“Alright,” I said. “Everyone mount up and let’s get back home.”
Trel climbed up Bob’s back easily, and then Sheela and Kacerie jumped on Hope. We rode home beside the massive fallen redwood and cut between the ferns. I realized that the forest of super tall trees was actually a blessing. Yeah, our valley was protected by hills on all four sides, but anyone standing on the south, east, and west peaks wouldn’t be able to see our camp clearing because of the redwoods. The north side was the only place where we were really exposed, but it also meant that we’d have a good location for a guard station one day.
We made it back to our camp without a problem, and Galmine untied the door so we could all enter. My head was still killing me, but there was plenty of work to be done, and I couldn’t afford to take any more time off. Trel and Galmine busied themselves with a new water filter funnel design, so I had to figure out what the rest of the team was going to do.
The pair of dead carnos by the work site needed to be moved, so I made Bob and Sonny work together to roll them around our camp and to the far west side of the clearing. It took them about an hour to do, but the commands I sent to them were making my head throb, so I didn’t want to risk ordering them to work quicker.
The sun was getting low in the sky by the time I got the second pair of carno corpses pushed over to the west side, and my brain felt like it had rolled around in sandpaper. I really wanted to sleep, but Sheela and Kacerie had started setting up the clay on the logs inside our wall, and I wanted to assist them.
“You need to rest,” Sheela said as I dropped down from the ladder and grabbed the adze.
“I’ll be fine, we need to get it all ready to go so we can hit it as soon as the sun--” the words caught in my throat as I caught sight of something in the air to our north. The sun was casting an orange glow to the sky, and a thick plume of smoke was visible on the other side of the hill.
“Ahh, shit,” I said, and both Kacerie and Sheela turned.
“It looks far away,” Sheela said.
“It’s a fire?” Kacerie asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, and it felt like my shoulders were each carrying a hundred pounds.
“Isn’t that jungle over there?” the pink-haired woman asked. “How is jungle burning?”
Sheela and I glanced at each other, and then I turned to Kacerie. “There are other survivors, and we think they might be attacking each other.”
“Shit,” Kacerie said as her blue eyes widened. “What do we do?”
“We need to build the wall,” I said as I brought my fingers up to rub my temples.
“But if they are using fire, can’t they burn through our wall? Do you know who these people are? Do you know why they are attacking each other?” Her voice sounded a bit frantic, but I could understand her concerns.
“We can only do what we can do,” I said as I returned my eyes to the distant plume of smoke. “We’ll build our wall, we’ll build our defenses, and we’ll try to save others that come. Eventually, we are going to have a run in with another tribe. I’m just hoping it will lead to peace.”
“But… what if it doesn’t? What if they attack us?” she asked.
“I’m willing to live and let live,” I said, “and I’ll strive to cooperate with others, but if they attack us, then we’ll kill them.”
Chapter 15
I slept like a dead man that night. I told my friends to wake me up for my shift, or at least in between shifts so I could instruct the trikes to keep watch, but morning seemed to arrive the second Galmine wrapped her warm arms around me. In fact, when I woke up, everyone else was out of the hut working already.
We needed to take down another sixty trees, but we also had to begin pushing the prepared vertical logs into the ground. The night of full rest did wonders for my headache, so I was able to command the parasaurs to dig out and push down the trees, while the trikes worked to help lift up and steady the logs we had already cut and drilled with our fire technique. Their horns worked perfectly as support beams, and I figured out a great way to hold the heavy logs vertically so that Trel could drive her dowels through the holes we’d burnt out.
In some ways, our new method that used dowels instead of cordage was way easier. The dowels were simpler to pass up to Trel when she was standing on the top of the logs, and we didn’t experience any actual rope breakage from strands accidentally wound incorrectly. While Trel hammered the top dowels into the holes with a hardened log, I did the same to the bottom pieces with my own makeshift hammer. We quickly had ten logs erected, and I realized we were moving much faster than I had thought.
While Trel and I worked on the wall, Sheela and Kacerie chopped the fire lines in the trees that the parasaurs brought down. It meant that our two teams were working some three hundred yards or so apart, but I sent one of the trikes over to them as protection since Trel and I only needed two to help with our wall.
The whole day we worked, we kept our eyes on the distant smoke to the north.
I’d resisted the urge to ride Bob up the hill and see what was going on. I knew what I would see: the jungle on fire in the distance and little evidence of any real danger close to us. I knew the sight wouldn’t do anything to alleviate my fears, so I had to focus on the only task which would, and that was building the improved wall.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner was a hunk of carnotaurus. The meat wasn’t as good as the orange bird, but it was a thankful break, and I took all the dinos for a quick drink after we ate our midday meal. The water helped their performance significantly, but I noticed that the parasaurs were starting to lose a bit of weight. On the flip side, they were also looking pretty muscular, and I wondered if there was a better balance between exercise and rest. I was probably pushing them too hard, but there would be plenty of time for them to rest as soon as the wall was built.
We just needed a few more days.
“This is going faster than I expected,” Trel said when we finished putting our fiftieth log up. “We only have ten more with holes that we can put up today.”
“Ugh, so burning the holes for the dowels is our new bottleneck?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she replied as she lowered herself down the wall on her spider legs. “I didn’t plan for the trikes when I first made my estimate. I have an idea though.”
“I like your ideas,” I said as I gestured for her to step into my arms and kiss me.
“Hmmm,” she sighed after we had kissed. “I like your lips. Yes, I have decided that I’m glad I didn’t kill you.”
“You just decided that now?” I chuckled. “Speaking of that, where is the raptor corpse you needed for you--”
“It is behind the hut, wrapped up in my webbing,” she said. “My poison is somewhat like acid. It has destroyed all the bacteria and is liquefying the meat and bones. Also, it isn’t just my brood. It is yours too, sweet Victor.”
“Uhh, yeah,” I said as I smiled at the beautiful woman. I actually wanted to ask her how she produced the silk she used for her clothes, but I figured it could wait until tonight. “Let’s talk about the logs though, since that is a pressing issue, and our brood really isn’t.”
“Ahhh, Victor,” she tisked. “You still do not think I will give birth to our children?”
“I’m willing to try as much as you want to,” I said. “But I know different species can’t breed. Sorry, Trel. I love you, but I just don’t think we can--”
“Shhhh,” she said as she covered my lips with her finger. “Just let me take care of everything. It is my job. Honestly, you aren’t even supposed to be alive right now, so I don’t want you to worry about it.”
“Uhhh. Yeah. Okay. I guess. Sooooooo about those logs? We have a bottleneck.”
“We can be done the day after tomorrow if we take a risk and burn the holes in the group we have waiting to be processed in the forest. Pulling them inside of the fort is limiting us to thirty.”
“What is the worst that can happen?” I asked.
“One o
f the holes doesn’t burn correctly, but the last two batches have been fine, and we haven’t needed to make any nightly adjustments. Even if one or two burn incorrectly, we’ll still save time. We can just push down more trees.”
“What else bad can happen?” I asked.
“The forest can catch on fire,” Trel said with a shrug. “Again, we’ve been fine for multiple days using the fire to do our top and bottom cuts. I don’t think we’ll have an issue, and we’ll have the wall built the day after tomorrow. We could get it done even faster if you wanted to burn it during the day.”
“No,” I said. “Not during the day. Let’s burn at night. Okay, you’ve convinced me. We’ll burn the top and bottom cuts as well as the holes tonight. It means we’ve got four hours of work to do in an hour before the sun sets, and I need to take the dinos for another drink. I’ll leave the trikes here with you, Kacerie and Sheela, and then make a second trip while a trike and the parasaurs guard you.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine without your dinosaurs for a few minutes,” Trel said.
“Nope,” I replied. “Remember those raptors? I’m not going to feel safe until our wall is built. Also, we need to talk about the door when I get back.”
“I’ve got some ideas for that,” Trel said. “We’ll talk when you get back.”
Trel and I rode on Nicole’s horns to where Sheela and Kacerie worked. We updated them on our plans to burn the holes in the trees as we also cut the lines, and I gathered up the dinos to head for more water.
“Victor, can I accompany you?” Sheela asked as Nicole lowered her head so that Trel and I could get off her horns.
“Of course,” I said as I commanded Bob to kneel so I could mount him. The cat-woman climbed up to the saddle, wrapped her arms around my waist, and then we set off toward the river.
The trip to the water was quick, but I kept my attention on the ground and thought about digging up a long trench to lay down a clay water pipe. It was going to take a lot of work, and even thinking about the job was making me exhausted.
Fort first, then we could work on everything else. Running water wasn’t going to matter if carnotaurus and raptors attacked us.
“I suppose we should have brought some water jugs to fill up,” I said to Sheela once we made it to the river and my team of dinos started drinking. I’d left Tom and Katie at the work site, and had brought Nicole, Sonny, Cher, and Hope in addition to Bob.
“We have six more jugs full,” Sheela whispered into my ear. She hadn’t let go of my stomach even though we weren’t running.
“I’m just paranoid,” I said.
“But we are alive,” Sheela said. “That may be the reason why.”
“Yeah,” I said as I closed my eyes. Her breath was hot against my ear, and I leaned back into her embrace. I half expected her to let go and put some space between us, but she just seemed to hug me tighter, and I felt her face lay against my shoulder.
“It seems you like hugging me,” I whispered, and I could feel my heart start to race. We’d talked a bunch about our relationship already, but I knew that the loophole for us being together involved me training to fight a battle against a husband that I would never meet.
Sheela didn’t answer. She just let out a long breath and moved her hands up more so she was touching my chest.
“I haven’t been able to train with you,” I whispered. “I will after the wall is built.”
Sheela didn’t speak. Instead, the beautiful blonde woman began to purr as if she actually was a cat. The motion caused my spine and chest to vibrate pleasantly, and I felt my erection straining against my pants.
“I feel like you might have changed your mind,” I whispered, but Sheela didn’t answer.
What had changed since the last time we spoke? Was it me commanding my team of dinos to defend our camp against the seven carnos? Was it one of the decisions I’d made about building the camp? I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed obvious that Sheela’s affection had overwhelmed her desire for me to train and fight her husband.
Or maybe I was reading the situation wrong.
Either way, I decided to find out.
I commanded Bob to leave the water, and he walked to the shore of the river. My other team of dinos followed my commands to set up a guarded perimeter around us. Bob knelt on the ground so that we could get down, but Sheela’s face was still pressed into my shoulder. She hadn’t said anything yet, so I wondered if she guessed what I was going to do next.
“Sheela, get down from Bob,” I whispered after I’d turned my mouth into her blonde hair.
“Yes, Victor,” she replied, and then she sighed as she released her hug and slid down Bob’s side.
She stood on the soft grass a few paces from Bob’s leg, and I jumped down so that we faced each other. Her golden eyes met mine, and I could see her nipples pressing up against the tattered material of her bikini top.
“Sheela, take off your clothes,” I said, and her eyes opened a bit wider.
“Yes, Victor,” she whispered as she reached around her back. Her bra fell clear of her chest, and she moved her hands so she covered her nipples.
“Your bottom?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, Victor.” Her eyes didn’t move from mine as she took her hands away from her magnificent breasts.
She slid her fingers down to her bikini bottom and shook her hips from side to side a bit so that she could shimmy out of it. Then she stood with her hands at her sides as her chest heaved with excited breaths.
“You are beautiful,” I whispered, and a small smile spread across her lips.
“Thank you,” she lowered her eyes at last, and a slight blush came to her cheeks.
“Lay down on the grass,” I said.
“Yes, Victor,” she replied and then she followed my orders.
I took a few steps so that I was standing at her feet. Her hair was spread out beneath her head like the dawn light coming from the sun, and her feline eyes seemed to burn with an internal fire.
Her body was trembling, but I knew it wasn’t from the cold.
“Spread open your legs,” I said.
“Yes, Victor,” she replied, and then her muscular legs opened to show me her womanhood. I’d have expected her to be really hairy down there, but her light layer of fur seemed to recede a bit so that the skin around her lips was smooth.
I knelt down between her open legs and lowered my face to her.
I didn’t really know that much about oral sex, but Sheela had admitted she had only been with one lover, so I guessed that I’d probably blow her mind with my meager mouth skills.
I was correct.
She gasped when my tongue first touched her, but it only took half a minute for her gasps of surprise to turn into low throaty moans of pleasure. Her hands gripped my hair to pull me more into her, and her hips began to buck when I brought my fingers in to play with my tongue. Her orgasm came quicker than I expected, and her powerful legs almost ripped my head from my shoulders when she clamped them around my neck.
“Did you like that?” I asked after her body had stopped thrashing.
“Y-y-y-yes, Victor,” she panted. Her eyes were closed now, but she bit one of her fingers and let out a long throaty moan after she finished answering my question.
I was kneeling between her legs now, and she was more than ready for me. Her eyes opened wide again when I unbuckled my belt, and she sat up a bit so that she could watch me slide into her.
Then both of us were moaning.
For a bit, Sheela and I were lost within each other. There were a million things we both needed to worry about, but the only thing I wanted to focus on was her next climax and what I needed to do to bring her there. I still wasn’t that experienced with sex, but I could read the surprised expressions on her face when I did something she liked, so I just kept doing that until she reached an orgasm. I lost track of the time, or how many times she climaxed. We changed positions a few times until I had her on her knees while I ent
ered her from behind. She really enjoyed this position, and it allowed me to grasp her hips and muscular waist while I thrust into her. She let out a growl of ecstasy when I climaxed inside of her, and then we both collapsed on the grass exhausted.
“Victor…” she muttered into my ear as our arms wrapped around each other.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“I will go with you back to your home,” she said. “If we ever can go back. I will be your woman. You are the strongest man I have ever met.”
“I’d like you to come with me,” I said, “but we can stay here if you’d prefer. I just want you to be happy.”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she just kissed me with surprising passion and then moved to put her skimpy outfit back on.
“Yeah,” I moaned. “I guess we should get back. The sun is about to set.”
“Trel will be angry,” Sheela replied as she smiled at me.
“She’ll be fine. She likes you, and I don’t think she’ll mind sharing.”
“Perhaps,” Sheela said with a shrug. “Maybe I do not care if she is mad.”
“Sheela,” I gasped sarcastically. “Are you finally going to tell Trel to fuck off?”
The blonde woman let out a light laugh, and we both climbed back into Bob’s saddle.
A few minutes later, we were back at the camp. Trel and Kacerie shot us worried looks when we returned, but I waved my hands in a way that indicated I didn’t want to talk about the reason we’d been away for so long. Sheela jumped off Bob, and I left the group to guard my three friends while I rode Bob with the other two trikes to get water. The trip was uneventful, and I returned to find the team putting the last bits of clay on the logs.
“Damn, you all have gotten fast at this,” I said.
“Of course!” Trel beamed at me. “It is actually Kacerie. She isn’t as stupid as I first thought.”
“Hey!” the pink-haired woman shouted from where she put the clay on the last log.
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