Yet in the darkness past the door it seemed he “felt” the shapes of the strange apes within. The females slept opposite the portal, and the others crowded the space beyond the new wall in his domain.
But he was deaf to all but his racing pulse.
Gazda reached up to unlatch the door before carefully guiding it open with his hand. He sniffed the air and his skin tingled beneath shuddering muscles.
Passion swelled in him and tightened the flesh upon his bones.
He licked his lips at what he smelled. The scent was sweet and heavy in the air.
Panting desperately, silently, the night ape entered the structure on all fours, and crossed the span of floor as quietly as he moved upon the hunt—when it felt as though he did not touch the ground.
To his right, he saw the wall of fabric, and past it humps of shadow lay before an orange dim. The silhouetted males slept on the floor. Their rounded shapes rose and fell to time their slow breaths, and the night ape froze in place, startled to hear a voice mutter mindlessly.
The words held less meaning than the sound, for the latter told him his deafness was passing.
The night ape’s heart still raced, but his ears were now alive to the sounds of these invaders breathing, the quiet click of tongues and lips, and the gentle brushing whoosh of flesh on flesh.
He was aware of these shapes and sounds. His senses encompassed all, even though the clotted fog remained to stain the fabric wall and follow Gazda to where the women lay in a rising pool of mist.
He crept forward, pulse pounding, body shuddering, and he paused by the foot of their simple bed of blankets. The females’ smooth white feet deformed the bedding or protruded and for a moment the night ape hovered close to drink in their strange scent until his heart throbbed anew with fire and colored his face with red.
Moving deftly, cautiously, like a panther close upon its prey, the night ape crawled over the yellow-haired female, pausing as he moved to brush his nose against the blanket, or hold his face close to where her rounded form thrust upward with a smooth cleft swept beneath.
Each time he did this, his excitement multiplied and his mind grew dizzy with desire. He struggled for control, and yet he could not resist the scents rising from her. Like a fuel it set him aflame...
...until he burned over her, gulping in her aura—smell, sound and contour.
The dark-haired female muttered something in her sleep, and Gazda’s eyes slid over her face and covered breasts and legs a moment—as his lips and tongue were numbed by heat, and contorted by his shining fangs.
The crimson light of his gaze fell like blush upon her pale cheeks, and he knew she was dreaming without looking through her skin.
Gasping, pulse pounding, Gazda lowered his face to the delicious curve of white flesh where the yellow-haired female’s neck adjoined her smooth shoulders—and he pressed his burning lips so softly there, and felt her heartbeat push against them.
No! The thought restrained him, and as he strove with all his strength to turn away, his body brushed against hers.
Gazda’s breath rasped as he contorted in the throes of passion, wrestling his desirous mouth away from her.
At last to see when he glanced back that she was watching him in turn. Her eyes were open, staring up at his shadow as her bosom quickly rose and fell—as her heartbeat raced.
As her scent rose about him like a caress.
The black fog had poured into the tree-nest to enclose her body and frame her pale face.
The night ape lowered his head and she pressed a rosy kiss to his open mouth, her teeth clashing with his own as her tongue drove against him.
Startled, Gazda shuddered at the passions burning through his body, and even still, he used his great might to pull away a final time.
He could not. He would not!
But beneath him she lay there watching, still smiling but nodding now—comforting, coaxing, as she reached up and set her hands to his swelling shoulder and corded neck to draw him close.
Gazda smelled the blood coursing beneath the lily-white skin as he lowered his open mouth.
CHAPTER 10 – Out of the Black Fog
“We had mustangs at the ranch that were easier to ride than that dang ‘mattress,’” Mr. Quarrie grumbled as Jacob Raines folded the blankets that had served as his bed.
“Thunder, rain and fog all night...” Quarrie rubbed the back of his neck. “And a plague of birds this morning.”
Jacob lifted the bedding, nodding sympathetically but without making a comment.
“I was out the minute my head touched the pillow,” Mrs. Quarrie said, slipping from behind the cloth partition that divided their shelter. After a quick glance back into the women’s section, she shuffled over to her husband who greeted her with a peck on the cheek. “I didn’t hear a thing. Though, I’m sure the hollow-eyed creature peeping out of your granddaughter’s blankets might agree with you.”
Van Resen listened from the open door where he stood on the raised platform with the young Englishman Phillip Holmes. They were enjoying the fresh morning air while waiting for their bunkmates to rise so breakfast could be prepared.
Lilly Quarrie’s appearance had already been remarked upon by her governess, Virginia James, who had just returned to check on the girl and tidy up their small space.
“It isn’t like her to linger abed, and now she’ll be underfoot,” Miss James said.
“Surely, she was disturbed by the rain and jungle sounds,” Van Resen called after her.
With no change in her sleepy ward’s condition, the governess decided to let her lie by shifting the end of the partition so it closed off Lilly’s bed and expanded the interior living space.
The governess left her to join Jacob and Phillip Holmes where they had climbed down to clear an open space in the tall grass for a fire. They weren’t at it two
