My eyes swung back to my mate. She was pulling the fallen woman. The one who had fallen seemed to be in hysterics. I growled in anger. She was slowing my mate down and hindering her escape. But even then I felt a small swell of pride. My mate was no coward.
I had almost reached the group now, but I had no other plan. There was no way for me to take on all these zeelk alone. I only had a few more blades at my back. My priority now was to get my mate out of the fray and away from here as quickly as possible. But that would mean leaving her kind behind, and that was something that could not stand.
Get her first. The rest comes later.
The fire-haired woman had circled back, helping lift the fallen woman. In her hand she held a black object. It looked like it could have been carved from ablik, with a long, snout-like opening. As another zeelk scuttled towards them I readied myself to throw my axe, but before I could do so she aimed the snouted thing at the zeelk, and a series of terrific bangs clanged through the air. The weapon, or whatever it was, was still in her hand, and yet it seemed like she had somehow gotten a successful shot into one of the breaks in the zeelk’s armour. It faltered, then fell, mere steps from the small group. The other women were running in every direction as more zeelk charged from the fallen beast’s belly.
I was almost upon them, now, almost able to reach my tiny mate, down on the sand, when the fire-haired woman turned and saw me. Her strange-coloured eyes grew wide, and she said something to the others, raising her ablik snout weapon and aiming it directly at my chest. I ignored her. No weapon would make me falter now. Not even a hundred thousand zeelk would keep me from the woman with the long, light hair. I heard the ablik snout thing make a small click sound, and the fire-haired woman gave an agonized scream, throwing it to the sand.
And then they were running. All three of them, along with the others, spreading out and sprinting over the sand, away from the wreckage, away from the zeelk. And from me.
Why does she run from me?
My mate’s tiny, narrow feet sunk into the sand with every step. She would never be able to outrun the zeelk, let alone my irkdu, whose many legs were perfectly primed to skim over the sand with ease. Yet still, she tried, her legs pumping, hair flying behind her. The tenacity was equally appealing as it was irritating. I liked witnessing the fire of spirit that made her run against all odds. But I did not appreciate that she was currently running from me.
My irkdu was at her side, and with a swing of my upper body, I leaned down, scooping her up with one arm, holding my axe at the ready with the other.
“You are safe now,” I said, tossing her across my lap, her small, tight rump high in the air. She was smaller than I’d originally thought, much smaller than I’d been able to tell she was in the vision of the pools. She screamed something, kicking fiercely, rotating so that she was lying lengthwise along the irkdu, her feet colliding ineffectually with my chest as she seemed to simultaneously attempt to buck off of the mount and hold on for dear life.
With my free hand, I gripped the back of her strange clothing and yanked her upright so that she was in a sitting position between my thighs. And still she fought, her short, blunted claws digging into the forearm I’d locked around her torso. Such a show of spirit would normally have been amusing. But here, now, where the zeelk were all around us in the sand, it was... complicating things. Not that it was difficult to subdue her. No, not at all. Despite her fierce energy, she was much smaller than me, and much, much weaker. It was no trouble for me to keep her safely seated with my one arm, her slim back firm against my chest. But it was distracting me. Her flailing kept causing me to lose focus, her hair flying into my eyes, obscuring my view. And I needed to see. I had good hearing, but her screaming and the chaotic sounds of the sands was dulling any extra help my ears would have lent me.
Her head shot back, catching my throat making me cough, just as a long strip of her hair flitted across my eyes, causing me to blink.
“Get your hair under control, woman, or I will be forced to sheer it off with my blade.”
The thought of changing anything about her physically pained me, but as stray strands of her hair got sucked into my mouth, causing me to choke, I realized that it may be necessary.
She screamed something else, and a moment later a slight pain, like the prick of a drizelfly’s stinger, pinged in my forearm.
She was biting me.
I grinned. I’d seen those tiny blunt teeth in the Lavrika pool. They would do no damage to my tough hide. She bit down harder, and I ignored her.
At least with her head down like that her hair is out of my eyes.
Her mouth occupied meant she’d stopped screaming, too, and was now emitting a low sort of grunt as she tried to break through my skin. Now that her voice wasn’t all around me, I could hear more of what was going on, and I sucked in a triumphant breath when I heard a warrior’s call, and the sound of many irkdu roaring as they charged. With a click of my tongues and a shift in my thighs, I steered my irkdu to turn, ready to greet my men.
Only it wasn’t my men. I squinted, still holding tight to my squirming, biting woman, as about fifteen warriors on irkdu charged forward on the horizon, axes raised and spears flying.
Gahn Fallo’s men. A hunting party, by the looks of things.
They were felling zeelk left and right, and scooping up women as they moved through the carnage. I watched the scene unfold, bringing my irkdu to a stop, wondering if I should approach them. But they were just as likely to try to tear me apart as the zeelk would be. Normally I’d relish a chance to clash weapons with Gahn Fallo’s men, but fifteen-to-one was bad odds, even for me. Besides, I had my mate to think of, now, and her safety was the only priority. I watched as the last running woman was yanked onto an irkdu and the remaining zeelk fell. It wasn’t ideal that they were grabbing hold of all the new female creatures, but it was better than those frail small females getting devoured by zeelk. I had my mate, safe in my arms, and had no reason linger. With a cry, I urged my irkdu back on track, and we departed over the sands.
As we got further from the fray, and I could relax some of my warrior instincts, I was finally able to fully take in the sensation of having my mate pressed against me. Even the useless bite of her tiny teeth felt good, and I tightened my arm’s hold on her, revelling in the feeling of her pert ass scooting harder against my groin. There was nothing better than taking a woman after battle, when your body was still on fire with the brutal action, and my cock was already ready, stretching the dakrival hide loincloth to its limits. But my mate did not seem as keen. She had released my arm, leaving an adorably small set of indentations from her teeth, and she was once again screaming something I could not understand, the words falling and flowing, quick and slippery, like blood through my fingers. Though I could not see her face, as she faced forward and away from me, she seemed, by the sound of her soft, high voice, to be angry.
“Why are you upset? Can you not see that I have saved you from the zeelk?”
Another rush of angry-sounding words crashed from her mouth, and I could only assume that she either did not see that, or did see it, and somehow was still not pleased.
It is possible that my mate is more... difficult... than I had hoped.
Either that, or she was foolish beyond measure. Surely she did not want to be left back with the zeelk?
I needed to try to speak to her. To look into her strange eyes. To impress upon her the ferocity of our new connection. The importance of it. To impress upon her that fighting me was futile.