"I understand. Good luck." He gives me a rueful nod. "If anyone asks, I have heard nothing."
I grin. "There is nothing to hear. Nothing at all." I glance around, wondering how I can approach without making Vektal and his second, Raahosh, suspicious. I need some sort of plan to get near them. I study each human's face, noting how round and soft they are, how smooth their brows. They look so delicate, as a group, and I worry that I will break my mate if I touch her. I look down at my hands. Never before have they seemed too big, but they seem too large now. Whoever I resonate to, I will have to be extremely careful that I do not hurt her.
I must be the gentlest of mates to my female.
With this thought in my mind, I glance over at the fire. Tea is warming in a pouch, and I go to fill my skin. If I am offering the females a drink, they will not be able to chase me away, will they? I am simply being helpful. So very, very helpful. Using the bone cup nearby, I fill my skin and then straighten, glancing over at the cluster of females. They huddle together, holding on to one another. A few are wounded and one is weeping as if her heart is broken. I will be happy with any female but…a selfish part of me hopes it is not her. I do not know what to do around tears. I have no mother or sisters and no experience with females. Surely my khui knows this, though.
I clear my throat, tightening the layers of fur over my chest to muffle my khui's song, and rumble low in my throat. I even rumble low in my chest in an old song that we hum at celebrations, just to try and cover the sound. I feel obvious. Very obvious. Zolaya frowns at me as I walk past. He thinks I am acting strange…because I am. I am not one to sing much, even when the elders lift their voices in song.
My face burns with embarrassment as I approach the females, holding out the water skin. The tearful one flinches as she sees me, but then she offers me a watery smile and takes the skin. Her fingers brush mine and I feel…nothing. It does not mean she is not my mate, but I think I would feel something? I hope? I nod at her, taking the skin back and moving on to the next one. And the next. I study the faces. One female has specks of dirt on her skin, and another has brown skin. Others are in varying shades, their manes going from deep black and curly to pale and straight. It is fascinating. Some of the females are taller and sturdy, with big teats and hips, and others look small and fragile.
I hope for a husky female, one that is big and strong…but if she is small and weak, I will give her my heart anyhow. I am thrilled to have a mate. Any mate. I know my khui will choose well.
I am so excited about the prospect of my mate that I almost stumble over the next female. She is outstretched on the floor, her hand behind her, and she glares up at me as I hold out the water skin.
Our fingers brush as she reaches for it…and my khui thrums louder in my chest, the song so fierce it makes my cock shiver. I stare at her, wide-eyed.
She is perfect. So perfect.
I want to grab her hand and haul her to her feet. I want to run my hands all over her and reassure myself she is well, that she has not been hurt. I want to learn her body with my touch.
I want to fulfill resonance. Right now.
Biting back a groan, I cast one last look at her and then force myself to pull away. She has yellow streaks in her mane. She has large teats and a small build. She has strange brown eyes and a round face and looked at me without fear. There was curiosity there—beneath all the glaring—and I cannot wait to speak to her. I cannot wait to hear her name.
But…I cannot do so right now. I will not be able to control myself. I stagger back to the entrance of the small, strange cave and to Pashov.
He watches me with wide eyes. "Did you find her?"
I nod, not trusting my voice. "I…cannot stay in here. I need to go out." I grab the tall lip of the cave's entrance and haul myself up, out into the refreshing snow. Out here, there is no overwhelming scent of humans, no alluring resonance mate, no nothing. Just snow and wind and the occasional tree. I take several deep breaths, trying to calm myself, and it is useless. My cock feels heavy like stone, and the ache in my body tells me to go back down into the strange cave of the humans, to snatch my female away from the others, and take her to a private corner where I can shove her thighs apart and sink deep.
I groan at the image. I need to handle this, handle myself…
Frantic, I look around for something, anything that will ease my need. There is a snowdrift not too far away, butting up against the cliffs. Good. Perfect. I race toward it, and when I approach, I dig out a narrow hole at hip height, using my fingers. Shame burns through me as I free my cock from my loincloth and then thrust it into the snow.
It feels nothing like I imagine my mate would…but I use it anyhow. I thrust and thrust against that narrow hole, wishing it was warm and had give, like I imagine my sweet human's cunt will be. I have never touched a female, never mated, so I can only imagine. It does not take long for me to come, and with a low growl in my throat, I clench my fist against the nearest rock and spurt hot seed into the snowbank.
I do not know how I am going to last. I can only hope that a sa-kohtsk is near. Very, very near.
3
NORA
I clutch the fur blankets to my chest, not sure if I'm still hallucinating or if this really is my new reality.
"Come," the man (actually I guess he's not really a man, he's an alien) near the entrance to the ship ruins says. He points at the hole in the ceiling. "Give me your foot and I will lift you out."
It's colder than a witch's tit inside this damn ship. I can't imagine voluntarily going out into the outdoors to watch a hunt of some kind. I absolutely do not want to go, but Georgie is smiling encouragingly at all of us and making sure our boots are laced tight and we're covered in furs.
Furs. Leather boots. Because even though I'm sitting in the ruins of a crashed spaceship (hallucination number one), the people that are rescuing us are spear-toting blue barbarians (hallucination number two). I'm surrounded by strangers and I've been told that I was going to be a sex slave in space, but I've been rescued and now I'll be living the rest of my days out on an ice planet instead of back on Earth.
It's…a lot to process.
I pinch myself as Georgie ushers us toward the entrance. My arm throbs from where some strange metal device was cut out. It looked like a tiny button just under the skin, but I sure don't remember it being there. One of the girls—Kira, I think her name was—has some weird metal contraption in her ear and a worried look on her face. She says the aliens are coming back, which has Georgie and the blue guys worried. Me, it hasn't sunk in yet so I'm not panicking. These big blue dudes are the first aliens I've ever seen, so another set on their way doesn't exactly fill me with terror. It still feels like a dream.
Some of the girls are badly wounded, so I guess I should count myself lucky that I'm only naked and wearing borrowed clothes instead of sporting a broken leg. As far as I know, I haven't been raped by any aliens, either. So…lucky.
Or hallucinating. It's too weird to be true, and I worry that I'm definitely hallucinating. Someone on the subway smoked a bowl of something weird and I sat too close to them. It rubbed off on my clothes or something. It's a stretch, but then again, so is aliens.