Page 24 of His Human to Charm

“I’ll come back,” I promise him. I mean it, too. If I get lost out there, Toron will probably kill Thro. Then he’ll die, too, because he’s in absolutely no shape to be doing anything other than resting.

I stop every time I come across a new tree, cutting an arrow into the bark and pointing in the direction of the house so I won’t get lost. All in all, I cut into about thirty trees before I hear the rushing sound of flowing water. I stop myself from running straight toward it in case I manage to get myself lost in the last hundred feet. I carve a few more arrows into trees, and when the water comes into view, I set one of the water skins down, where I emerge from the trees to hold my spot. The walk was much shorter than I thought it would be.

I check my surroundings, making sure there’s not some weird alien animal about to jump out of the bushes and kill me. Not that noticing them would really stop anything. Really, if an alien creature is going to attack me, I’m going to die. The thought does not help my nerves, but it does have me filling the water skins as fast as possible.

The water is warm against my skin, which is pretty irritating since everything on this planet is too warm. Still, I pull off my shirt and start to wash some of the blood away. Thro and I have been wearing the same shirts since the attacks, wanting to save the clean clothes for the bandages around Toron’s chest. A part of me wishes I had brought Thro’s shirt with me so I could wash it for him.

When I rinse out the shirt as best I can, I pull it back over, not missing how it clings to my body. A soft wind flows through the trees, chilling the soaked tunic and bringing me some relief in the too-warm department. I actually feel myself smiling for the first time in days, and it’s because I’m not as hot as I have been.

I shake my head, grabbing all of the waterskins and heading back the way I came. The closer I get to the safety building, the more anticipation I start to feel. I think for most of the journey back, it’s because of the goosebumps rising on my skin, but then the ache in my chest lessens. The ache that’s been there for so long and only lessens when I’m near Toron. It’s the same ache that has been making me feel empty and hollow the entire time he’s been healing. I rush a bit faster, thinking that maybe he’s awake if I’m feeling so much better.

The door to the safety building is still open, but Thro isn’t sitting in the doorway any longer. It makes sense because I have been gone for a little while, but he should have noticed me coming through the trees. We’re supposed to look out for each other, including making sure no one sneaks up to the house with a hurt chosen warrior in it.

My footsteps slow as I grow closer to the safety building, worry blooming in my chest. The final steps inside the building feel like torture, but then I see them. Both of them.

Thro is holding Toron down by his horns, a look of worry across his face as he says something too quickly in their language for my translator to pick up properly. It’s a jumble of hisses and clicks that I’ve grown accustomed to hearing Thro use when he talks too fast and in a dialect my translator wasn’t made to translate. His head snaps over to me when I block out some of the light streaming in from the doorway.

“Quickly.” He motions me over to where Toron is thrashing his head from side to side. Or he’s trying to, but Thro has a pretty good hold on his horns. “I think he may be dying.”

My hands go to either side of Toron’s face, and his thrashing slows before stopping completely. His breathing begins to even out, and then his body relaxes.

“Not dying,” I say on a deep exhale. “I can’t be leaving anymore. When did it start?”

“Shortly after you left, he became restless,” Thro says. “He opened his wounds and then started snapping his teeth at me.” Toron’s hands and ankles are tied to the lower frame of the bed. Thro sees me eyeing the restraints and the hot flash of anger that flares on my face before I can hide it. “He was trying to kill me.”

I scrub my face with my hand, hating that this kid was in so much danger because I took the time to clean my shirt instead of being as quick as possible to get back. “It’s fine,” I manage to say after long moments. “I just don’t like it.”

“I know, but he has no problems hurting me. It is you he would not hurt, and when you are not here, I am not risking my life.”

“I know. I know. It’s okay, I promise.”

Thro looks like he wants to say something else but just walks over to the pack of dried olack and the skins of water. He pulls out a chunk of meat, hands me part of it, and takes the rest for himself. I don’t want to ask my next question, but I need to know.

“How much food do we have left?”

Thro eyes the pack, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Maybe one or two more meals.”

Meals are what we call the small chunks of meat we split with one another. Calling them a snack would be generous, so calling them a full meal is ridiculous. I don’t say anything about that, though. Thro is trying not to worry me any more than I already am, and there’s not much we can do in the way of food once we run out. Our options are to starve to death in the safety building or risk going out and trying to find the tribe. A tribe that neither of us knows which direction it’s in, and we have an incapacitated eight-foot-tall demon we’d have to drag along with us. There is another option, one I’ve been waiting on using until I knew for certain Toron wasn’t going to wake up and save the day.

“I need you to do me a favor, Thro.” I try to keep my voice steady. I don’t know how much this kid knows about mating, but I’m not his parent and definitely not about to have birds and bees talk with him. He eyes me suspiciously since I haven’t asked him for a favor at all. Really, there’s been no need to since we both rely so heavily on one another. “Go outside for a little bit, okay?” I pause, trying to think of a reason to get him out. “I want to wash myself, it’s been a while, and I smell.”

“Oh,” Thro nods his head and gives me a smile. “I will be right outside then. If you need me, yell.”

“Will do.” My voice goes up an octave at the lie. If Thro notices, he says nothing, and I’m left sighing in relief when he leaves the small house.

There’s only one more thing I can do to try and save us, and it involves rousing Toron enough to mate with me so I can call on the others through the tether. If Toron had called on them before succumbing to his wounds, they would already be here, and since they’re not, I have to imagine they have no idea where any of us are.

I kneel next to Toron, watching his chest’s slow rise and fall as he continues to sleep. He’s thinner than he was when I left, and it makes me wonder just how long he’s been looking for me and when the last time he ate was. It must have been a while ago because he’s losing mass each day. Thankfully, his wounds are healing faster than human wounds. The cuts in his chest look better and better each time we change his bandages.

When my hand brushes against his temple, he nuzzles closer to me, a sound of relief coming through his lips. I lick my lips, butterflies fluttering my stomach. I lower my face closer to his, getting close enough that I can whisper in the little earhole on the side of his head.

“Hey, I need you to wake up.” I shake him gently at first, but he makes no signs of waking other than a soft humming in the back of his throat. I shake him a bit harder, his eyes finally flickering open, a growl rumbling in his chest instead of the sweet humming. His red eyes are barely visible in the slits his lids make, and he only has them open for a moment before closing them again. I shake him just as hard a second time, speaking to him too, so he’s more inclined to keep his eyes open. “Toron, wake up.”

Yep, that’ll do it. His name is barely out of my mouth before his eyes are shooting open, a look of pure desire in them. He grabs my hand and rolls me over so I’m lying on the ground underneath him. His hands pin mine above my head, my legs spread to accommodate him between them, and his breathing is ragged as he stares down at me.

“This is real?” he asks, eyes scanning over my face and body, never staying in one place too long like he’s trying to drink in all of me like I might disappear at any moment. “You are here?”

“I’m here,” I whisper, wriggling about underneath him, not liking that I can see blood seeping through his bandages where he’s obviously just reopened his wounds.

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