Barbarian Alien(43)

She puts the cup aside and peels the blankets off my legs. I hear a muffled snort. “Well, it seems part of you is working just fine,” she says.

I open my eyes and glance down. My cock is at attention, thrusting up from my body. It aches and for a hopeful moment, I think she will take it in her soft human mouth again and tongue it. It is not to be, though. Liz is all business and checks my bandages, clucking at my wounds. “You’re on the mend, but still not better.”

“My khui does not care,” I tell her. She’s bent over and her face is close to my cock even as she fusses over my bandages. “It wants me to claim you.”

She makes a humming sound in her throat, but I can’t tell if it’s agreement or not. “Tell your khui now is not the time.”

I watch her as she gets up and moves about the cave. Her body is graceful and lean under the shapeless leathers, and her eyes are bright. She smells like the richest honey, and my senses are starved for her. I shift in my pallet. “I recall…a promise you made.”

Her face flushes and she moves toward the fire, tucking one of her braids behind an ear. “When you’re better, I intend to keep my promise. But for now you need to sleep.” She rubs one of her eyes and I realize that she’s got dark rings on her pale skin. She looks hollow and tired herself. Her clothing is dirty and ragged, and her hair has not been washed in many days. She’s thin, too, like when she was sick before.

“How long have you been caring for me?” I ask, humbled. While I have been lying here sleeping, letting my khui heal itself slowly, she has been hard at work.

She moves to the wall of the cave and touches it, and I see hash marks chalked onto the stone. “Nine days,” she counts, then picks up a chalky stone and adds another mark. “Ten, really.”

No wonder my body is reacting to her nearness. I’ve never heard of a couple avoiding a resonance mating for this long. I also wonder if this has to do with how long it is taking my body to heal. With the healer Maylak’s help, a break can be healed in a matter of days. If I have been mostly unconscious for nine, I worry that my khui is overtaxed and unsatisfied.

Soon, it will stop asking and start demanding. I wonder if Liz realizes this.



• • •





Now that I am conscious again, my khui has decided it must claim Liz, and must claim her now. It does not matter that my body is yet healing, or that Liz is exhausted. All that matters is the mating the khui demands. Liz resonates every time she gets near me, and sometimes when she returns to the cave, she smells of sex on her hands, as if she has pleasured herself. I know she is not unaffected by the need between us. She must be hiding her desires, thinking my body more fragile than it truly is.

The only thing that is fragile is my control.

Every night, she curls up against me, exhausted from a day of hunting and tending the fire, and then tending to me. She tenderly bathes me and feeds me chunks of dried meat from kills she has made. All the while, she is busy making weapons or melting more water or emptying out my piss-pot, since she insists I need to stay off my leg.

It is becoming impossible to resist her. When she moves past me, I reach for her automatically. When her body fits itself against mine in bed, it takes every ounce of strength I have not to push her to the ground and fuck her.

And when she comes back with her hands smelling like her sweet cunt? I must close my eyes and remind myself that control will win my human, not brute strength.

But control only goes so far, and I worry it will flow through my hands like water.



LIZ



It’s a lot of work to rough it and take care of Raahosh. The day seems like a never-ending list of chores. Clean cave, bathe Raahosh, shake out blankets, melt water for drinking, eat, check traps, smoke extra meat, melt more water, fix weapons, tend to Raahosh, melt even more water, and so on and so on. Raahosh is a terrible patient, too. He’s healing faster than anything I’ve ever seen, and I suspect that’s the cootie’s work. Too bad it’s not helping his mood any. He’s grabby despite his injuries, and cranky when I push his hands away. He’s healing, which means fooling around is a terrible idea, no matter how good it sounds to me.

Truth is, I’m indescribably horny.

I’ve never felt this way in my life — like I need to jump Raahosh’s bones or I’ll die. But Raahosh’s bones are newly mending, and I just can’t. He needs to save his strength. And truth is, I’m tired and I don’t feel very pretty. I’m grimy and sweaty from all the work I’ve been doing around camp, and my leather clothing is stained with Raahosh’s blood, mine, and the metlaks I killed, along with the game I’ve been hunting.