Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
NAV
The scent of water drifted on the breeze as I entered the abandoned human town from the south. It gave me hope that I’d found the lake where Gyrik, my fey brother, had found Ava, his female.
She was so small. Delicate. Pretty.
And taken.
A sigh escaped me as I looked at the homes lining the street. Empty. Forgotten. Like me.
I yearned for a human female of my own. However, it wasn’t easy to gain female attention back in the communities when so many of my brothers were seeking it as well. Finding new females, as Gyrik had, would give me a better chance and help the communities.
Too few humans remained. Of those who did, many only reluctantly accepted our presence. They did not truly welcome us, but welcomed what we could provide—food, supplies, and protection from the infected.
I wanted a willing female, not for what I could give her but for what she felt for me. One who looked at me like Ava looked at Gyrik. Bright, happy eyes. Soft smiles.
Welcome touches.
Having never known a female’s touch before, my cock stirred at the thought.
For as long as I could remember, my brothers and I had lived in darkness buried deep in the ground, in caves cut off from the surface. We hadn’t known humans existed—or what a female was—until the earthquakes freed us.
In the months since, so much had changed. The hostility, prejudice, and aggression we’d first experienced after abandoning the caves we had called home had improved in the communities. However, outside of them, humans still saw us as a threat and screamed at the sight of us.
I did not care if the males screamed and ran away, but I hated that the females, the ones who needed us the most, did that.
Mya, Drav’s female, said it was because they were not used to the unique beauty of our eyes. But I knew the females who screamed were afraid. Mya and the other females with fey husbands had been afraid at first, too.
They did not like our yellow eyes, grey skin, or pointed ears—or how fast and silently we moved. They saw our strength and how well we could hear their whispers as a way to control them. But we had no desire to control them. We simply wanted to stay by their sides.
However, co-existing with humans came with many rules.
No tearing off living human heads; only infected ones.
No tearing off living human arms when challenged.
No assuming gunfire is a challenge and tearing off arms or heads.
I sighed and slowed to a jog, thinking of the rule I hated the most.
Wear clothes at all times.
Except for bathing. Then clothes could be removed. But only in private.
How would I ever see a female’s pretty breasts and pussy if they only removed their clothes when they were alone…when I couldn’t see them?
Gyrik said that Ava hadn’t been like other afraid females, slow to warm or afraid. She’d been more like Mya. Curious. Open. Willing.
She’d let him see her pussy within only a few days.
I reached down, adjusted myself, and leaped onto the roof of the nearest house.
If I found a new female, maybe I wouldn’t need to wait long either.
Scanning the rooftops, I searched for signs of life. Humans grew cold easily. If any were nearby, I would see smoke from the fires they would need to warm themselves. However, I saw nothing.
Disappointed, I jumped from the roof and continued north, where the scent of water was stronger.
Before I’d left, Gyrik had explained the route to reach where he had found Ava.
It had sounded simple: Follow the road the humans called “Interstate 35” north to the bombed ruins of the first destroyed city, Des Moines.
Skirt east around them, and then follow the same road until reaching the ruins of another, much larger city, Minneapolis.
Before smelling the water, I’d begun to doubt I’d picked up the same road after the first bombed city—they all looked the same to me, and I couldn’t read human language, only speak it.
Perhaps I’d simply missed the ruins of the second city, and this was the Duluth city he’d said would be next to the water.
I jogged through the streets, thinking Duluth didn’t look as densely populated as many big cities. It was smaller. More rural.
Rural was good.
Fewer humans to turn infected.
The chance of survivors was higher.
Gyrik had found Ava in the middle of the woods. He thought that was how she had survived alone and unprotected for so long. And if she could survive, so could other females.
Many of the infected had died weeks ago, leaving the scattered remains of humanity safer. From infected. But not from starvation or each other.
Humans didn’t share well, especially food. They would injure or kill each other for food. Males had little reverence or respect for gender or age. They would take from anyone too young or old to defend themselves.
Most males.
Not all.
Some human males were willing to work alongside us to protect the surviving females. Those men did not try to shoot us with guns because we looked different. They risked their lives to gather supplies so the females would not need to.
Reaching an intersection, I glanced at the large, three-story building across the road where an infected banged its hand against a window.
Its clearer eyes indicated it was older.
Newly turned always had milky white eyes.
As they aged, their eyes cleared and they grew smarter—smart enough to open doors, climb things, and set traps for humans, using supplies or human children as bait.
However, all the smart ones had died weeks ago.
I jogged across the street. The infected stopped hitting the window and watched me with an intelligence that concerned me.
Those older ones had swarmed the last human strongholds to the east and west, breaking through their protective walls and killing more precious females…and males, too, of course. When they’d finished there, they’d focused on the next largest survivor camp.
The one we’d made with the humans.
Tolerance.
Before the older, smarter infected had managed to fully breach our walls, they’d died when we destroyed our caves. It’d taken endless days to remove all the rotting bodies from around Tolerance’s protective walls.
If this one was smart, why hadn’t it left the room?
The glass door of the building opened without resistance, and the smell of death hit me. I went in, focusing on the females I would be saving by killing the infected instead of the smell.
When I reached the first closed door, I knocked.
It was another human rule—always knock before opening a closed door to give the humans inside time to cover themselves in case they had removed their clothes. I hated that rule. If females kept covering themselves when I was near, how would I ever get to see what a pussy looked like?
I heard they were pretty.
Smelled nice too.
I inhaled wistfully and instantly regretted it. Frustrated, I forced the door open with a push. Wood splintered.
If humans had to fight over something, why not clothes instead of food? Fewer clothes would be better.
I glanced at the neatly made bed, desk, and chair while thinking what it would be like if clothing were as hard to find for humans as it was for us.
My brothers and I struggled to find anything large enough to fit.
The shirts were uncomfortably tight, and the pants often bound in places no male wanted to be bound.
Although females did not run away when we were shirtless, they did run away when we wore nothing.
So, we suffered with pants that trapped our cocks against our thighs.
Some females still ran from us at the sight.
If females had to wear tight clothes that formed to their breasts and pussies, I would like that very much.
But I would like it better if they wore nothing.
Even when clothed, they didn’t maintain their body temperature well when it was cold outside.
My brothers and I never got cold. If they didn’t have clothes, we could help keep them warm.
But only the females. I did not want to see or warm the males.
Leaving that room, I knocked on the next door.
A groan answered my knock.
I pushed the door open.
Inside, the infected lunged for me. It fell over, its bare feet stuck to the carpet in front of the window. Before it could get up, I removed its head, then inspected its feet. Water from a broken pipe in the nearby bathroom had frozen into the carpet, trapping the infected inside.
Although the sun shone brightly outside and my breath didn’t cloud in the air today, when Gyrik had traveled this far north a week ago, the area was still covered in snow. Did that mean this older infected had escaped death because of the cold? Were there more older infected now free from the cold?
The possibility worried me.
Taking its head with me, I used it to prop open the main door to clear the scent of death before I checked the rest of the rooms. I breathed in the fresh air scented with water. Curious, I jogged around the building to look at the lake.
It was big. Bigger than I could see across.
Just like Gyrik had said it would be.
Hoping I was in the right place, I returned to the front of the big building.
Across the road, I heard a thump.
An infected was trapped inside the doors of a building with a large sign—a business of some kind.
Perhaps I would find food there.
Females loved food.