Page 27 of Meat

She yawned silently, and her jaw ached. Alyx told herself that was from all the eating she had done last night—the biscuits and the exotic alien cobbler. But she knew the real reason. It lay snoring on the ground beside her.

Krogg was lying supine, his sleeping head propped against the mossy log seat. His powerful chest and cut abs were moving up and down with his slow, snoring breath. And between his legs, he was sporting the longest, hardest piece of morning wood Alyx had ever seen. Not that she had seen many, but Krogg’s stiff club would clearly put any human man to shame.

And that thing had been inside her last night.

In her mouth. God, in her throat…

Heat raced through Alyx’s veins, filled her face until her cheeks and ears practically sizzled. What had happened last night was so obscene. She couldn’t believe what she had done with these males—these three males.

It wasn’t as if she’d had much choice in the matter.

But she had wanted it. Needed it even, the same way that her body had needed the sustenance of Krogg’s delicious home-cooked comfort food.

Alyx’s belly felt full and satisfied for the first time in days.

She rubbed her tummy with her hands, then gasped in sudden shock.

Something wasn’t right.

A pulse of adrenaline jolted Alyx into total wakefulness and beyond. She sat up, knuckled the crumbs of sleep from her eyes, and looked down at her naked body, which she could just barely see in the early morning gloam.

“Oh my God,” she silently mouthed.

The body that she was now looking at in the growing half light was no longer her own. It was almost unrecognizable compared to the shape she had worn just hours earlier.

Her thighs, once skinny to the point of being wiry, were now plump with a layer of fat. Her butt, which always felt a bit uncomfortable on hard surfaces, now provided an ample cushion for her to sit on. Her hips were wide and voluptuous, her belly rounded and smooth. And above that, her breasts…

Alyx had not been small exactly. Certainly not flat chested. But now the heavy globes that hung from her chest were absolutely massive. Overnight she had magically gone up two, perhaps three cup sizes.

She fondled herself in disbelief.

“No way,” she whispered. “No fucking way…”

A dull ache pulsed behind her nipples, which were stiff in the cool morning air. By some strange compulsion, she touched herself there, pinched.

Pale milk dribbled from her tip.

“Oh God…”

What the hell had happened? She remembered the way that Ravnar had forced his semen into her hole, remembered how risky that was. But that had only been hours ago. She couldn’t have become several months pregnant in that time. And besides that, the new roundness in her tummy didn’t seem to be from a baby. It was just a new layer of body fat, which was making her plump and soft all over.

Ksh.

Yes, that had to be it. The wild ksh that Krogg had put into the food in such copious quantities. The farm-grown ksh that the nith traded with Earth was weak by comparison. The wild stuff was ten times more intense.

Surely Krogg had some idea of the effect that such a big dose of wild ksh would have on her, right?

Her eyes panned around the camp. She looked at the still sleeping ukkur. The nearly dead fire. The remains of alien prey that the ukkur had devoured. They had eaten the rest of it last night, and now all that was left was a naked skeleton. Last, she looked at the animal skins, which had now mostly dried, and nearby, Jale’s crude instruments of butchery.

A chill of realization washed over.

She had been caught in a trap like a wild animal. As far as these alien brutes were concerned, that’s exactly what she was. Then she had been led back to this camp. A camp of three savage carnivores where she had been fed ksh-laced food that made her body plump and tender.

They were fattening her up.

These guys planned to eat her.

Her heart lurched past a beat, and her muscles became weak with fear. She felt like she was going to be sick.