Part Three
RAAHOSH
A small hand jerks on my horn before I can bury my face between her legs again and drink the sweet nectar that flows from my mate’s body.
“What did you say?” she repeats again. The look on her face is utterly furious.
I narrow my eyes at her and try to dip my head again, but she twines her fingers in my hair and jerks instead, and I snarl at her. I want nothing more than to taste her again, to lick her for hours and hours until she’s trembling beneath me. Then, I will slide my cock into her warm, waiting well and we will be together as mates. As it should be. But the hand in my hair is insistent, and she snaps her knees together, trying to push
me out.
“You spoke fucking English.”
“I did,” I say, and force her knees apart again. I want more of her thick, sweet honey. I want to lose myself between her legs for hours. The men of my tribe say that there is no taste like that of a resonance mate on the tongue, and they are right. I never knew what they referred to until now. Now, I want to taste nothing but her for the rest of my days.
Her cunt can be my sustenance. All else is unworthy of notice.
I dip my head again, determined to lick her. She likes it when I lick her. Was she not pushing her slick, wet petals against my face moments ago? Demanding more? I will give her more. My cock aches, as hard as the stone in my spear-tip. I long to bury myself inside her, but I want more of her on my tongue first.
She gives an angry screech and slams a small fist into my eye. Then she cries out in pain and shakes her hand. “Damn you! Why is your head so hard?”
That gets my attention. My mate is hurt. I sit up and take her small hand in mine, only to have her try to hit me again.
“Stop touching me,” she bellows in my ear. “I am so stinking pissed at you! You speak English!”
“I do.” I catch the hand that rises to strike me before she can connect with my forehead again. It’s not that her hits hurt – it’s that she’s going to damage her soft little human hands. My brow is plated, and her
tiny fists are weak.
“You lied to me!”
That makes me angry. She thinks I willfully deceived her? For what purpose? “How did I do such a
thing?”
“You never told me!”
“You never asked,” I counter, my irritation rising. “You simply talk and talk and assume I don’t understand you. You never bothered to ask me if I could.”
Her pink face flushes, and I watch as she pants, her breath puffing in the cold air. “You are a dick.”
“I do not know what this word means.”
“Oh really?” Her voice is a sneer. “Here I thought you were the expert on the human language.”
“There are words you speak that have no match with what I have learned.”
“Funny. I thought ‘dick’ was the language of your people.”
I frown down at her. “I do not know this word, dick. I am sa-khui. That is my people.”
Her eyes roll and she pushes at my chest again. “It’s called sarcasm.”
“I do not know this word, sarcasm—“
“Never mind,” she bellows, clearly furious with me. “God!”
She’s mad at me? I saved her. If she’d have fallen into the water, they’d have torn the flesh from her bones in an instant. The thought of her suffering – dying – fills me with an incoherent rage. I straighten and stare down at her, naked legs still sprawled in the snow. She’s scowling up at me, which makes it easier to resist her beauty. “You shouldn’t have run from the cave.”
“Running? I wasn’t running.”
She can lie to herself, but not to me. I step forward and grab the front of her tunic, then haul her to her feet. She slaps at me, but I right her anyhow, and then she tugs on the hem of her tunic, a fierce frown on her face. I lean in close to her. Her scent is in my nose, making my khui resonate with hunger. I want nothing more than to press my mouth to hers and mate with it again.
But not while she is looking at me as if I am filth. My heart hardens a little and I lean in. “You belong to me, female.”
She smacks a hand to my shoulder, angry. “I don’t belong to anyone.”
“There is no place you can run that I will not find you and return you to me.” She doesn’t realize that every day she ignores the call of her khui, it will grow worse. There is no reasoning with it, or changing its
mind. It simply wants what it wants.
And it wants Liz to be my mate.
I want that, too. She’s mine, and I’m going to claim her yet.
“God, you are such a stalker,” she mutters, crossing her arms over her chest. “And if you must know, I was looking for materials for a bow.”
“A bow,” I repeat. This word is known, but the thing it calls to mind is not familiar to me. “It is a weapon, yes?”
“Yes,” she says, and gives me a challenging look. Her chin lifts. “I know how to shoot a bow. I can hunt, too.”
I grunt. Part of me is pleased that she wants to hunt, and part of me worries. The women in our tribe are so few that they do not participate in the hunting treks. They stay close to the caves, because we have lost many in our tribe over the last few years, and if we lose more, we cease to exist. But I see the determination on Liz’s face and know she will not like that answer.
So…a grunt is what she gets.
“What is that supposed to mean?” She gets right in my face and tries to reach for one of my horns, no doubt to tug me down to her height and get my attention. My Liz is brave. I have respect for that, even if it’s infuriating.
I stand at my full height so she can’t pull any more of my hair or tug on my horns. “You belong to me. If you need something, you come to me. My job is to provide for you.”
“Well, great,” she says in a testy voice. “How about you provide my friends to me, hmm?”
I ignore that. I’m not taking her back until we are mated. Instead, I head over to the face-eater I killed for her. If she wants it for her bow, she’ll have it. “Come. You need to go back to the cave. Your human flesh is still weak despite your khui.”
“Gee, you didn’t think it was so weak when you grabbed me and ripped my pants off.”
I turn to give her a quelling look. Was she trying to pretend that she didn’t like it when I touched her?
Her cheeks are bright pink, which is curious. I study her for a moment more, and she squirms under my hard gaze. “You did not seem to mind my touch.”
Her face turns even redder. “Oh, just throw that back in my face why don’t you.”
Her words make no sense to me, but the color in her cheeks tells me plenty. She is embarrassed. I find it charming, even more so when her hands move to cup the tiny tuft of hair between her legs and shield it from my gaze. Does she think that protects her? I licked every inch of her mere moments ago. I study her bare thighs, her feet still covered in my boots. My own feet are barely aware of the cold, but I see her soft human skin is prickling with the cool temperatures. I must ensure that she is warm and taken care of.
But Liz is a fighter, and she’s choosing to fight me. So I grab the dead face-eater and the long tube they use as a lure, and sling it over one of my shoulders. “Are you coming, or do I carry you?” I ask her.
She scowls darkly at me. With a jerk, she scoops up the torn halves of her pants and storms ahead of me.
“You are such a dick. I hate you.”
“Do you ever stop talking?” I ask.
She raises her middle finger in the air in my direction. I’m not sure what it means, but I can guess it’s not pleasant. “I guess I’m walking back pantsless. Thanks a lot.”
“Do you want my loincloth?”
Her face turns that bright red again, and she gives me a scandalized look. “So you can be naked? No thanks.”
Her refusal just further emphasizes how unattractive she finds me. It stings. “Whatever will silence you,” I jab back.
She makes an outraged noise, and then storms ahead of me.
Liz is silent as we make our way back to my secret cave. I let her walk in front of me, so I can guard her… and so I can watch her small, pert bottom as it flexes when she walks. She has no tail, so the view is a curious one…but still arousing. I mentally picture bending her over, spreading her bottom, and then licking all of her wet female parts again until she screams her pleasure once more.
By the time we get back to the cave, my khui is resonating and my cock aches fiercely. It strains against my loincloth, the ache almost unbearable. Is she not suffering, too? Why does she fight this?
A resonance mate is always final.
Liz heads into the cave without a backward glance at me. She’s still angry – it rolls off her in waves. That’s fine. Let her resist if she thinks it will make a difference. She is mine. She was claimed the moment her khui
resonated for me.
Nothing she does will change this.
As if she can sense my turbulent, possessive thoughts, she grabs one of the furs and wraps it around her waist, then turns to me. “I know what your goal is, here.”
My brows draw together. My goal? I have no goal other than to claim her as my mate. So we can be one.
“You’re going to hide me away until I’m pregnant, right?” She sounds defeated, the look in her eyes
miserable.
“And what if I am?”
“Once again, I’m being held hostage for my vagina.” She sighs. “What is it with you aliens? Can’t a girl just make her own decisions for once? Is that so freaking hard?”
“The khui has decided,” I tell her.
She gives a small shake of her head. “It’s always someone else’s decision. When’s it going to be mine?”
I watch her, frustrated. There is no decision to be made. The khui has decided. And yet…I don’t like the way her words make me feel.
Or the defeat in her voice. Liz is a fighter. I don’t want her to give up.
LIZ
Things are uncomfortable in the cave when I come back. I ignore Raahosh and concentrate on sewing my pants together again with a few scraps of leather that I use as thick ties. I knot my pants every few inches instead of using one long thread in the hopes that things hold together better, and I blush the entire time I work on them.
Raahosh putters around the front of the cave, getting water and melting it, gathering more dung chips for fire fuel, and then butchering the thing that we killed at the river. He saves the bamboo for me, and then takes the bits of the creature with him, mumbling something about ‘bait for traps’ under his breath.
I say nothing. I’m still pissed at him. Actually, pissed is not the word. I’m frustrated. Frustrated beyond belief. I know it’s not his fault that our cooties decided to become friends, but can the guy throw me a bone and freaking help me out instead of acting like I’m the problem? Excuse me if I don’t want to automatically jump in the sack and demand that he squirt me with his baby batter.
My face grows hot as I remember our little throw down in the snow. I think of him ripping my pants off, and my cootie starts vibrating and I get wet between my legs again. Gah. This is so frustrating.
I don’t know which is worse – the endless horniness the cootie brings, or the fact that Raahosh has let me yammer on and on without telling me that he understands English. I try to recall all the things I’ve said and draw a blank. Truth is, I ramble and I don’t remember what has come out of my mouth. Ugh.
A few hours alone lets me fix my pants, and when I put them on, they’re a lot tighter, but they still fit. The downtime away from Raahosh also puts me in a better mood and gives me some perspective.
Really, he’s just as trapped as I am. And maybe it’s the orgasms talking, but he did a lot of giving and very little taking in our, ahem, snow incident. Maybe I’m being too hard on him. He is right about one thing, though – I never bothered to ask him if he spoke English. I just assumed he was an ignorant alien…which makes me a jerk.
I sigh. I’m not sure if I’m ready to apologize, but I do know I’m mentally exhausted from fighting with him all the time. It’s getting me nowhere. My dad used to tell me I could catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Lately, all I’ve been doing is spewing vinegar. No wonder I’m not getting anywhere.
And while Raahosh and I still have opposite wants – he wants a wife and baby-carrier, and I want to be left alone – we can still act like adults.
It’d be nice to have a friend again, I think wistfully. The girls I was captured on the ship with? Those were forced friendships. If we hadn’t been stuck together, would we have ever spoken two words to each other? I miss home. I miss my friends. I miss my dad, gone for five years now.
When sunset approaches, I take stock of the cave, knowing Raahosh will appear soon. I’ve tried to make things as presentable as possible. I’ve gotten extra water, braided my hair to keep it out of my face, repaired my clothing, stoked the fire, and started working on a cord for my bow. The bamboo we’ve gotten is different than what I expected, but it’s hollow and has a bit of give to it, not unlike bone. I’m going to try wrapping it in leather at certain spots to reinforce it, and hope for the best.
He enters the cave shortly, two smaller creatures hanging from his hand. Tonight’s dinner.
“Welcome back,” I tell him.
Raahosh pauses and frowns at me, and I can see the wheels working in his mind. He’s trying to figure out my angle. Like I have an angle other than trying to be a decent human being? I sigh. “Look. We started off on the wrong foot, all right? You forced me to get the cootie, and I’ve been making you pay for it ever since.
Can we call a truce for a bit? I’m tired.”
He grunts and kneels by the fire, stoking it.
“You’re not a chatty sort even on the best of days, are you?”
He glances over at me. “And you would talk to the walls if they would listen.”
My smile grows tight. “You’re making this whole ‘truce’ thing hard, dude. Fair warning.”
I expect another grunt from him. Instead, he nods. “That was not kind of me. I apologize.”
I sit back, surprised that he caved. “Well…okay then.” I move toward the fire and sit across from him.
“You want help with dinner?”
“Dinner?”
I gesture at the kills. “Dressing those? Skinning? Making it food?”
He gives me another narrow-eyed look. Not an angry one, I think, but more along the lines of trying to figure me out. “It is my job to provide for my mate.”
“Ah.” I think for a minute, and then hug my knees to my chest. My bare feet wiggle near the fire. “Can we save some of those skins for boots for me?”
He nods.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “I’m not going to run away, just so you know. There’s nowhere for me to go.”
Again, he nods. I stare into the fire as he begins to skin his kills. I need to get him talking, if only so I can crack open the hard shell that seems to be around his mind. He’s a hard man to figure out, this Raahosh. “So
tell me about this place.”
He looks up at me. “This is my cave.”
“No, not this place specifically,” I say, gesturing at the cave. “This planet. This entire world. I don’t know anything about it other than that it’s cold.”
Raahosh grunts, and for a long moment, I think he’s going to ignore my questions. Then, he pulls out a smaller knife than his skinning one and begins to cut the meat into smaller, bite-sized chunks. “This…is the warm season. We say it is the bitter season, and the colder months the brutal season.”
My eyes go wide. I sputter. “But there’s three feet of snow on the ground!” How can this possibly be warm?
His mouth curves slowly, and I see a devastating smile spread across his face. It makes the breath escape my lungs and turns his hard, blade-sharp features into something deadly sexy. “You will just have to get used to the snow.”
“Snow. Right.” I ignore the throb of my girl parts in response to that smile. My cootie starts up and I mock-cough, thumping my chest to try and shut it up. “So this is…summer?”
He cocks his head, mentally searching through words, I imagine, and then nods. “What you call winter is a time of very little light. The suns barely show their faces and there is much darkness. It grows much colder and game grows scarce. That is why it is so important to hunt so much during the warm months.”
I nod, digesting this. Okay, if this is about as warm as it’ll ever get, I’ll live. I won’t like it, but I’ll live. “And you’re a hunter?”
He nods and offers me a bite of red, bloody meat. I take the bit from him and pop it into my mouth, raw.
A burst of flavor sweeps over my tongue and I moan. It’s so good this way.
His hands jerk against the kill and as I watch, his breech-cloth gets tight over his groin. Oops.
“Um, it’s tasty. Sorry.”
“Do not apologize.” He cuts into the meat viciously. “I am pleased that I can feed my mate.”
Yeah, I can see that he’s pleased. There’s no hiding that fact. I eye the enormous length from under my lashes for a long moment. He hands me another tiny chunk, and I lean forward and take it into my mouth directly from his fingers without thinking. His glowing blue eyes flare, and my cootie starts up all over again.
Stupid cootie, always fronting me out.
Raahosh watches me chew, and when he holds another piece of meat out to me, he pulls it away when I reach for it with my fingers. He wants me to eat from his hand again. I lean in and let my tongue graze his fingertips, just because it’s cruelly fun to tease him.
And it turns me on. Just a little.
His bloody fingertips trace my lips before he pulls back again, and then he shifts on his haunches. His cock is a hard bar against his leg, bigger than any dude’s junk has the right to be.
“So, what is that creature called?” I ask him, rubbing a hand up and down my arms to stop the goosebumps from rising on my skin. I’m totally turned on right now, damn it. Raw meat and an asshole captor should not be making my girl parts juice but I can’t seem to help myself.
He glances down at the raw meat and cuts another piece for me. “We call it two teeth.” He pulls back the lips of the creature to show me two gigantic fangs. It’s like a beaver. Kinda. A vampire beaver. With a row of spikes along its back and fuzzy, fluffy feet.
Okay, so it’s nothing like a beaver, but my brain feels better associating it with earth animals.
“You’re not eating,” I point out to him as he holds another bite out for me.
“My mate comes first,” he says, and gives me another scorchingly-intense look as he pops the meat into my mouth and then brushes my lips with his thumb. “I will eat when she is sated.”
I squirm a little. This is the most bizarrely sexualized meal I’ve ever had. I shouldn’t be enjoying myself half as much as I am. “Tell me about your tribe? Your family?”
The hungry, aroused look on his face vanishes, and I see his expression tense, becoming a mask of
indifference. “I have no family.”
“None? But what about your parents?”
“Dead.” The look on his face is closed off.
“I see. No brothers or sisters?”
He shakes his head. “My mother only resonated the once for my father.”
“Ah.” Raahosh seems lost in thought, so I continue on. “Do you have close friends in your tribe?”
“Vektal.”
Getting this guy to open up is like prying teeth. “I met him. What about the others?”
He eyes me. “Why do you wish to know?”
“Because I’m going to be living there soon? They’re going to be my tribe, too?” Saying it aloud makes me a little heartsick. “What if they don’t like me?”
His thick, ridged brows draw down, as if he doesn’t quite grasp this. “You are my mate. There is no like or dislike. You will be part of the tribe.”
“Easy for you to say,” I tell him. “You grew up with them. You’re the same species. I’m a weird outsider who won’t stop talking, remember?”
He gazes at me for a long time, expression inscrutable. Then, after what feels like forever, he offers me another chunk of meat. I take it, and he says, “There are two kits in our tribe currently. With Georgie, that will be three. And if the others resonate, that will be more.”
I absorb this information. “And women? How many women?”
“Without the humans? Four, if you do not include the kits.”
I blanch. That leaves a lot of unsatisfied men. Maybe it’s a good thing that Raahosh hid me away in this cave for a bit. I wonder if the other girls that didn’t resonate are going to be fought over like scraps at dinner. “How many men?”
“Twenty four of us are left. Twenty unmated.”
“Left?”
He nods, carving another piece of meat away. “Life here is difficult. We lost many of our tribe several years ago on a bad hunt. Four of our men were killed and one female before we could bring down the ta-li.”
He shakes his head. “It was a bad time.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It is why the women no longer hunt. It is not that they cannot, it is that we will not risk the life of the tribe by putting them in jeopardy.”
I open my mouth to reply and he immediately pops another bite of meat into it. This feels like a shushing tactic, so I chew quickly and then continue. “But you have the human chicks now. That means that you’re no longer one big sausage party. That’ll bring the tribe up to…” I count for a moment. “Twelve humans and thirty of you guys means there’s forty two of us. Plenty of hunters.”
“Not many will wish to risk their mates on a hunt,” he said, offering her another piece of meat. She refused it, and he ate it, instead, his expression thoughtful. “Many will no longer want to hunt at all.”
“Why not?”
“Hunts are very solitary by nature. We got out for long periods of time into the snows. We might be gone a full turn of the moons before returning home.”
“Like a month?”
He shrugs. “Most hunt alone. It is easier to cover more ground that way. We hunt smaller game in many different directions and cache the kills under the snow so we can recover it later, when the land is forbidding and all the good game has gone to hibernate to get out of the ice.”
“So hunters…are alone a lot? It’s probably not the worst thing in the world, given that you’ve only got four girls back at home,” I muse. “Is that what you do?”
He nods. “I am a hunter. I spend more time out in the wild than at the tribal caves.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why spend more time alone than back at home?”
His glowing blue gaze neatly pins me in place. “There is nothing for me there. At least in the wild I can provide for my people. At home, I only see what others have that I do not. Sometimes it is…difficult.” The look he shoots me is utterly possessive once more, and I know he’s talking about mates.
I swallow hard. So he voluntarily exiles himself for long periods of time so he’s not around all the happy couples? My heart twinges with pity. No wonder Raahosh is crappy being around people. “Dammit, don’t make me feel sorry for you.”
He grunts and savagely cuts another bit of meat off the kill, then chews it, the expression on his face bitter. “I do not want your pity, woman.”
“Pity’s all you’re getting from me tonight,” I quip.
He bares his teeth in a snarl. “Your words are not amusing to me.”
“I wasn’t trying to amuse you,” I point out. Then I get to my feet, irritated. “Ugh. I don’t know what to do with you.”
“I want my mate,” he grits out, still at the fire. “That is how this works. The khui has decided that you and I shall be mated. Nothing in that can be changed. You will be mine, and that is all there is.”
“Is that so?” I turn back to him and put my hands on my hips. “I want to go hunting. How do you like them apples?” He cocks his head, and I realize he’s trying to analyze my words. “It’s a human saying,” I snap.
“I want to hunt and provide for myself. And you know what? I’d like to decide for myself, too. When do I get to decide what I want, damn it?” I fling my arms wide. “Everyone around me thinks they know what I should be doing, but you know what I want? No, you don’t, because no one asks me.”
“You want to hunt,” Raahosh says in a flat voice.
“That’d be good, for starters.”
“Very well. I will take you hunting in the morning.”
I blink at him in surprise. His mood seems dark, but he’s…going to let me join him hunting? “Really? Just like that?”
“Provided…” He pauses and gives me another heated look.
“Oh, here we go,” I mutter, then wave at him to continue. There is always a catch, isn’t there? “Lay it on me.”
“I will take you hunting if you lay with me tonight as mates do.”
“If you think I’m going to bone you for the privilege of hunting–”
“Not sex. Boning?” He looks at me curiously. “Not boning. Just touching. Holding each other.”
My guilty little heart twitches again. He’s lonely. God, I am such a dick. Poor Raahosh, to get stuck with the most stubborn woman ever. I soften. “I can handle that, I think.”
Raahosh gives me a silent nod, and then straightens. “We should clean the cave and prepare for the hunt tomorrow if we will be out.”
“Let’s do it,” I say, hiding my excitement. Truth is, I’m a little nervous and fluttery at the thought of sleeping in his arms tonight and letting him touch me. My mind goes back to the fierce pussy-licking from earlier and a pulse of need rocks through me. My cootie immediately starts purring so loud it sounds like a chainsaw. Dammit, cootie. Show some restraint, girl.
We putter around the cave for the next few hours and it’s surprisingly companionable. Raahosh makes me a pair of shoes with some scraped leather hides he’s been saving for the past few days. I knew he’d treated them with a mash of innards and crap he’d used from the critters themselves, and the results were a tough leather with a bit of fur on the inside to keep my feet warm. They are little more than mittens for my
feet with drawstrings at the ankles, but I’m pleased with them nevertheless. I work on my bow, and when I tell Raahosh about the kind of material I need for the bowstring, he produces something from his traveling pack that’s a lot like a thick twine. I string my bow and hope for the best, and then set about making arrows.
I have to use bone for those, and the ribs and wing-bones from something unnameable that looks like an ostrich with shorter legs — four of them, mind you — ends up being perfect. I now have arrows that are a little bit shorter than I am used to, but lightweight and deadly as needles at the tip after a good sharpening.
I sharpen and fletch my arrows for what feels like hours, until the fire dies down and I’m nodding off with the knife in my hand.
Raahosh takes the arrow from my grip as I struggle to stay awake. “It is time to sleep,” he tells me.
“Oh, but I’ve only got four of them,” I tell him with a soft protest. “That’s not a lot of hunting.”
“We have spears and knives as well. You can learn more ways to hunt,” he says, voice low and tender as he carefully puts my bow and arrows aside. “Come and undress for bed, my mate.”
I should have protested that I wasn’t his mate, but all that comes out is a yawn. “I can sleep in my clothes.”
“Not if we are sleeping as mates,” he murmurs. “This is what you have promised to me.”
So I did. I’m too sleep-drowsy to protest, and I don’t realize just how exhausted I am until he stands me up and my legs feel like Jell-O. When Raahosh leans me against him and begins to undo the laces at the neck of my tunic, I realize he’s warm and oddly soft, despite the hard protective ridges along his arms, chest, and other parts of his body.
My hand goes to his pectorals and I rub them under his vest. “You’re soft,” I murmur. Touching him is like touching…suede or doe-hide. There’s a fine layer of fur on his skin that I didn’t notice until now, but it’s soft and oh-so-warm and I can’t stop petting him. I actually don’t mind the thought of sleeping naked against him if he feels like this.
My cootie purrs an agreement, the little whore.
“Arms up.” His voice is a soft rasp, and I sleepily raise both of them before I can stop to think. In the next moment, my tunic whisks over my head and then I’m topless in front of him. My cootie’s humming in my breast, and my nipples harden, even as I yawn again. “Pants,” he says, and he’s not grabbing at me or making me feel weird, so I obediently step out of them and hand over the clothing. I watch with sleepy eyes as he turns away and carefully folds my things, setting them nearby. Then, with his back to me, he begins to undress.
That gets my attention. I watch his arms flex as he undoes the laces in the front of his chest and then removes his own tight-fitting tunic. Then he’s down to his tall boots and his breechcloth. I’m totally creeping on him at this point, watching his ass flex as he undoes the ties on his breechcloth and it slides to the ground. He steps out of it, lifting one leg with casual grace, and I see the sway of his balls from between his legs. Then his ass flexes again and his tail lashes, and I just stare.
Why is a tail sexy to me? Why does the sight of it flicking over that taut ass do terrible, nasty things to my girl parts? He glances over his shoulder at me, and the look is so heated, I get all aroused and squirmy.
I’m not sure if us being naked together is a good idea, but I also don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to.
And…I kinda don’t want to.
He turns to face me again and his cock juts forward from his body, long and obvious. He’s completely erect, and I try not to stare at his different anatomy. I’m no virgin, but Raahosh has a monstrously huge dick, and to top it off, it seems to have…ridges along the top, the bumpy, rough plated areas like his arms and chest have.
That will either feel really awesome or really awful.
I frown as I stare at the blunted horn a few inches above his cock. I remember it from last time, but the sight of it baffles me as much with a second viewing. “What’s that for?”
He steps forward and his hand caresses it in a way that makes me feel filthy with lust. “My spur?” He shrugs. “It is part of my body.”
“Yes, but does it have a purpose? I mean, other than to freak out Earth girls?”
Raahosh takes my hand and moves me toward the nest of furs. “Do your men not have such things?”
“Yeah, that’s a big no.”
“Do I frighten you? Is that why you turn me away?” He looks almost hopeful.
Weird. “I’m not scared of you.”
His expression blackens. “Then you turn me away for other reasons.”
“Reasons like, oh hey, it’s not my choice? That’s enough reason for me.” I thump to the blankets and slide into them, scooting to the far edge of the nest. The blankets make a nice, snuggly bed, but they don’t make a very large one.
He doesn’t get into bed next to me, and I hike the covers up to conceal my breasts, suddenly embarrassed. I’m the only one, because he squats next to the bed and studies me, and his cock sticks out like a third leg as he rubs his chin and muses. I try not to make eye contact with, ahem, his small head.
“Is it because I am ugly?” he asks after a long moment. “Is that why you hate being mated to me?” He rubs the scars on the side of his face thoughtfully.
I frown up at him. “You’re not ugly.”
“I am scarred. Surely you have noticed.”
I snort. “I’m not blind. It’s a little obvious.”
His expression closes off and he gets to his feet. I’ve hurt his feelings. Damn it, the man’s more prickly than even I am. I clasp his ankle to stop him, and he gazes down at me with those narrow, blade-sharp eyes that seem to hide all emotion. “You misunderstand me,” I say. I don’t know why it matters to me that I don’t hurt him, but it does. “I think it’s obvious that you’re scarred. You’re missing a horn. But I didn’t say it was unattractive.” I lick my lips. “I kind of like it.”
His eyes narrow again.
My fingers slide over the soft suede of his ankle, caressing the hard tendons under his flesh. There’s not an inch of him that is soft with fat. He’s all lean and wild and…well, even if I didn’t have a cootie, he would probably be my type. “The only thing I don’t like about this situation is the fact that I don’t have choices. It’s not you. It’s me. Does that make sense?”
He squats again, and his cock comes precariously near my hand. I try not to notice, try being the key word. “There is no choice when it comes to mating. The khui decides. It is what makes strong children.”
“Back where I am from, the woman decides.” Okay, that might be a little broad, since a lot of women don’t get to decide, but I’m running with it. “The man courts her and she lets him know if she appreciates his efforts.”
He flings his arms wide, gesturing at the cave. “Do I not court? Is this not all effort to show you how I can provide?”
“Kidnapping me from the others and then pretending like it’s courting doesn’t count, no,” I snap. “You know what? I give up on trying to be nice. You’re determined to take everything I say the wrong way. Forget it.” I lie back in bed and pull the covers up, then turn on my side so my back is to him.
He lies down next to me. Of course he does. The man wouldn’t know the word ‘no’ if it bit him in the face. I ignore him anyhow, determined to go to sleep. He wants to lie down like a couple? That’s fine – this can be his first experience with the wifely cold shoulder. Welcome to married life, Raahosh.
I roll my eyes at nothing when he reaches for my arm and strokes it. “Did you change your mind?”
“Change my mind?” I don’t turn to look at him, because if I do, he might get a fist in the face.
“About hunting? Do you not want to go in the morning?”
My jaw clenches. “You are such a blackmailing jerk.”
He pauses. His hand strokes down my arm, eliciting a response that ticks me off almost as much as his next comment. “I do not understand these words. What is a jerk?”
“Your people. Next question?”
He grunts, and I can’t tell if he’s annoyed at my snide commentary. “Black…mail? What is this?”
“That’s when you force me to do things I don’t want in exchange for something that I do want.”
This time he makes a sound of disbelief. His long fingers trail up and down over my skin, and it prickles in response. My pulse beats hard between my legs, and I can feel myself getting wet just at that small touch.
“You say you do not want it. The only thing that says you do not want this is your mouth.”
“It’s allowed to have its say, too.”
“It says plenty,” he comments sourly.
“And see, shit like that is why you don’t get laid.” I pull away from him. “Quit touching me.”
He chuckles and leans in, his mouth brushing over my skin. “Ah. More of this mating ritual? I remember it from before.”
And his hand covers my breast, squeezing my nipple.
I sputter and flick his hand away even as my cootie starts a symphony with his. “What are you doing?”
His hand returns to my breast, his big arm pinning my flailing ones. He caresses and cups my breast while holding me down, and begins to nibble along my shoulder. “I am courting you as you have shown me. You tell me not to touch you…which is human mating talk for me to pleasure you.”
“It is not!” But then I remember holding his face down between my legs, grinding against him with my pussy. I don’t want you to touch this.
Well, damn. I have been sending this boy some mixed up signals, haven’t I? Time to explain. “Raahosh, I think we need to have a little talk. I–” My words cut off in a surprised yelp when his fangs score my shoulder, and my nerve endings go wild. That should not have felt as good as it did. That should not have made my entire body sing. But my cootie’s gone mad with delight, and when he nibbles on my shoulder again and drags his tongue over my neck, I don’t fight. And when his hand goes between my legs to cup my mound?
I’m wet. I’m so wet.
And I moan, unable to resist.
“You see,” he murmurs, his tongue brushing against my ear. Oh, it’s ridged. I keep forgetting it’s ridged, too, and the rasp of it against my flesh makes me wild. “I am learning how to court you, my Liz.” His fingers glide through my folds, and then dip, seeking my slick heat. One caresses the opening to my core, and I arch against him, wishing for more than just a finger. I feel the hard, impossible length of his cock against my back, and I want to be filled with it.
“No sex,” I breathe out. Truth be told, if he rolled me onto my stomach and pushed into me from behind, I’d probably be just fine and dandy with it. But a girl’s got to hold on to her standards.
“I am still courting you, my mate,” he says in a low voice, his throat humming with the ferocity of the cootie resonating in his chest to match mine. “Allow me to lick and pleasure you for tonight, as we
promised.”
Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.
Oh, who am I kidding? I want his touch yesterday. I need his hands all over me. I need him to keep exploring my body and stop with soft touches and get down to some dirty, dirty business. “Raahosh,” I moan, reaching back to touch him. My hand slides into the thick mane of his dark hair and I find a horn. I clutch at it, happy for the handlebar as he strums my body with his fingers, his chest purring hard against my own.
“Your nectar fills your cunt for me,” he murmurs into my ear, and then tenderly licks the shell. “Shall I sip it and taste of my mate?”
“That is so corny of you,” I breathe, but damn, his corny lines are getting me all squirmy with need. His finger keeps circling my aching core, and I want nothing more than for him to push it deep and start fucking me with his big fingers instead of just teasing me.
“Corny?”
“Just another saying,” I tell him, and then make a weird mewing noise when he dips his finger inside me.
“Oh God, keep touching me like that.”
“Do you want my fingers?” He buries his face against my neck, and I feel the rasp of the hard ridges on his brow against my chin as he nuzzles my throat. My breasts ache for his touch, and I begin to play with my nipples, rocking my hips against his finger that feels just barely inside me. “Or do you want me to lick the nipple between your legs until you scream my name?”
A horrified giggle escapes my throat. “Did you just say n-nipple? Between my legs?”
That gets his attention. He sits up and frowns down at me. “Is that not what it is?”
“No! Nipples are on breasts!”
His hand leaves my pussy and slides to my breasts, and I moan when his wet fingers begin to trace a circle around one areola. “These are nipples, yes?”
I nod, unable to speak. His touch feels too good.
“Humans are so soft,” he comments, flicking his big thumb over my taut nipple and then rolling it between his fingers, fascinated by the hard nub of it. “We are not built like this.”
“No?” I shift until I’m on my back instead of my side, and I’m gazing up at him. I reach up and boldly caress one of his pectorals, sliding my hand over his nipple and feeling it. Sure enough, it feels like a rock.
My fingers flick over it, and I’m surprised. “Wow. That’s…different.”
The breath hisses from his throat at my touch. Encouraged, I keep rubbing my thumb over his nipple – even though it’s already hard, I can tell he’s enjoying my touch.
He caresses my breast a moment longer, and then his mouth dips toward mine. I meet it, even though I tell myself that kissing him is not smart. That it’s going to lead to nothing but false expectations. I can’t help myself, though. The moment that velvety skin brushes against mine and his lips meet my lips, I’m a goner. I kiss him back, reveling in the feel of his hard mouth. He licks at my tongue, even as his hand caresses my breast, and I push against him. My arms twine around his neck and I pull him down against me, feeling his big, heavy chest against my breasts. The ridges along his skin – rough, hard patches on his arms and the center of his chest – feel odd mixed in with the plush suede of the rest of his skin, but when I rub my nipples up against him, the dichotomy feels incredible. I moan again, lost in the sensation.
His cock prods my abdomen, and I feel the hot beads of pre-cum drag against my skin, leaving wet trails.
He continues to kiss me, his tongue dancing against mine, and his hand moves down my side and rests on my hip. “If it is not a nipple, then what is it?”
I chuckle against his mouth, amused by his alien lack of understanding about female anatomy. Really, I suppose it does make sense to think it’s a nipple. “It’s called a clitoris. Or a clit, for short.”
His hand slides to my pubic hair and he drags his fingers through it before finding my clit again. He brushes the tips of his fingers over it in a careful exploration that makes me grip him against me, hard. “And what purpose does it serve?”
“It, um, just feels good.” I don’t know if the clit has any sort of anatomical purpose. It’s not like a kidney or anything. My breath explodes when he circles it with his finger again. “Oh God. Really, really good.”
“Mm? So you like it when I touch it?”
I cry out and my fingernails dig into his skin when he continues the indolent, aggravating circles around the small patch of sensitive skin. I lift one leg and wrap it around his hips, and my pelvis bucks against his touch. “God, yes. Please…”
“Will you say my name, Liz?” He presses light kisses to my mouth even as he continues to touch my clit in maddeningly slow, grazing motions.
I lick my lips, whimpering with his touches. “Why?”
“Because I want to hear my mate say my name when she comes for me,” he murmurs, and nips at my chin.
Another whimper escapes my throat. “How…” God, it’s getting hard to think. I just want to grab his hand, shove his big fingers inside me, and ride until I’m coming like a madwoman. “How do you know…I’m about to come?”
“Are you not?” His teeth graze my chin, and then he begins to lick down my neck. “Shall I drink your sweet nectar from the source until you do?”
“Oh God,” I moan. My fingernails dig into his shoulders. His filthy, weird words are going to make me come like crazy. I’m so close as it is. “Raahosh…I need a finger inside me. Fuck me with your hand.”
He groans against my throat and his tongue flicks against the cords of my neck. “Say my name again and I shall give you whatever you want.”
“Raahosh,” I cry, and one big finger brushes against my core again. This time when I arch against him, it sinks deep. I bellow his name again, and my cootie gives a long, hard shiver of delight in my chest. “Just like that! Oh God!”
“Say it again,” he demands, and thrusts into me with his finger.
I buck against it, clinging to him. “Raahosh! Raahosh!” My cootie purrs so loud I feel as if it’s drowning me out, and then when he thrusts again, his thumb grazes my clit. My body explodes and I repeat his name with a keening cry as I come.
The breath hisses from him as he continues to pump into me with his finger, over and over again. “I feel that,” he says, voice soft with wonder. “I feel you clenching against my fingers.”
A hot blush heats my cheeks and I push at his hand, since I’m starting to feel oversensitized. He ignores my attempts to brush him away and keeps thrusting into me, a fascinated look on his face.
“My mate,” he says reverently. “My Liz.”
Oh dear. I have a feeling if I don’t distract him away from his shiny new toy, I’m not getting out of this without him ‘claiming’ me for real. Of course, the thought sends another shiver through my body and my thighs clench around his hand, which doesn’t help. His cootie purrs even louder in his chest, and both of them sound like a cacophony in my ears.
“Let me taste you,” he says, and begins to move down my body.
Wait, wait, wait. I’m not ready for that again. Not with my legs still quivering like noodles. “Actually,” I say, latching on to an idea. I slide a hand down his big arm and then move boldly to his front and cup that big, enormous cock. “It’s my turn to play with you. That’s how humans court.”
He looks up at me and frowns. “This is courting?”
“In some circles it is,” I tell him, and wriggle away from his grip. His finger slides out of me, and for a moment, I feel so empty I want to flop right back onto my back and let him fuck me. That’s probably just the cootie talking, though. And I’m determined not to be ruled by it, so I slide my hand up and down his cock to get his attention.
It does the trick. The breath hisses from him and his hand covers mine. “Wait–”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, releasing my squeezing hold on his cock a little. “Have you not had sex in a while?”
That’s a legit concern, considering there are four women in the tribe, and two have babies. “We can go slow.”
His jaw clenches and he looks away from me, removing my hand.
“Um. A really, really long time?”
“Does it matter?” he growls.
Oh boy. I have myself a bona-fide alien virgin. I regard him for a long moment, and then my heart squeezes with sympathy. No wonder he thinks he’s ugly. If no one in his tribe has ever touched him, he has to think it’s because of how he looks. A tribe with only four women would mean those ladies have their pick of men – until they get cootie-mated, of course. I guess Raahosh has never had that sort of experience.
Poor guy. Never to have a loving touch? A caress? Fooling around just for fun? He’s missed out on so much. I feel like a bit of a dick suddenly for constantly pushing him away. I’m probably the culmination of a bajillion dreams for him and for me to turn him away has to hurt.
I’m starting to get an idea of how lonely his life has been…and what I must mean to him.
Suddenly, I want to make this good for him. It’s no longer about distracting Raahosh so he’ll stop teasing me. It’s about making some heavy petting fun for him, too, so he can see that he’s sexy and desirable and
someone wants him after all.
“Do you trust me?” I ask him, placing my hand flat on his chest, over his heart. It’s a safe spot, for all that it’s rough and ridged there like the skin over his brows.
He hesitates for a moment and then nods, his jaw clenched.
“Then lay back,” I say in a soft voice. “And let your mate pleasure you a little. It’s all part of the human rituals of mating.”
For a long moment, he tenses, and I think he’s going to refuse me. Then, he turns and flings himself onto his back in the furs, his cock jutting into the air. He props up on his elbows so he can watch me, his eyes glimmering slits of intensity.
I’ll need to go slow to make this last a bit. I rack my brain, trying to think of ways to extend an orgasm for a guy that’s inexperienced. I’ll just have to play it by ear. He’ll get embarrassed if he blows his wad too quickly and blame himself, and I don’t want that to happen.
So I put my hands on his thighs and wait. “Is this okay?”
He watches me with a hot gaze and after a long, tense moment, nods.
“Can I explore you?”
His cock twitches, and more pre-cum beads on the head. As I watch, he grits his teeth and nods again.
Maybe I’d better take the edge off first. So I slide forward, pushing my arms against my sides so my breasts (while not impressive) push together. “I’m going to make you come,” I tell him, dragging my nails down one thigh lightly. “And then I’m going to take my time with you. All right?”
“Do what you must.” There’s tension in his words. Poor thing. He’s probably about to blow and feeling a bit awkward about it. My cootie continues purring like a mad thing, and his rumbles even louder when I lean forward.
I grip his length in my hand, and my fingers don’t quite meet. That’s…interesting. He’s also hard and ridged along the top, and my thighs clench together again at the realization. He’s not circumcised, and I grip him by his foreskin and then drag it over his cock as I pump him once.
He gasps, and then hot semen spatters over my hand, erupting from the big head of his cock. His body jerks, and I place my hand flat on his thigh again. “It’s okay,” I tell him, and then when he’s gazing down at me, I lean in and lick the head of his cock clean of semen.
I’ve never been a big fan of the taste of cum – there’s a bleachy sort of taste to it that I just can’t get used to – but with the cootie adjusting my senses, there’s no hard flavor to him, only a mild sort of musky taste that is actually…quite nice. It’s a pleasure to lap at him and clean his cock, and his muffled groans and hisses of breath are making me feel pretty good, too.
When I’m done tonguing him clean, I look up and give his cock head another swipe with the tip of my tongue. “Can I play with you now?”
His nostrils flare and he inhales sharply, then nods.
“If you come again,” I warn him, “It’s all right. But I’ll try and be gentle with you.” I give him a wink as the look on his face turns incredulous.
Then I drag my fingers up and down his thighs, exploring the ways he’s different than me. I’m your average girl – average height, average weight, average boobs. Raahosh, in comparison, is over seven feet of slate-gray muscle. There are the ridged plates on the sides of his big thighs, a line of ridges that goes all the way down his chest to where a happy trail would be if he had hair on his groin, and ridges on his arms and shoulders. I suspect if I ran my hand down the small of his back his spine would be ridged, too.
Of course, I have more interesting things to look at, like his junk. My hands slide back down to his cock.
It’s impossible to resist it, because the darn thing is just gorgeous. Long thick, with a heavy, deep-blue crown, he feels more velvety here than anywhere else. His balls are an impressive size, his sac tight against his groin.
Blue balls. I giggle. Never has the phrase been more true.
He frowns and bats my exploring hands away.
“I wasn’t laughing at you,” I explain, biting my lip. “Just at a saying we have among humans about blue balls.”
“What is the saying?” His breath rasps in his throat as I bend down and take him in my hand again, then begin to nibble up and down his shaft.
“It’s not important.” I drag my tongue down one thick vein, and then back up over the bumpy ridges.
“How does that feel?”
When he doesn’t answer, I look up from my ministrations.
His glowing blue eyes pin me with an intense gaze. “Why are you stopping?”
I giggle. “Because I asked you a question?”
“It feels like…nothing I have experienced before.” His voice is husky with need, and even as he says the words, more pre-cum beads on his cock.
“Good enough answer.” I return to licking and nibbling on his length, figuring out which touches he likes.
I seem to get the most reaction when I drag my teeth along his tender skin, or when I squeeze hard at the base of his cock.
So naturally, I do both quite a bit, until he’s thrusting into my hand and there’s sweat on his brow. His gaze hasn’t moved from me and my ministrations, though. If another alien ship landed outside, I doubt he’d look away. He’s utterly fascinated with my mouth.
I continue my exploration of his body with a few licks across the top of his shaft, the hard, ridged portion, and then move on to the thumb-like protrusion above it. “What do you call this again?”
“It is a spur.”
“Is it like…a clit? Does it feel good if I touch it?” I drag my fingers over it experimentally. It feels different than his cock. Where his penis feels like velvet over hard muscle, his spur feels…strange. A bit like bone, but covered with skin and flesh. It doesn’t deflate or grow any bigger when his cock does, and when I trace my fingers over it, Raahosh doesn’t seem to react like he does when I lick his cock.
He shrugs. “Everything you do feels good.”
“But this doesn’t feel like…hmm. Like lightning strikes when I lick it?” I lean down and give it an experimental lick, watching his face.
His cock bobs in response. “Feels good,” he murmurs.
But I want him going crazy. So I move to his cock, squeeze the head in my fist, and then lick the slit.
“And that?”
Before I can even finish my sentence, he’s bucking into my hand, panting. His eyes close and he falls back into the furs, groaning.
“Yeah, that feels better. Okay, good to know.” I return to my licking and sucking of his cock, because it never hurts to stick with what a girl knows. I’m actually kinda glad that his spur isn’t a major pleasure point, because I know how to work a cock. I don’t know much of what to do with that. I suck on him for a moment more, and then an idea hits me. I lean down and tongue the base of his spur while working his cock with my hand.
His entire body jolts. Raahosh gives a shout, and then my hand is covered in hot, sticky cum as he crests once more.
I continue rubbing my tongue along the underside of his spur and he continues to come, his hips shuddering. I can tell he’s doing his best not to move so he doesn’t stab me with the thing, but I’m pleased that I made him come so hard. I lift my head and admire the cum shining on my fingers. “Guess you’re sensitive there after all.”
He stares at me for a long moment, and then grabs my hand. “I shouldn’t have–”
“No?” I interrupt before he can get all moody on me. “You wanted to come in my mouth?”
Raahosh’s nostrils flare again, the only sign of his acknowledgment of my words. Aww. He’s shy. I give him a blissful smile and then yawn. “I’m gonna grab some of the water and clean us up, and then we can go back to bed. ‘Kay?”
The purring in his chest — and mine — has gone to a low rumble. His cootie is sated for now. Mine too.
I’m surprised when he gets up, though, and caresses my cheek. “Wait here.”
I do, and he returns a moment later with a small, soft pelt and the waterskin. He takes my hand in his, and with the water and the fur, cleans me free of his come. It’s a thoughtful gesture, and I can’t help but watch with appreciation when he cleans himself off, too.
Even if I don’t like the man a lot of the time, he’s sure pretty to look at.
He puts the waterskin back in its place on the shelf and then returns to the bed. His cock is half-mast now – I don’t know why I keep looking, but I do – and there’s a softer expression on his hard face. He touches my cheek again. “Sleep now? We have an early day tomorrow.”
I blink and suddenly realize how tired I am. I guess the post-endorphin glow is wearing off quickly. My cootie hums a song to his as I nod and lie back down in the furs. As soon as I lie down, he is at my side, and pulls me against him. My body nestles against his and he’s warm, his arms hugging me to his body. He nuzzles my neck and his hand cups my breast.
I worry he’s going to think too much of our fooling around. “This doesn’t change anything, you know,” I tell him. “I still haven’t accepted you as my mate.”
“More of your denials,” he says in a smug voice. “Say what you want. I will play along with this courting
ritual.”
Gah.
RAAHOSH
Has any sa-khui hunter ever slept as well as I did last night? I wake up with my cock hard, pressed against the soft, tailless bottom of my sleepy human mate and know a contentment like none I’ve ever felt before.
Liz mumbles something and burrows further under the blankets, so I run a hand along her shoulder and back, admiring her soft human body.
The things she did with her mouth last night…my own mouth goes dry in remembrance. Surely those sorts of things are not done between mates? Maybe humans are more inventive. Whatever it is, I am glad for it – and for her. We must be reaching the end of the strange human courtship, and my cock aches to be sheathed deep inside her. Even now my khui begins to resonate at the very thought of her, and hers answers, singing in her chest.
I let her sleep for a few minutes more, and relieve myself outside of the cave, then return to stoke the coals of the fire. We will be out hunting for most of the day, but I want the fire pit to be warm for when we return, so I can make her a tasty broth out of bones. She’s still pale and thin, my fragile human mate, and even with eating good raw meat and a strong khui inside her, she’s still more delicate than I would like. I’ll feed her like a sickly kit, then. Many hearty meals and lots of marrow-filled broths to make her cheeks flush
with color.
Even if that color is a strange pink.
I put on my breechcloth and my boots, and shrug on my tunic. She will need to dress warmly if we will be out all day, and I will have to watch her closely. Liz is not the type that will admit if she cannot keep up. She will protest and snarl and demand, even if she is staggering with weakness.
I admire the strength of her will, but out in the wild, it is better to be safe. A cautious hunter is a successful one.
I kneel beside her sleeping form and pull the covers off. Her pale human body is all soft curves, the gentle swells of her ass calling for my touch. I admire her rounded thighs and the curve of one half-hidden breast, and imagine what delights she will show me tonight.
Perhaps she will welcome me into her cunt, protesting the entire time as part of her bizarre human
rituals.
And I will be home.
I nudge her when she doesn’t awaken. “Come, my mate. The hour grows late and we need to start the day.”
She groans and rolls over in the blankets, offering me a tantalizing glimpse of her breasts and the thatch of soft fur between her legs. “Not your mate,” she yawns. “Last night was just for funsies.” Then she grabs the furs and pulls them back over her.
I scowl. Not this again? It doesn’t matter if she took me into her body or not. Our khuis have decided.
She took me in her mouth and made me erupt. Of course we are mated. Irritated, I rip the blankets off and toss them aside. “If you are not my mate, then I do not need to be soft on you, do I? Get up or you will be welcoming a face full of snow, as I would any other lazy hunter.”
Her eyes open and she scowls at me. “Seriously? Who peed in your cornflakes? You’re in a foul mood.”
“And you’re being slow. Did you wish to hunt or shall I go without you?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she gripes, sitting up. “Dick.”
“The song of my people?” I reply back to her, remembering her words.
“You got it.”
• • •
Once Liz gets moving and out of bed, she picks up speed and I no longer have to wait on her. We bank the fire and leave the cave behind, and I begin to show her how a sa-khui hunter moves in the wild. If it was just me, I would tie a few branches to my tail and whisk them through the snow as I walk to cover my tracks.
But because I am traveling with Liz, I want the tracks to remain, in case we get separated. I want her to be
able to find her way back to the cave.
Also? She has no tail.
We move through the snow and Liz suggests something called snowshoes. She is smaller than I am and the larger snow drifts go as high as her waist. At her suggestion, we head to the trees and get a few slim stalks so my mate can play around with her shoe concept when we return to the cave.
She’s happy to be out and about. Her cheeks are ruddy, but her eyes are glowing bright and there’s a smile on her face. She’s proud when she demonstrates her bow, too. I sit on my haunches and watch her practice a few shots. It’s a strange weapon, a bit like a sling that fires darts instead of stones. She pulls on the string to launch her darts, and mutters unhappily when it falls a few feet away. She makes some adjustments to the bow itself and adjusts the tiny feathers in the fletching, and then tries again, and this time she’s able to hit a tree with some speed a short distance away.
I’m impressed. “It’s an interesting weapon. You are quite clever.”
She beams at me. “I used to hunt with a bow all the time as a teenager. This isn’t quite the same, and I’m having to adjust as I go, but it’s close. I think I can get it to work.” Liz pats her waist. “Now I need to make an arrow pouch to go here.”
I nod. “I can help you with that when we get back.”
She bites her lip, happiness on her face, and my khui begins to sing. She’s beautiful, even with her flat, strange human features. Her khui responds to mine, and her smile falters a little.
Ah yes. More of the strange human rituals. Denying a mating. I ignore it and gesture at the twin suns, now high in the skies. “Are you ready to hunt then? We can head to the water.”
“Water?” She brightens. “Is it another heated stream? I could use a bath.” She lifts her tunic and wrinkles her nose. “I’m a little sweaty.”
Her scent is like perfume to me, but I shrug. “We can bathe, or we can hunt.”
“Let’s hunt. Maybe we can bathe later tonight?” Her expression is innocent. “If we catch something, I might even let you wash my back.”
I will find her the slowest, most sluggish creature in all the snows so she may fill it with her darts.
LIZ
Hunting with Raahosh is kinda fun. The air is crisp, and even though the snow is heavy, the twin suns are shining and it feels good to get out and explore. I’ve been cooped up too long in that cave. Raahosh isn’t the most patient of men, but I can hold my own. My bow is a work in progress, but I’m confident I can get it to work after a few test shots.
“There,” Raahosh says as we crest a craggy hill. He pulls a strand of hair from his head and releases it, checking if we’re upwind or not. He grunts and then gestures over the horizon. “Do you see the tracks?”
I squint. “How the hell can you see anything from this far away?”
He grabs my chin and tips it down. “You’re not looking at the snow.”
I pull away from him and peer down over the ridge. Sure enough, there are tracks in the snow. They head off over the next crest. “So we’re heading in the right direction?”
“We are,” he agrees. “You look at the snow…or you can follow your nose.”
“My nose?”
“The smell of the water that comes heated from the earth.”
I sniff and he’s right – there’s a faint whiff of rotten eggs in the air, which means there’s water nearby.
“Gotcha.”
He arches one heavy brow at me, which is impressive because his forehead is damn near unmovable with all that plating. “What kind of hunting did your father show you?”
“If that’s a crack aimed at my dead father, I will kick your ass—“ He reaches for my chin again and tips my head toward him before I swat his hand away. His hard mouth is curled at the edges in amusement. “So defensive. I meant nothing by it. Your weapons are different. I assumed you had different hunting methods.”
Oh. I relax a little. “Well, my daddy owned some land out in the sticks. He had a deer blind and we’d set up near the trails.” I sketch out to him with words what a deer blind is, and he nods understanding. “And then, of course, there’s the deer corn or the salt lick.”
“Deer corn?”
“Yeah, you kinda feed them in the same spot every day and stuff. Then when they’re nice and fat and used to handouts, they come to you instead of chasing them down.”
He grunts acknowledgment and then shields a hand over his eyes, gazing down at the snow. “We have kits that do that to a few two-fangs back at the home caves. But we call those creatures ‘pets’.”
“Hey,” I say defensively, thwapping him on the arm. “Not every family can afford a freezer full of fresh meat, you know. You do what you have to in order to survive, Mister Judgey.” Of course, I remember saying the same thing to my father back when I was younger. Pot, kettle and all that. “If to puts food on the table, it’s hunting.”
“Wise words,” he says. “But now you must learn to track.”
He’s right, of course. “Lead on, o wise one.”
We cross over the hills and I slog through the snow, following him. About fifty yards away, I see the bubbling pool of water, bright blue against the snow. Which is great…except that there’s a cliff about five feet ahead of us, and it’s a sheer drop for at least twenty or thirty feet. Drinking at the water is a shaggy, pony-like creature that looks like a cross between Bambi and a sheepdog.
“Dvisti,” Raahosh says.
“Okey-doke. Looks like good eating.” I pull up my bow and nock an arrow, then aim. The wind is against me, and we’re pretty far away. I’m still not used to the pull on the bow and my needle-like bone arrows are iffy at best. “I don’t think I can hit him from here. How do we get down there?”
“Wait here,” he tells me, straightening. “I’ll find a path down.” Raahosh saunters away, spear in hand,
and I might ogle his ass a bit.
Just a bit.
I relax my arrow and glance down at the creature, watching it to see if it leaves. I’m so intent on watching it, that I almost miss the chirrup I hear from behind me. But then it happens again.
I glance over my shoulder.
There’s a friggin’ Ewok. Ohmigod.
Okay, so it’s not really an Ewok. It’s a fuzzy thing that looks more like an overgrown Furby with long arms and legs, but the round eyes blinking at me are adorable. It chirrups again and then dashes forward a step or two, then moves back. It blinks at me, then repeats the motion and runs in a circle.
Is this a game? For all of its hair and beaky face, it looks young. Maybe it’s the big, liquid eyes. When it chirrups at me again, the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
This might be bad. Like, finding a happy, roly-poly bear cub bad, only to realize that Mommy bear is a few feet away. “Raahosh? You still here?”
It cocks its head and scampers away, and I slowly replace my arrow back into firing position. The chirrup sounds again— And then is repeated by another, deeper creature’s voice. And another. And another. As I gaze out at the snowy ridges behind me, they seem to emerge from everywhere. More of the tall, furry creatures with dirty, matted hair and bulging eyes.
I was right. This one’s a baby. The others don’t look nearly as friendly.
“Raahosh?” I call again, raising my arrow as one of the biggest ones moves toward me. “Help?”
“Liz,” Raahosh says in a low voice, off to my side. I look over at him, heart pounding, and see he’s several feet away, spear at the ready. He’s in a stare-down with three big, nasty versions of the things. He doesn’t look over at me, and his stance is one of battle. He’s ready to attack the moment anyone moves a muscle.
“What are these?” I hiss. One takes another step forward, and I step backward, only to remember that I’m on the edge of a cliff. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“They are metlaks. And where there is one, there is a hundred.”
“Well, I see a hundred,” I say, exaggerating a bit. Just a bit. There’s probably only two dozen or so. Gee.
That’s all.
“My mate,” Raahosh says in a low voice. “When I say run, you must run. Do not argue.”
What is he talking about? Is he going to distract them so I can run away? “What? No! I—“ “Liz,” he says again, warningly. I look over and his hand clenches on his spear. “Do not argue with me.
Now — go!” With that, he gives a battle cry and surges forward.
Fuck that noise. I aim my first arrow and let it fly just as the first creature opens its mouth and lunges at me with a snarl.
