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He sniffed the air, drawing it in deeply in search of her scent, and began to panic. He couldn’t detect even the faintest sign of her. Warol knew she’d been ripped from his arms in their fall, but he’d assumed that they’d fall within the same area. While he’d figured they would both be pretty banged up and had even accounted for the probability that she might be injured, he had been certain that they’d be able to rely on his strength and be capable of going on. His assumption had clearly been wrong.
A surge of annoyance distracted him from his worry. This was all Rager’s fault. He’d insisted on rescuing the tiny human rather than continuing their mate hunt. Bad luck had plagued them since she’d joined them. First the snowstorm, and their unnatural lust for the human, immediately followed by the fall down the mountain. And now he was suffering from unwanted pangs of concern for her.
A growl rumbled from his chest as he scanned the trees once more. He let out a raspy howl, calling out to his brothers, but to no avail. They had escaped being thrown off the side of the mountain and were doubtlessly still far away, picking their way down the sheer cliffs. That wasn’t going to help him find Arie. With a sinking feeling, he realized that the human would have to depend on him to find her.
His ears twitched as a branch snapped, and he spun around in time to see a misshapen naked human dart through the brush. His hackles raised. That was not normal human behavior. Arie never went without her coverings for even a handful of minutes in view of them. He wasted no time. With a snarl he pounced, driving the full weight of his body into the bushes where it hid. The thing squealed and tried to wiggle away but he ruthlessly applied pressure through all four of his hands, effectively trapping it beneath the bulk of his weight. Now that he had a clear sight of it, he blinked in surprise and stared down at the hissing, viciously spitting creature.
It stared at him with hate-filled colorless eyes so pale they couldn’t qualify as blue to his mind. Those eyes were set in a misshapen face that bore some similarities to those of humans but not enough to be anything close to resembling Arie. Unlike Arie’s smooth, rounded face, its brow protruded with heavy knobs that erupted often into sharp horns before forming a steep slope to the bridge of its wide nose. The jaw was prominent, and the mouth had sharp teeth and two pairs of stained tusks. A fine pelt of hair covered its body everywhere though it also had a dirty yellow mane that hung down its back. It was very unusual to look at. His gaze raked over the fleshy protrusions on its chest and the crevice between its thighs. Female. Even in this it differed. He was certain that Arie only had two teats.
He curled his lip in distaste. The thing was barely human, but somehow its condition seemed to be worse than the typical human he was familiar with. It was racked with madness as it twisted in his grasp, unmindful of the potential for injury in its actions. Worse, it stunk foully. Arie often complained that she smelled bad after several days without bathing, but she still smelled sweet and earthy. This strange human-like creature stank of rot and the bodily wastes that seemed to cling to it.
Although Warol doubted her potential to understand him, he snarled and shook her only slightly. The one positive for this strange creature was that its form and bones seemed much larger and thicker than the average human. He doubted it would break easily beneath his grip.
“Have you seen a red-maned human female?” he demanded.
The female beneath him ceased struggling to free herself and stared up at him with wide eyes.
“What? What do you want, beast-man?” she growled, her eyes flickering warily over him.
Her thick brow furrowed, and she glared at him with blatant distrust. He glared back at her, waiting patiently for her to answer his question. When it became apparent to the female that he didn’t intend to harm her, a cunning look crossed her face and she attempted to grip his sheath. She likely would have succeeded if he hadn’t pushed away from her the same moment that she reached for him. She hissed in reaction and then laughed.
“Oh, I know what you want,” she cooed, stroking down her three fuzzed breasts. “Beast-men come to Ehurmuvale Village seeking to bury themselves between ehurmu thighs. They trade much meat for a very good time. You wish to trade, stranger? You don’t need a red-maned female for this. No need to attack to get what you need. You only need to ask. You give me much meat and I will service you well.”
Warol was appalled as the creature’s meaning sank in. Some of the Ragoru traveling through the neutral territory were bartering meat for pleasure-seeking with these strange not-humans, or ehurmu, as the female called her kind. Although Warol had been raised to believe that Ragoru reserve their sexual bonding experience for their mates, he knew that many males sought sexual relief through other avenues. Some triads were as intimately involved with each other as they were with their female once they found her. Some were content without a female, preferring their own company among their triad. These were all acceptable to him, but bartering for sexual release with one such as this female sat ill with him for a reason he didn’t fully comprehend.
His ill feelings were confirmed when the coy look on the female’s face shifted to one of anger.
“What? I am not good enough for you, beast-man? You want the deformed, smooth-faced, furless female?” she spat in disgust at his feet.
Excitement thrilled his nerves and his fur raised with awareness. “You know of whom I speak then.”
“Yes, yes, I know her,” she said sourly. “I heard the men talking of her as I was coming out to gather berries and roots. They’d seen her from a distance and were talking about her and making a strategy of how to capture her. They say ehurmu women are all dried up and used too much for slaking the lust of beast-men. They want to breed with the ugly one with the red mane and keep her for themselves.”
“I thought humans mated?”
The female snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know of what you speak. I don’t know ‘human.’ Ehurmu is all that is, and we live in our valley safe from the death all around. Our men sometimes mate only one to a woman, sometimes more. It changes every season. There are no rules.” She thumped her chest with a proud smile. “I was once a highly desirable female. All men wished to have me as their mate.”
Her face fell, pulling into an angry scowl. “I traded my cunt for good meat for my people when we hungered, and now males no longer consider me since they’ve seen the red-maned one. Now a beast-man doesn’t want me either. Everyone wants the soft, red-maned female.”
Warol flattened his ears warily. He wanted nothing more than to be far away from the maddened female. She had a certain light in her eyes that unnerved him. It was his curse to be without any other aid, but he needed this female to show him the way to the village. He could threaten her, but he doubted it would do much good, so he tried another tact.
“If I remove the red-maned female from the ehurmu, it will benefit you greatly,” he pointed out in an exaggerated show of thought. The female paused and regarded him shrewdly, the feverish light in her eyes intensifying.
“Yes!” she said with a shrill laugh. “Yes, come on then. I will show you the way to the village and you will take the ugly one far, far away.” She turned and raced through the trees, pausing only briefly to shout, “Come, beast-man.”
He loped after her with a savage grin of triumph.
Soon he would have Arie. Once that was accomplished, it would only be a smaller matter remaining of finding his triad. Things were looking up.
Chapter
Ten
Arie was certain that at some point, as she was dragged through the forest, she’d hit her head on a stone and lost consciousness because not only did her head ache but she couldn’t help but wish for that blessed darkness once more. The smell was so terrible that she wanted to throw up. She was fairly certain that she was lying on a pile of furs that reeked as if they were stripped from the animal and dried without utilizing any sort of tanning method. They were stiff rather than supple, and smelled of decay instead of the warm, earthy scent of leather.
Arie didn’t think anything could be worse than the smell until she opened her eyes.
Her captors were crouched around her, talking among themselves in low voices. It was garbled and spoken in a brusque, rapid manner but as she listened, she was able to identify the language. They had a strange accent and there seemed to be unfamiliar words added that created a sort of unfamiliar local dialect. Although she couldn’t understand everything that they were saying, the subject of discussion was clearly all about her and what they planned on doing to her. One of the male’s groped his cock and grinned as he responded to his friend beside him and Arie immediately attempted to push away from her captors only to come right up against a wall.
