Caveman Alien’s Enemy (Caverman Aliens Book 10)

by Calista Skye

It looks like the meat I hung up on sticks has survived the change of temperature pretty well, so I dig in and start to worry a little about freshwater. Back on Earth, snow that’s a couple of days old and melting is not known for its cleanliness. But it’s a pretty safe bet that the microbial life here on Xren is just as different as the animal life. And I haven’t seen that many pet dogs around, so it can’t be that bad.

  I examine the new coat. Now that I might have the whole day, and there’s surplus thread, I can adjust it a little. Maybe add some pockets and a fancy fur-lined hood.

  Kyandros glances up at me, shoots me a quick smirk, and then looks back down.

  Okay, so now that’s all it takes to make me all hot and bothered. It was such a suggestive look that conveyed everything that happened last night. And I think there was the promise of something more. Or maybe that was just me. Because surely, he can’t do that to me just once and then no more.

  I grab the knife and the needle and get busy. “Do you ever talk to the other dragons here?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Are they doing well?”

  He snorts. “Despite appearances, I am currently the dragon on this planet that is doing by far the best. Even without gold or any other hoard.”

  “The others also don’t have any? Told you there’s no gold on Xren.”

  “Perhaps there isn’t. I am confused about it. I have never known a planet with sentient life on it to not have gold that has been refined and worked. It is one of the things that even lesser species know about and value.”

  I give him a quick glance. He seems as vital and strong as ever. His muscles appear to bulge even more than before, for some reason. But the wound on his head is illuminated by the morning sun, and it’s surrounded by a dark splotch that doesn’t look right. His wrists and ankles are getting darker, too, almost black where he was bleeding his golden ichor.

  “Do you feel okay?”

  He gives me a smirk so male and so dragon-like that my heart skips a couple of beats. “Never felt better since I came to this planet.”

  So of course, my cheeks go hot. I know exactly what he’s talking about. But I shouldn’t be blushing – I’m not a virgin anymore. Very, definitely and irrevocably not.

  “Me, neither,” I state in defiance of my lingering prudishness. “Last night was crazy good.”

  “Wasn’t it, though?” He sends a yellow flash to my hips and chest.

  “You never… mated with anyone but dragons?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then how did you know what to do?”

  “This form comes with its own knowledge, it seems. I would never have guessed it. But I’m very glad it did. I doubt you would have survived a full dragon mating.”

  “Some roughness, huh?”

  He nods. “Quite a lot. Dragons mating looks more like a fight than anything else. And indeed, those two who participate aren’t always sure themselves of what it is.”

  “Do you have kids? Hatchlings?”

  He chuckles. “Not yet. Fathering young comes with its own clutch of problems. No, I will postpone it until my hoard is as large as it is likely to get. Or until the circumstances dictate it.”

  “Which problems are there?”

  He looks down at his work. “Mostly the hatchlings’ mother.”

  I decide not to pursue this line of conversation. I’m not sure I want to hear about domestic quarrels among dragons. It is too nice a morning for that.

  “Yesterday, when you almost— I mean, when I hit your face with the snowball. Right after that. You said ’hoard’.”

  “I see.”

  I look up. “Wasn’t that what you said?”

  “It might have been.”

  “Okay. If you did: what did you mean? Is it okay to ask that?” Hey, he is a dragon still. The interrogation thing hasn’t served me too well in the past.

  “It was a thought I had at that moment.”

  “What?”

  “That.”

  “That I’m your hoard?”

  He finally lifts his gaze and pierces me with bright yellow. “It was a thought. An instinct from my deeper self. I don’t know what it meant. Another being is not usually part of a hoard. Indeed, I have never heard of any such thing. It’s quite a strange thought. Like the snow being too argumentative. Like that tree wanting to buy a cloud. Like this dactyl tooth being king of the planet. Yes? It makes no sense!”

  I swallow. That last part sounded pretty angry. “Okay.”

  I keep working with the raptor-bone needle. Kyandros is plainly still conflicted about me, and I don’t blame him. I’m pretty conflicted, myself. And not just about me.

  What can I expect from this dragon-guy? The cavemen are different from us girls, sure. But they’re not shifters. They’re not freaking dragons with maybe terrible murder in their past. They’re not able to run down raptors and rip them apart. They eat and they get cold in freezing weather and they bleed actual red blood, not liquid gold.

  And yet, here I sit in the sunshine and hope that Kyandros and I can be a couple. Because he’s so unashamedly what he is. So blatantly proud, so confident in his own skin, so happily, actively, intensely himself. I have never seen anything like that before, not in the cockiest of college guys. Those other parts of him are kind of cool, too. Hey, I could do without the implied killing sprees in his past and the sense I sometimes get that he’s one heartbeat away from murdering me. But I have a feeling that we might be past that.

  And if I am to be honest and think something that I will never admit to myself ever again: it does give me a thrill. Like being alone with a lion — the lion roars and goes up on its hind legs and bares its teeth, and you know you’re going to die, and then it turns out he just wanted to hug you. That thrill. The thrill that turns into pretty hard excitement on the spot. Multiplied by a dragon and his alien manhood.

  And seriously: how cool would it be to have a dragon for a boyfriend?

  “Do dragons ever get married?”

  He looks up briefly. “We know of the concept. Sometimes, a king will marry a duchess or another noble he has mated with. It is mostly for fun, for appearances, and for any hatchling to be born in wedlock. It is supposedly a good sign for them; it is said it will make them evil. But marriage is largely irrelevant, a tradition from the old days when almost everyone got married. The hoard is always the most important thing, and you keep that to yourself, even when married.”

  “The husband and wife never join their hoards?”

  Kyandros looks up with a huge frown on his face. “Join hoards?”

  “Never mind. Just a thought. When two people in the tribe get married, they join everything. They’re as one from then on. Raising their kids together, living together.”

  “I think that is what they call ‘romantic’.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “When in fact it should be called ’lunacy’.”

  “Or just ‘right’.”

  We’re quiet while the sun rises and actually sends some pretty good heat down. I can almost see each grain of snow melting and forming little streams that thankfully run fast away from the cave. It is possible that this coat I’m making is a waste of good fur if it heats up much more. That fur-lined hood will look pretty ridiculous in a jungle where the daytime temperature is a hundred degrees.

  I adjust my position on the ground. Just being this close to Kyandros, just doing things with my hands and chatting innocently is keeping me low-level turned on, like a hot plate someone set to 1 and then forgot about.

  I glance up at Kyandros. Ah, that is a hard rod sticking out from his loincloth. And further up—

  He’s looking at me, and there’s danger in his eyes. Good danger.

  I stiffen, about fifty percent on purpose, then look at his cock while I bite my lower lip in a signal that I’m sure must be understandable for any male of any species.

  Kyandros puts his work away and stands up, loincloth tenting on top of his alien manhood, helpl
ess against such potency.

  I press myself back against the rock as he comes close, bends down, grabs me around my waist, and then lifts me level with his face like I’m only a rag doll.

  He doesn’t say a word, just brings me in close and kisses me, letting his twinned tongue circulate around my lips like nothing I’ve ever imagined before.

  I wrap my legs around him and put my arms around his neck, letting his heady scent fill my mind as I lose myself in his touch and his kiss. I’ve never known anyone to so completely take charge of all my senses, effortlessly focusing all my attention on him.

  He carries me into the cave and puts me down on the ground, still kissing me so I’m not entirely sure what exactly is going on around me.

  This time he judges that I don’t need much of a warm-up, and I agree completely.

  His hard rod slides up my dress, I tug at the dinosaur skin and pull it up to my waist, and then it’s at my entrance again and my eyes fly open, staring into yellow furnaces of passion.

  “Yes,” I pant. “Faster.”

  He slides easily the whole way in. And then I swear he swells in there, filling me up and pulsating and making me feel so cared for and so taken that I can just let go.

  It’s so weird - I’m trusting a dragon to make me feel good, probably the least trustworthy creature in the universe. And yet it seems that my trust is well placed, because when he starts fucking me in earnest, slow and deep, the fireworks are so close all it takes is a light touch right there and-

  “Ooooh yeahhhh?” I vail, because how can he possibly know exactly what it takes to set me off so hard and so fast?

  He puts a little bit of weight on me, making sure I can’t get away and that I just have to ride it out. As if I would try to escape this! His casual, confident dominance ignites the rest of me. I just jerk and tremble and drown in his eyes while he sprays inside me.

  “Ridden by a dragon,” I pant much later, when the aftershocks subside enough for me to be able to speak. “I thought it would be the other way around.”

  20

  - Mia -

  The day goes by pretty fast, with just lovemaking and napping and eating dry meat that is more akin to jerky than to filets. But it strengthens me, and the water I drink doesn’t seem to have any ill effects.

  Only once does Kyandros walk wordlessly out of the cave. He’s only gone for a few minutes before he returns with a turkeypig that for a change he hasn’t ripped to pieces.

  He watches as I cut filets out of half of it. Then he takes over the knife and tries to do the same, badly mangling the meat and leaving only slivers that would be more suitable for a stew. Yeah, he’s not used to making things at all. But he’s trying.

  He builds a fire, and I light it, and then the meat is sizzling and dripping its fats into the fire.

  Before I know it the sun is setting, I am sitting on Kyandros’s lap, and his hardness is growing under me.

  I suppose I should be sore, especially since last night was my first time. But I don’t know what it is – there’s no soreness, just exquisite tingles whenever Kyandros touches me or I’m reminded of our activities. Maybe his way of doing it, with slow thrusting that’s somehow amplified by the mysterious workings of his dragon rod, just works really well.

  It’s in his interest, too – I’m not so sore I have to ask him to wait. And his stamina is immense. I can only assume that it’s normal for a guy to be able to do this, like, six times in one day.

  We don’t talk much. It’s probably because there aren’t that many topics we can touch on without highlighting our differences. It’s nice – right now I just want to exist and enjoy without having to plan tomorrow. Planet Xren is good for this – you know there might not be a tomorrow and that whatever happens will be something other than you think. So you might as well enjoy the moment.

  I fall asleep with Kyandros’ strong arms around me. Nobody can teach him to live in the moment – that’s just who he is.

  The next morning it’s cold once more, but only a little below freezing. I can’t help being happy about it – I get to wear my fancy new coat.

  “You want to go to the waterfall?” I ask before I have woken up properly.

  Kyandros stands looking out of the hole. “Does falling water have a particular attraction for your species?”

  “Depends. When it falls like drops, we usually don’t like it too much. When it falls like snow, we’re conflicted. When it falls in huge masses and thunders and splashes and falls five hundred feet straight down, then yeah, it has a particular attraction.”

  “And you wish to share that attraction with me.”

  “Oh, come on. It’ll be nice. A great thing to look at. Maybe you’ll like it. I get the feeling you’ve never enjoyed natural wonders that much.”

  He raises one perfect eyebrow and looks me over. “I enjoy some natural wonders just fine.”

  Gah, I never knew such a man for making people blush. “Well, then you know what I mean. Now see if you can’t enjoy wonders that don’t necessarily involve thrusting and groaning and taking advantage of former virgins.”

  “There are no former virgins involved in your waterfall?”

  I flutter my eyelids in a way that would probably have been inviting and flirty if I hadn’t been so drowsy still. “Who knows what might be involved?”

  He shrugs. “Very well. I had nothing special planned for today.”

  I half turn to show him my female profile and stretch. “Nothing?”

  I can sense his gaze on me. “Well, perhaps one or two special things.”

  “Me, too. But I think they are the same as yours. Now we have two or three special things planned.”

  I put on the coat and try to use the blade of my little knife as a mirror, but it’s not well polished and only shows me a blurry image of something white. Still, I feel pretty fashion-conscious as we walk out into the snow. The going is very easy, because the top layer of the snow has frozen again and carries me like a wooden floor.

  It’s actually a brilliant winter day like you sometimes see on Christmas cards. Most of the snow is gone from the trees after the warmer weather yesterday, but the landscape still has a pristine look to it. It sparkles from a million little facets all over the place, and walking pretty fast right behind Kyandros I feel like I could go on for a long time. Which I probably have to. He is clearly walking slower than he could, for my benefit. A considerate dragon. I can’t quite wrap my mind around that, but I appreciate it a great deal.

  We don’t say much on the walk, and the silence feels comfortable.

  Walking up hills and down valleys, aiming roughly for white mountains in the distance, it takes us a good while to get to approximately the same place we were yesterday. I wonder if we haven’t been zigzagging a lot – Kyandros walks in a confident manner, as if he was in his own backyard, but I’m not sure he’s that good at navigating in a jungle. It makes me smile – finally something that he doesn’t do perfectly.

  As if he knows, he turns around at that exact moment. “What’s so funny?”

  “Just having a good time,” I reply innocently. “I think we’re getting close.”

  We crest a ridge, and there it is above us. I would have expected to hear it from far away as a steady, distant thunder, but there hasn’t been much noise until now. I understand why – it’s still half frozen.

  The core of the waterfall is a light green column of ice, a thick, translucent cylinder that reaches all the way up the cliff it falls from.

  Some water is falling again after yesterday’s thaw, running fast down along the icy core. It makes the whole thing look alive and moving, like a gigantic work of art carved from some green, undulating crystal. It’s jaw-droppingly beautiful.

  “That is incredible,” I finally manage. “I wish I had my phone— I mean, I wish I could show this to someone.”

  Kyandros looks around, not too interested in the view. “Would that make it better?”

  “It really would. It’s a l
ot of fun to show someone something that you know they will like. Something awesome, like this. First the anticipation, like glee, then seeing their reaction, then enjoying the sight together.”

  “Such a strange mindset. I would feel much better just keeping it to myself.”

  I break off a piece of snow from a tree and throw it at the ice column. “Are you sure? Would this look better to you if I wasn’t here?”

  The dragon ponders it. “No.”

  “Say you came across this while on your own, with me back at the cave. Wouldn’t you have a small urge to go back and bring me here so I could see it?”

  He shrugs. “Perhaps, a small urge. Though I doubt it would cross my mind.”

  “Huh.”

  We’re standing right by the pool that the falling water creates. It is half frozen, too, and it looks as if the enormous cylinder grows out of the ice down here. I tiptoe out onto the ice and go down on my knees. The ice is transparent, and I can clearly see the bottom at least eight feet down.

  It’s a bed of gravel and sand and small rocks, all so different in shape and color that my vague idea from before takes on a little more shape. It’s obvious that the material which the waterfall carries with it comes from the mountains way in the distance, from all kinds of rock. And while geology was never my thing, I have watched a lot of documentaries on television. Mostly about airplanes, but often I’ve procrastinated on essays and assignments by watching the very different and more lively programs that would sometimes follow the dry, technical documentaries about F-16s and Airbus A380s.

  So yeah. It could work.

  I carefully tiptoe back to Kyandros, who is busy studying the claws on one hand.

  “Is it everything you were hoping?”

  I reach out a hand so he can help steady me as I take the final step onto firm ground, but he doesn’t get it. And it’s not like I need his help. So I just jump the final foot. “No. He’s a little too self-absorbed.”

  A yellow flash. “Who?”

  “The dragon right here. I wish he would remember that he’s not alone in the world.”

  He shrugs. “If there is one thing any dragon would wish, it is to be the only one of his kind. Then, the universe would be his to enjoy without interference.”