Page 65 of Alliance
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Fásach flexed his toes, balancing on his haunches on the ice. He huddled over himself wearing nothing but a pair of thermal pants, the claws of his feet keeping him in place as the snow-laden sheet bobbed in the waves and the wind buffeted his hackles.
He brushed his hand over his nose for the dozenth time. Only hours had passed since Roz climaxed on his fingers, and she was lodged in his senses. Like a little firework, each time he brushed that hand over the velvet of his face, her scent bloomed before the wind carried it away with a cruel whistle.
What did she look like with her legs spread open?
He’d been behind her, so he didn’t know, which made it worse. Because every time he blinked, he didn’t see a still image of her cunt. Rather, hishandsremembered how soft and slippery it was. The fine little ridges, thelayers…And his chest remembered her weight, the shudders of pleasure. His tresses too. How she pulled on them, taking everything she deserved for herself.
Fásach refused to blink now. Gil had invited him out to hunt when they arrived back at the Buoy and found him plastered to the far cabinets, whining, staring at Roz while she slept. They’d recognized his rut in the shilpakaari way of afrenzy and knew he needed violence. He’d needed it more than anything, caught in such desperation and agony.
The arctic air had done nothing to abate it either. So he stared at the sliver of black water between sheets of ice, even while frost collected on the velvet beneath his nose and his lungs stood still. The world reduced down to its rhythm, slapping the ice like choppy obsidian. His body became an inevitability, and therefore felt no aches or chills. Just a deep sigh that engaged every muscle.
Then the sea bowed out like liquid glass as a corrugated brown fin caressed it from beneath.
Fásach exploded forward like a bullet, digging his right claw into the meat of the shark’s tail. It thrashed as he heaved its back half from the water in an icy spray of coppery blood and sea foam.
“Fásach, wait! That’s a—chudthi!”
Fásach’s war chuckle rose to a screech of excitement as Gil fought to keep their balance on the upending ice sheets, loading their harpoon gun on one knee. True, the shark wasn’t theburadhamother and pup he and Gil had stalked out to sea, but Fásach needed a challenge.
Needed to drown out the chimes of harmony.
The call to Roz was too much to withstand now. Like walking into the cavernous halls of a yiwreni monastery bathed in the purest chords of worship. Her voice was so pure, perfect,godly,that if Byddie were still alive, he’d mistake her for a spirit of its forests. He wanted to fall to his knees in supplication and beg her to make those sounds again. To pant his name. To sob with ecstasy. He’d gladly abandon their journey for a month between her thighs.
The coalescence of his transition, his rut, and her harmony was too much. He’d fall into her and never resurface, let herswallow him whole like the sea beneath his feet eagerly awaiting the shark’s victory.
So he needed to take each day one by one, to keep their goals in mind. A better life for Quiopha’s daughters, himself, and Roz. Today? The torpedo of pure muscle and teeth snapping for his limbs. Violence and victory. Tomorrow?
He would worry about tomorrow when the sun rose.
The shark twisted and Fásach slid sideways, digging his claws into one of its dorsal fins. He ripped its brown speckled skin open in a river of bronzy orange that stained the ice like rust. Snarling, his tongue lolled as his lips withdrew from his black gums. He stretched his mouth open over his jaws, dug the points of his hands and feet into the shark’s head and side, then rose over its far eye socket.
Fásach wedged an upper fang in the shark’s round, flat eye, then cranked his jaws closed. His teeth pressed through its skin like tire rubber, then caught on a ridge of its skull.
It struggled harder as the pressure grew, nearly catching Fás’s hand in its own saw-like maw. When its skull cracked and the taste of brain matter, fat, and blood filled his mouth, the leviathan jolted in hot pain.
Its strength faded breath by breath. Its long, rippling gills gulped at the air for want of water, and its gums bulged from its ruined head as its lips retracted in death. The massive creature twitched long after it was dead, instinctively scooting towards the water, pushing its own puddle of blood off the ice in a swill of snow and sharkskin and clumps of amber fur.
“You absolutechudthibastard,” Gil panted, as Fás dislodged his fangs and licked his cheeks in long, rough passes to clean them. “That was fuckin’ incredible!”
Fásach still crouched on the shark, all four sets of claws gripping its flesh, and gave Gil a vicious, bloody smile. The shilpakaar smirked back.
“I’ll never look at those teeth the same way again.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Fás chirped, relishing the return of his predatory state. He was nearly the bruiser he’d been before Quiopha’s passing. Gil engaged the safety lock on their harpoon again and punched him on the shoulder.
“You should. Saved me a bolt. Can’t get it off the ice in one piece though. We’ll have to prep it here.”
Gil grabbed one pectoral fin with both hands and swung the carcass around to a better angle. They opened the toolkit on their thigh and withdrew a sharp fillet knife, swiping several times along the back of the head to slice the shark open.
Fásach stood behind them as they worked, watching over their shoulder. The hunt had taken the edge off his possessive streak but hadn’t eased the erection in his pants. He adjusted himself and turned away, seeking out the shore nearly a mile away.
The hunt curbed his carnal appetite. It was a good solution for today.
But tomorrow…
Rut, rut, rut.
