Chapter 26
I woke with a start when something slapped the outside of the tent.
Tovis was still curled around me, and sunlight streamed through the cracks in the tent panels, the heat of the day already turning the air inside stuffy.
Everywhere our naked skin touched I was sweating, and I blushed when I realized I didn’t even have a blanket to cover up with.
Shielding my boobs with my arm, I elbowed Tovis.
“Wake up,” I hissed as another slap shook the tent. His tail flicked the bed and he groaned.
“Vret?” he called sleepily.
“Adak wants you,” a male voice called. “Leave your female before he comes for you himself.”
The now familiar sound of hooves on hard dirt faded away and I looked over my shoulder.
“Are you in trouble?”
Tovis looked back at me, his eyes heavy and content.
“No, Adak leads our band. He wants to know about the sytos.”
“I need clothes,” I said, already dreading the moment I had to get up. My whole body was stiff from sleep, and I knew the moment I stood I’d feel every blister and cut on my feet.
Tovis yawned and sat up, his eyes sliding over my mostly naked body.
“I borrowed some from Amy, but I’m sure the other females will help you find more.”
Other females. I’d almost forgotten there were humans here. I scrambled up to my knees, already excited.
“Let me get dressed and then tell me where they are,” I demanded. He chuckled and reached for a large basket I hadn’t seen last night. There was a bundle of clothing on top and when he picked it up, I saw food underneath. My stomach growled loudly.
“Let me get dressed and eat,” I amended. “Then I want to meet the other women.”
Tovis handed me the bundle, and I quickly grabbed the huge black t-shirt and pulled it over my head before flopping onto my back to gracelessly struggle into the baggy shorts. The flurry of movement tugged at all my strained muscles, and I made a mental note to ask if anyone had a stash of aspirin.
“Here,” he handed me a small box and I turned it over, confused when I saw it was hot chocolate mix. “I know humans like chocolate.”
I held back a laugh, knowing that he had no idea how odd of a treat it was.
“Thank you,” I said, ripping into the box and pulling out a small single serve packet.
He stacked some more food in front of me.
A can of ravioli and a bag of salted nuts.
After months of protein bars followed by days of whatever I could scavenge from the Kwin’s scraps, it looked better than anything I’d eaten in forever.
Sal emerged from a small pile of stuff in the corner, stretched his stubby legs, squatted in the middle of the tent and peed.
I groaned. “That smell is never going away.”
Tovis crawled over to the baby percer and grabbed him. “I’ll take him outside, and be right back.”
I watched as he left the tent and then tore open the can of ravioli, shamelessly eating it with my fingers. The urge to lay in bed and just sleep warred with the need to meet the other women mated to turochs and check on Jiith.
The cold ravioli churned in my stomach. I hadn’t given a thought to the injured syto last night, too tired and overwhelmed. But now I worried that he hadn’t made it. He’d looked awful when Tovis handed him off.
After months of quiet monotony, I felt like my life was suddenly filled to bursting with new problems. At least it was safe here.
***
I followed Tovis, bowlegged and wincing, as he led me through the army of makeshift tents clustered outside a low strip mall. The turoch camp was on the very edge of the city, one of the more rundown areas that had been barely inhabited before the world ended. I could see why they’d chosen it.
The big building was made of sturdy brick and there wasn’t anything but flat land and highway to the north and west. What little ‘civilization’ there was, was sprawled out haphazardly for several miles to the south and east.
They had the perfect perch between open hunting and scavenging. Not to mention a large group wouldn’t have any cover to get close without being spotted.
I shook my head, feeling the tight itch of sunburn on my face and neck. Once upon a time I used to strategize how to be as efficient as possible during a waxing appointment, now I was checking for visibility and defense potential.
“How many people live here?” I asked, taking in the large group of red males clustered around a big smoking fire. I could see at least thirty from here, and more were scattered among the tents, or standing in the distance around the strip mall.
Tovis grabbed my free hand, the other was occupied holding Sal to my chest. “A little over a hundred I think, Adak would know exactly. Most are from a different cruiser, but Vret and I came from the same cruiser as the Kwin.”
I sensed a story, but there was so much to absorb so I decided to ask later.
A few turochs waved at us, ears perked and tails flicking with interest once they spotted me. Tovis greeted some, but mostly ignored them as he headed toward the fire. The smell of roasting meat filled the air and my mouth watered.
Fresh meat? This may be as close to heaven as I was getting.
A flash of yellow caught my eye and I turned to see a blond turoch turning a spit at the edge of the fire. I gawked at him. His hair was almost waist length and shockingly bright in the sea of black-haired males.
A blonde woman pushed through the crowd, a bucket clutched in her hands, and she stopped to kiss the yellow haired turoch before staggering past.
I froze. “Who’s that?” I whispered, my eyes following the woman through the red figures as she laughed and bumped into people. Clearly, she was comfortable here. She’d kissed that turoch, so I guessed that was her mate.
“The quered?” he asked. For the first time I noticed the translator, it buzzed in my ear and the translation lagged before it just repeated what he’d said. Huh, must not be an easy equivalent.
“The blonde woman,” I said.
“That’s Hope, her mate is Aeko.”
I itched to follow her and start a conversation but there were so many turochs milling around it felt like I’d have to shove past a lot of alien strangers and I wasn’t quite there yet.
“I need to find Adak,” he said. “You can come with me, or wait here, one of the other females will show up before long.”
I blanched. “Don’t just leave me,” I said.
He smiled and ducked down to steal a kiss that left me blushing under my sunburn before scanning the crowd.
“There,” he said, pointing to a circle of red bodies who seemed to be cheering for something. “We can find Dargo’s mate anywhere there’s sparring.”
I shuffled after him as he pulled me along and soon we were standing on the edge of some sort of fight.
Two leaner turochs had locked horns, each attempting to stomp their opponents legs and flip them?
It was hard to tell, but there was a lot of shouting, cursing and laughing and it was easy to tell the two grinning fighters were having fun and not actually trying to hurt each other.
A big, scarred male stood on the other side of the circle of turochs, his hair cut into a stiff mohawk and there was a wiry, red-haired woman sitting on his shoulders. My interest in the fight disappeared as I took her in.
Another human. I felt like a weird fan girl as I stared up at her. She was easily seven feet in the air and she wasn’t even holding onto the male, simply trusting him not to drop her as she pumped her fist and roared encouragement at the battling turochs.
Her hair was spiked into a short pixie cut and she had piercings all over her ears and few in her nose. The thin, holey tank she wore exposed the lean muscles on her arms and she looked perfectly at home in an apocalypse.
“Get him, Tine!” she hollered, grinning bloodthirstily as one of the turochs landed a punishing kick to his opponent and he staggered. “Get up, get up, show Kadal what a real male can do!”
Her mate laughed, his hands wrapped around her skinny ankles and she grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked on it. He looked up obediently and she managed to bend over enough to give him a raunchy kiss that made a few of the nearby males hoot and stomp.
Tovis lifted my hand up and waved when she straightened. “Taz!” he yelled over the crazy noise of it all. “Come down and meet my mate.”
She squinted across the fight and her eyebrows rose, also pierced, I realized. I was suddenly regretting making Tovis find me a human, this girl looked like a badass, and I wasn’t prepared to confront just how unprepared for this life I was.
It would take her less than ten seconds to see that compared to her, I was a soft, fluffy loser. She bent down to talk into her mate’s ear and he backed out of the ring of observers and strode towards us, Taz still perched on his shoulder like some sort of roman general on an elephant.
“Tovis,” the scarred male greeted cheerfully, his ears pushed forward by his mate’s thighs. “I heard you came back, We were starting to think you found a female and were planning on hiding her away permanently.”
“I found a female,” he said, hugging me to his side. “But we ran into sytos.”
“Let me down, Dargo,” Taz ordered, wiggling impatiently on his shoulders. “I can’t check out the fresh meat from way up here.”
Dargo lifted his arms, grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her off his shoulders in a smooth, and slightly acrobatic move that plopped her neatly in front of me.
“Hey,” she said, brushing her dark jeans off and sticking out a hand. “I’m Taz, my mate is Dargo.”
“Jessa,” I squeaked out, shaking her hand and feeling all the callouses on her fingers. This was a woman who worked hard, clearly. Taz cocked her head to the side and blatantly looked me up and down.
“You look...”
“Lost?” I interjected, knowing it was true. The world had ended months ago, and I didn’t even have a proper tan yet. Anyone with a brain would be able to tell I hadn’t been roughing it long term.
Taz barked out a laugh. “I was going to say you’re in good shape, not missing any fingers or too banged up. If you guys ran into sytos, I’m sure there was a fight.”
“A lot of fighting,” I agreed. “And running, and walking. Honestly, it was miserable.”
Sal poked his head out of his carrier and honked up at me. Every turoch in the vicinity flinched and what felt like a hundred eyes turned toward me.
“What is that?” Taz asked, leaning forward and boldly reaching out to touch his head.
“Um, a baby percer?” I said, hesitantly.
“A male,” I hurried to point out when a lot of ears pinned back and tails flicked.
I’d gotten used to Tovis’ alien features but having so many extra appendages around was weird.
Obviously, body language was a thing, but if possible, turochs had a much louder version of it.
“Really?” Her face lit up, and she smacked Dargo’s stomach. “War beasts, babe. Let's go get more.”