Savage Seed by Ivy Sparks

5

Kade

We neededto hurry to avoid the sand tiger I had been hunting. Her roar meant she was close, probably close enough to smell the blood in the air. She would notice the scent even faster than I had and would come looking for a snack, that much was certain. If we were lucky, she would take her time with the sand beast we left behind and start trailing its partner instead of us.

Ifwe were lucky. But luck was a thing I rarely considered, preferring to rely on my strength, skill, and preparation. I walked toward my camp, allowing the slower female to follow behind me. I didn’t like her being back there; I would much prefer to have kept her in my sight at all times. But she was slow and didn’t know the way, so it couldn’t be helped.

I continually glanced back at the female to make sure she was okay. After a while, I noticed she had started to limp. But stopping was out of the question, exposed as we were. Once we made it back to my campsite, we would be safe. I had already laid out traps on the perimeter of the camp, should anyone, especially the sand tiger, get too curious.

Every time I looked back, the female seemed surprised, like she expected me to move without considering her well-being. Her limp worsened, and my worry increased with it. It was her left leg she favored, and if it was a wound from the sand beast, we would have another problem to contend with. Compounding the problem was the strange outsider habit of wearing so many clothes. It was impossible to see where her injury was.

She didn’t seem to understand my desire to help her, because eventually, after I had again glanced back at her, she blushed and began talking aloud.

“Why do you keep looking at me?” she asked.

She had no ear translator, an oversight I found impossible to understand. Why would one travel through unknown lands without one? Even my people understood the importance of trading for such devices, especially as aliens continued to invade our lands.

When I made no response to her question, she groaned and said, “Why am I even asking? It’s not like you understand me. I’m not even sure you understood the Xeki words I said.”

I did. I understood all of it, besides the odd name she went by. Leslie. Did that mean anything in her language? Much like my name meant hunter of beasts, did her name fit her? Did Leslie mean divine female of another world?

Because she was.

Regardless, I knew it was pointless to try to communicate with her if she didn’t have an ear translator of her own. There were spare devices in my village, and it would be a relief when we finally got there and I could give her one. Of course, arriving at my village was another concern for an entirely different reason. But there was enough to worry about now. Better to save that one for later.

I looked back at Leslie again, and this time she bristled.

“Stop it,” she whined, biting her lip again. She raised her arms to lift the hair off her neck, and I took a deep breath. Her scent filled my chest, sweet in a way I was unfamiliar with. If I could smell her from a few paces away, though, the sand tiger would be able to smell her too.

I reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer toward me. She gasped and stiffened, but otherwise didn’t resist. I used my other hand to move both her arms down by her sides and grunted, hoping she knew to keep them there. Part of our signature scent was sweat, and outsiders seemed to sweat the hardest from under their arms. Keeping her arms at her side might help suppress her scent.

The female held steady for a few moments, before growing frustrated and tugging her arms from my grasp. She looked up at me, her blush deepening for reasons I didn’t fully understand. It wasn’t as if I was offering myself to her… much as I was tempted.

“Don’t touch me,” she breathed, quieter than she had spoken before. “It does things to me I don’t understand. You make me feel…” She licked her lips, then seemed to realize what she had done and quickly covered them with her hand. She didn’t finish her statement. A shame. I would have liked to have known how I made her feel, and to have continued to stare at her plump lips.

I fought the urge to grab her arm and force her to reveal her mouth to me. I wanted those lips. I wanted more than just that. This female tempted me, called to me, like no other ever had.

But now wasn’t the time for me to get distracted. And so I exhaled all the air in my lungs and steeled myself, forcing my legs to keep moving toward my camp.

After that, I was much more subtle with my glances back at her.

We walked for some time in silence, but Leslie seemed to find the quiet unbearable. Eventually she began muttering to herself, growing louder until she was addressing me directly again. Keeping quiet was preferable, as we were still out in the open desert and vulnerable to any manner of attack. But her voice was low enough and, if I was being honest, her ramblings soon began to amuse me.

“You’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Truly. I’ve never seen anyone so… so toned. You’re built like a Greek god. But I guess you don’t know what that is.”

I heard her breath hitch before she continued, no doubt embarrassed again. “God, I can’t believe I’m saying this stuff. Thank Jesus you can’t understand me. That’d be… Well, that’d be pretty fucking embarrassing, right?”

I glanced back at her, but was sure to give her no indication that I understood her words.

“Shit. There goes my ‘no cussing’ thing again. I’ve always tried to keep the cussing at a minimum, you know? For my father’s sake. But that’s kinda gone out the window now.”

There she was, mentioning her father again. He must’ve been important to her.

“Where are you taking me?” she continued. “Should I be worried? I mean, you might be taking me somewhere secluded to murder me or, or screw me, or… whatever else you aliens do. But my God, you are just. So. Fucking. Gorgeous. You know, after what I’ve been through today, maybe this wouldn’t be a bad way to die. Definitely better than getting eaten by that sand beast.”

After a pause, she continued, her voice lower and somehow more somber. “It’s no wonder my mother fell in love with one of you and left my father.” She sighed gently, and I felt her breath on the back of my shoulder. She had moved closer to me during her ramblings, close enough so the glances over my shoulder were no longer necessary.

I found the comment about her mother curious. It wasn’t uncommon for people of my kind to have relations with outsiders, though “love” had nothing to do with it. When a Xeki mated, it was for life, and to their one fated mate. Never, to my knowledge, had a Xeki mated with an outsider. Some Xeki kept outsiders as slaves. Other, more fortunate females were kept as pets. Is that what her mother was? A pet who had fallen in love with her master?

There were no outsiders in my tribe, slave, pet, or otherwise. It was one of the few things my father and I agreed on, and a policy I fully intended to continue to enforce once I took over.

“You sure do have a lot of hair,” Leslie continued. “The guys I know, they keep their hair short. Hair like that would be a safety hazard back in the mines.”

I struggled briefly to contain my laughter. In Xeki culture, the longer your hair was, the more battles you’d won. Only after losing a fight were we to cut our hair.

I hadn’t lost a fight in over a decade.

Darkness began to fall, and Leslie grew silent. Part of me was disappointed, as I had grown accustomed to the sound of her voice. Perhaps the darkness made it harder to see me, and thus left her nothing else to talk about?

Regardless, it wasn’t much longer before we arrived at my camp. The traps I had set were still intact, showing there had been no interlopers in the short time since I had left. Most beasts of the desert were wary of fire, and so I quickly set out to get one going.

Once the fire was lit, I gestured for Leslie to sit down next to it. It was important that I now check on the severity of her wound, and the light from the fire would help me do so. But she remained where she had stood, on the edge of the camp, looking north. I had a feeling I knew why.

“Look, I appreciate you bringing me here. It looks…” She gestured around at my bedroll and fire pit, clearly unimpressed. “Nice,” she finished. “But I really need to go that way.” She gestured north and even took a few steps in that direction. “Is there no way to go there now?”

I couldn’t keep the scowl off my face and stood, startling her by moving so quickly. “No,” I told her in my tongue. She just looked at me, a mixture of confusion and defiance on her face. I ran a hand through my hair and stared at her in the low light. She was stubborn. That wouldn’t go over well once we reached my village.

Stepping slowly toward her, I reached out and took her hand. She stiffened but didn’t resist, allowing me to guide her toward the fire. I again gestured to the ground next to the fire, and this time she did sit. Though with a heavy sigh. She was still a long way from fully trusting me, it seemed.

I began by tracing my eyes over her body to look for scratches. I didn’t see anything on the surface, but I knew her leg was a problem and needed healing. A sand beast scratch needed the dust from a carnia flower to neutralize its effects; anything less, and the acid from the beast’s claws would eat through to the bone. I had already placed some by the fireside, confident that I was correct in my diagnosis. But Leslie seemed to think I had other intentions.

Intentions were a thing I didn’t have. Desire, on the other hand… that I had.

I looked at her leg, then moved my gaze to her face. I took her hands in mine and gave them a gentle squeeze; I needed her to trust me. If she didn’t, I couldn’t treat her wound, and it would worsen quickly.

The firelight flickered and danced across her features, softening every angle and harsh line, making her look even more delectable than before. I swallowed a growl, then looked down at her leg again, finally discovering the source of her limp. A cut, clearly of sand beast making, right along her left hip. She’d have to remove her covering for me to see the injury properly.

I returned my gaze to her eyes and found her cheeks flushed from the heat of the fire… or something more dangerous.