“Keep it,” I told her. It made me feel just a little better to see her with a weapon, even though, as I’d already promised her, she’d never actually need it.

She threw her hands up then went back to the corner, grabbing the blanket then plopping down on the floor with it. She lay on her side, facing the wall. Her back was to me, and despite my lack of understanding about many things, I at least could understand this. The message was clear enough.

She wanted to be alone.

Or, at the very least, she did not want to be near me.

Unfortunately for her, she did not have a choice in the matter.

I didn’t have a choice, either.

For whatever reason, being away from her meant danger and darkness, and I would not go back. I stood, staring down at her still form, trying to calculate how much space I could give her while still being in contact with her all night. I had not really tested how long I could withstand not touching her. Every time I felt unease prickling at the base of my skull and darkness dancing at the edges of my vision during the day, I’d made sure to get closer to her, to stroke some part of her. I did not know if it was illness or madness or poison or maybe just the way I’d been made, but something had gone very wrong inside me and she was the only cure.

Bracing for rejection, I lay down on my side behind her, pressing one hand beneath the blanket until it rested lightly on her bare shoulder. She tensed instantly, then started wiggling forwards, closer to the wall and further from me, all the while trying to slither her shoulder out from under my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I grunted, scooting forward to stay near her. “I have to touch you.”

I worried if I slept too long away from her, that in my slumber I would not feel the darkness closing in. What if I woke in a frenzy and she could not calm me soon enough? What if, maddened and lost and afraid, I hurt her before I realized what I’d done?

That thought inspired fear like nothing else.

Perhaps she might need the knife after all...

To use against me. It wouldn’t do much against most of my body. But if she shoved it into my eye socket, not faltering until she buried it in my brain...

At least it could slow me down.

It wouldn’t come to that. Stone skies help me, if she would just stop trying to wriggle away from me like a river serpent...

But she had nowhere left to try to flee to. She’d reached the wall, the fingers of her hand splayed flat against it. Since we were in the corner, the tops of our heads abutted another wall. I gave up on my weak attempt at courtesy with that awkward shoulder-hold, and hooked my arm around her abdomen, trapping her firmly against my body. My tail hauled itself up over her legs, pinning her in place.

She stopped struggling and panted in my hold.

“Sorry,” I muttered against her silken hair. “It has to be this way for now.”

For now...

Maybe for always.

She did not reply, just kept breathing heavily. It made her breasts press and shift against my arm, and now that I’d gotten her still I had a whole new problem.

I was aroused.

She smelled so good and felt so good and all I could think about was the pink seam of her cunt when she’d been bent over in front of me this morning. This position was not helping. Her rump was currently pressed firmly against my groin. Or, rather, based on how events had unfolded, I supposed it was my groin that was firmly pressed against her rump.

In short, I seemed to have brought this entirely on myself. I could have come at her another way, maybe simply tried to hold her hand, instead of cornering her until I was forced to practically wrap myself around her to keep her from escaping.

But there was no changing that now. Here we were. Her, seething. Me, doing everything possible to keep my cocks inside my slit. Stone of the sky, how long had it been since I’d rutted someone, or even just spilled seed at all? I could not account for all the time spent in darkness.

Based on the protestation of my cocks, I wagered it had been a very, very long time. I ground my fangs against each other, trying to focus on other things – the press of wood into my side, the poke of the knife sheath against my thigh – so that I did not feel her body against me. So that I did not picture her bent, bare form in torturous detail while imagining the sudden deterioration of her clothing, the only barrier between us besides my rather overwrought slit muscles.

Lost in excruciating thought, I did not notice at first when Suvi had fallen asleep. Eventually I realized that the tension had eased out of her form and her breathing had grown slow and even. I exhaled tightly and rolled onto my back, keeping my upper arm flush against her spine, but at least creating some distance between the luscious shape of her backside against my twitching slit. I palmed my groin with a bit-back groan, feeling the engorged tissue behind the muscle, and resigned myself to a very long night.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Suvi

As soon as I began to wake, I knew that something wasn’t right. My whole body felt achy and stiff, and when I moved my feet, I cried out in white-hot, pulsing pain. I was on my back, and I grew slightly aware of someone – the alien – sitting bolt upright beside me and leaning over my face. I groaned, shivering violently despite the heat pouring off of him.

Fingers ghosted over my forehead and cheeks, scraping sweaty hair back from my face. When I cracked my eyes open, an intensely focused alien face looked back, snout twitching and tight, golden eye dragging a panicky line back and forth over my face. He was saying something, asking me a question, following it up with my name. I groaned again, and let my eyes fall closed. Everything hurt, especially my feet. I was scared to even look at them.

He wasn’t scared, though. Or if he was, he didn’t let it stop him. He released my face and the sudden feeling of gentle pressure on my ankles was so painful I writhed and tried to twist away.

The alien grew very, very still. Trying not to vomit, I forced my eyes open to look at him, finding him with his eye trained on my feet which he held gingerly aloft.

Oh, fuck.

My feet were swollen and purple. The alien slowly peeled my pant legs upwards, revealing angry redness that had already started spreading up my calves.

Oh, God. Please, please, no.

I tried not to cry, because my head already felt like it was going to explode and the thought of crying made it seem like it actually would. But the sheer, desperate panic was undeniable. It bubbled up in my chest until I lurched up onto my elbows, leaned to the side, and vomited on the floor.

Infection. Now that I knew what was happening, I was convinced I could literally feel it sifting through my bloodstream. The feverish forward march of an unseen army, creeping all the way up my legs like ants. There was no medicine here, no antibiotics, no other humans, no nothing. Nothing except the alien who’d done this to me and who now had the gall to stare, frozen, down at my broken body as if stunned by the consequences of it all.

I was going to die here. I’d always suspected that, but now it seemed incredibly real. So close I could taste the acrid curl of it on my tongue.

My feet would go necrotic. My fever would get higher and higher. And then my organs would shut down.

I wasn’t sure I could dream up a more agonizing way to end things.

I’d watched Elvi die, but she’d been asleep and pumped full of drugs. I wouldn’t even have that small comfort.

“No,” I choked out. I spit, trying to clear the last bit of bile from my mouth. Even staying up on my elbows was too hard, and it was only the quick shift of the alien’s hand beneath my head that kept me from collapsing into my own vomit.