by Ruby Dixon
“You eat. You need your strength.”
“Oh, I plan on eating. But there’s enough for both of us, and I doubt you’ve eaten since the cave-in. So dig in, my friend.” I shake the pouch at him, letting the contents roll around in what I hope is an enticing manner.
He ignores it, staring at the small fire again.
I swallow my sigh and put the food aside and wrap my hands around his arm, hugging his limb to my breast. He doesn’t push me away, but he doesn’t respond, either. “Wanna talk about it, big guy?”
“I should send you back.”
“’Scuse me?”
Hassen feeds another bit to the fire with his free hand. “This will be a long, hard journey. You should not come. You should stay back with the other human females.”
“Let’s just pretend I’m not hearing this sexist crap and let’s talk about what’s really bothering you.” I stroke his arm. “Because you are clearly not okay.”
“Okay?” he echoes, voice flat. “My people are homeless. My friend could be dying. The brutal season is coming. I am very much not okay.”
“Yeah, I don’t know anything about losing everything,” I snap back.
He looks over at me, startled. His mouth sets in a grim line, and he pulls his arm from my grip. I think he’s going to get up and push me away, but instead, he wraps me in his arms and squeezes me tight against his chest. He’s not comforting me—he’s clinging to me like I’m his lifeline.
I hug him close, stroking my fingers along his back. “I know it’s hard right now, but your people are strong and resilient. They’re going to get through this. If the home cave is gone, we’ll live at the Elders’ Cave. If not there, then somewhere else. It’ll get figured out, and we’ll survive.”
“I…” He pauses, clearly struggling with emotion. His hands grip me tightly. “All this sorrow, this despair, it reminds me of before.” I want to ask what before he’s talking about, but he continues. “With the khui-sickness. My family…”
Oh. I slide my fingers along his skin under his vest, trying to comfort with my touch. “You lost them.”
“I lost everything. I despaired greatly for a long time, and I see all this, and I feel myself going back to that dark place.” He takes a deep, ragged breath and holds me even tighter, and I can practically feel his chest ridges leaving an imprint on my cheek as he hugs me against him. “I need to be there, to help them, and Vektal sent me away.” His voice breaks, and I can feel the tension in his body.
He’s struggling so. My poor Hassen.
I pry myself loose from his choking grip and sit back, cupping his face so he has to look at me. “Hassen,” I say softly. “You know Vektal didn’t send you away because he didn’t want you around, right? He’s sending you away because you’re the best man for the job. You don’t have to worry about babies or a mate or a mom that needs help. Maybe it sucks that you got picked for what’s probably the least fun task out of all of them, but you’re the best guy for it. It’s not a slam against you, it’s a compliment.”
“He chose me because I am alone,” Hassen says bitterly. “Because the tribe does not care if I live or die.”
“Because you’ll come back with the supplies and he doesn’t have to worry about you,” I correct firmly. “And you’re not alone. I’m here right beside you.”
“You should have stayed with your sister.”
“Why? She doesn’t need me.” I tilt my head, studying him. “You don’t need me, either, not really. I’m not going to lie—I’m probably going to be shitty company on this trip. I’m going to be slow as molasses, and I’m not very strong. But you do need a friend…and I can be that for you.”
He covers the hands I have on his cheeks with his own, and then lifts my hands to kiss each palm. “Are we just friends, Mah-dee? You know you have my heart.”
I feel a little flutter in my belly. I want to tell him that he is, except…I worry about my judgment. Am I just clinging to him because he needs me? Is he latching on to me because he wants someone? Anyone? But I can’t turn him away. Not when he’s clearly hurting and I want to comfort him.
So I’ll skip the words for now. They can come out later…if at all. I move forward and press my mouth to his, kissing him. I move my lips against his, caressing and tender. I want him to know that in this moment, he’s absolutely loved and needed. I flick my tongue against his, and I can feel his breathing quicken as I twine my arms around his neck.
I want to show him just how much I care. Show him how much he’s needed. That he’s not disposable in my eyes.
I kiss his mouth sweetly for a moment longer, and then give a gentle little push to his chest, indicating he should lie backward. He does, watching me with hot, avid eyes. I move his leather vest aside, exposing his chest, and sigh with pleasure at the sight of all that hard muscle. Blue is officially my favorite color for a delicious, taut chest and perfect pectorals.
“What do you do, Mah-dee?” he asks, voice husky.
I just smile at him and lean down, pressing a kiss to his chest. I want to make him feel special, and I know just the way to do it. I flick my tongue along the hard, plated ridges covering the center of his chest. I imagine it isn’t as sensitive as other parts of his body, but judging from the way his breath is rasping, it’s still pretty exciting to watch. I’m getting excited, too. I’m doing this for him, because I want him to feel good…but I like doing it. Touching him turns me on, and I can feel my pussy pulsing in response to his arousal.
I kiss lower, moving in a direct line down his front. I don’t want there to be any guesses as to what I’m doing—I want him to realize and to anticipate. I flick my tongue down the hard line of his six-pack abs and scrape my teeth along his skin. He tastes a bit like sweat, and ash, but he also tastes like Hassen, and I love it.
“Mah-dee,” he rasps as I lap at his flat belly, heading for his navel. “You…”
“Shhh.” I kiss lower. “I’m concentrating. You don’t want to ruin my concentration, do you?”
His pained groan tells me that no, no he does not. I dip my tongue into the depression of his belly button, tracing it before moving ever downward. I have a very specific destination in mind, and I can tell he’s guessed it by now. If he hasn’t, the fact that I put my hands on his loincloth and tug on the strings should tell him everything.
A couple of pulls on the ties and he comes unwrapped, like it’s my birthday. Leathers fall backward, and then I see his big, delicious, oh-so-ridged cock thrusting into the air. His spur draws my attention, and I drag my fingers over it in a gentle caress before I grip his length in my hand and give him a tug.
Hassen’s head goes back, his fangs bared in a hiss of pure pleasure. I love the sight of that. With a smile, I stroke his cock again and then lower my head to give him a kiss.
He howls my name in response.
I giggle, dragging my lips over the head of his cock, wetting them with the pre-cum that’s sliding down the rounded tip. “I guess you don’t have to worry about being quiet out here, do you? It’s kind of fun to be noisy, isn’t it?” And I lick him, making sure to drag my tongue slowly over the crown.
“Mah-dee,” he pants. “My heart.” He reaches out and caresses my face while I have fun sucking on his cock. “Just when I think you cannot give me more pleasure, you astound me.”
Sweet guy. He hasn’t seen anything yet. I wrap my fingers tight around his length, squeezing, and pull him deep into my mouth. I take as much of him as I can, letting his length slick along my tongue. He goes deep, and his girth feels massive. I loosen my jaw, working him deeper, until he butts against the back of my throat and triggers my gag reflex. I release him, and he groans again, impossibly turned on by my actions. Yeah, I’m probably blowing his mind right about now.
It’s pretty fun, gotta admit.
I take him deep again, sucking hard, and this time I don’t gag. This time, I start to hum ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ It’s a trick I learned from a friend when I first starte
d bartending, and she told me all about how wild it made her boyfriend. The humming increases the vibration in your throat and tongue, and it feels really, really good to a guy. Maybe not quite as good as a prostate tickle, but I don’t know if Hassen’s ready for that sort of thing yet.
What I do know is that he likes the humming. His big hand touches my hair and then flexes, pulling back. It’s as if he’s wanting to push down on my head and is afraid of hurting me. I hum louder, working him with as much saliva and hand motions as I possibly can. He’s so big, and the ridges are a little distracting, that it’s hard to take him as deep as I want, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Over and over, I pump him with my mouth, humming that patriotic little tune as I do. I can feel his body tightening as I launch into the climax of the song, but he’s not there with me. Not yet.
So I give the underside of his spur a little tickle. I figure if it’s anything like my nipples, gentle rubbing on the underside will make him as crazy as that sort of thing makes me.
His body jerks. The breath explodes from his lungs, and the hand goes down on the back of my head, holding me on his cock. I lose control of the song, but it doesn’t matter. He lifts his hips, pumping, and then a moment later, my mouth fills with hot jets of come. He shoots so far down my throat that I barely taste it, and I hold still, squeezing the base of his cock to milk him. When I can swallow no more, I jerk back, my mouth flooding with the last of his release, and I cough a little as my throat works.
“Mah-dee,” he pants, a star-struck look in his eyes. I love the way he says my name like this, after he’s come. Like I just made his world all better again, just with my mouth.
I cough-swallow the last of his load, rather ungracefully, but the way he’s gazing at me, he doesn’t care. “Sorry,” I wheeze.
“I should not have come in your mouth,” he says, pulling me down against him and cradling me against his chest. He holds me like I’m the most precious thing in the world, and I cuddle up against him and love it.
“That was kind of the plan,” I tease, snuggling closer. “I wanted to make you feel good.”
“You did.” He is silent for a moment, and then adds, “Can I make you feel good?”
“I didn’t do it for quid pro quo,” I tell him. “I just wanted to give you some pleasure.”
“Quid…?”
“Reciprocal. Shit, you probably don’t know that word, either.” I think for a moment, then trace a circle on his yummy, yummy abs. “I didn’t do it because I wanted you to do the same to me. I did it because I wanted to make you feel as wonderful as I think you are.”
“I enjoy licking your cunt, though,” he tells me, and one finger trails up my arm and then traces a circle around one of my nipples, sending a shiver through my body. “Surely you would not deprive me of such joy?”
If it can make him forget the world for a few hours, I suppose I must ‘bear the burden’ of having my pussy eaten out. Darn. “Wouldn’t dream of it, big guy.”
13
HASSEN
Two Weeks Later
“You are slow today,” I mock my mate as I crest over a large hill. “Pick up your feet. We have far to go.”
Behind me, Mah-dee grumbles something under her breath about ahs-wholes and makes a hand gesture that tells me she is not pleased with me. She does move faster, though not fast enough to keep up with me.
I just chuckle at her response and gaze down across the snowy plains. Mah-dee makes a lot of angry noises, but she tries very hard, and she never gives up. I might tease her about her speed, but I would never leave her behind. Having her company on this trip has made the bleak worries in my mind fade. She is very strong in spirit, my Mah-dee. If she does not have an answer, she will make one. To her, there is no crying over what has happened, only the need to come up with a solution. She is good for me. When my sorrow over my tribe threatens to overwhelm me, Mah-dee sets my head to rights.
My heart has chosen wisely, even if my khui is silent.
I scan the snowy terrain, looking for changes. I have gone this way many times in the past, but much of the landscape looks different after the earth-shakes. Two more have happened in the last few weeks, but then things grew silent. The ash has tapered off, and the snow is clean again, the skies almost clear once more. It almost feels normal.
Mah-dee arrives at the top of the hill, her breath quick pants. She moves to my side, her hand tugging at mine. “What are we looking for?”
“Dvisti. Metlak. Sky-claws.”
“No, no, and helllll no,” she proclaims, moving a little closer to me. “I’ve eaten enough of number one to last me the rest of my life, and number two and three are big nopes in my book.”
“Then your boohk is lucky. There are none that I can see.” That is another strange change after the earth-shake. While the dvisti have been plentiful, I have not seen a single sky-claw, and metlaks are infrequent. While I am glad that the sky-claws have moved on, I worry that there is something I am missing. This is metlak territory. We should at least see traces of them.
“How does it look?” she asks me. “Compared to before? Any big changes? Maybe that’s why there’s no one around.”
“No changes,” I tell her, studying the distant cliffs. There are fewer valleys the closer to the mountains we get, and the land spreads out, smooth and white. We are nearing the edges of familiar territory. Farther north, and we will be close to the strange, flashing cave where Mah-dee and Li-lah were found. I will not go that far into the mountains; there are no hunter caves that deep into metlak territory. They keep to their hunting grounds, and we keep to ours.
“I see a cave over there,” she says, pointing off into the distance. “Is that our next stop?”
“There are two caves in this area,” I tell her. “That one, and then one around that bend.” I point in the opposite direction, to the distant cliffs.
“I’ve got a bit more juice in me,” Mah-dee says, adjusting her furs tighter around her head. “We can go to the distant one before we call it for the night.”
I touch her hood, wishing I could caress her mane. I feel a swell of affection for Mah-dee. My heart. She is strong and pushes herself to her limits because she wishes to be a good partner. Her pack would be as big as mine if I let her, but I watch out for my mate and make sure she is not straining herself. “It is our last stop.”
“Our last stop…overall? Really?” She looks up at me, surprised. “Then we start the journey back?”
I nod. For many handfuls of days, we have visited cave after hunter cave, checking for supplies. Some of the caves were completely gone, crushed by rock. Some were untouched. A few had some damage, and one or two had been raided by metlak and no longer had anything usable. Mah-dee has been scribbling charcoal marks on a skin—taking ‘notes,’ she says. We leave the supplies in each cave, taking only what we need for immediate survival. Once we have stripped the farthest caves of their goods, we will travel back along the path we came from, and clean out the caves as we go.
Here, at the farthest caves, we will need to hunt something large for the bones and large skins to stretch to make sleds. A large one for me, and a smaller one for Mah-dee. I would drag both behind me if I could, but I suspect my fierce, yellow-maned human would not like that much. Just thinking about her reaction makes me smile.
Being with her has been…joyous. There is no other way to describe it. If I was alone, I would be full of despair, worrying over my tribe. But with Mah-dee, she forces me to think logically. To trust that the others are safe under the chief’s care, and to focus on the task at hand. To her, there is no problem that cannot be fixed.
This journey has not been so lonely with her at my side. I wake up each morning with her in my arms, and I go to bed each night in a different cave, but with Mah-dee’s hands tucked against my chest. We mate most nights, but sometimes she is too tired, and that is fine, too. It is enough to hold her close and inhale her scent. It is enough to hear her laugh, or to see the smile cross her funny human face
.
When she is with me, I think that even the destruction of the cave is not so bad. It is not something that will destroy us. We will survive and go on. Mah-dee has started her world over. Li-lah, as well. Each human female who found herself here in the snows of our planet, far from home, has started their worlds over. The sa-khui can do this, and be stronger for it.
Mah-dee teaches me this every day.
“So how far are we from the ocean?” Mah-dee asks, shielding her eyes from the sunlight. Today is one of the first days that the suns have broken through the dark gray clouds, and the sight of them has made both of us happy. Sunlight means no more ash. No clouds and no earth-shakes mean things will return to normal soon…and the brutal season will remain at bay for one more day.
O-shun means great salt water to her. I remember this. I point at the spiky mountains on the horizon. “On the other side. Did you want to go?”
“Can we cross those?”
“Not easily. We would go around. Take the long way. It will add another two hands of days to travel.” I think for a moment and then add, “My hands, not yours.”
She wiggles her four fingers at me and grins. “I’d like to see what the ocean looks like here, but we should probably get back to the tribe as soon as possible. I guess now’s not the time for a detour.”
“True. I would still go for you.”
“You’re sweet,” she says, squeezing my fingers. “You can just tell me about it instead. Is it blue?”
“Is what blue?” I begin to head down the far side of the hill. The snow here is deeper, and I turn back and offer her my hand so she can descend easily.
