Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“You did.” He is silent for a moment, and then adds, “Can I make you feel good?”
“I didn’t do it for quid pro quo,” I tell him. “I just wanted to give you some pleasure.”
“Quid…?”
“Reciprocal. Shit, you probably don’t know that word, either.” I think for a moment, then trace a circle on his yummy, yummy abs. “I didn’t do it because I wanted you to do the same to me. I did it because I wanted to make you feel as wonderful as I think you are.”
“I enjoy licking your cunt, though,” he tells me, and one finger trails up my arm and then traces a circle around one of my nipples, sending a shiver through my body. “Surely you would not deprive me of such joy?”
If it can make him forget the world for a few hours, I suppose I must ‘bear the burden’ of having my pussy eaten out. Darn. “Wouldn’t dream of it, big guy.”
13
HASSEN
Two Weeks Later
“You are slow today,” I mock my mate as I crest over a large hill. “Pick up your feet. We have far to go.”
Behind me, Mah-dee grumbles something under her breath about ahs-wholes and makes a hand gesture that tells me she is not pleased with me. She does move faster, though not fast enough to keep up with me.
I just chuckle at her response and gaze down across the snowy plains. Mah-dee makes a lot of angry noises, but she tries very hard, and she never gives up. I might tease her about her speed, but I would never leave her behind. Having her company on this trip has made the bleak worries in my mind fade. She is very strong in spirit, my Mah-dee. If she does not have an answer, she will make one. To her, there is no crying over what has happened, only the need to come up with a solution. She is good for me. When my sorrow over my tribe threatens to overwhelm me, Mah-dee sets my head to rights.
My heart has chosen wisely, even if my khui is silent.
I scan the snowy terrain, looking for changes. I have gone this way many times in the past, but much of the landscape looks different after the earth-shakes. Two more have happened in the last few weeks, but then things grew silent. The ash has tapered off, and the snow is clean again, the skies almost clear once more. It almost feels normal.
Mah-dee arrives at the top of the hill, her breath quick pants. She moves to my side, her hand tugging at mine. “What are we looking for?”
“Dvisti. Metlak. Sky-claws.”
“No, no, and helllll no,” she proclaims, moving a little closer to me. “I’ve eaten enough of number one to last me the rest of my life, and number two and three are big nopes in my book.”
“Then your boohk is lucky. There are none that I can see.” That is another strange change after the earth-shake. While the dvisti have been plentiful, I have not seen a single sky-claw, and metlaks are infrequent. While I am glad that the sky-claws have moved on, I worry that there is something I am missing. This is metlak territory. We should at least see traces of them.
“How does it look?” she asks me. “Compared to before? Any big changes? Maybe that’s why there’s no one around.”
“No changes,” I tell her, studying the distant cliffs. There are fewer valleys the closer to the mountains we get, and the land spreads out, smooth and white. We are nearing the edges of familiar territory. Farther north, and we will be close to the strange, flashing cave where Mah-dee and Li-lah were found. I will not go that far into the mountains; there are no hunter caves that deep into metlak territory. They keep to their hunting grounds, and we keep to ours.
“I see a cave over there,” she says, pointing off into the distance. “Is that our next stop?”
“There are two caves in this area,” I tell her. “That one, and then one around that bend.” I point in the opposite direction, to the distant cliffs.
“I’ve got a bit more juice in me,” Mah-dee says, adjusting her furs tighter around her head. “We can go to the distant one before we call it for the night.”
I touch her hood, wishing I could caress her mane. I feel a swell of affection for Mah-dee. My heart. She is strong and pushes herself to her limits because she wishes to be a good partner. Her pack would be as big as mine if I let her, but I watch out for my mate and make sure she is not straining herself. “It is our last stop.”
“Our last stop…overall? Really?” She looks up at me, surprised. “Then we start the journey back?”
I nod. For many handfuls of days, we have visited cave after hunter cave, checking for supplies. Some of the caves were completely gone, crushed by rock. Some were untouched. A few had some damage, and one or two had been raided by metlak and no longer had anything usable. Mah-dee has been scribbling charcoal marks on a skin—taking ‘notes,’ she says. We leave the supplies in each cave, taking only what we need for immediate survival. Once we have stripped the farthest caves of their goods, we will travel back along the path we came from, and clean out the caves as we go.