The effect is instantaneous.
Both males' pupils blow completely black. Their breathing becomes ragged gasps, chests heaving. Both cocks emerge violently, fully engorged in seconds. The transformation is horrible to watch. They're not themselves anymore, just biology driven to its extreme. The mating frenzy hits like a physical force, overriding everything else.
They turn toward each other.
The blue-green is still partially paralyzed, can't flee. Vek is closer, stronger, and the frenzy makes him savage. He grabs the younger male, and what happens next makes me look away.
The sounds are enough. Snarling. The rip of scales. Screams that start as rage and become something else. Something broken.
The yellow one runs. Doesn't look back. Just runs into the desert heat.
I edge around the wrestling males, staying clear of the secretion cloud. The frenzy will last hours. The damage they're doing to each other...
Vek is stronger, but the blue-green fights with paralyzed desperation. Claws rake. Teeth tear. They're not trying to mate anymore. They're trying to dominate, to destroy, the secretion turning their biology into a weapon against them.
By the time I reach the opposite side of the den, Vek has the blue-green pinned. What he's doing... the blue-green's screams echo off the walls. But Vek is screaming too. The frenzy doesn't care about consent or preference. It just demands breeding, completion, regardless of compatibility or damage.
Green blood pools on the stone. From both of them. The violence of forced mating between incompatible males is destroying them both.
I can't watch anymore. Can't listen. I grab what supplies I can and retreat to the back chamber of the den, as far from them as possible. But the sounds carry. The wet violence of it. The screams becoming whimpers becoming silence then screams again as the frenzy drives them to continue despite damage.
Hours pass. The sounds gradually weaken. Become desperate gasps. Then, finally, silence.
I wait longer to be sure, then carefully return to the main chamber.
They're both alive, barely. Vek is curled on his side, green blood pooling beneath him. The damage to his lower body is extensive. He's conscious, eyes focusing on me with mixture of hatred and pleading.
The blue-green isn't moving at all, but still breathing. Unconscious from trauma.
“Kill me.” Vek's voice is destroyed, barely a whisper. “Please.”
“That's for Khor to decide.”
“Can't... can't survive like this. Bleeding inside. Everything torn.”
He's right. The damage from violent mating between males, driven by frenzy to completion despite anatomical incompatibility, has destroyed him internally. He'll die slowly over days.
“Please,” he begs. “Mercy.”
“You came here to rape me and you want mercy?”
“Was... was stupid. Young. Desperate. But this...” He coughs, blood bubbling. “This is torture.”
I look at him. This young male who terrorized me for days. Who would have taken my choice. And I feel... nothing. No sympathy. No hatred. Just tired acceptance.
“Khor returns tomorrow. He'll decide.”
I drag the unconscious blue-green outside, away from the worst of the blood. He might survive if his internal damage isn't as severe. Then I return and sit as far from Vek as possible, weapons ready in case the frenzy returns.
It doesn't. He just lies there, occasionally whimpering, fading in and out of consciousness.
The sun sets. I don't sleep. Just wait and watch and try not to think about how easy it was to turn their biology against them. How the secretion meant for harvesting became a weapon in my hands.
The night is long and full of Vek's labored breathing.
But I survived the attack.
Four hunters came for me, and I survived.
