I carefully peeled away the metal bits (because wouldn’t jabbing myself with one of those just be lovely?) and quickly dabbed between my legs. My thighs burned, shaking beneath me after remaining crouched for so long. I dropped the puff, steadying my hands on my knees and preparing to stand, when a sudden crashing sound startled me, causing me to fall forward onto my hands and knees. Panicking, I wrenched my head backwards, only to find the alien standing at the edge of the grove behind me, his chest heaving with ragged breaths and his eye fastened to my bare ass.
CHAPTER TEN
Skallagrim
I’d forgotten what it was to sleep. I could not even remember the last time I’d done it. I had no idea how long I’d been in darkness, but in that darkness, I did not rest. At least, not like this. Not the way I rested wrapped around my little star. Clutching that small creature to my chest was a comfort that nearly defied words, and my worn-out body had immediately slipped into a deep, restorative slumber.
But perhaps the slumber was too deep. Because I did not feel or hear the little star disappear. I did not know if it had fled, or it was taken. I only knew, as I awoke, that something was very wrong. So wrong it seemed to screw my bones too tight against each other. A sense of terror gripped me. Terror that something had befallen the little star. That it was hurt somewhere, or dying, and that I wouldn’t get to it in time.
And then I would be lost in the darkness once again.
I rose with a swallowed roar, sending the side of the lean-to crashing outwards as my wings snapped open. I wanted to run, to fly, to find. To appease the deafening dread with pure might and anger and speed. But I forced myself not to jump into the air. I lifted my snout and breathed in deeply, though rather raggedly, catching the sweet scent of the little star on the air, alongside another new scent that reminded me vaguely of urine. Both fresh.
I followed the trail, sprinting through the grove until I reached its edge and stopped.
There was the little star. It stared back at me from a position on all fours, eyes huge. My own eye was likely just as wide as it settled on the exposed backside of the creature. No tail obscured the sight of its plump, luscious flesh, its backside and thighs a creamy white that made my jaw ache. And nestled between those thighs...
A glistening area of ruffled pink flesh with a slit at the centre, framed with soft golden hair.
A strange tightness entered the area of my throat. And my groin. The river in my head crashed against a rock made of bone and sent droplets of water flying, each one a single word.
Female. Cunt. Wet. Rut. She. Her.
Cocks.
That’s what I had. Cocks. Tucked away in my slit, I’d barely remembered them as I’d tried to reorient myself in a world and a body that made so little sense.
I remembered them now.
I tightened the muscles of my slit, ignoring the engorgement happening beneath with a hiss.
The little star, she, scrambled into a seated position, yanking up the clothing that had covered her legs and soft little cunt up until this point. We stared at each other, and I marvelled at the fact that even though I had not been touching her for some time, the darkness did not seem to be coming back for me as quickly as it had when she had first run from me in that rocky valley. It was as if being curled around her all night had filled me up in some way, like a rock being warmed by the sun so thoroughly it gave off heat even after nightfall.
I wondered how long I could go without touching her.
I was not willing to test it.
Even now my fingers were twitching to reach for her. My tail snapped back and forth as tension gathered in my spine. I crossed the distance between us in quick strides, bent, and clasped my hands around her shoulders, lifting her to her feet. I realized her feet were uncovered now, and I stared in fascination at the tiny, clawless toes while my hands stroked absentmindedly up and down her plush arms. The tiny, sensitive scales on my fingertips and palms prickled, registering just how deliciously soft she was.
My slit tightened against further swelling.
River help me.
I remembered rutting... someone. Many someones, I was fairly certain. I could recall no faces or names, but my body held the memory of the sensations from before the darkness. The hot, hard slide of my cocks against and inside flesh.
The more I remembered of myself before, the more complicated things became. It had been simpler mere moments ago, before I remembered concepts like female and the unmatched pleasure of spilling seed inside a wet, pulsing channel. It had been easier to touch her last night, back when she was simply my sacred salvation. She had almost seemed not entirely real to me, like she’d floated on another plane of existence far above my own. Something spiritual rather than corporeal.
But she was corporeal, alright. She was still sacred, still my salvation, still the star that had found me in the darkness the way no other light could.
But she also had a pretty, ripe cunt and that information was most assuredly not helpful. Because now, I had to balance even more against the knife’s edge of my sanity. Balance the need to touch her to ground myself with the need to pull away before arousal surged too strongly. My head ached. My whole cursed body ached, my groin most of all.
My touch on her arms had become a caress, and I wrenched my fingers away. Colour bloomed in her cheeks and across her chest. Mammary tissue. Teats. Breasts. I remembered that now, too, as my gaze snagged on the supple, heavy swells of her chest.
She could have had a mate somewhere.
She could have had children.
I wondered what sort of male I’d been before. If I’d always been the selfish sort. Because I felt only the smallest twinge of regret at that thought before it was smothered under a jealousy that claimed her as mine above all others. Her mate could come for her and I would slit his belly before he even got close.
I must have indeed been a selfish sort of male, I decided. Because this kind of desire, this possessiveness, this need to keep her no matter whom it hurt, no matter whom I’d have to kill, did not feel unnatural in the slightest. It felt right, and I felt righteous.
I kept my eye on my little star and then walked past her to the water’s edge. The sun warmed my scales in a way that felt like home. Without thinking or even realizing I could do it, I lifted my hand and a sheet of water rose with it. I inhaled deeply, stretching into this familiar and near-forgotten power. I did not think I’d done anything but smash things with my tail and my face and my fists in the darkness. I held the sheet of water suspended like a wall of crystal, watching fish swimming through the wall.
Within moments, I’d used my power to draw several fat fish from the suspended water and into my claws. I snapped their necks for a quick death, tossed them on a flat rock near my feet, then released my hold on the water. I did it slowly, carefully, so that the water was re-absorbed into the river with nary a ripple.
I quickly turned to make sure my little star had not gone anywhere. But she seemed frozen in place. One small hand was clapped over her mouth, her eyes gigantic, her pale eyebrows nearly at her hairline. I did not think she looked scared, exactly...