by Lia Nox
I gasped when the creature finally came into sight.
It burst into a nearby clearing, a tree trunk exploding into tiny little pieces as the beast’s horned head crashed against it.
It looked like an augmented version of a bull, expect it had long sharp fangs to go with its horns, its muscles so damn impressive I couldn’t help but wonder why the guys had decided to hunt it down.
When I asked for food I was thinking of something like a rabbit, not a damn monster that looked so furious it could make us its dinner. So much for a simple meal of veg and fruit…!
There were deep slashes on its back, and blood dripped down from the wounds. The guys were hot in the creature’s heels, their weapons ready, but it seemed like they were struggling to control something so big. I had no doubts that they could bring it down by themselves, but if I could help, even if just a little bit…
Holding my breath, I breathed out slowly and took aim. With my finger on the release trigger, I let instinct kick in and let the arrows loose. They flew across the air with a menacing whistle and two of them lodged themselves on the animal’s neck. As for the third, it sunk deep right between its eyes.
The creature fell on its haunches hard, and then rolled to the side with a heavy thud. The guys closed in quickly, surprised to see three arrows jutting out of the creature, and then looked up at me. I waved at them and, already anticipating a meal, climbed down from the tree and made my way toward them.
“Good.” Pointing at the crossbow in my hands, Zuvo gave me a proud nod. Then, returning his attention to the animal, he sighed. “Hard to find. Not good. Should be more.”
I said nothing at that.
This planet was completely alien to me, but it seemed there was something very wrong with it.
But as the guys got busy with dinner—Zuvo busied himself with cutting up meat for dinner while the other two got a fire going—my mind quickly changed gears and focused on the meal we’d be having.
Sitting on a log Axar cut for me, the three men by my side, I smiled as Zuvo started handing out the meat he was roasting over the fire. I closed my eyes after taking the first bite, a jolt of happiness waking my whole body up as my stomach finally got its dues.
I ate in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the food and hearing the guy’s conversation, but it didn’t take long before they forced me to join the fray. With quick hand gestures and a teasing smile, Tarnan fired a couple of questions in my direction. Piecing together the few words I could understand, I deducted he wanted to know about my past.
“I was a hacker.” Tapping an imaginary keyboard, I kept my eyes locked on Tarnan’s, but that only to see them widen in confusion. “I fixed tech too,” I continue, insisting on the pretend keyboard even though I knew it was all flying over their heads. “I stole information on the web, and then sold it.” Pretending I was weaving a web, I only stopped when Tarnan started laughing.
“Hacker,” he said, wiggling his fingers in front of him. Instead of looking like he was typing, it seemed like he was knitting a shirt. Great. Now they probably were thinking I was a seamstress or something like that.
“No, no,” I shook my head, held the translator necklace I’d fashioned towards him. “Computers. Technology.”
Hitting Tarnan with his elbow, Axar told him something in a low tone. Even though I could only pick up a few words, I somehow realized he had understood that I wasn’t a seamstress.
Well, that was a start. Although, if I didn’t find more usable tech here, being a seamstress might be a more worthwhile skill.
Our broken conversation lasted until the sun dipped below the horizon line, and then Axar rose up and laid the cloak down on the ground, right next to the fire. Understanding what he meant, I laid down on it and let a smile spread across my lips as the guys huddled close to me, the warmth of their bodies keeping the night’s growing cold at bay.
Even though I had no idea what was going on in this planet, one thing was for sure: I was quite enjoying the company I’d been given.
More than just the sex, they made me feel happy.
Content.
And maybe, something more.
Axar
We'd been able to navigate the land with relative ease, even in spite of the new strange breed of creatures that have kept trying to ambush us since we’d found the first base.
It had happened more times than I cared to count. I had never been one to worry - how could I be? If Zuvo and Tarnan couldn't handle it, I knew without any doubt that I'd be able to. And if I couldn't, I was willing to die trying.
Delia brought up the map again, examining it more for herself than for us. That being said, it didn’t hurt to be able to check we hadn’t strayed off of the beaten track due to our hunts for food, or when we’d played about with targets to give Delia more battle practice.
From what the glowing dot on the map showed us, we were still headed for the coast and were using the quickest route. There was no escaping that we’d have been quicker on our own, needing but a couple of days to make it, but taking our time in order to take Delia safe and fed wasn’t much of a burden. Not when we got to taste her, to fuck her.
Those stolen moments of pleasure made it all worthwhile.
But when the land started to quake beneath our feet my confidence dropped.
"What the-?" I looked around to see Delia stumbling about on her feet, her legs wobbling like a beast without any flesh, its insides bare and vulnerable. What was more unnerving though, was seeing how concerned Zuvo looked; a deep furrow had been etched into his brow, his eyes darting around to look for a source of the sensation.
There was none.
The thundering underground increased tenfold.
"Run!" I bellowed, my natural instinct being to run towards Delia and protect her. But before I could reach her giant cracks in the earth started to tear us all apart; the land had fractured and was taking us with it. I vaguely heard Tarnan call out to Zuvo then to me, before finally calling Delia's name, but then the din became too loud. I gripped my ears as my very skull shook from the vibrations.
It was like I was being violently shaken by hands so powerful that their force would pull me apart. It was awesome in its destruction. As I clambered to regain my footing, my vision tried ardently to lock-in on any of my companions.
Delia especially.
I knew that Zuvo and Tarnan could handle themselves no matter what, but Delia wasn't so assured when it came to self-defense. True, she'd grown as a fighter over the last few days, but her skill wasn't any match for an enemy you couldn't see.
A roar rumbled from somewhere off to my left, though I wasn't able to see any sign of it; it was alarmed and angry. The noise it was making was so primal that it stirred a carnal need deep inside of me. I wanted to run and fight all at once. It was maddening. In the distance I heard a wail, a high-pitched sound that could only belong to one person...
"Delia!" I could do little else than scream out for her, my muscles so fixed into place that I thought I might forget how to move.
I gritted my teeth. No way was anything on this planet, even the planet itself, going to best me. No fucking way!
My body barreled, aimlessly, ahead. I had no clue what was happening but I had to put that aside and think about the others. Not that it was going to be easy: the land had been raped by the unforgivable force of the quake, and in turn, it had unleashed every monster from their horrible hiding spots.
One after the other, they came out, surrounding me, their screeches mixing in with ones that I knew belonged to Delia - and was that Zuvo growling and roaring just now?
I bit down on my lip, my teeth piercing my skin and drawing a droplet of blood.
We were in real danger.
One of the creatures before me, a large and oversized bear-like beast, all sharpened claws and teeth, came at me, its muzzle snarling.
I reached for my spear but found that the tip had snapped off during the mad scramble after the first quakes; it had lost a
lot of its damage value.
I threw it anyway, but it did little to stop the fiend in its tracks; if anything, it had made it angrier. It opened its mouth and yellow bile came spewing out, coating its teeth before slapping the broken ground below. The smell was the vilest thing I had ever inhaled.
Knowing that I was down on weapons, widely outnumbered, and at a disadvantage because of the quake, I had little else to hand other than my limbs themselves.
If I had to fight tooth and nail until the very end, I would do so. Standing up to my full height and sucking in lungfuls of air, I flexed my muscles, causing them to ripple with trepidation, and flew into a blind rage. I swung and swiped as I went.
I was smacked down almost instantly.
This wasn't good.
Never had I been knocked back so quickly in a battle; this new sensation disarmed me worse than any beast could. Pounding my fists against my chest as I stood up and readied myself for another charge, this time I went low and aimed for its legs.
My own claws, normally kept away, came out and sliced into the muscles of its calves; I felt a snap as I tore through tendons. At least this was a beast of skin and bone, not the mechanical abominations we'd had to discharge before.
It wasn't dead yet though, far from it.
Angered by my attack, it reached out and wrapped its claws around me, the points breaking into my skin with ease.
I yowled out in torment. I couldn’t help but look onwards as fresh blood freely trickled down my waist. It squeezed tighter, the claws going in deeper.
I hated to think about it, but I had to consider that this might be how it ended for me...
Delia
"Arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!" came a guttural cry, shattering the air around us.
My eyes followed Zuvo and Tarnan as they ran towards me.
Tarnan had been scratched during a tussle with a few of the more confident beasts, the red line across his forehead and cheek angry and sore.
But otherwise everyone seemed okay, a fact for which I was thankful.
If more than Axar had been hurt, we’d been in dire trouble, even more so because despite their near-miraculous healing speed, Zuvo was still slightly impaired.
How and why had this happened?! My mind was frantic.
Noticing that it had company, the creature flung Axar to the ground, his body cracking on impact.
I screamed out at its sound, it was the most brutal noise I’d ever heard. I prayed that there'd only be bruises to nurse and little of anything else, but as I went to his side, I noticed weeping wounds around his waist.
He was still alive, and it could have been much worse, but it was still awful to see.
As Zuvo circled around the back and Tarnan moved in from the front, I started to apply makeshift bandages torn from the clothing underneath my armor. They were dirty and laced with my sweat, but they were far cleaner than anything else to hand, it was either this or have him bleed out.
"Axar, I'm here." I reached out a hand to touch his side, the interaction soft, intimate even, as if no fight warred all around us.
I nearly laughed when Axar gave me a flash of his self-assertive grin, his determination shining through. He wanted to show me that he hadn't been beaten. It was all I needed to convince me that he was going to make it.
I wrapped the dressing around as gently as I could. There was no need in truth, as Axar could handle anything after what he’d just gone through, but I still took care regardless.
By the time I'd knotted the bandages into place, Axar and I were able to catch the final death cry of the big, ugly brute as it flailed in pain. It pleased me on another level to see it suffer like that. I couldn't join in, I was far too incapable to tackle a monster like that, but my newly awakened bloodlust could still appreciate the visceral end it was meeting. Nobody would be able to hurt one of us and not suffer, that I promised, to myself and to the planet. Even if I couldn’t help a beast to meet its end, I knew whatever attacked us would eventually meet its demise.
Zuvo and Tarnan came over to join us, the last remaining stragglers from other herds of creatures now too afraid to come near. We all needed a moment to catch our breaths: the earth had shattered like glass, monsters had damaged our sense of safety, and Axar was hurt. Time needed to stop for us right now if we were to find the strength to carry on.
Ungraceful as a newborn babe, Axar lifted himself onto his legs, though thankfully just as Tarnan had rushed forward to take the weight of his body off of my own and onto his instead.
“We need to move.” I instructed, a suggestion everyone could agree with.
When Zuvo had first stepped forward to lead us, Axar had nodded in thanks, his own silent way of saying that he agreed with the decision.
Most of the journey back to some part of the land that wasn’t broken was spent with each of us mulling over the quake in our heads.
Why it had happened was what bugged me most, as I sensed it did for Zuvo, Axar and Tarnan.
What made it worse for myself, was that I didn’t know their world, so I wasn’t sure whether this was a normal occurrence or a sign that the planet could be dying.
Either way, it didn’t seem normal, not even for them. I could tell from how the others now walked, heavy and depressed, that they’d had been thrown off by what had happened. I just had clue how much it had damaged them, mentally. Was their earth dying, was that why everyone else had disappeared? It was a question I hated asking myself, let alone out loud to them, this was their home after all.
“Camp. Sleep.” Zuvo recommended, pointing towards a spot up ahead that seemed to offer more stable ground for us to settle at. I was more than ready to rest, my body starting to lose its adrenaline, allowing the anxiety that I’d held back to come through in an unstoppable flood.
Although he was already walking with more strength, Tarnan settled Axar down on the floor. It wasn’t hard to see that Axar’s natural desire was to take control for himself, to push himself to recover faster, to protect us all again.
I didn’t need anyone to tell me how much Axar wanted to keep this side of him away from me, a warrior such as he would see it as a sign of weakness. It wasn’t a view I agreed with, but I still tried to respect his mindset however different to my own.
As Tarnan went off to join Zuvo to take turns in standing guard, I placed myself down beside Axar and rested my head on his shoulder. It was an act I’d have normally saved for Tarnan, but I could sense how badly he needed nurturing.
“I know you won’t understand this,” My voice began. “But even warriors are allowed to rest when it's needed.”
Axar regarded me curiously: I guessed that my words had been lost on him, but I hoped that the endearment in my eyes wasn’t; I wanted to be his protector as he’d been mine up until now.
Tarnan came over to us to check on Axar’s wounds, and without even thinking I was up and in his arms again, pressing myself close to him. I was just so relieved.
Although it was a struggle, Axar got up onto his feet and came up behind me, his hands wrapping around my body and meeting Tarnan’s.
I didn’t even think as I leaned back and kissed him deeply, my lips searching out his, both of us yearning for a touch far deeper than our mouths crashing together.
I could have lost Axar. Lost all of them.
The thought sliced through my chest until all I could think of was I had to have them, all three of them, right at this second. I’d felt my lust bubbling up inside of me before, but this time around it was like every fiber of my being was alight with arduous desires. I craved them inside of me, one after the other, two of them at the same time, their fingers dipping into my slick folds.
Their tongues lapping as my juices ran down my inner thighs, the slickness making it easy for them to enter and take me however they wanted.
“I need you.” I whispered, my breath hot and heavy, my eyelids half closed with building sexually longing. It didn’t matter if my words always didn’t penetrate the language barrier, my
body, the way it ground against them, the way I writhed upon contact - that did talking enough for all of us.
As I moaned into another kiss between Axar and myself, my thighs rubbed up against the hardening length Tarnan had pressed against me. It felt good to feel his body respond to me in this way. Axar leaned into my back, though I could feel how much of a struggle it was for him to move like this after taking such a beating.
Normally I’d have stopped and changed positions, but the way he held me told me he needed this even more than I did. His thick cock was nestled by my ass, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning as I thought of all the ways they could both take me right now.
Sticking my head out to the side, my gaze locking on Zuvo’s, I reached my index finger out and curled it in a come-hither motion. No words were needed. He moved towards me, dripping with sexual energy to match my own.
“Take me. Right. Now.” I panted.
Tarnan
Our last battle had been intense. The ground shaking, the enormous monsters baying for our blood, the loss and confusion of being separated from the group, and then discovering Axar injured. It had all felt like too much, even for me.
So when Delia had rushed over to me and into my arms, it had been a wonderful moment. We’d only shared a short embrace, but that moment had kept me longing for more the entire length of the trek as we searched for somewhere more secluded and safer.
Nowhere would be entirely defensible, not after such a shock like that, but away from prying monsters would suffice.
Try as Zuvo and I had at keeping our minds on patrolling the camp and nothing else, the need for a release had far outweighed any fears of being caught off guard again.
I could tell that the others needed it as well; we were all craving Delia, to share in her warmth, her tenderness, the sweetness between her thighs. The very thought of tasting her, of her melting on my tongue and into my mouth… it sent my whole body stiff.