Page 42 of Star Season

And Holston was there, taking the weapon from me.

He shot the vvoln, and the bolt went right into its eye, and the vvoln wavered on its feet and collapsed on the woman.

She let out a serious of gasping panicked cries, looking down at her ruined body.

Holston loaded another bolt.

“Holston,” I breathed.

He shot the woman in the temple. She went still.

I shoved him. “What the fuck?”

“All that woman was thinking about was pain,” Holston said to me softly. “And she wasgoingto die.”

“But you… you… you don’t know that.”

“I do.”

He turned back to the fire and started kicking at it with his hooves. “We have to go.”

“What was that woman doing out here?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea.” He furrowed his brow. “But she was… she looked fertile.”

“You can see that?”

He glanced down at my breasts.

I folded my arms over them. “Oh, well, I did notice she was…” I knew some species were like that, that their breasts only got swollen for mating or to feed their young. “Fine. So… what? You think people are up here for the mating season?”

“No one does that. People haven’t done it in a hundred gecycles,” he said. He went out to look down at her body, and to look down at the body of the vvoln. “Maybe her and that guy we saw? Some stupid kinky thing with them.”

“If they came out here for fun sexy time, and she’s dead, we have to tell him.”

“How do you suppose we do that?”

“Well, he was chasing her, right, like, for fun? So, he must be nearby, and we should call for him—”

“And bring the vvoln down on us, you mean? Bring them down faster, because they’re going to come to the scent of the blood.”

I grimaced.

He went back to the fire. “Help me put this out, shei. We need togo.”

holston

I went to examine the dead woman for a bracelet or some way of identifying her, but there was nothing. I noted the coordinates on my bracelet instead, hoping that when we got back, I could notify someone and they could find whatever remained of her for her family. It wouldn’t be much, unfortunately, not after the vvoln were done with her. They’d hollow her out, just like with that jurrn we’d come across.

We left the fire as only barely smoking and took off into the woods.

Cypra stayed close to me now, huddling in, her body giving of a mingled scent of fear and fertility that was making my pleasure cock constantly engorged and making things twitch inside me, things that were trying to get out of me. But it was more important now than ever that I keep control of myself.

Because the vvoln were going to come for us.

Maybe they’d be distracted by the remains of that woman back there. Maybe the pack would eat before they tried to follow us. I couldn’t be sure.

I got the impression Cypra hadn’t really realized what the vvoln did to people. She’d probably never seen a person be attacked like that, ripped apart like that.

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