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I didn’t have time to think about it because something smooth and leathery closed tight around my ankle andyanked. A second later, I was being dragged along the forest floor by an invisible…something. A second shotgun shot rang out, and then a third, both missing, the sound getting further and further away.
The next thing I knew, I was plunging into icy darkness. My lungs seized. I opened my mouth in a desperate attempt to draw breath, but all that came in was frigid water. I briefly had time to register that I’d been dragged under the surface of the little lake behind my house before I finally lost consciousness.
Pain flashed like lightningbeneath the joints of my exoskeleton, but I forced my legs to keep moving. My mate had asked me to save him, so save him I would. Save him from the scary human and the giant t’chl who had roared at me.
He should’ve known to stay away. I had marked my territory clearly, scratching up the branches and scenting the perimeter with musk. Everyone should know to stay away from what wasmine to protect.
Yet they kept coming. It was one thing when it was only humans, but I couldn’t leave him vulnerable in front of a t’chl. Not when he’d begged me to help him.
But he hit me, hissed the dark voice in the back of my head.He struck me like Papa. Mate hurt me. Mate is cruel.I shook my head.No.He’s confused. Doesn’t know about me. He smelled like fear, frustration, and the need. Not his fault.
My inner self scoffed, but didn’t make me let him go as we raced for the safety of the water. There, it was dark and cold. Thet’chl could not follow us there where there was no air. T’chl could not harm me, or my mate.
Another shot from the gun exploded near my hindquarters just as we reached the edge of the lake. I pulled my mate closer, protecting his soft, fleshy body with my exoskeleton. He was barely conscious, an unfortunate side effect of the venom I had injected into him by accident. I couldn’t help it. When he hurt me, I lashed out. It was instinct. Thankfully, I had stopped short of injecting a fatal amount, but I needed to get the venomoutbefore his blood got thick with it.
I held him tight to the front of my body, letting all my tentacles unfurl to wrap tightly around him, binding him to me as I would a youngling.
I willed a strong blue glow into the lure hanging from my forehead and let it come to rest against his head, hoping he could hear me as I projected a single command.Breathe, human.
His eyes went wide, pupils dilated, and he gulped in a breath.
There wasn’t time for more. The other human and his t’chl companion were closing on us. With my mate securely bound to my chest, I dove into the water, kicking to take us into the depths.
After only a few meters, my mate began to struggle against my tentacles, but he couldn’t escape. I held him tight, urging him not to fight.Safe. Safe. Mate is safe. Protect. Save you.
He slumped over, but I didn’t think it was because he’d given up. More likely that he’d lost consciousness, which meant I needed to act before he inhaled the murky water. He did not have gills or an oxygen bladder, not like me. I shifted my hold on him, lifting his limp body and turned him so that he faced me.
In the depths of the lake, there wasn’t enough light for most creatures to see, but my lure provided all the light I needed to see my mate’s beautiful face. He looked human, but I could smell that he was something more. Somethinggreater. His featureswere pleasant and symmetrical, his eyes small and dark when they were open. They were closed now, but his pretty lips were parted. His long, black hair floated around him like a cloud.
I could feel the life slipping from him. My mate was a surface creature, born without gills to keep him alive in the lovely depths. Unfortunate as it was, it wasn’t the end. It only meant I had to breathe for both of us.
I opened my gills and my mouth, letting a small inner tube eject from the back of my throat. It was painful to disconnect, and left smears of dark blood in the water, but worth it. Pain was nothing if it meant my mate would live and be safe. I gripped the tube with my fingers and forced it between his lips. I would let him breathe like the injured, the old, and the young of our kind. I would be his breath.
Breathe, human.
His eyes snapped open, and he tried to pull a breath in through his nose only to panic and start to fight me again. He only reached for my secondary breathing tube when I forced enough air through it to cause bubbles. Then he grabbed it and shoved it between his lips, inhaling my air through me.
Safe, I sent to his mind and gripped his head gently, but the terror in him didn’t abate.
Wounded as I was that my mate feared me, it was understandable. I was ugly, and he was beautiful. Nature was cruel to pair us together, but I would do my best to put him at ease. He lost consciousness again after a few moments, but the air I’d given him would hold him over until we reached our destination.
I retrieved my breathing tube, bound him to my chest again, and swam deeper.
Far beneath the surface, a river flowed, feeding the lake. I took us into it, swimming against its current. The t’chl were excellent trackers, but swimming up river would make it muchmore difficult for them to find us. We soared through the water together until I saw a faint sliver of light, and then we shot up from the depths, emerging in a new lake. I looked around to make sure that neither humans nor other monsters were nearby before dragging my mate to shore.
When I released him onto the sand, I panicked when I saw him trembling violently. A small chirp of alarm escaped my mouth when I touched his skin and found it too cold. I needed to warm my mate. My body didn’t hold heat as his did. He needed fire, but fire was dangerous. The human and t’chl would almost certainly find us if I lit one out in the open.
But not if we light it in the cave. Cave will hide the light. Yes, we are very smart. We learned so good from Papa.
I grinned at my own genius and lifted my mate once more to carry him into our lair. Toward the back of our cave, I had made a nice nest of leaves and sticks and a few things he’d left outside for me to find. I put him in the nest, drawing a crinkly cloth over him, and then went to go light the fire, cracking stone on stone until the tinder caught.
When I trudged back to him, he was shivering even harder, and his lips were a faint blue. That wasn’t good.
His skin coverings are wet and cold. I should take them off so he can dry.
I squatted over him, snapping out a claw on my right hand. His skin coverings were weak and came away easily. I discarded them to be fuel for a future fire and tugged him closer to the one I’d just started, only to pause. For the first time, I realized how truly soft he was. Without his skin coverings, he had very little protection. No scales, no outside bones, no shell. He was all squishy brownish flesh and sinew. Pretty to look at, but not good for survival. That was why he needed me to protect him.
I grunted and lowered my curious gaze to his genitals. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him without cloth coverings. Whenit was the warm season, he often swam on the surface of my lake without his coverings and I liked to stay below and watch, but I had only ever seen him at a distance. Even then, I could tell that he wasdifferent. This close, the differences were impossible to ignore.
