I sense a trap.
But she yawns sweetly and smiles at me when she crawls back to the furs for sleep, and I’m drawn to her anyhow, my khui thrumming with need and want. Is this…part of the human mating ritual? Do I tell her newwwwp now? Will she fall into my arms and part her legs for me so we can mate and become one?
I have no experience in this. I lay down in the bed with her, unable to stop from caressing the shoulder and back turned in my direction.
She flicks my hand away, and oddly enough, that makes me feel better. That is familiar. I wait until she goes to sleep, and then I drift off as well.
Sometime just before dawn, I feel her small form tense next to mine.
I keep my breathing even so I don’t alert her to the fact that I’m awake. I’m curious to see what she’s going to do. Run? Try to kill me? This isn’t like before when she rolled out of bed and smacked her lips noisily before heading out to relieve herself. This time, she’s trying to be sneaky. She slowly, carefully removes my hand from her waist and lays it flat on the furs. Then she carefully peels the furs back and wiggles her way out, trying not to disturb me as I ‘sleep’. When she’s out of the furs, she looks over at me, but I’m still feigning, my eyes closed, breathing peaceful. Satisfied, I hear her take a few steps away and I open my eyes a slit, peering at her through my lashes.
She’s moving to the corner of the cave, and as I watch, she takes my boots and slides them onto her smaller legs. I watch as she rolls the leather up to her thigh and then secures it with the ties, and the picture is breathtaking in its eroticism…despite my curiosity as to what she’s doing. My cock’s hard as stone by the time she puts my other boot on. My khui hasn’t stopped thrumming all night due to her nearness, and the ache in my body is becoming a palpable thing. I need to possess my mate.
She looks at my spear, considers it, and then glances back at me to see if I’m still asleep.
I remain still, waiting to see what she does.
Liz turns away and pads out of the cave on quiet feet, my spear in her hand.
Well, now I have to see what is going through her mind. I roll from the bed and decide to follow a safe distance behind. The snow’s cold on my feet, but I ignore it. My skin’s used to the harsh conditions and I can stand a little ice, unlike her fragile human flesh. I notice she’s also finished her leggings while I was gone. I admire the curve of her bottom as she moves through the snow, clearly struggling in my larger shoes. The snow near the ice wall is up to my knee, and goes to her hips. She mutters unhappy words in her human language as she struggles forward, every footfall sinking into the powder. Perhaps she’ll get tired and turn around.
But my human is made of sterner stuff, and I suppress a smirk as she struggles onward, muttering human words under her breath that I can’t quite catch.
To my surprise, she heads for the distant trees. Is she hungry? The leaves are inedible, and the bark is only medicinal, good when steeped in hot water for long hours and left to soak overnight. Curious, I follow a safe distance behind. What is she up to?
I wish the khui let me read her thoughts, because my human mate is impossible to understand.
LIZ
There are trees not too far from our hidey hole. I make a beeline for them, slugging through the heavy snow. I have to be fast, because if Raahosh discovers that I’m gone, he’s going to lose it. I’m not trying to escape — not yet. I’m looking for materials for a bow. I need some elastic sort of material for the string, but rawhide will do if I can twist it into a tough, flexible cord. Raahosh has been saving the pelts from our kills, and I have plans for them. I can even make a string from fibers or even my own goddamn braided hair if I have to – I’ll figure something out.
But I haven’t seen a lot of material that would make a good bow itself. It has to be a long length of something wood-like. It needs to flex a bit, and bend, but not too much.
I spent a lot of time studying Raahosh’s spear, because it’s nearly seven feet long and has a bit of flex to it, but it’s too heavy for what I need. I need lighter, stronger.
So I trudge through the snow, heading for the trees. They don’t look like any sort of regular tree that I know of. For one, they look more like eyelashes or feathers than actual trees. They whip back and forth in the bitter winter winds, and the leaves look like pinkish, fluttering floss. Still, they’re the closest thing I can think of to wood, so I head toward them.
I make it to the trees and the snow shallows out a bit, which is nice. It makes it easier to trudge along, and I head for the first tree, running my hand along the bark. At least, I think it’s bark. But it feels spongy and slightly sticky, which squicks me out. The trunk itself is maybe as thick as a can of soda, and as another breeze rises, it flaps and flutters in the wind. Damn it. This probably won’t work. I use the big stone spearhead on Raahosh’s spear to cut into the side of the bark. Maybe if I get past the bark, the core itself is solid and usable?