by Megan Hart
Moments passed, and tension built between her legs, in her clit and pussy. She clenched her inner muscles and was rewarded by his small groan at the pressure.
Still, he didn't move. His shoulders tensed under her palms, and when she slid her hands down his back to his ass, she found them tense, too. She cupped the firm flesh, then scratched it lightly. Another shudder fluttered through him.
Was he smiling? It felt like he was, his lips curving against her neck. She squeezed his ass again, and still he remained motionless. Only his prick moved, throbbing inside her. She'd become so attuned to his every motion she felt even that.
He was waiting for her to move. It could have become a challenge or a battle of wills, but Linna wasn't interested in fighting with him. Giving in didn't have to mean subordination, and right now, she didn't care if it did.
It felt too good for her not move her hips, not to rock them upward and accept Del into her body just that fraction deeper. He lifted himself onto his hands. His eyes met hers.
He pulled out slowly, unbearably slowly, and left her empty. Back in again, just as slowly, until he'd seated himself inside her. Again he pulled out, slid in, each thrust filling her and making her lift her hips to meet it.
His arms shook just a little. She smoothed her hands down his biceps and curled her fingers around his forearms. Again, she rolled her hips and he met her with another thrust.
He moved a little faster now, his thrusts more shallow. Each downward thrust pressed his pubic bone against her clitoris, and when he pulled out, her aroused flesh quivered.
She'd come hard already, and more than once. Even if she hadn't been able to rise to climax again, she would have been swept away with Del's lovemaking. As it was, she drifted in a haze of beautiful longing. It didn't build like any orgasm she'd ever had before with shocks and spasms of intensity. This was like water filling a pitcher of pebbles. The pleasure trickled into her and found its way into every nook and corner, until she was suffused with it. Glowing with it. Her body became bright with bliss.
Del's face became her world. He blinked and the light flickered. He smiled and she felt her own lips curve with the grin. Everything in her was him until Linna was certain she could no longer tell where he left off and she began.
His thrusts became jagged, fast then slow, which sent her oozing over the edge into a climax that seemed to go on and on. Only when he cried out her name and pushed inside her one last time did the pleasure subside, leaving her drained but giddy with happiness.
"Go to sleep," he whispered in her ear. "I'll watch over you."
And trusting him completely, Linna did.
"Admit it," Del grunted as he hacked at the undergrowth. "You thought we wouldn't get out of here alive."
From behind him, Linna snorted. "We're not out of here yet."
He paused to wipe the sweat streaming down his forehead and looked up to the sky. The sunlight was dim this far down, and dappled with shadow from the leaves of the tall buulla trees. He pointed up. "I can see the sun. The trees are getting thinner. We're getting to the edge of somewhere."
She laughed. "Oh, that's very reassuring."
He faced her and pulled her into his arms for a long, lingering kiss. "You won't be able to talk to me like that when we're in Yarushalim, woman."
"You'd better be kidding."
He thought about his mother and the women his parents had chosen for him, and knew he wasn't really kidding. Xanderran women had opinions. They had voices. They just didn't use them like Newcity women did.
"You're not kidding." Linna frowned. "Del, I think you'd better just tell me what the hell I'm in for here."
Before he could say anything, a low chuffing noise rustled the brush ahead of them. "Shh."
Linna tensed beside him. "What is it?"
He smelled tannan. And blood. Maybe the lizard had a fresh kill. If it did, it might be stuffed enough not to bother with them...unless the smell of blood brought its brothers to fight over the meal.
He looked to the sky again. The slant of the sunlight told him night would be falling soon. They could go around, find another route, but they'd still be in the beast's territory.
"There's no way to avoid it," he said grimly and wished, not for the first time since crashing, they had a weapon.
"Dragons?" she asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Tannanim," he corrected. "Linna, they're just animals."
"With sharp teeth," she replied. Her eyes were wide and her mouth quivered, but she straightened her back and clenched her hands.
He put his hands on her shoulders and felt the muscles jumping and twitching under his palms. Del wanted to hold her and reassure her. Protect her. It's what a Xanderran woman would have expected. Xanderran women, even though they were as fierce and capable of protecting themselves as Xanderran men, expected men to protect them. A Xanderran woman faced with a tannan on her own would fight it with her own teeth and nails if she had to...but if she faced one with a man at her side, she'd die in the great lizard's teeth before she'd lift a finger to protect herself. Protection was a purely male occupation on Xanderra.
Linna didn't expect it. Del knew she could hold her own. He'd seen her fight. She was fast, strong, and capable. But he still wanted to protect her.
"If it's eaten its fill, it might not bother with us. We're not their meal of choice anyway."
"But I'm guessing it would gladly eat us."
"If it's hungry, yeah. We have to hope it's not hungry."
When she looked at him that way, it wasn't hard to remember she wasn't from this planet. "And if it is?"
"They're big and they're dumb. Like me."
A smile twitched her lips. "You're not dumb, Del."
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him again. When she stepped back, her face was set with determination. "We fight it."
"It would be easier with weapons."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you think I'm dumb?"
"No." He looked into the dense growth in the direction of the chuffing noise. "Just trying to prepare you."
"Can we fight this thing with our bare hands? And expect to win? And keep all our limbs?"
"Yes. Maybe. Probably."
She gave a disgusted sigh. "Let's go then. If I'm going to get eaten, I'd like to get it over with."
Del pushed forward through the springy branches. The chuffing and slurping got louder, and the smell of blood stronger. One green leaf in front of him had been smeared with red and Del stopped, hand up to keep Linna quiet.
She didn't say anything, but she did move up to his side. The bonding had made him even more attuned to her than he had been before and he could hear her heart thudding. Her face was flushed, though her stance was still pretty relaxed. He stared at her in the dappled light, and she turned her head and met his gaze.
"We'll try to go around it," he mouthed, and she nodded.
Seven years was a long time to be away from home. A lot had come back to him. A lot hadn't. It wasn't that Newcity didn't have crime, but in a society where drugs were cheap and legal, sex was the sanctioned recreation, and citizens were rewarded for positive behavior, there was usually very little violence.
Usually, Del mentally amended with a glance at Linna. Her husband had been plenty fond of violence.
He saw Linna's eyes widen and knew she'd spotted the tannan. The great lizard hunched over the bloody, mangled corpse of its meal and tore at the flesh. Its wings swept in lazy circles as it gobbled and snarled. It was a young one, he saw, as its sweeping wings lifted it a little off the ground.
The lizard's scales glinted in the rapidly fading sunlight. This was one of the rare violet ones with scales so dark they looked nearly black. The wings shone a lighter shade, the leathery skin shot through with threads of blue and green against a framework of black bone. Those wings would grow a little larger, but not enough to carry the beast once it reached its full growth.
"Does that mean its teeth are too soft to tear us to pieces?" Linna spo
ke softly from behind him. She pointed at the lizard, which had risen into the air again with a beat of its wings as it gobbled.
"Probably." Del scanned the creature once more, making sure it was still more occupied with its dinner than with them.
He pointed further to the right, away from the tannan and its food, and started toward it.
They'd only gone a few feet, just past the point where they could still see the lizard, when Linna tapped his shoulder again.
"If its teeth are too soft to eat us, how did it kill what it's eating?"
Del stopped, senses instantly flaring. He lifted his nose and tried to scent the air. Instinct and training came back to him, but too little and too late.
"How long do the young ones stay with their mothers?" Linna questioned.
Del turned at the same instant the brush parted behind them, and the lizard that had made the kill emerged. "Harah!"
Linna must have seen the look on his face or smelled the tannan's breath. She ducked and the lizard's jaws snapped closed in the space where her head had been.
"Roll!" Del shouted.
She did, curling her arms and legs to her body and making herself a tiny target. Del dropped to a crouch, doing the same. The beast's normal prey was much bigger than human, but this was a mother protecting its child, not a hungry animal looking for food.
The tannan swung its small head on the long, sinewy neck and roared. The stench of its breath--sulfur mixed with carrion--was enough to make them both choke. Linna gasped and covered her face with her hands.
The tannan paused and turned its head from side to side, trying to pin them with its beady glare. Del caught Linna's gaze, expecting to see her rigid with fear.
Her body was tense, but her expression was determined, not terrified. She got to her feet at the same time Del did. "What do we do?"
The lizard swung its head, focusing on her voice, and snapped its jaws.
"Run."
They did. It wasn't easy. Branches and leaves whipped their faces and arms, but Linna made no complaint. She edged out in front of him, elbows out, and mowed down the undergrowth a lot faster and better than he'd been doing.
She has metal in her arms, he thought, too-aware of the lizard's hot breath on the back of his neck, and he had time to think he loved her more than it seemed possible to love any other person just before the sparkstone jutting up from the ground caught his foot and sent him crashing to the ground.
They'd been running so fast Linna actually went a few feet further before she noticed he'd gone down. By that time, he'd rolled again, dodging the tannan's teeth as it bit the ground where he'd been the moment before.
Time slowed for him. The world became the ground, the plants, and the great beast in front of him. He'd faced tannanim bigger than this, but all males, slow and lazy in comparison with this female who'd felt her offspring threatened.
The last time he'd been in the jungle, sent to bring home a handful of scales to prove he'd reached adulthood, he'd had two weapons, armor and strength-inducing drugs to help him on his quest. Now he had nothing but his bare hands and desperation.
And Linna.
As he rolled and got to his feet just outside the hissing lizard's reach, Linna leaped between them. She jumped high, higher than he could have, and whacked the tannan in the face with her hands.
Del heard the crunch as her hand split the beast's nose wide open. Black blood spurted out, hot on his face and arms, and the tannan screamed. Its head swung toward Linna, its jaws agape, and she thrust a sharp stick into its tongue.
The animal fell back. Sparks gouted from its mouth. Linna cried out and fell back, slapping at her hair and clothes. Del shot upward and punched the lizard on the underside of its chin.
His hand felt broken, but that had happened plenty of times before. His skin shredded on the lizard's metal-sharp scales, and that pain was nothing new either. What sent him to the ground again was the tannan's tail, which swept around its body and knocked his legs out from under him.
Its teeth sunk into his shoulder. Del could no longer tell where he left off and the lizard began. Blood was everywhere, black and red. The lizard shook him like a child's stuffed toy, and the world grayed around him.
Del plunged his hand upward. Heat burst over his hand, stinging, and the beast roared and let him go. Through the red-tinged gray haze trying to cover his vision, Del saw the creature's eye dangling from its socket.
Maddened, the tannan shook its head. Blood and fluids sprayed out. Some got in Del's eye and he cried out as it stung him to temporary blindness.
"Get away from him, you bitch!" he heard Linna scream.
The lizard shrieked, long and loud. He heard the crunch of underbrush as it backed away. He blinked, and blinked again, tears streaming furiously down his face as the poison burned his vision.
Linna's hands helped him to his feet and steadied him when the world tipped crazily. He heard the purr of ripping cloth, then felt its softness on his face as she wiped the lizard's blood from his eyes. He opened them, and even the dim, green jungle light was too bright.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "Sit down. It's gone."
He nearly fell into a jumble of arms and legs, but Linna helped him sit. Her grip on him would probably leave bruises, but they'd be nothing compared to the scar he knew the lizard's teeth would leave.
She bound his shoulder quickly, and the scent of crushed vegetation told him she'd used a pad of leaves and petals to help stanch the wound. More tearing told him she'd used more of her jumpsuit.
"Be careful or you'll end up naked," Del thought he said, but when Linna didn't answer he knew he'd only thought, not spoken. He tried again and still nothing came out.
Tannan venom didn't kill. The lizards liked their meat fresh. The venom caused sleep and temporary paralysis. Del fought it, but his blinded eyes drooped.
"Don't you knock out on me again," Linna said.
Her slap rocked his head back on his shoulders and made agony flare in his entire body, but Del couldn't fight the poison. He yawned. His head fell forward.
"Del, stay awake!"
He heard panic in her voice and wanted to reassure her. He wasn't blacking out, not going to die...just needed to sleep. For a little while. Not a long time...
"You bastard, stay awake!" Tears made her voice shake, and pain flared in him again when she cruelly punched his wound. Not even the pain could combat the drowsiness, though, and Del gave in to it.
The last thing he heard was Linna shouting his name.
Chapter 13
"Son of a bitch!" Linna spat the curse and put her hands on her hips. "That's the second time you've pussed out on me, Del!"
A great, shuddering snore shook his body and Linna bit back a sob. He was sleeping. Not dead. She lifted one swollen eyelid, but he didn't even wince.
The blood from his shoulder had stopped gushing, and though his eyes looked painfully red, she didn't think he'd be permanently blind. Didn't think, but didn't know.
"Shitdamnpissfucktits!" she shouted to the jungle and kicked at the ground. There was too damn much she didn't know, including where to go from here.
One thing was for sure. She wasn't going to sit here and wait for that bitch dragon to come back and finish what she'd started. Linna shook her hand and flexed the fingers, thankful she'd remembered to use the hand in which all the bones and tendons had been replaced. If she'd tried to punch the lizard with her other hand, she'd be in as much of a mess as Del, with broken fingers and abraded skin. As it was, the animal's scales, hard though they were, couldn't compare with good old-fashioned titanium.
Her skin had split in a couple of dozen places, but the blood loss was minimal and easily stopped. Her hand hurt, but it would heal. She wasn't so sure about what to do with Del.
The animal had bitten him all the way down to the bone. She'd wrapped the wound in strips of her jumpsuit and some absorbent leaves, but she was afraid it would get infected.
"Damn it, Del," sh
e said softly and brushed his forehead with her fingers. "I don't know what to do for you."
The chuffing, hissing noise from behind her left no room for wavering. That bitch, or another just like it, was coming back, and Linna didn't intend to be here when it did. She breathed in, then out, to fill her blood stream with as much oxygen as she could. She focused on the muscles in her legs and lower back, tensing them, then bent and lifted Del over her shoulder.
His head hung nearly to the ground, even with his body bent in half, and his legs did the same in the front. He probably weighed more than two hundred pounds. Linna grunted, but took a step.
What good was any of this stuff inside her if she couldn't use it to get herself, and the man she loved, out of this shit-hole jungle? She'd never been a quitter. She'd taken life by the throat and forced it back into herself after Daniel's abuse had stolen it. She'd just fought a freaking dragon, for fuck's sake. She could, and would, damn it, get herself and Del out of this.
I'm a machine, she thought with every step. This doesn't hurt.
"I'm a machine." she panted, voice hoarse. "This doesn't hurt."
But oh, God-of-Choice, it did hurt. Hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, hurt like a motherfuck, hurt like holy fucking shit, and every step she took made her scream aloud. But she kept taking them. Step by step.
Branches and twigs scraped and slapped her, tangled in her hair and forced her to leave some of it behind when she yanked past it. Her clothes tore even more. She locked her legs and arms, kept them stiff and unyielding.
"I'm a fucking machine," she grunted. "And this...does not...hurt!"
Dark had fallen, though she could still see, and it took her several concentrated steps before she realized there was light up ahead. Not star or moonlight, but bright, unflickering light. Artificial light.
Which meant there were people there. Linna stumbled in that moment, her concentration broken, and she and Del both went to the ground. The moist earth ground into her mouth, and she spat. Dirt, not covered by weeds and flowers. She looked up and saw the sky. Somehow, they'd done it. They'd gotten out of the jungle.
