Page 7 of Ragoru

Naturally, it had no answers for her.

Because it is a little thrilling, isn’t it?her inner voice mocked her.You have achieved garnering the attention of a dangerous creature and that is exciting. You are lonely, and you crave it. And he sparks your scientific curiosity.

Evie grimaced. She never was good at deluding herself. Sighing, she peered once more into the trees, searching for any sign of her alien suitor. She frowned. She thought she caught a hint of gray fur and the gleam of yellow eyes, but when she turned to focus fully on it, there was nothing there. Certain that she had seensomething, she continued to scan her surroundings before eventually relaxing.

Nothing.

Her gaze dropped once more to the rabbit, and her stomach gave another louder and more insistent grumble.

“Might as well not let it go to waste,” she mumbled. “It’s not like eating the rabbits has hurt anyone else.”

With one more furtive glance toward the forest just to make sure the alien wasn’t going to charge back out of the forest at her the moment she moved toward the rabbit, she eased forward just enough to grab it by its ears and drag it to her side. When he still didn’t appear to challenge her claim on it, Evie rose and began to build a simple spit over the fire, her rations forgotten. She would have rabbit tonight.

Cooking the rabbit took a lot less work than she had imagined it would, and simply more patience as she rotated the skinned beast over the flame. The fire crackled from the small amount of fat and blood it shed, and the more it did so, the more her mouth watered in anticipation. She was so hungry that by the time it came off the fire, she eagerly bit into the meat, the crisped flesh leaving a satisfying flavor in her mouth. It was a bit bland and on the earthy side without seasoning, but at that moment it was a thousand times better than any ration she’d ever eaten. Whatever else could be said of her meal, it didn’t disappoint.

Evie ate until her stomach was comfortably full. What she couldn’t eat, she carefully packed in a small airtight container with a built-in cooling and preservation feature. It was technically for preserving specimens that would need to be transported back to her post until she could look at them in her lab, but it served her well enough now. She would now have meat for the road, so to speak, while she walked. She didn’t take all the meat, however. She left half of what she cooked on the bone and hanging from the spit above the banked fire. It didn’t seem right to do any less. By taking only what she needed and leaving the rest to the alien, maybe that would be enough to communicate her appreciation and the fact that she wasn’t wholesale accepting it as part of some sort of unknown gifting custom.

Pleased with her decision, Evie returned to her tent and began to return it to some semblance of order before initiating its compaction sequence. She would have repairs to make later that evening before she bedded down again, but none of them looked too bad. Just a few popped seams. In the meantime, it was better to make time while she had the energy.

Sliding the compacted tent back into her pack, Evie slung the straps over her shoulders and stretched leisurely before forging ahead into the forest. Despite how much it pained her to miss an opportunity to learn more about the alien, she hoped he took the hint and abandoned whatever intentions he had and headed back to wherever he had come from. It would be for the best… for both of them. Humans didn’t do well with change, and this would be another one upon many over the last several decades. Especially with the rise of the Order’s influence. She didn’t see anything good that would come from it for the aliens. He just needed to go on his way.

CHAPTER8

Sabol watched the female with interest as she walked ahead of him, utterly unaware that he was behind her. It was a curious thing. She could clearly not hear or scent him, and that made him concerned and even more determined not to let her out of his sight. His female was as vulnerable as a newborn rog, and it horrified him as much as her generosity with her food had touched him. Every morning, without fail, she’d left him a portion of prey he caught, and every morning he ate it, though it was ruined from sitting over her fire. And every day he followed close behind her, determined to protect his gentle little female.

And to admire her strange form—because what was not to admire. The red pelt of fur on her head intrigued him greatly. Red was sacred to Mother Ewa but he’d never seen a being with that color of pelt or headfur before. He decided immediately that he loved it as much as he loved her earth-colored eyes. Everything about her small, lithe form was intriguing, though. From her swollen teats that didn’t quite seem natural, to the erotic sway of her hips when she moved. It was as if her every step was designed to entice him out in the open. It was only out of a well-honed sense of self control that he refrained from exposing himself and continued to follow the intriguing female as she traveled.

She seemed to be heading to a specific destination too, and that made him curious. Although she stopped frequently to rest, more so than he would have expected, forcing him to drop into the brush before she spotted him by the time he noticed, her pace rarely deviated. Every so often, she would stop to lift something toward the sky but then she would begin to walk again, heading steadily north.

The sun was in its decline when she finally stopped and slung her bag to the ground. He seldom bothered with such things, but he had known mated hunters who fashioned them along with other tools to carry abundant game back to their den where their mate and rogs waited. Her bag was much smaller and certainly didn’t hold prey. He wasn’t sure what it carried. He had seen her pull out small containers of food, but it seemed to hold much more than that and his fingers itched with his curiosity to explore it. So far, he hadn’t dared. She kept her bag with her in the tent at night, and he hadn’t yet risked slipping inside with her again—though he was pleased that she managed to repair his damage easily enough.

Instead, he spent his nights stretched out on his belly just outside of its entrance, remaining alert to the sounds of the forest and the predators that stalked the night. It was only when the sun began to rise and the forest came alive with the songs of the winged ones in the trees that he felt comfortable enough to leave her side to catch her morning meal. Even then he was half-afraid to leave her long enough to go hunt. It made him uncomfortably aware of just how difficult it was to adequately protect and provide for a female on his own. He wasn’t part of a triad—not anymore.

The other two males from his triad had starved to death before the Shining Ones got to them. Sabol had been nearly dead himself, stubbornly clinging to life, when he’d been discovered. When he recovered, however, he hadn’t felt the need to join any others, and ignored all offers. His lack of a triad had felt like a blessing when he was able to escape the control of the Shining Ones—his gratitude dimming gradually as his time in captivity stretched on—as he had nothing to keep him there.

But now? Now he wished his brothers had survived the trip and were there to care for her. He wished that there were any other male at all who was worthy enough of trust that he could leave her in their protection. It gave him a new appreciation for just how necessary the triad was and why their people demanded it. It was too much for one male, and he was feeling the weight of it increasing daily as his own anxiety mounted from one day to the next every time he was forced to leave her.

Grumbling, he crouched down to watch her covetously from his place of concealment. She stretched leisurely, moaning softly as she did so, her coverings stretching taut across her teats. Lust curled deep, straight down to his shaft tucked away in his sheath. He did not understand why he found the sight so compelling. He always believed the coverings that the Shining Ones wore were ugly and unnatural, though he understood their purpose for those who lacked a protective and warm pelt. But on his human… he enjoyed them. The way her upper covering accentuated her teats as it rode up with her movement and clung to her upper arms was enticing. As was the small amount of her furless flesh along her belly that was exposed. It made him long to lap at it with his tongue and taste her unique flavor even as it drew his attention to how soft and vulnerable her belly was.

He growled unhappily. He didn’t see how she had not accidentally impaled herself while moving through the woods. He could see plenty of angry red scratches marring her skin that he wanted to run his tongue over to ease their sting. He even saw a few dark markings rising on her skin. Bruises. Rarely was a Ragoru bruised somewhere that was visible beneath their fur. As far as he could tell, her coverings hadn’t protected her at all.

He fumed as he watched her but was distracted by a soft rustle as she pulled out the collection of thin skins that fascinated him. He cocked his head as he watched her unfold them. He wasn’t clear as to their purpose, or how they held tightly together, yet he yearned to get closer to see what she did when she sat over it every night, sliding an odd stick over them. With every touch of the stick, she stared down at the skin with such an intense concentration that he was tempted to creep closer behind her and catch a glimpse over her shoulder.

Her odd blunt teeth sank into her plush lips as she worked. Those lips fascinated Sabol. Ragoru lips were very thin around their muzzle and were far less flexible beyond allowing them to make the sounds necessary for speech. At night, he quietly practiced the words he heard her speak aloud to herself during the day and so knew he was more than capable of it. But he also knew that her mouth was so much more expressive than his could ever be.

Would his mouth and teeth frighten her?

Sabol had never worried about such things before. He was supposed to be strong and fierce, and he was made to quickly bring down prey. He was made to fight and defend when necessary. Worrying whether his appearance would be frightening had never crossed his mind even once before. But then he remembered how she had reacted to him, her fearful scent as she stared at him through the trees. Would she wish for his mouth anywhere near her?

As if knowing the direction of his thoughts, she slid the leathers back into her pack and removed her drinking vessel and a few containers which held sustenance. She made soft, contented sounds that made his cocks ache as he imagined the way she would sigh and murmur happily beneath him. He was imagining pressing into her, and the relief that he would experience with that pleasure when he thrust deep, bringing little cries of pleasure from her. His tongue slid over his teeth, his fur shivering at that mental image as he drew a little closer to bask in her rich scent. Settling in on his belly among the brush, watching from the low flowering branches of a particularly large bush, he feasted on the sight of her. The way she moved, and the way her mouth tugged at her food and wrapped around the vessel holding her water, teased him. Drops drizzled out from the corners of her mouth, and he wanted to drink them up.

Sabol panted quietly, unable to help himself. His claws scored the ground and trees nearby as he watched her until, like most nights, she had set up her shelter and climbed within it, nearly driving him to madness. He lay there, snarling as he sank his teeth into the thick root of a tree. It tasted of bitter sap and dirt, but it helped him regain control of himself so that he didn’t charge out from his hiding spot. As much as he hated suddenly losing the sight and scent of her, and struggled with it night after night, he had to admit that it hid her well. It even disguised her scent enough so that a simple predator that followed its nose to her resting place was unable to locate her and moved on.

That was the only thing that made him comfortable with leaving her in the early morning period. Otherwise it worried him that she had so little protection beyond her strange lightning stick. But knowing she was safe in her shelter, and the knowledge that they would need to eat while prey was plentiful, sent him out. There were areas where animal life seemed so scarce that it made his hackles rise nervously even as his belly protested the hunger. The idea of being caught in such a place with her made him feel sick and more eager to hunt for her now and feed her while he could. There was no way to know when they might stumble across another such locale.

Growling softly to himself, he crept closer, moving slowly as he listened for her soft, even breathing that told him that she slept. The moment he heard it, he smiled and hurried forward, dropping to his belly and stretching out contently in front of her shelter’s entrance. The banked fire nearby warmed his side, and though he wished desperately to be curled around her, at that moment he was as close to bliss as he could get. With another rumbling growl, he pressed his muzzle in through the entrance of her shelter, allowing the flaps of odd skins to cling to his muzzle. Drawing her scent deep into his lungs, Sabol grunted happily as his muscles relaxed. His ears twitched in response to every sound, aware of everything going on around him and near his female. He was on guard even as he drifted into blissful slumber, soaking in his female’s scent and soft sounds of sleep.

CHAPTER9

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