Chapter 4 #2
Still holding my head at a painful angle, he brought his other hand up and brushed his dirty fingers across my lower lip.
He pressed against it, and the flesh dug into my teeth.
And then he leaned forward and licked a long wet, slimy stripe up the side of my face.
“You bought him another rotation.” He let go of my head with a shove, and I face planted in the dirt.
His boot kicked out at my shoulder, and I muffled my cry of pain.
“Let’s get farther away from their settlement,” the leader was saying to the others. “Can’t risk any of their warriors wandering around and finding us. Hate those invisible shits.”
I tried to get onto my hands and knees, but my muscles had given out. The worst of the vanik was hitting, and I could do nothing but listen to their voices talk over me as Ethan called my name over and over, each time more panicked than the last.
“What’ll we do with him?”
They must have shoved Ethan, because out of the corner of my eye, he hit the ground with a thud before once again, returning to his knees as he spat curses and insults. He just wouldn’t quit. “What’d you do to her, fuckers? What did you do?”
They ignored him. “Give him vanik,” the leader. “I’m curious what it’ll do to a human.”
I couldn’t even warn Ethan before they jammed a dart in his neck, and his eyes rolled back. When his body slumped, I could do nothing but close my eyes and regret not protecting him better.
Ethan
Goldie stood in front of me at the entrance to some sort of weird tent made of leaves and branches. She wore an ornate necklace that covered her entire upper chest. She twisted her fingers in front of her. Nerves rolled off her in waves. No, not just nerves. Fear. Loathing. Disgust.
“Goldie,” I called. I stood on a mossy platform separate from her. I tried to walk, to get closer to her, but my feet wouldn’t move, I was frozen. “Goldie,” I tried again.
She didn’t look at me. Acknowledge me. Nothing. I wasn’t even there.
From inside the tent, a hand pushed back the hanging vines, and then a massive creature stood in front of me.
He had to be close to seven feet tall. Golden scales covered his body much like hers, and he was naked, with a massive erect dick that nearly prodded her in the stomach.
God it was huge, and ugly, covered in these pulsing veins that made it seem like it had its own heartbeat.
Wicked spikes rose from his shoulders, and his white hair hung loose down his back.
White tattoo-like marks covered his shoulders, and I realized that the pattern matched her necklace.
Who was this guy? Why was he naked in front of my Goldie?
“Who the fuck are you?” I called out, but he ignored me too.
His hand settled on Goldie’s bare shoulder. Suddenly she was naked too, but looking at her felt wrong, like I was invading her privacy. She trembled from head to toe as his hand shifted to touch the necklace before continuing down her chest…
Oh fuck no, Goldie didn’t want this. I could see it in her big eyes, her shivering body, the way she tried to hunch in on herself. She hadn’t been that way with me. She’d preened under my touch. Eager. Beautiful.
Here, she was a shell. A pretty, golden, empty shell.
“Hands off, asshole!” I shouted. I was still frozen. I couldn’t move. All I could do was shout. “Get the hell off of her!”
His fingers drifted over a pert nipple, and Goldie jerked at the touch with revulsion. The big male smiled cruelly.
I was going to be sick.
Then suddenly her head turned. Her blue eyes met mine, and the disgust and fear in them bled away to determination. The male gripped her hand and tugged her toward the tent entrance, but her gaze remained on me.
“You should go.” Her voice was flat.
“Fuck that,” I spat. “I’m not leaving you. How do I get you away from him?” I turned my gaze toward the male, who didn’t seem to know I was there. “And fuck you, asshole.”
“Vanik affects them too.” Her eyes bored into mine.
The words she said were important. I could feel it. But I didn’t understand the context. “What? What’s vanik?”
“Use your teeth,” she said.
“My teeth—?”
The male growled. “Now, Hara.” He tugged her in the tent. And I was falling.
I woke with a jerk, disoriented and woozy. My shoulders ached, and my head throbbed. My eyes burned like someone had rubbed my corneas with sandpaper. I managed to eke them open with a great deal of effort.
Vision blurry, I blinked a few times. Fuck, my shoulders hurt.
I tried to roll them but realized quickly that my hands were tied behind my back.
Rough rope burned the skin on my wrists, and I huffed in anger.
My legs were free, but they felt useless, just two numb limbs sticking out in front of me.
The only reason I was upright was because my back was propped against a tall tree.
A blue leaf floated down and landed on my knee.
Goldie.
I jerked my head up, immediately searching for her in the small clearing. The ugly-ass green aliens huddled around a small fire, and Goldie lay nearby with her back to me. Motionless. Her once-shiny white hair hung in dirty, twisted clumps. I couldn’t see her face. Was she alive?
I stared at her back with my heart in my throat, waiting to see the rise and fall of her breaths. When I caught the movement, I nearly wept with relief. She was alive, just not conscious.
I couldn’t be sure what they gave us, but I felt like I was swimming in mud, fighting my way to stay alert and awake.
My head lolled on my shoulders, and one of the green aliens noticed my movements.
He didn’t seem to care much about me, because he looked away and went back to chatting with his buddies at the fire.
They were eating something. I saw a furry body nearby and smelled familiar meat.
Hard to believe I could scent it over the stench of their bodies.
Because for real. These guys stuck. Like a decomposing corpse.
Goldie smelled like syrup and perfection.
I hated they’d gotten their dirty hands on her at all.
My dream came back to me in fits. Goldie talking to me. That awful fucking predator touching her. Vanik. Use your teeth.
I had to focus on my current situation. Form a plan.
Save Goldie and myself. There were four green aliens.
One wore a frayed vest with some metallic decorations on it.
He’d seemed like the one in charge. The one who’d pulled my Goldie’s hair.
He’d pay for that. The other three were his stooges.
They all wore coarse fabric pants, but their big feet were bare, and they were covered in a thick green skin that reminded me of dinosaurs.
The leader had dark hair shaved closed to his scalp.
Two of them had long, greasy hair that was so dirty I couldn’t really be sure of the color.
The third stooge was thinner than the other three.
Something about his shifty eyes and nervous tics made me think he was younger.
Inexperienced. Definitely nervous. He kept glancing at me and worrying his thin lips with his ragged, discolored teeth.
I blew him a kiss, and he lurched to his feet, shouting a few words that seemed threatening.
It was kind of nice not being able to understand his words.
He might have been talking about all the ways he would tear my limbs from my body in order to make me scared, but I couldn’t understand it, so it just came across as halting gibberish which was more funny than terrifying.
I snorted, amused at his bellowing, and he made to stomp toward me.
The leader called out something, and he stopped short, nostrils flaring.
Or what looked like nostrils. They were sort of just vague holes above a gaping mouth.
Ugly as fuck. He sat back down in a huff, likely following his leader’s orders, but kept glaring at me.
I winked at him, and his skin darkened around his eyes in an obvious fit of anger.
A delicate groan cut through the green alien conversation, and Goldie stirred.
Shit, I hadn’t wanted her to wake up yet.
While I hadn’t been able to understand any of the words she’d exchanged with the leader, I could guess subtext.
When his stooges had raised a gun to my head, she’d done something.
Said something. Made a promise. Had that saved my life?
And what had she promised? Well, whatever that promise was, it wouldn’t be fulfilled. Not while I was still alive.
Goldie stirred again, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Then, softly on the breeze, my name in her now-hoarse voice. “Ee-eethan?”
“Here, Goldie,” I called back. Fuck, these ropes on my wrist were tight. I started fidgeting at the knots with my fingers, trying to loosen the bonds. “Hey, it’s okay. Just go rest more.”