If he’d left her, she needed to find a way to keep warm, at least until morning when she could see better and find a way to get food.
A feeling of hopelessness washed through her as she shuddered against the cold.
She couldn’t do this.
Images of the other human women who had also been abducted flashed through her mind and she wondered if they were having the same self-doubt as she was.
Probably not.
They all seemed so much stronger than she was. So much surer of themselves.
She’d tried to be brave, but all she’d done was end up crying.
She wasn’t ready for any of this.
Underneath it all, she felt…incompetent.
At her twentieth birthday party a few months before, it had felt like she had her whole life ahead of her. She’d had plans—and none of those plans had included this.
She guessed it was the same for the other women. But they seemed so much more resilient than she was.
They were.
But if their resilience taught her anything so far, it was that if she was going to survive, she needed to get her wits about her and be strong.
Maybe that was what she needed to do now.
She was alone.
Cold. Alone. Hungry.
As she waited a few more minutes, the reality that he wasn’t coming back took root, and she knew if that was the case, she needed to fend for herself.
And she would.
She would, or she would die trying...
Hopefully, those wouldn’t be her famous last words.
9
The chill in the air brought on by nightfall was comforting. He much preferred the cold to the heat. Heat irritated his wings and made him feel like he was going to molt because of the furnace his feathers naturally created.
But, even though he appreciated the cold, he knew it was probably not the same for his human.
His human?
Qrak.
There was that invading thought again. That thought!
It was why he’d had to leave the cave so quickly.
He’d needed to get away, to sort through the madness that was now in his mind.
His human? He didn’t have a human. He didn’t have anyone.
But even as he said this to himself, another set of whys counteracted his argument.
Why then was he feeling so possessive over her, with the slightest thought of her coming to harm filling him with anxiety and rage?
Why then did he want to touch her at every possible moment, even going the extent he pretended it was because he needed to carry her?
Why then were his hearts beating so hard when he was with her that he had to focus intently on what he was doing just so that she didn’t consume his mind?
Why then was her scent so intoxicating that crouching with her in his arms during the sandstorm had him struggling with his own cock, so much so he’d had to close his eyes to block out her image while he focused on keeping himself soft.
A low growl left his lips as he headed back to the cave.
He shouldn’t be flying. The pain in his shoulder was slowly spreading through his wing, which meant he was agitating the injury. Yet, he’d flown so far away from the darned cave, struggling with himself all the way, trying to gain control of whatever was pushing him over that edge towards her.
He couldn’t succumb.
It was not the Vaen way.
These feelings…this growing possession, this need, such feelings could only be acted on if she chose him. Not the other way around.
That was the Vaen way. Vaen females were the ones who initiated interest. They were the ones who chose which male deserved their affections.
He remembered the first time he witnessed the mating rituals. He’d been a young male, about five orbits old. For the ritual, it was three Vaen males and competing for the chance to be chosen. It was a great honor for them to complete the set of trials for the female, showing their worth and strength as her best potential mate. To compete, she had been the one to choose which males she wanted to have the honor and after the ritual, she would choose again. This time, choosing the one who she thought deserved her affection.
It was how it was and how it had been for millennia.
Vaen females chose.
They chose which males even had the right to look upon them with want and need emanating from their very pores.
Without the ritual, a male had no right to view a female with lust in his eyes. It was deviant.
And deviance belonged Below.
Kyris rolled his shoulders as he flew, ignoring the pain as the thoughts lay heavy on his mind.
This human…every second he spent around her it was as if he was forgetting this moral code. Even now the scent of her lingered in his nose.
She’d already been looking a little better before he’d flown off to gather the zehmip skins. Maybe the health kit had done the job.
Now returning to the cave he’d found for them, he gripped the woolly zehmip skins tightly.
They would keep her warm and then she might be well enough after some rest to start the trek to the outpost. This flight for the zehmip skins had been enough to tell him his wing was injured enough; he needed to get some medical care lest he damage it more. Even now, with him trying to mostly glide on the wind current to take the pressure off, he could still feel the pain.
Glancing at the dark sky above, he flapped and narrowed his wings as he cut through the air.
It was taking a while to get back and it wasn’t because his wing was injured. It seemed he’d actually gone farther than he’d realized. But the zehmip skins were the only thing he knew could keep her warm in this cold. There was nothing else to use in the desert.
Well…a frown creased his brow as the thought slowly crept in. He hadn’t needed to get the zehmip. He could have easily kept the human warm by allowing her
