Page 27 of A Mate for Vasek
She perked up at the mention of help. She doubted there was anything nearby, so at least the goal wasn’t to walk to their destination, because she doubted she’d survive that even with capable Vasek protecting her. And now that she thought about it, she’d heard horrible things about the Vosthean jungles.
There were large predators that roamed the forest floors? If the scary predators were down below, then she was staying up here.
“There is nowhere to land safely nearby, so they’d have to be desperate to be sending anyone down, but we should still put a little distance between us and the ship.”
Vasek led the way through the highway of branches, and she followed behind, sometimes walking, sometimes crawling. The forest slowly started to lighten, and the red glow of dawn peeked through the foliage.
Then she felt it. She glanced around her nervously. She didn’t see anything, but she could swear they were being followed. Instinctively, she reached for Vasek, seeking… comfort? Protection? Validation that she wasn’t imagining things? She wasn’t sure.
“It feels like we’re being followed,” she said, her voice sounding too loud despite all the sounds of the waking jungle.
“We are. There is a stalker on us. Look below.”
Dawn glanced down into the darkened underbrush. At first, she saw nothing. But then there was a movement in the shadows. She adjusted the lantern and stifled a scream. Right under her, pacing back and forth as if waiting for her to fall, was the granddaddy of all monsters.
It moved like a big cat, stealthily, and had a similar shape too. But it also looked like a lizard, especially the head and jaws. It had mottled brown fur, and the parts that weren’t furry looked scaled, though she couldn’t really tell for sure from her angle and the light.
As if realizing that its prey had finally noticed it, the creature froze mid-prowl, staying statue-still. Then came clicking sounds: they were loud, and everything else in the jungle seemed to quiet in response. Goosebumps prickled the back of her arms, and a sense of impending danger had her ready to bolt. Then the creature leaped straight up at her.
She shrieked and nearly tripped over herself to get to Vasek. The big Tallean male wrapped her up in the protective cocoon of his arms.
“It can’t reach you up here. But it can try to scare you so you fall. Ignore it.”
Now he tells her! The thing almost had her too. She wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to stay on the branch if Vasek hadn’t been there.
Vasek pointed to a higher branch overhead. “Let’s set up the tent on that branch. It should be far enough from the crash site. We’ll wait for help there.”
Dawn wasn’t sure how he planned on setting up a tent on a branch, but didn’t question it. She did, however, question how she was going to get up there. She’d need to scale the trunk straight up, and she knew she couldn’t do that. “I can’t get up there.”
“I’ll carry you up. Stay here. I will go up and set up the tent first.”
Dawn released her hold on him reluctantly and grabbed hold of the rough bark. She watched as he put on a pair of gloves with sharp, pointed fingertips. Then he leaped, jumping higher than she could possibly hope to jump, grabbed hold of the nearest branch, and was climbing his way up to his destination.
There was enough light to see what he was doing up there, but the crunching of half-dry leaves made it pretty clear to Dawn that the stalker was still below them. Now that she knew it was there, the creature was foregoing stealth altogether. It tried to climb up the nearest trunk to reach her.
When it managed to haul itself a good body’s length, she started to panic.
How was Vasek so sure that it couldn’t reach her up here? She was just about to call out when the creature slid down the wide trunk. Its body just wasn’t made for climbing despite its almost feline shape. Weren’t there big cats on Earth that couldn’t climb because they were too heavy?
Dawn could hear David Attenborough’s memorable voice and cadence explaining it all to her now in her head.
But knowing that it couldn’t climb didn’t make her feel any more relaxed. She kept an eye on it as the sky lightened and the tent started to take shape in the branch above.
Of course! She should’ve known it would be a hanging tent. She’d seen them back on Earth, but those spanned across two or three trees, not just one. But she guessed that with branches the size of trunks, there was no need to worry about whether it could hold their combined weight.
And Tallean males weighed a lot. Vasek was leaner than some, but still very cut and muscular. Whatever material his pantswere made of, they molded to his ass and thighs perfectly and she got a generous eyeful from her vantage point.
Over the course of the trip to Vosthea, she’d started seeing him more as a companion and less as the reluctant alien owner who couldn’t wait to offload her at Kean’s compound. She’d also come to the conclusion that her initial judgment of him had been correct after all. The next time he went into bloodlust, she’d try her best to stay calm and remember that it was still him.
The alien medic was easy on the eyes too, and as the morning sun came up over the trees and illuminated his damned-near-perfect physique, she let herself enjoy the show. Too bad nothing more happened between them. Now that she’d decided she liked him, she wouldn’t mind getting to know him a little better physically.
She bit her bottom lip as she watched him make his way back down to her branch. Up here the trunk was a little slimmer, and with the gloves he’d put on and the claws on his feet, he was able to move between the branches and the trunk quite well, though it did take a lot of strength. Currently, she could see those yummy glutes flexing under the fabric of his pants.
Vasek was soon standing with his back to her, this time without the giant pack of their supplies.
“Hold onto me,” he ordered, lowering himself so she could wrap around him.
“I’m not sure I can hold onto you all the way up. And you can’t hold onto me. You need your hands. There has to be another way.”
