8. Garrek
8
GARREK
I ’d only been travelling with Magnolia for two full days and things were already getting too hard.
And this was coming from a male who’d killed his own father and had been exiled to an untamed and isolated planet as a mere child. Some days it felt like I was more scar than skin. I knew hard. Hard was who I was.
Unfortunately, that was becoming uncomfortably literal in Magnolia’s presence.
I stopped inside the cover of the treeline and glared down at the crotch of my pants. The leather there was pulled far too tight.
It had started on the ride, having her soft body fit so perfectly within the intimate space between my thighs. The alien sweetness of her scent, warmed by dust and sun and shuldu, wafting over me every time she so much as shifted. Things had become a little… stiff. I’d ignored it. But then, just now, when I’ d held her and helped her down, that stiffness had sharpened with a suddenness and a strength that sucked the breath from my lungs.
My cock was irritatingly, inconveniently hard. I could feel the hot, needy stretch of the flesh, could feel the way my cock tail pulsed around the base of my shaft in time with my unsteady heartbeat.
She’d have to start getting down off the shuldu on her own from now on. I couldn’t keep touching her and having my body react this way as a result. It wasn’t right. She wasn’t mine.
She’d likely hate me if she knew.
The mere thought of her horror at my erection was enough to help it subside a little. I crushed my eyes closed and focused on the image. I conjured the look of betrayal, the disappointment and disgust, that would no doubt have shaped her face if she’d only let those large and shining eyes dip towards my straining genitalia a moment ago.
A stool , I thought in a sudden, miserable moment of inspiration. I’d make her a stool so she could get up and down from the saddle with ease. I could stand nearby to make sure she didn’t stumble or trip or do anything else to put her already vulnerable little body in danger. But I wouldn’t have to keep grabbing at her the way I currently was.
Feeling only slightly relieved but mostly nauseous, I started moving again to find water for the night and located a large, deep creek. When I returned to the area I’d chosen as our camp, I saw that Killian had already set up his tent and was working on Magnolia’s. Magnolia was nearby but was turned away from us, crouched and digging around in her bag for something.
Surreptitiously, I took my bedroll down from where I’d strapped it to Shanti.
“When you’re finished with her tent,” I said in a low voice to Killian, holding out my bedroll “put this inside it.”
I need not have made such an effort to keep my voice down. Magnolia did not so much as turn around. Human hearing truly was pathetic. But as much as I wanted to feel a snarly sort of smugness at that, all I felt was the constriction of foreboding in my guts. Poor hearing could be dangerous out here.
Poor hearing could be dangerous anywhere.
Oaken had good hearing, of course. But he was also injured and would need time to heal. Would he be able to take proper care of her?
I shoved that thought from my mind when I realized that Killian had not taken the bedroll.
“Killian,” I grunted. I frowned. It was not unusual for Killian to ignore me, but I doubted he would when it came to something that would benefit Magnolia. No, he was acting as if he hadn’t heard me at all.
I hoisted the packed bedroll up and tapped him on the top of the head with the bundle. He’d already removed his hat and the leather made contact with his right ear. I’d made sure to tap him only lightly, a way to both gently reprimand him and get his attention, but he violently flinched and then bared his fangs in a vicious hiss as if I’d hit him the way my father would have.
And my father would have hit him hard.
“What is it?” I asked, leaning towards him with narrowed eyes as he rubbed viciously at the base of his right ear. There did not seem to be any outer damage to it, no sunburn or cuts, nothing that would have warranted such a reaction. Our ears were sensitive, but I’d barely touched him with the soft, worn leather.
“Nothing,” he snapped. He gave his ear a sharp tug and then shook his head so vigorously it was a wonder his brain wasn’t bruised by the end of it.
“You didn’t answer me,” I said, still eyeing him warily. Killian startled easily. Maybe that was it. “I want you to put this bedroll in Magnolia’s tent when you’re finished.”
“That one?” Killian’s big white eyes landed on the bedroll. “Isn’t that yours?”
“Keep your voice down,” I muttered, glancing back to see if Magnolia had noticed our exchange yet. She hadn’t. It had already been enough of a fight to get her to take my tent. I didn’t need to waste my breath going in circles explaining why she should take my bedroll, too. “Yes, it’s mine. She doesn’t have one.”
Killian finished securing the poles and hides for Magnolia’s tent with his hands, his tail wrapping around the bedroll to take it from my claws. With his tail, he tossed the bedroll into the tent. Good. Now it would be ready for her when she entered the tent. If she had an argument to make about it later, I’d just pretend to be asleep so that I did not have to acknowledge it.
“Is there somewhere we can go clean up?”
Magnolia had found whatever she’d wanted. She was standing and facing us now, holding a much smaller bag.
“Clean what?” I grunted at her as I went to get the collapsible troughs for filling. I grasped one with my tail and pulled it up into my hands.
“Like, my clothes,” she responded. Then, more quietly. “And my body.”
I dropped the trough.
“What are you doing?” Killian asked me, cocking his head in confusion at my uncharacteristic clumsiness.
Oh, nothing. Just casually losing my mind.
For a moment, it was very difficult to form words. Had I ever learned to speak? It somehow seemed unlikely.
“There’s water,” I finally managed to croak. “So… use it.”
“Great!” Magnolia replied. “I’ll be quick. I have to imagine it’ll be pretty cold in the water at night. But I don’t want to slow us down tomorrow when it’s sunny.”
Something inside me went sideways. Made me feel awfully uncentered.
I did not want her to be cold.
“If you get up early tomorrow and get packed and ready,” I told her, “we can wait until the sun’s up so it’s warmer for you. ”
Killian gawked at me, no doubt knowing I would not have made an allowance such as this for anyone else. Magnolia smiled warmly in response. The thrown-sideways feeling intensified until I had to stop looking at her simply to make sure both my boots were still on my feet and that my feet were still on the ground.
“Thank you!” she breathed, hugging her little bag closer to her chest. “But it’s alright. I’d really like to have a quick wash now before bed. And give some of my clothes a rinse so I can hang them up overnight.”
I ripped off my hat and rubbed at the back of my neck vigorously, wondering how to coordinate Magnolia’s hygiene on our travels. She could not be in the water alone, that was certain. And I could not be with her while she was naked. That was even more certain.
Killian needed a wash. Maybe they could go together.
But he could be a handful about bathing at the best of times. I did not think-
“I will go with you!”
Magnolia’s smile widened at Killian’s interjection. It was now my turn to stare at him in disbelief. That child had never volunteered to get wet or clean himself in the entire time I’d known him.
Being with Magnolia was making new males of us both.
I wondered if we’d even recognize each other, or ourselves, when she was gone.
Who were we becoming with her ?
Who would we be without her?
As that was too depressingly bleak to contemplate, I refocused myself on the subject matter at hand.
“Fine. I will escort you to the water I found. I have to fill the troughs. Killian,” I added sharply. “If she is in the water, I expect you to be there, too. She is not to be left alone.”
“Hey,” Magnolia said, her smile replaced with sternness, “it should be the other way around. I’m the adult. I should be making sure he’s alright.”
Killian and I stared at her in silence. Then, our glances went to each other at the very same moment. We shared a look between us. A look that said, “Let her think that, but watch her anyway.”
It was probably the first time Killian and I had ever agreed so instantly or communicated so effectively. And we’d done it without speaking a single word.
I tossed down my hat and picked up the trough once more.
“Alright,” I grunted, leading the way to the water. “Let’s go.”