Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 83205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
"It can wait. Let us not waste this creature's sacrifice. Give me your knife."
Wordless, I hand it over. I watch as he cuts the creature open, flinching with every wet noise. He pulls out the heart and extracts the glowing filament from it, then places it on his arm, right on an open wound.
My eyes go wide as the thing slithers and burrows under his skin. "What the fuck?"
"All will be welllll…" He begins to slur before he can finish, and then topples over to the side, unconscious. I'm left with a dead creature bleeding all over the floor, an unconscious, bleeding alien, and a whole ton of questions.
I freak out. Just a little. Because what the fuck do I do now?
One thing at a time, Aidy, I tell myself, and fight back frustration and helplessness. Corvak is just as stranded as I am, but he hasn't flailed. He's always had a plan. It's time to have your own plan. I scrub my hands over my face, take a deep breath, and calm myself. Corvak needs help. His hands are bleeding, and I don't know if he's in pain. Then I can clean up the dead animal and figure out what to do with it.
I roll Corvak's heavy body onto its side in case he vomits and tuck a rolled-up fur under his head. I clean his arms and legs while he's unconscious and check him for more wounds. His toes feel like blocks of ice, which makes me think he's not as impervious to the cold as he thinks. I take one of his feet and pull it under my shirt, pressing it against my stomach to warm it. Read that in a romance novel once, and it seems like a good method.
As I warm his feet, I watch his bleeding, and it seems to slow down. Good. His sleep is restful, but I don't know how long he'll be under for. How long was I under for when he did the same for me? Almost a full day, but something tells me his physiology will probably handle it better…which means I need to be ready for him to wake up.
I eye the dead creature with dismay. It's lying on the floor, belly up, and I try not to get sick at the sight of it. Corvak thanked it for its sacrifice, and I don't want to just chuck the thing out of the cave. Its life has to mean something, even if it's just dinner for us. Time for me to suck it up and learn how to butcher…whatever that thing is. Killer Beaver, I decide. Gotta call it something. With a deep breath, I ease Corvak's feet back under the blankets and move toward the dead thing.
The bad guys in Texas Chainsaw Massacre did this sort of thing all the time, I tell myself. You can slice a few cutlets off a damn animal. Where do you think your supermarket meat comes from?
Even though I chide myself for being squeamish, I really hate that my food is staring back at me. I drop a fur over the thing's face so I don't see his face while I try to figure out how to turn him into steak.
CHAPTER
FIVE
CORVAK
I wake up to a stiff, aching cock.
Good. At least it's in working order. The suppressants must have worked their way out of my system and my body is responding. One less thing to worry about, at least. I move a hand to touch it, to stroke the discomfort out of my flesh, but when I lift my hand, I realize that it's wrapped up and covered.
I raise it into the air and peer at the bindings. "Why am I covered like this?"
"Oh, you're awake." Aidy gets to her feet, and when I look over, she has the fire at a pleasant height, and a tripod is set over it. A pouch of something hot and delicious is filling the air in the cave. She's been hard at work. She kneels next to me and smiles, all relief. "The more I sat here, the more I wondered if it was safe for your wounds to be exposed. So I cleaned them again and covered them. I don't have antibiotics, so I was hoping for the best."
Her scent drifts toward me as she sits at my side. Her smell has always been pleasant, but today it smells even better. I can't stop staring at her as she leans over and pulls at the bindings on my hand. Has her skin always looked this soft? Her fragrance so enticing? Her lovely neck exposed by her hair pulled back in a tail, calling to me to put my mouth there and taste her skin?
"How do you feel, Corvak?"
How do I feel? I feel fine, but the erection under the heavy blanket is becoming more insistent by the moment. It throbs and pulses between my thighs, as if responding to her nearness. Aidy pulls the leather off my hand and runs a finger over one of my now-healed gouges, making an impressed sound in her throat.