her fist around my shaft. I gritted my teeth. She would kill me—or I would spill myself in her hand. Maybe both.
“I love how big you are. How smooth. How hard.” She tightened her grip and pumped.
Her touch coupled with her purring words pushed me close to losing it. Fighting for control, I closed my eyes and sucked air through my teeth. “Y-you shouldn’t say things like that.”
“I love how your cock fills me up.”
Was the translator not working? Or was this a test? Was she punishing me for my inattention to her needs?
Soft breasts brushed against my inner thighs as she moved between my legs. I opened my eyes. Her secretive, seductive grin was a kiss all by itself. Her thumb caressed the crown of my manhood, swirling in the essence that seeped out. Then she lowered her head and took my cock in her mouth.
Every nerve ending fired at once. Pleasure so intense I thought I would die snapped and curled inside me. I grabbed the edge of the pool and dug my fingers into the rock. “Starr…no…yes…yes…no.”
Starr’s body shook, and I knew she laughed at me. She laved my manhood, leaving no measure untouched. With her tongue, she traced the throbbing vein, circled the coronal ridge, and flicked at the weeping meatus. That was hard enough to bear, but when she sucked me so deep that I hit the back of her
throat, my blood turned to molten streams of lava. I had never imagined such loving.
Pressure built, and I clenched my jaw and dug my fingers into the stone as if that could stop the tide.
She broke away, and short-circuited my strangled protest when she straddled my lap and impaled herself. Tight, wet walls closed around my manhood, gripping me in sublime rapture. When she rocked, control slipped from my grasp. I lost all volition. I grabbed her hips and thrust into her, racing toward the finish.
My ass scraped against the rough stones with every stroke. I grabbed the wet skein of her hair and twisted it around my fist, yanked her head back, and buried my face against her neck. I may have bitten her again. Need drove conscious thought from my brain.
Starr reached her own ecstasy, and her womanly core contracted, squeezing and milking my manhood. It surrendered to her, and I came, my body convulsing with rhythmic surges that wrung me out. Stars exploded behind my eyelids as I emptied myself into the brightest star of all, my mate.
Clasping her to my chest, I slid off the edge into the pool so she wouldn’t get chilled. The minerals stung my ass cheeks, scraped from the stones, but I didn’t care. For the moment, I felt replete. And guilty. I’d found my own rapture at the expense of my mate.
“I’m sorry,” I said, when I could speak.
“For what?”
“For not tending to your pleasure.”
My cock was embedded inside her, still partially tumescent. Her feminine core contracted around my member, and it responded with a throb. She craned her neck to stare into my eyes. That seductive smile curved her lips. “Are you kidding? I thought my body would break apart.” She thumped my shoulder with her fist. “I had the best orgasm of my life. Couldn’t you feel it?”
I nodded. Her contracting womanhood had triggered my release, but I should have been more attuned to her.
“When you bit me, something happened. I didn’t think I went for that, but it triggered something in me. Fire shot from my neck to my pussy.” She rubbed her neck.
I inspected the area. I had bitten her hard enough to break the skin. Twice, judging from the purpling wounds. I had marked her. I was appalled, yet deeply satisfied. She belonged to me.
Nobody will take her from me.
“You have a bruise. The kel will cover it so nobody will see,” I said.
But I would know.
She was mine.
Chapter Eleven
Starr
“She’s over here.” Torg’s voice floated in from far, far away. “You have to help her.”
My guts were being twisted inside out. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I dry heaved into a clay pot. My empty stomach had nothing to expel, but the retching continued unabated. With a moan, I fell onto the bed of hides. I’d never felt so miserable in my entire life. My body shivered as if freezing, but I was burning up. Perspiration had soaked the kel beneath me.
The queasiness had begun last night before Torg and I had retired, but I’d managed to fall asleep. A couple of hours later, I’d awakened to dash for a clay pot and upchucked the evening meal.
Torg had wanted to summon the healer right away, but I forestalled it, certain the nausea would pass and uncertain what primitive medicine could do for me, anyway. I could live in a cave and wear animal hides, but subject myself to Stone Age medicine? Uh no. I’d let my immune system work out the problem.
But it was failing, and though the sun hadn’t risen yet, Torg had overridden my protest and gone for the healer.
Torg and another man I surmised was their “doctor” knelt beside me. The healer frowned with concern, and Torg’s expression appeared as stony as the cave walls, except for a muscle twitching in his cheek. His fists were clenched. “I’ll be okay,” I tried to reassure him.
The healer spoke. “My name is Stovak. Tell me what’s going on.” He set a kel pouch beside the bed.
“She’s sick!” Torg said.
“Let her tell me.” Stovak’s eyes narrowed on my face. “Tell me exactly.”
“I’ve been throwing up.”
“How long? How often?”
“It started several hours ago. I felt a little queasy when I went bed.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Torg said.
“It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t think it was important.”
Torg’s eyes flashed. “Of course, it’s important. You—”
Stovak held up his hand. “Torg, please. Let her speak.” He focused on me. “How many times have you vomited?”
“Seven or eight.” I’d had two bouts in the time it had taken Torg to bring the healer.
Stovak glanced at Torg. “I need to examine her.”
He made a disgusted sound. “That’s why I summoned you.”
“I must touch her.”
The healer obviously knew my mate. He’d become a little possessive. He would not like another man touching me.
Torg’s lips thinned, but he nodded. “Do what you need to do.”
“Are you feverish or chilled?” Stovak placed his hand on my forehead.
“B-both.” I shivered as a spasm shot through me.
The healer probed my neck with a firm but gentle touch. “No swelling, that’s good.” He placed his palm on my chest and tilted his head to the side. “Your heart is racing. Did that start when I came, or has it been doing that all along?”
Until he asked, I hadn’t realized my heart had been racing, but he was right. “It started in the middle of the night, too.”
Stovak removed his hand, sat back onto his haunches, and frowned. “What have you eaten in the last day?”
“She had kel for the evening meal,” Torg answered for me.
My stomach roiled at the mention of food and eating. I pressed a hand to my mouth and another to my stomach.
“Did you eat it, too?” the healer asked Torg.
“Yes. And Darq, also.”
“How did you prepare it?”
“Roasted. With root vegetables.”
I grabbed the pot and heaved into it. Nothing came up, except for a dribble of stomach acid that burned my mouth and nose.
“And earlier?”
“A mash,” Torg said. A clan member had brought us a porridge of meat and grain.”
Good gods, they were going to kill me. Every mention of food twisted my guts. “Stop,” I pleaded.
“I’m sorry,” Stovak said. “But I suspect something you ate is making you ill.”
I flopped onto the bed. “Could I have some water?” My mouth tasted horrible. That alone was enough to make me sick.
The healer nodded, and Torg handed me a tankard. I rose up onto my elbows, took a gulp, swished the water around then spat it out into the clay pot. The next gulp I swallowed, and my stomach reacted by churning. I pressed my lips together and squeezed my eyes shut. Stay down. Stay down.
“Darq and I have not experienced any ill effects,” Torg said. “Everything we’ve eaten has been the same. “
Stovak asked, “This is true?”
“Yes,” I replied. My stomach spasmed. “Except for the biscuits.”
Stovak’s eyebrows shot up. “Biscuits?”
“What biscuits?” Torg echoed.
“The ones over there. In the basket.” I flung a hand toward the table piled with mating gifts.
Torg’s expression turned so stormy, I gulped. “I thought…it would be okay…weren’t they for eating?” It never occurred to me to ask permission. Had he been saving them for a special occasion? I’d assumed if the biscuits were a mating gift, they were for both of us, and I could eat them.
Torg shot to his feet and grabbed the basket from the table. “This is what you ate?”
“Yes.”
He handed it to the healer, who took a biscuit and sniffed it. “Macha.” He took a nibble. His face hardened. “When did you eat this?”
“Yesterday. About mid-morning.” I peered up at Torg. “You were out. I got a little hungry.” I lifted a shoulder. “It didn’t need cooki
ng.” On Terra, I’d been quite adept at using the flash-cooker which baked, boiled, or grilled food with a touch of a button, but managing a spit or a clay pot on coals from a wood fire exceeded my ability.
“You think macha sickened her?” Torg asked.
“Not the macha,” Stovak replied, “but the wheestile added to it.”
Torg frowned. “Wheestile isn’t harmful.”
“Not to us,” Stovak said.
Good gods! Had I ingested an alien concoction poisonous to humans? The biscuits had tasted delicious, sweet but with a spicy kick. So good, I’d eaten two of them. My heart pounded with fear. “What’s wheestile?”
“It’s an herb we use for flavoring, but you have to build a tolerance to it or it causes upset: nausea, vomiting, chills, and sweats.”
The symptoms I’d been experiencing. “Am I going to die?”
The healer’s chuckle calmed my panic. “No. You’ll feel miserable for a while, but based on the onset of the symptoms, you’ve experienced the worst of it. I can give you a draught to counteract the residual effects.”
Stovak handed the tankard of water to Torg. “Dump out most of this. Leave only a measure inside.”
Torg’s brows drew together in a fierce scowl. I’d never seen him so furious. He took the tankard, drained out the appropriate amount of water, and thrust it back to Stovak. From his bag, the healer withdrew a tiny pouch of crushed herbs and mixed a pinch into the liquid. “Drink this.”
I clutched the cup and downed the contents. I expected my stomach to protest, but almost immediately, it calmed.
“Better?” Stovak asked.
“A lot, actually,” I replied. “Thank you.” Maybe the Dakonians had some science after all.
I was better, but Torg wasn’t. He seemed to be breathing fire. “How many people are aware of wheestile’s effects?” he asked.