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“Then I will stay until you are rested.”
“No need,” she mumbled.
“There is every need. If there are predators here, then you will not notice them until it is too late. You will not die in my care, pretty spark.”
Exhausted beyond measure, Louella mumbled something else that made no sense. Yas’kihn silently berated himself for indulging her pride when she had obviously exhausted her strength. He set the makeshift sack aside and extracted the survival blanket. He spread the blanket on the ground, lifted Louella, and gently laid her on it. He wrapped the blanket around her and hoped her fine, delicate skin was not too badly burned by the searing sunshine. He squatted beside her, drew a knife, and sharpened the end of the stick while he waited for her to wake up. He was glad he’d kept his knives with him when they entered the escape pod.
As he feared, a predator emerged from the cool depths of the pool. Its wet nostrils flared as it caught the scent of warmblooded prey. With slow stealth it crept toward the sleeping woman.
Yas’kihn held himself still, not wasting any energy as the native predator slithered closer. The moment the beast was within range, the Ahn’hudi warrior struck. Jaws clenched, he grunted as he brought down his blade in a precisely aimed arc to pierce the beast’s spine at the base of its short, thick neck. He wasn’t sure where its heart was or if it even had a heart, but he was reasonably confident that it would die from a severed spine.
The beast hissed as the blade penetrated its thick, slimy hide and lodged in its spine. Yas’kihn yanked the blade from the animal’s body and brought the knife down again as it turned to confront its attacker. That time, he managed to sever through most of the spinal cord and a good bit of muscle in the neck. He jerked on the knife, but it was stuck. Straddling the beast’s back, he wasted no more time trying to free the knife, but drew his other dagger and, with a low grunt, plunged it into the beast’s eye, twisting the blade as it penetrated the brain cavity.
The animal convulsed for several seconds before going still, all awareness fading from its eyes as its body went limp. Yas’kihn pulled the dagger from the beast’s head, then plunged it into the sand to clean the blade. He did the same with the other knife, although it took a couple of hard yanks to free the blade from the bone. Breathing heavily, he walked around the animal and glanced at Louella who continued to sleep. Her failure to wake during the commotion worried him.
“I wonder if the meat is good to eat,” he muttered and guessed that the most edible portion of the beast would be its tail.His mate needed the nourishment and so did he.
Having made that decision, he dragged the carcass distant enough from Louella that the offal he tossed even further aside would draw any predators or scavengers away from them. Then he proceeded to butcher the carcass. Afterward, he rinsed himself off then returned to a spot near his mate where he built a small fire and a spit over which he draped strips of the tough, fibrous meat. While the meat cooked, he watched two more predators emerge from the pool and feast on their fallen comrade.
Louella yawned and stretched, awakening to the smell of grilling meat. She wrinkled her nose, because that wasn’t steak, pork, or chicken she smelled. It was a little bit fishy, somehow earthy, and quite possibly rancid. She blinked to focus her bleary eyes in the waning light of evening and noticed the campfire.
“What did I miss?” she rasped, her throat parched.
Yas’kihn handed her the water container. It was full. “Drink.”
She took it and gave him a look of uncertainty.
“The survival kit from the pod has water purification tablets. The water in the container may not be particularly palatable, but it won’t make you sick.”
“Good enough for me,” she said and gulped down several swallows with a grimace of distaste. “That’snasty.”
“There are predators living in the pool.”
Huh, my dragon beat the alien croc.She nodded, glancing at the fierce predator who had claimed her as his mate then at the pool’s deceptively still water, and sniffed. “Is that what I smell cooking then?”
“Aye.”
“Well, I hope they taste better than they smell.” Then she realized that he had confronted native predators and protected her from them while she was dead to the world. She shuddered. “Oh, dear, I owe you another debt of gratitude! I would havediedif you weren’t here with me. Thank you, Jax.”
“It is my honor and pleasure to protect and care for you,” he said simply, although she thought he looked pleased at her words.
“Well, I am grateful,” she said. She spied the remains of the beast’s tail and her eyes widened. “How big was that thing?”
“Not big enough to defeat me,” he replied, not wanting to tell her that the two animals emerging from the pool to feast on the offal had been larger yet. He surmised those two were older, wiser, and less likely to be taken by surprise. They would be difficult for him to kill, especially if they worked in cooperation with each other. He also guessed that the planet’s natives had built the wall to keep the carnivorous beasts from wandering. “We will sleep outside the wall.”
“Why?”
“Because that was not the only predator living in the pool,” he explained, gesturing at the campfire. “I have not had much opportunity to examine the plants and do not know if they, too, are predatory.”
She glanced at the low-burning fire. “You found wood.”
“Deadfall scattered in the clearing. I did not venture deep among the bushes or trees.”
Louella nodded, because an abundance of caution made sense. “I suppose there wouldn’t be many herbivores in the desert.”
“Doubtful,” he replied. “I do not know what else lurks here, but I am not eager to find out.”
Louella recalled one of theKing Kongmovie variations in which the exploration team was attacked by giant insects and shuddered again. The low wall wouldn’t prevent flying monsters from coming at them, but it might be enough to prevent something from crawling, slithering, or jumping across the open sand to attack them. “Yeah, no, neither am I.”
