Chapter 3
Telok had failed to protect her. He’d failed to keep her safe. If he hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid her, if he hadn’t—
No. Despair will not help her.
He needed to act swiftly and do as Diego would have—identify the wound and staunch the bleeding. Humans had so little blood to lose, and the scrap of wadded cloth and moss lying on the stone near her was already sodden with crimson.
Telok rushed forward. Water sloshed around him, but he couldn’t hear it over his drumming hearts, each beat of which quaked through him faster, louder, and heavier than the last.
He leapt out of the water, bracing a hand on the ledge to steady himself as he crashed down onto folded forelegs behind Lacey.
She moved so quickly and unexpectedly that only Telok’s reflexes saved him. His hand darted up, catching the shaft of the spear she’d swung at him. The point of the blackrock head halted barely a finger’s width from the largest of his left eyes.
Lacey gasped.
Telok’s gaze flicked from the spear’s tip to her wide green eyes.
“You?” She groaned and released the spear, once more turning away from him and hugging her middle. “Uuuugh. Why does it have to be you?”
A growl built in his throat, but he swallowed it before it could escape. Tossing the spear down onto the rock, he placed a hand on Lacey’s shoulder. “Where is your hurt?”
She rolled her shoulder to dislodge his grip, but he held firm, curling his fingers around her soft flesh. This time, he was unable to hold back a growl. “Lacey, where—”
Lacey growled back and attempted to pry his fingers from her arm. “Damn it, Telok, go away. Can’t you just leave me here to die in peace?”
Telok stiffened.
Die?
The scent of her blood strengthened. His leg hairs stood on end.
“No.” The word tore raggedly out of his throat, rumbling louder than the waterfall, heavier than the stone beneath them. Despite her resistance, Telok rolled Lacey onto her back, grasped her wrists with his upper hands, and forced her arms away from her middle.
“Telok, stop!” She tugged at her wrists, which Telok kept planted against the stone. Lacey growled again. “Why can’t you just go away? You ignore me any other time.”
And he ignored her words now as his gaze moved over her body. The wet brown silk of her dress clung to her skin, bearing neither tears nor blood stains.
His mandibles twitched, and his eyes narrowed. He’d smelled blood, could smell it still, and she’d been clutching her belly as though she were in pain, but no wound was evident. “Where is your hurt?”
“It’s none of your business,” she grated as she continued struggling against his hold, feet kicking at the stone.
He extended a leg, laying it over hers to pin them in place. She was going to harm herself further by fighting him like this.
Why was she stubbornly clinging to her pride now, when she was out here alone and injured?
His gaze moved lower, to where her skirt had ridden up, and his entire body went rigid. Blood was smeared thickly on her inner knees and thighs, bright against her pale flesh. Telok’s hearts stilled.
And then his lower hands were moving, one grasping Lacey’s skirt and yanking it up while the other grasped her hip to hold her in place.
“Telok, no! Let me go! Please! Please, just stop.”
Despite the blood, there were no visible wounds on either of her thighs or her abdomen. Nothing except for the crude, pink, puckered scars she’d already had—one stretching across her lower belly beneath her navel and one running along each of her inner thighs to her knees.
Telok pushed her thighs apart, seeking the blood’s source.
Lacey fought his hold with renewed strength and snarled. “God, I hate you.”
All the air fled from Telok’s lungs. Not only because of her words, but because of what he beheld.
Though the blood on Lacey’s thighs was undeniably hers, it had not come from an injury. It was coming from her slit. From…the inside.
He knew what this was. His friends had mentioned it, and the female humans had discussed it openly in the past. This was Lacey’s bleeding time. Her period.
Telok’s grip on her slackened as his mouth opened with a soft, “Ah…”
Lacey jerked her limbs out from beneath him, and as she sat up, she swung her arm. Her palm cracked across his face.
His head snapped to the side with the unexpected impact, and a sting radiated over his hide. He blinked.
She’d just…slapped him? Gods, but she’d become quick. Just as she had been with her spear.
“Ow! Fuck!” she cried. “Ow, ow, ow…”
Telok turned his face toward her and tilted his head. She was rocking back and forth, cradling the hand she’d hit him with against her chest.
His mandibles sagged. “Are you hurt, Lacey?”
She glared at him, tears glimmering in her eyes. “Yes, I’m hurt, you asshole. I thought Urkot was the one with the stone skull, but yours is even harder.”
Tucking his leg against his hindquarters, Telok reached up and rubbed the side of his face. The sting was gone, but the echoing warmth of her hand remained. “My head is not hard. Your hand is soft.”
“Your head is most definitely hard and thick as hell since you don’t seem to understand the meaning of simple words like no, stop, and let me go.”
“I know let me die,” he grated, barely keeping his mandible fangs from clacking. He gestured at her thighs. “You are hurt and bleeding.”
“I’m in exkroosheeayting pain and hormohnuhl. I have every right to be overly dramatic right now. It’s not my fault you took it literally.”
“It is your fault you hit me and hurt your hand.”
“Fine. Whatever. Now that it’s been established that I’m not actually wounded or dying, you can go.” She waved him away. “Shoo. Off with you. Let me suffer alone.”
His eyes dipped, narrowing at her gesture, before he met her gaze again. “No. Too dangerous. Come, I will take you back.”
Lacey crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going back with you.”
Stubborn female.
Standing, Telok strode past her and plucked up her soaked boots. He tipped one. Water trickled out onto the stone. He again flicked his gaze to Lacey.
Her cheeks, paler than usual, brightened with splotches of red, and her eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re looking at me right now. With…disappointment.”
“Not disappointed,” he said, carefully pronouncing the unwieldy word with its unnatural sounds. “Angry.”
Lacey threw her hands up. “Yeah, cause that’s so much better.”
He turned away from her, picked up her bag—also wet—and stuffed the boots inside, doing the same with the bloody cloth after rinsing it out under the waterfall. He tossed the clump of moss into the water and tied Lacey’s bag closed.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Telok slung the bag over his shoulder and grabbed her spear.
He was angry, yes, but he couldn’t deny the thread of pride woven into it. She’d brought her bag and spear even though she hadn’t ventured far from Kaldarak, which was more than he’d done. And she was so much faster and surer with her hands than she’d been when they first met.
I am proud she nearly stabbed me in the face?
A question he’d often heard from Cole seemed to fit the situation.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
“Telok…” Lacey intoned.
As he turned to face her, he made sure none of that pride showed in his eyes. “We go. Now.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to sit here and bleed to death.” Her eyes widened, and she threw her hands up to ward him off when he growled and stepped closer. “Wait! I meant that metaforiklee!”
“I do not know your words,” he said, bending and reaching for her.
Lacey scrambled back. “Telok, no. Don’t you dare!”
Her final word came out in a screech as he caught her waist and hips and easily hoisted her over his shoulder.
She kicked and thrashed. “Damn you, you spidery sonofabitch! Put me down!”
He grunted and banded an arm around the backs of her thighs, pinning them against his chest. “Be still.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
Telok’s jaw clenched, and his fist tightened around the shaft of the spear. He exhaled heavily through his nose holes.
Hunter, if you have any patience to spare, please grant it to me.
As he turned toward the waterfall, his eyes caught on the crimson pooled upon the stone where Lacey had been sitting. Her blood. And within were darker, thicker clumps that had clotted.
Something pulled taut inside him and contorted.
I’m going to sit here and bleed to death.
Could such a thing happen? It didn’t matter that the humans said this was natural. Blood was life, and he could not accept that Lacey’s had been spilled here, or that she was still bleeding.
Telok’s anger flared. He stepped down from the stone ledge and into the water. How could she be this foolish, this careless, and come out here alone? She’d left herself vulnerable, an easy prize for any hungry beast that might’ve chanced upon her blood scent.
“Telok, I swear, if you don’t put me down right now, I’m going to kick your arachnid a—”
He moved under the waterfall, and its roar cut off her words.
Lacey was sputtering when they emerged on the other side. He used the distraction to adjust his hold on her, sliding her body lower against his chest and clamping his arm around her middle.
She growled, braced her hands on his shoulders, and whipped her head to the side. Her long, wet hair smacked him in the face. “Jerk.”
Telok halted. Chest-deep water churned around them, making him sway slightly.
Patience.
He turned his head aside. Strands of her hair clung to his face, obscuring his vision. He lifted a hand, hooked the strands with his fingers, pulled them free, and flung them back at her. “Be. Still.”
She glared at him. “Screw. You.”
He forced his mandibles snug against his cheeks and ground his teeth together. She was infuriating, but the fire in her green eyes roused something else inside him. Something deep, something heated, something…hungry.
“Hold on, female.” He allowed her no time to respond before kicking off the bottom and propelling himself into the deeper water.