That has to count for something.
And wet. Because despite everything, the fight triggered the tonic's response. My body interpreted the violence as foreplay, the dominance struggle as mating display. I'm dripping, clenching on nothing, need building with nowhere to go.
Khor won't be back until tomorrow at the earliest.
I clean the blood from the floor. Reorganize my remaining weapons. Try to ignore the ache building between my legs.
The sun climbs higher. The den gets hotter. My body gets more desperate.
This is the real torture. Not the fight. The after. When the tonic demands satisfaction I can't provide myself. When my body craves the specific male who's a day away.
I try the usual distractions. Cleaning. Organizing. Planning defensive positions in case they come back.
Nothing helps.
By midday, I'm grinding against the furs, seeking friction that won't satisfy. By afternoon, I'm using my fingers, knowing it's pointless but trying anyway. The tonic has made me specific. Only Khor's cock, his knot, his particular biology will quiet this need.
The sun sets. I don't eat. Can't. The need has consumed everything else.
I lie on the furs where his scent is strongest, surrounded by the smell of him, and wait.
Tomorrow he returns. Tomorrow this ache ends.
If I survive the night without losing my mind.
The paralytic spine wears off in about six hours. The blindness from sulfur crystals fades in a day. The cuts from obsidian heal slowly but clean.
But the need from the tonic never fades. It just builds and builds until satisfied by the specific male the body has chosen.
Mine has chosen Khor. And he's not here.
I curl around his scent and count the hours.
Eleven days until the portal opens.
Eleven days to decide between Earth and this alien who owns my body's responses.
But first, I need to survive this empty night.
The stars above are alien, patterns I'll never recognize as constellations. The desert sounds are full of creatures I'll never understand.
But I survived four hunters alone.
That has to count for something.
Even if my body is trying to kill me with need.
Even if morning feels like forever away.
I survived.
That's what matters.
That's what Khor will care about when he returns.
If he returns.
No. When. When he returns.
