Page 42 of Meat

When they finally finished, Ravnar collapsed on top of her, a hard, sweaty wall of flesh pressing down on her back. For a long time, they simply lay like that, panting, a sandwich of naked bodies dripping with perspiration and creamy sauce.

It was dark now. Stars were twinkling in the spaces between the clouds. The river gurgled past in the young night. The tethered skriks drank at the riverbank.

At last, the males softened and withdrew from Alyx’s hole.

Jale cradled her weak, shivering body in his lap. He murmured soothing words to her and petted wet strands of hair from her face. That felt good.

Ravnar, on the other hand, merely stood and walked away, no word of affection, no tender touch.

Now that, that stung.

When she’d had a chance to catch her breath, Jale helped her up and led her to the water. There were two moons out tonight, the glowing faces dancing in and out of the blowing clouds and silvering the nightscape of the planet.

Jale washed Alyx thoroughly, cleaning away the sweat and other fluids from the recesses of her body. The water cooled her hot skin.

And while Jale washed her, Alyx thought.

She thought about what they had just done. Three of them, three of them, had bred her and seeded her, raw and unprotected. She still didn’t know if their alien seed was compatible with her eggs—didn’t know if these males could actually fertilize her.

Well, she would soon find out, wouldn’t she?

Because even if conception had not taken place tonight, she knew this would not be the last breeding. The brutal males were ravenous. They would claim her and share her body again, Alyx was sure of it.

And that was exactly what she wanted.

She wanted them to knock her up. Wanted to feel the inhuman babies growing in her belly. It was fucked up. Totally crazy. But so was this planet. So was this entire situation Alyx found herself in now. All her resistance had been eroded. It was time to just go with it.

At least one thing was clear now. These guys had no intention of eating her anymore.

They would devour her in other ways.

As Jale led Alyx back onto shore, Ravnar came striding toward them out of darkness, nude, muscles bulging, huge cock swinging between his legs.

He held something in his hand.

A knife.

Alyx tensed. Ravnar spoke some rumbling words to Jale, and the younger ukkur held Alyx gently but firmly.

When Ravnar moved toward her with the knife, she gasped in fright, but Jale murmured soothing sounds to her ear.

Ravnar did not hurt her. Instead, with some exceedingly careful knifework, he sliced the nith collar, which had grown uncomfortably tight around Alyx’s neck. She hadn’t realized just how uncomfortable it had become until it was removed.

Ravnar tossed the slit collar away into the current. He spit after it, a clear sign of his hatred for the nith.

He handed the knife over to Jale, and Alyx noticed that Ravnar had another item, which he now raised in both hands.

It was a new collar, a little bit larger, made of artistically braided leather strands. In the middle, there dangled a pendant—not a metal ring, but a lovely, raw crystal. In the moonlight, it appeared to be pale pink. It was held in place by a tangle of copper wiring. That had probably been scavenged by Krogg.

In a flash, Alyx realized that Ravnar had made this for her.

Just now, while Jale was bathing her, Ravnar had made it.

Unable to express his feeling in words, Ravnar had instead used his fingers and his craft to fashion this pretty choker necklace. With slow, almost solemn movements, he fastened it around her neck.

It was more than a gift, Alyx knew.

It was a symbol.