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He relaxes about a hair, no more than that, and then tenses up times three as he goes back to stabbing the injured, twitching roaches on the ground, hacking them to pieces until he’s finished. Then and only then, he turns to me.
He releases a shriek not quite loud enough to explode my eardrums, but enough to make me drop to the ground on my knees, my hands on my ears, my lips bitten bloody between my teeth, tears in my eyes and wetting my cheeks.
He charges towards me, not at all looking like he’s interested in rutting me into nirvana, but like he’s more interested in ripping my head off my neck, tearing my arms off my torso and picking his teeth with my bones.
I squeal, wipe my face on my tattered sleeves and hold up my hands—my first mistake. Because he reaches between my outstretched hands to my chest and the rope slung across it. He grabs the rope and uses it to haul me into his chest. He hunches over me, his eyes blazing yellow, his slitted nostrils flaring wide. The blue-green scales on his face ripple back toward his hairline, and his horns extend to their angriest length, towering high over his head and mine.
He sheathes his blades—a good start, if you ask me, but nobody’s asking me shit in this moment. My gaze drops down with the motion, and I gasp and point at the disgusting black…antennae? Pokey things?…sticking out of his skin. They’re huge! Big as goddamn tree branches! But he doesn’t react at all to the fact that he’s just beenstabbed.He’s not even batting an eye.
Instead, he bats my outstretched hand to the side and advances on me, blotting out the shimmery early morning sun with his size. He slams his fists into the rock behind me and I feel dust particles and bigger chunks crumble against the impact.
I stand very small and sniffle, tears wetting my face again, my lips all swollen and hot. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run.”
He starts to speak, a low brogue punctuated by shrill shrieks. I don’t have to know what he’s saying to know that I’m being berated. He could have given tia Bernadita a run for her money. I struggle not to cower, my jaw working, my knees shaking, but when I try to drop down and beg for mercy, he grabs my rope and hoists me back up, punches the rock, grabs my jaw.
I stop trying to respond. I just shake to pieces and wait…wait for the moment his hold on me relaxes even a little bit…and the moment it does, I jump against his chest. I tackle him, looping my arms around his neck. I dangle there because he doesn’t touch me. I don’t know if he knows I’m trying to give him a hug because he doesn’t move at all. Or maybe, he doesn’t want to hug me. I cry silently into the scales on his neck, shaking out of a primal fear I don’t even understand. And a gratitude that I very much do understand.
In the old world, people didn’t do nice things for each other often and they never acted selflessly for strangers. But this male here, now, in this moment that I know time will quickly forget, he comes for me again and again. And he doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t even know my name. And I might have been the last person listed in the Sucere Project—the person of least significance to the continuation of the human race—but the strongest male I’ve seen in this world doesn’t seem to think so. He must have a reason to keep me. When he looks at me, he must seesomethingof value.
“Thank you,” I say, voice half sob, half laugh. “Thank you, Lacchus. I’m sorry. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I promise I won’t try to run again.” Hands—big, clawed hands—delicately scrape down my ribs before settling under my ass and lifting me up until we’re face to face.
I touch his, stroking my hands over his forehead, watching in fascination as his eyes close. He leans into my touch and his chest trembles, the scales on his cheeks lifting in patches. I smooth my hands over them.
“I promise, Lacchus,” I assure and reassure again and again. I lean into his ear and brush my lips over the place where a lobe would be if he were in his other dark-haired form. “But…” His fingers that had been kneading my ass still. “There’s one thing I need to do first.”
ChapterThirteen
Lacchus
She wants something from me and it takes me too long to understand what. But eventually, she pulls the barbs from my skin and I return to my base form. I have a strong grip on her wrists, but when she pulls, I let her go.
She does not run, as I half expected she might—hoped she might, if for no other reason than to chase. Instead, she holds out her hands. She has her palms up, like she’s trying to push me back, but there are several feet of space between us. Her arms are also apart, stiff at the elbows, waving awkwardly, gesturing strangely. The wind whips my face, picking up speed, and I grimace, knowing that my tribe needs me.
They will be able to fight off the dramini horde, of that I have no doubt. After all, I was able to issue them a warning call that they responded to. But we will not be able to take advantage of the winds today to move camp. That means we will keep camp stationary for the night, a risk out in the Barrens. I tick in the back of my throat, annoyed.
I want to get my prize back to Paradise. We have caught more frex-frex than we need for the next months. There is no reason for our continued travel and I’d like to remain in place to breed my prize properly, but first, get to know her. To convince her to remain at my side and not do such foolish things as abandoning camp in the middle of the night.
I snatch at her again, but she jumps back away from me in her shoes with no laces. I see she has strands of rope tied around her middle—likely the same rope I thought to truss her up with in the night—trying valiantly to hold up her grey suit and failing. I frown. Did she not like the clothing I provided for her? Why would she choose to adorn herself in these rags?
I rattle, unprovoked, simply angry at her but more at my long list of failures. She says something and then something again, and then she does something entirely unlike her. She lunges, arriving directly before me, and grabs my wrist. She pulls as hard as she can, trying to drag me towards her.
She wants to go somewhere…and she wants me to come with her.
My muscles ease, and I feel the soft brush of pleasure soothe the muscles down my back like the cool kiss of aloe.
That alone is enough to pry rage from my flesh and make space for curiosity. My worry for my tribe becomes secondary as I take a step…and then another step…and follow her across the Barrens.
She struggles to keep pace with me, and I walk slowly, frowning the entire time. It’s the hottest part of the day, and she brought neither food nor water. The only thing she did bring is the small contraption she wears on her right wrist that she hasn’t removed once since I took her. She looks at it occasionally, speaks to it…and even more strangely…it speaks back. I can’t understand what it says and I hate it because it seems to be guiding her and she should not be out here, exposed on the Barrens right now.
The winds pick up, driving sand against her skin through the holes in her hideous clothing. I shift into my Mpo form, the tremors sliding through me a premonition of the transformation to come. My back arches, my spine elongates and my vertebrae separate at the joints to make space for my new height. The smooth, hardened scales peppering my shoulders unfurl down my back and then over the rest of my body. My feet grow triple in size, my talons elongating, as do the yellow claws on my hands. My scaled skin now shimmers blue-green when the light strikes me, my brown skin otherwise obscured by the harder substance. I use my strength now to curl around my mate as she walks.
She looks up at me, surprise gleaming in her eyes as I scoop her up and hold her against my chest and then, unable to help myself, I press a kiss against the side of her face.
“We need to go back,” I tell her. “The sands are coming.” With my eyesight slightly heightened in this form, the plains of the Barrens before me crystalize in focus and come alive in color. I can see the storm on the horizon.
My hope is that the other Mpo among my tribe will annihilate the dramini horde and sense the sandstorm incoming with enough time between the two events for them to properly secure our supplies, our water in particular. As the largest Mpo, the strongest, I feel a renewed guilt that I am not back with them. But my duty is to my mate. I would rip out my scales before abandoning her. And she is determined to go somewhere. I need her towantto come back.
With me.
