Zoark turned, incomprehension wrinkling his features in the most fearsome sight. “Something cold?” he repeated.
“Yes! His face is swollen. And you can’t let his head hang down! What if he has a concussion?” She reached for Oh’nil’s head to prop it higher, to help stop the bleeding.
Zoark jerked violently, moving Oh’nil out of Addie’s reach. “I said don’t touch him!” he barked. “His injuries will not be tended by you. You’re a parasite, no different fromher. Your women are rotten.”
Addie’s heart was beating painfully hard from anguish for Oh’nil and from Zoark’s baseless accusations.
“But…”
“Save it,” he roughly interrupted. “And remember, if you ruin Oh’nil, I will kill you.”
He stomped away, his thread heavy under the double weight of his and Oh’nil’s bodies.
Chapter 12
In the several days that followed, Addie felt acutely alone in her little home. Her brief sojourn into the For tribe brought her solitude into an especially sharp focus. She occupied herself with chores but they no longer distracted her from missing other people.
Even training her Yuux in the mornings didn’t bring her the same joy. Nevertheless, she doggedly stuck to her routine, and the training process was coming along nicely. The Yuux now consistently responded to whistles by landing on her arm, and even returned to her from afar when she called.
Which, to be honest, was a negligible distance because her whistling skills, along with the other abilities like spear throwing and basket weaving were woefully lacking. Who could have known that she'd one day end up in a place like Planet Zero and find basket weaving super helpful?
“I just can’t win,” she sighed.
Throwing her sack over her shoulder, Addie picked up the spear for self-defense and set out to collect tubers, Nessi fruit, and Nipi bark that she intended to dry and powder for medicinal use.
The Yuux, naturally, followed.
She walked and breathed deeply of the warm dry air stirred gently by a refreshing breeze and listened to the Yuux’s calm calls as they flew above her head.
As had become her custom on most days, Addie stopped by her favorite spot with a deep puddle of Jat sand. Quickly undressing, she burrowed deep into the warm silky grains, closing her eyes and letting air escape her lungs in a deep satisfying exhale. Resting her head on top of the giving surface, she felt tightness leave her muscles, and tension ease from the back of her head where a knot of worry had formed and refused to dissolve.
Addie moved her arms and legs in the sand, savoring the feel of it against her skin. Once again, a vague sense of being watched plagued her, but she figured it must be animals all around who were giving her a cautious look-see from behind the curtain of the distant undergrowth.
The Yuux flew away, bored to be in the same spot for an extended period of time.
Addie stretched, feeling peaceful and sensuous. She even rolled around in the sand, laughing quietly and kicking up sandy sprays with her feet.
She started humming a melody as she combed through her sand-covered hair, fingering each curl, rubbing it with sand to rid it of grime. She poured handfuls of Jat sand on her arms and caressed her shoulders, rubbing under the arms and along her ribcage. Her humming became a purr. Pleasure spread all over her skin. That feeling of being watched that should have dampened any explicit impulses only thickened the sudden sensual haze that enveloped her.
Feeling daring, she looked down at herself as her hands cupped her breasts, the thumbs rubbing her nipples in circles. She had small breasts, more conical than round, with pale skin and a smattering of freckles. She had always felt ambivalent about that part of her anatomy, sometimes wishing they were bigger, rounder, the nipples not as washed-out pink… And now it didn’t matter. No one save herself would ever look at her breasts with either criticism or admiration.
She kept circling the areola with her thumbs, remembering what it felt like to be fondled, enjoying the streaks of pleasure shooting from the tips all the way down to her belly.
Sliding her hands down her body, she opened her eyes and looked around, seeking to identify the source of that oppressive surveillance she felt under. But the area was quiet. Her Yuux were flying in the distance, showing no signs of alarm.
A tiny reptile with a bulbous body crawled across her Jat sand bath near her toes, and Addie flicked it away with her foot, feeling proprietary of the sand.
Hands sliding lower still, she closed her eyes again and threw her head back, kneading her inner thighs. Arousal was spreading warmly, deliciously across her body, filling her lower belly, warming her between her legs. Caught up in it, she sat up and spread her legs wide, letting the air reach her intimate places. Her fingers inched closer to the apex of her thighs, to rub that place in light caressing strokes.
It was almost unbearable, the sensual pressure that formed there. Sensing that she was being watched still, feeling the invisible eyes on her over-sensitive skin, recklessness rose within her, wantonness, a pleasure so dark and wicked she was ready to burst from it.
She moaned, letting her eyes open at half-mast, and her world stopped on its axis.
Zoark was standing not twenty feet away, propped against a long spear, his expression flat and impassive.
Addie shrieked and scrambled to close her legs, covering herself with both hands in a reflexive gesture women employed since the dawn of time.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped. The sensual haze shattered, and her heart was about to jump out of her chest from the fright.
