“I will be back soon,” he says, leaning over me to press a kiss to my lips, and my cheeks, and my forehead, a dozen little promises of affection.
“Please,” I whimper. “Don't leave me.”
“I will always come back to you, Tres. Always.” He makes the promise with a quiet intensity.
“Stay,” he reminds me one last time, pressing a kiss to my forehead. I feel the brief brush of his fangs against my skin, and then he is gone.
Chapter Four
Vulcan
My lust throbs inside me, an unleashed beast threatening to make me mad. I wanted to spend myself inside her, join fully with her, but sense stopped me. I am already making promises I do not know if I can keep, but I feel it is important to make them, and worry about keeping them later. Tres needs to know that she’s mine. I cannot have my human thinking that I intend to let someone else have her. I want her to feel me inside her at all times. I want her to feel my protection. My love.
I didn’t know it was possible for me to love a squishy little woman like Tres. I thought my affections would be reserved for a twelve foot tall matriarch capable of eviscerating her rivals with a single slash of her wickedly clawed talons. Tres couldn’t eviscerate anything. Even now, I worry for her safety. She is vulnerable to animals and other humans, and if either one of them find her in that hole in the mountain it is possible that I will come back to nothing but blood and bones.
This side of the mountain is unknown territory. I want to know what this other tribe is like. It is important to know the lay of the land. To know my enemies and potential allies. Krave may send rescue, or he may not. I may have to make a life on this land, and if I do, I do not intend to hide in caves forever. I will form a village of the strongest hunters and live a good life, with Tres by my side. Krave wouldn’t like that, but it won’t matter what Krave likes if I am stranded down here.
Making love to Tres gives me meaning. I can see a life unfolding before me, a domestic, simple, human-oriented life, but a life nonetheless.
I glance back over my shoulder as I descend from the cave. I have little fear she won’t obey me. She is submissive almost to a fault, following the orders of authority as if they are seared into her soul. She wanted to feel my hand upon her, to know that I would enforce my will without becoming brutal. Now she knows. And I have learned, yet again, how much I enjoy handling her flesh, so fragile, and yet with such a great potential for pleasure.
The other tribe she spoke of, the place where her father came from, that is what draws my attention now. It is possible that she has family on this side of the mountain. Perhaps a father that might wish to claim her. Brothers, and sisters, even. She is mine, but she also belongs to this planet, and to these people. I now know what it is to be separated from those who care. I was hatched with my brood. I have not been away from them for more than a few weeks my entire life. Now I am lifetimes away, and aside from the brief conversations I have with an angry, jaded first hatched, Krave, and my much more eager broodkin, Tyank, I am isolated. I don’t want that for Tres, if I can help it.
It is not hard to find the other village. There are multiple plumes of stroke rising in the middle distance, around an encampment set on a gentle rise away from the mountain. They have fashioned a wall of stakes, and there are dozens of little huts and houses inside the wall. I am impressed. They have organized themselves.
They are clearly hunter-gatherers, with little store houses built here and there. I wonder if they’ve dried some of the food and berries, maybe kept some roots for later. That’s the beginning of the end, the ability to store food. Once they have resources to protect, they’ll have to settle. Perhaps that’s what the wall is about. Maybe domestication is already happening. The end of the wild human.
I creep closer, being careful not to expose myself to the humans who are milling about. There are women at a set of bushes, chatting and gathering. I give them a wide berth, though there may be some use in listening to them at some point. Women are the guardians and transmitters of all human information.
I want to know what the men are like. I want to see if the male who fathered Tres might still live. It is possible he has passed – he could have been killed, or died from something like an infected scratch, or perhaps a simple cold.