Her mouth occupied meant she’d stopped screaming, too, and was now emitting a low sort of grunt as she tried to break through my skin. Now that her voice wasn’t all around me, I could hear more of what was going on, and I sucked in a triumphant breath when I heard a warrior’s call, and the sound of many irkdu roaring as they charged. With a click of my tongues and a shift in my thighs, I steered my irkdu to turn, ready to greet my men.
Only it wasn’t my men. I squinted, still holding tight to my squirming, biting woman, as about fifteen warriors on irkdu charged forward on the horizon, axes raised and spears flying.
Gahn Fallo’s men. A hunting party, by the looks of things.
They were felling zeelk left and right, and scooping up women as they moved through the carnage. I watched the scene unfold, bringing my irkdu to a stop, wondering if I should approach them. But they were just as likely to try to tear me apart as the zeelk would be. Normally I’d relish a chance to clash weapons with Gahn Fallo’s men, but fifteen-to-one was bad odds, even for me. Besides, I had my mate to think of, now, and her safety was the only priority. I watched as the last running woman was yanked onto an irkdu and the remaining zeelk fell. It wasn’t ideal that they were grabbing hold of all the new female creatures, but it was better than those frail small females getting devoured by zeelk. I had my mate, safe in my arms, and had no reason linger. With a cry, I urged my irkdu back on track, and we departed over the sands.
As we got further from the fray, and I could relax some of my warrior instincts, I was finally able to fully take in the sensation of having my mate pressed against me. Even the useless bite of her tiny teeth felt good, and I tightened my arm’s hold on her, revelling in the feeling of her pert ass scooting harder against my groin. There was nothing better than taking a woman after battle, when your body was still on fire with the brutal action, and my cock was already ready, stretching the dakrival hide loincloth to its limits. But my mate did not seem as keen. She had released my arm, leaving an adorably small set of indentations from her teeth, and she was once again screaming something I could not understand, the words falling and flowing, quick and slippery, like blood through my fingers. Though I could not see her face, as she faced forward and away from me, she seemed, by the sound of her soft, high voice, to be angry.
“Why are you upset? Can you not see that I have saved you from the zeelk?”
Another rush of angry-sounding words crashed from her mouth, and I could only assume that she either did not see that, or did see it, and somehow was still not pleased.
It is possible that my mate is more... difficult... than I had hoped.
Either that, or she was foolish beyond measure. Surely she did not want to be left back with the zeelk?
I needed to try to speak to her. To look into her strange eyes. To impress upon her the ferocity of our new connection. The importance of it. To impress upon her that fighting me was futile.
Not here.
Being out on the open sands like this was not a good idea, not when I could see how painfully fragile she was. We headed back towards the Cliffs of Uruzai. The front area held the entry to the Lavrika Pools, but the cliffs were a truly massive rock formation, and around the other side there were caverns and valleys and small patches of valok plants. The krixel nested there, but if we stayed on the ground and did not climb, it would be safe enough. We forged forward and after some time, time marked by continued fighting, biting, and scratching, we reached the other side of the cliffs. I nudged my irkdu forward, entering the narrow valley between this part of the cliffs, the walls jutting up on either side with unfathomable power. Eventually, I steered us into a narrow crack I knew well, a crack that led to a small, hidden, sunlit area with valok plants growing around the edges. In that small, round space, I directed my irkdu to stop and I dismounted, taking my female with me as I did so. I held her tightly – now that she was on the ground she had renewed her fight, practically jumping out of my grasp, her feet flying from the ground as she bucked and wriggled. I could not suppress the thought – will she have this much energy when sharing a bed with me?
I still held my axe in my other hand, the hand not busy keeping my mate under control. With the flat of the blade, I patted my irkdu’s back, letting it know it could go graze for peet grass, the tough stuff that sustained it. It curled tightly in the cramped space then moved back through the crack we’d come through. I knew it would not go far from its master.
The creature bucking wildly against, me, though, was another story entirely. I had no doubt that she would do anything in her power to get as far from me as possible as soon as given the chance. What I couldn’t understand was why. When a warrior visited the Lavrika Pools and saw a vision of his mate, it awakened the bond within his mate, too. At least, that was how it worked for the people of the Sea Sands. But my mate was not of the Sea Sands.
I positioned us so that I was between the crack, the only exit, and her, and finally let go. As predicted, she ran from me, turning and plastering herself against the cliff wall across from me, her back to the rock. Though every drop of blood in my body longed to go to her and touch her again, I let my hands fall to my sides, hooking my axe back into my belt.
Finally, I got to take in her face. Her real face, solid and pale and perfect before me, lit up by the shining Zaphrinax sun. Her eyes were even more brilliant than they’d been in the pools, and her laughably slim, flat brows were turned down in fierce anger, her small pink mouth open and panting. Her eyes flitted from me to the crack, then around the space, looking for an escape. My strangely pretty mate had not yet learned that there would be no escape from me.
A growl built in the back of my throat, but I forced it down, adjusting the tight fabric at my groin. Though everything in me raged to take her, take her now, I would not. Not when displeasure was so plain across her face.
Her face...
My heart clenched as I noticed how much paler she looked than she had in the pools. There was an odd blue substance coating her skin. Blood? Her skin was pale, so maybe her blood was strangely pale, too. I crossed the space between us in one easy step, caging her against the wall with my body, bringing my hands to the sides of her tiny jaw, examining her scalp, her face, for injuries. I found none, and some of the blue-white stuff rubbed off on my hands. Some kind of war paint perhaps. I snorted. Though she’d fought me with admirable spirit, she did not seem to be much of a warrior. Not a properly trained one, at least.
She had frozen totally still, her breath coming in short, quick puffs through her funny raised nose. I kept looking, moving aside her hair, my eyes sweeping over her skin for injuries when I saw it. What looked to be a small gash, just below her tiny, low ear. I hissed as a small red pearl of liquid slipped out, joining the scarlet trail that ran down her impossibly thin neck. A neck that could be crushed in an instant. For a moment, I felt sick at my mate’s fragility.
I moved my fingers up, gently probing the wound, being careful of my claws. Her skin was incredibly soft, delicate as the petals of a rindla plant. One wrong move would shred her. My lip twitched, and she gasped as I brushed the wound, her blood seeping against the pads of my fingers. I’d never seen blood this colour – this exquisite scarlet, the same colour as axrekal berries, one of Zaphrinax’s most potent poisons. I raised my fingers to my lips, tasting her, the sharp, intoxicating flavour exploding on the three segments of my tongue. The growl returned at the back of my throat, this time less easily quelled, and my cock ached. I held her gaze as I licked my fingers again, her soft pink eyelids widening around the white part of her eyes. Then, though I knew it may make her angry, though I knew it may make her try to flee from me, I groaned and lowered my mouth to her neck, gently lapping the stuff from her soft skin.
