Page 31 of Caveman Alien's Touch

“She saved your life, brother,” Brak says. “It would have been bitter indeed to lose you to the last of the enemies.”

“She did,” Noker says, lifting my hand to his mouth and kissing it. “Thank you, Bronwen.”

“You saved all,” I reply. “And saved me many times.”

Brak runs up the stairs, clearly eager to check on Piper.

“How is everyone up there?” Noker asks, wiping gobs of revolting insect guts off his spear.

“Some men perished in the defense of their tribe,” Sarker’ox says tightly, coming down the stairs, stained sword still in his hand. “We shall have a pyre for all of them.”

“As is proper,” Noker says. “I’m not a tribesman, but if I could choose a way to leave this world, it would be while defending my clan.”

Sarker’ox surveys all the insects lying dead on the stairs all the way to the ground. “This is all your work, Guest Noker. I think you can now consider yourself a Borok man. Certainly you and Brak did more to defend us all than the whole tribe put together. Especially because you saw the threat so early.”

A smile plays around Noker’s mouth. “At any rate, everyone must now agree that the spear is better than the sword. For certain things, anyway.”

“We shall never again ask for proof of that,” Sarker’ox says and bows his head.

Borok men descend the stairs and start to clear away the dead insects. The battle is definitely over.

I gingerly embrace the hero of the day. “Thank you for saving us all.”

Noker returns my careful hug, not wanting to rub the goo off on me. “Thank you for savingme.”

I wish I could cling to him, but I also don’t want to be smeared with this disgusting stuff. “You are very dirty. We smell bad, you and I. We get clean now.”

Noker turns around and looks out at the village below us. “I hear no more sounds of the swarm. Hopefully it has passed.”

I grab his slippery hand and pull him with me down the stone stairs. “If not, I be angry and it will regret.”

He comes along. “Faced with an angry Bronwen, I’m sure it will stay away.”

We go to the water pump and help each other get clean. I notice a long gash on Noker’s thigh. It’s been bleeding, leaving stains on his leg.

“Stinger?”

“Unin’iz,” he says darkly. “Twice he tried to cut me. Once he succeeded.”

I’m stunned. “Hecutyou?!”

Noker tells me about the race and Unin’iz’s dishonorable attack right after Noker pulled him out of the quicksand.

The story makes me furious.

“I not should say it,” I seethe, “but I almost glad he dead.”

Noker scrubs insect guts off my forearms. “You can say it to me, and I can agree. But we’ll keep it to ourselves. Unin’iz was loved by some in his tribe. Although not by many, I think.”

There’s nothing too sexy about this shower. I’m still shaken up about the attack, and while Noker shows clear signs of arousal when I strip off, his touch is more methodical and less sensual. Still it doesn’t leave me completely unaffected.

“Let’s go and check on our friends,” he says when we’re getting dressed and he’s putting his new shorts on. “And thank you for this gift. It’s easier to run in these.”

I pull on my new shirt, made from the same fabric that Bryar has generously given us to use. Now it needs to be laundered, just like Noker’s shorts. “Good. I worried maybe too tight.”

“They’resometimestoo tight,” he ponders, looking down himself. “In the middle.”

His shorts do indeed bulge in the crotch, although I made sure to use a generous amount of fabric there. But it was hard to estimate. “As long as can run and fight in them, is good fit, we say.”

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