Page 6 of Caveman Alien’s Terror (Caveman Aliens #25)

6

- Astrid -

The dactyl sets up a final attack, stretching its huge talons out in front of it and screeching so loud my ears ring.

“Look out!” I try again, but Praxigor doesn’t understand the danger we’re in.

The dactyl’s screech is suddenly cut off. The monster starts to frantically beat its huge bat wings in mid air, trying to slow down and to turn around, making a noise like a giant leather umbrella being quickly opened and closed. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen.

And it’s too late. The dactyl is too heavy and goes too fast to stop before it passes Praxigor. He ducks out of the way of the talons, then calmly reaches out and grabs one leg. In that same motion he rotates once, swinging the whole flying dinosaur around in a perfect arc like an Olympic hammer thrower. When he lets go, the dactyl is flung uncontrollably through the air, a screeching, inelegantly tumbling chaos of wings and legs and teeth.

Praxigor wipes his hands on a handful of leaves that he rips from a bush. “Such a greasy thing.”

The dactyl hits the trunk of a tree several hundred feet away and slowly sags to the ground, head first.

I can barely believe my eyes. He just defeated a big dactyl without a weapon and without breaking a sweat! While the huge cavemen with swords the size of helicopter blades don’t even like to talk about those things too loud, and do their utmost to avoid them.

“That was… incredible,” I say weakly, my heart beating hard and fast. “You just threw him away!”

Praxigor tosses the leaves away and looks at his hands with disgust. “Well, I wasn’t going to become his friend, too. So far, I must conclude that having friends is a weakness.”

“Having friends is usually a strength,” I counter, then remember that I should stay on his good side, and he doesn’t seem the type to enjoy being argued with. “At least that’s what we say. My kind, I mean.”

“That must explain why your kind is such a powerful intergalactic force,” he says with endless dryness and sniffs his hands. “Oh, this stench! Next time I’ll just reach out one claw and let the attacker rip itself open from head to tail. This has quite ruined the mood.” He reaches out, and the breath catches in my throat, thinking he’ll go back to those tender, yet demanding caresses that turned my mind inside out.

But he just wipes his hands on my dress. “That’s better. When you find gold, let me know.” He moves into the jungle like a blue streak.

“No, don’t—” I begin, but it’s too late. He’s gone.

For a moment I stand there, unable to move because my mind is all jumbled. I’m not sure whether to be relieved or mad or disappointed, so I pick all three. It’s not easy.

The sounds of the jungle slowly return, without me having realized that they were gone.

It’s like being in a movie theater, totally absorbed in a good movie and then there’s a blackout and the movie stops, the bright emergency lights come on, and you remember that this is the real world and you’re not on the Titanic with Rose and Jack after all. Except I’m in a jungle where everything wants to kill me. And now I feel more naked and vulnerable than I have since the first nightmarish days on Xren.

The tropical jungle air manages to feel cold.

“Damn it,” I wheeze as I hug myself. “What the hell was that? Did he hypnotize me?”

Luna the jungle cat comes slinking over to me as if nothing special just happened, the spikes in her tail peacefully retracted.

“Did you see that?” I ask. “He just tossed a freaking dactyl into the woods like a… a banana peel!”

She doesn’t indicate if she saw it, but she didn’t really need to. He flung her too, but I’ll be tactful and not mention it.

“And he ripped my dress.” I finger the edges of the torn dinosaur skin. It’s thick, and we need sharp knives to cut it when we make these dresses. I doubt even a caveman would just rip it with his bare hands. At the time I didn’t mind it at all — I just wanted to be bare for him.

“He was so confident,” I tell Luna, who’s looking away and is not really that interested. “You know? He wasn’t scared at all. As if the jungle wasn’t dangerous to him, just a nuisance. And I just… I wanted that. I wanted that close to me. I wanted to be around him. As close as I could get. Because he was another world, apart from this one. A better one. Is that weird?”

It obviously is, but Luna just gives me a glance with two of her eyes and licks her paw.

“See, I wanted him to touch me,” I try to explain. “It was like he was outside of everything, and I wanted that for me, too.”

And he turned me on just by existing, but I don’t say that out loud.

In the distance, the dactyl finally regains enough control of itself to try a few shaky beats of its wings. It takes off, hovers unsteadily, and then slowly and laboriously makes its way up to the canopy of leaves high above us, leathery bat wings flapping. It crashes through and releases a rain of branches and leaves.

I look around and hug myself again. The sun is high in the sky, but without that blue presence to light it up, the woods just feel cold and dark. And sad.

“It’s the kind of thing that could get a girl addicted,” I mutter as I pick up the spear. I check the tip. There’s still a speck of gold on there.

“He has gold for blood,” I ponder. “Maybe that’s why he wants it so much. It’s some kind of food for him. Or like a trace element that he needs to live, the way humans need small amounts of iron and copper and zinc. Have you ever seen blood like this, Luna?”

But I don’t think gold is common on Xren. The cavemen have no great use for it, obsessed with iron and swords as they are. But for all I know, they may have heaps of it just lying around without telling anyone because they can’t see any reason to care.

“Should we go back? Tell them about the dragon and the gold?”

Luna twists her tail, but doesn’t seem to have a strong opinion.

Part of me really wants to get back into the village. But that might mean never seeing Praxigor again. Korr’ax will absolutely hunt the dragon with all his men for as long as it takes. They may have already started.

Right now, I can’t bear the thought that I will never feel that safe again. Safe from everything else, that is. Safe from everything in the jungle that could hurt me. But not safe from him . And that part had its own allure, one I still feel down in my center.

“You attacked him,” I remind Luna. “That was very brave. Even the dactyl tried to get away before it came close to him.”

I try to straighten my dress, but I need a really pointy needle and a thick thread to fix it. I find my pack and put it back on, but now my mission feels much less hopeful. If I had Praxigor’s help, I might be able to find out what happened to Cora. He could keep me safe, and I could help him look for gold.

I look over my shoulder to the place where he entered the jungle. There’s not a speck of blue, just the green and red and brown of the woods.

“I guess we’re on our own.” I walk into the jungle, and Luna quietly follows.

- - -

I t’s a nerve-racking walk. I stay as quiet as I can while listening intently for noises that could mean a dino is coming my way. But once you start doing that, you realize there are so many of those noises that you have to stop and hide beside trees every thirty seconds.

“You want to go in front?” I ask Luna. “You know this place. You can growl if you hear something you don’t like.”

But she looks away and pretends not to hear.

“Smart girl,” I mutter. “Let the alien woman take the brunt of the attack while you stay safely back.”

I know I’m being unfair. Her presence makes me feel less alone. She did attack Praxigor to defend me, and that may have taken a lot more courage than I realized at the time. Because this is a guy who radiates immense danger and who can stare down both dactyls and raptors.

I’m painfully aware that trying to tiptoe through the jungle means my progress is really slow. I’m probably still on Borok tribe turf, and there’s every chance I might stumble over a hunting party or someone out to kill the dragon. That would mean the end of the mission, but it’s also infinitely better than meeting men from another tribe.

“Why did he have to leave, though?” I mutter to myself. “Could have made sure I was safe. Could have asked where I was going. Because he was interested, I’m sure of that. Did you see the front of his pants? You could hire acrobats to do trapeze tricks inside a tent that big. But I guess that’s what dragons do. Coming and going as they please. Like you.”

Luna doesn’t react.

Of course he’s not an actual dragon, I know that. He’s just an alien with some strange abilities, some of which seem magical. It’s probably just technology of some kind.

“Or maybe his species just are freakishly strong and fast by nature,” I think out loud. “Some kind of predator species that sets off the panic in any other creature because they’re so clearly deadly.”

I should concentrate more on the walk, but my thoughts keep returning to the alien. He made a deep impression on me, both the first time by the salen tree and just now. He had a presence so strong that nobody could ever look away from him.

“And he seemed to like it. Being the center of attention. Like he was in a play, playing the main character. Always seeking the best light and striking the best pose.”

Luna keeps ignoring me and my strange ramblings. And I really should be quiet.

The day wears on, and I start looking for a place to set up camp for the night. It won’t be much of a camp, of course. I don’t have a tent, and I’m not about to build a hut. So I will find a place that’s somewhat shielded and out of sight, probably under a bush, and then I’ll lie down and hope to catch a few hours of fitful sleep without being eaten by something.

Just as I spot a promising bush, there’s a sound of something big moving through the undergrowth. The ground starts to shake.

Luna’s back tail sprouts its spikes and she starts to growl, facing the way we just came from.

Clutching my spear, I hurry to the nearest tree and back up against it.

The sources of the noises come closer. Whatever it is doesn’t care about being quiet. And it must be a big thing.

That’s not great news. As far as we know, only the very biggest of the dinos are harmless, in the sense that all they can do to you is trample you like an ant. But they won’t try to hunt you, and they’re easy to avoid. But whatever’s coming now is smaller than that.

When I spot it, my heart sinks in my chest. It’s a kronk , a T. Rex lookalike with teeth as long as my forearm and claws like carving knives. It’s a pale gray with brown spots. Dirty white feathers grow out of its joints. While the raptors are scary, they’re not this big and terrible.

The ground shakes as it calmly comes closer, having to maneuver around trees but walking straight through every other obstacle. Its long tail is up, and its massive head is down by the ground, balanced on its short, strong legs. Yellow eyes the size of dinner plates are focused on me. It may well have been tracking me by smell for a while.

It’s too much for Luna. She slinks between my legs and peers at the kronk from behind my knee, not even daring to growl.

The kronk moves calmly and fast, being on its home turf in the jungle. My best option is to stay still right here and hope the monster waddles right past me. If it’s me he wants, he’s so big that he might struggle to even reach me when I’m this close to the tree trunk.

My hopes are squashed immediately. The kronk comes right at me, opens its lower jaw, and tilts its head forty-five degrees to the side. Its deadly gape is like an immense pair of pliers with hundreds of dirty, brown teeth that are coming right for me while the ground shakes.

“Shit!” Panicking, I squeal and try to find a vulnerable place on the monster I can thrust the spear into. The eyes are the obvious spot, but the kronk’s head is gigantic and they’re just too far away.

The monster snaps its mouth shut as if to show me what it’s planning. It makes a hard, crunching sound like a giant, rusty bear trap slamming shut and sprays me with cold slime.

It comes closer until its upper jaw is on my left and the lower jaw on my right. The stench from its gape makes me retch as I wait to be chewed into several pieces.

Mobilizing all my strength, I thrust the spear into its pale gum and crouch down, closing my eyes and whimpering.

The final crunch never comes.

Instead there’s a shrill howl of pain, creating a storm of stench that washes over me.

I open my eyes to slits. The kronk has raised its head and is trying to turn away from me.

I can see why. There’s someone standing on its colossal head, kicking at one of its eyes.

My heart comes back alive when I see that it’s Praxigor, totally in control as usual.

The kronk screams again, waving its short forelimbs at its own head but unable to reach the blue alien tormenting it. Instead Praxigor slides easily down its side and lands beside it.

“Do they bathe in grease?” he frets, trying to shake something slimy off his hands.

The kronk reacts with reptile speed and towers over him, huge gape open.

The dragon calmly reaches up and pulls my spear out of the kronk’s gums. “Not the best aim, little woman. This would be better.” He sidesteps the gape as it snaps shut right where he was just standing, then calmly pushes the spear into the kronk’s middle, between its forelimbs.

The kronk takes an unsteady step back and howls again as it decides to flee. The huge tail sweeps the ground in a dangerous arc as the monster turns.

Praxigor simply steps over the tail. The scaly tip hits the root of the tree I’m standing by and knocks a big piece out of it before the kronk flees back the way it came.

I stand there just panting for a while, as Praxigor rips leaves off bushes and tries to wipe the dinosaur grease off his boots, muttering all the while. “The stench alone is all the weapon that monster needs. Such an absolute mess!”

“You saved me,” I finally manage, voice trembling. “Thank you!”

“Again,” he growls as he discards one handful of leaves and rips another off a different bush. “I saved you again . Why do you always need saving?”

“It’s the jungle,” I defend myself. “It keeps trying to kill me.”

“It must be as annoyed with you as I am,” he grunts. “I can’t blame it. I never knew such a small female could be this much of a nuisance.”

I take a couple of deep breaths and try to calm down. The kronk is gone, but this blue creature is doubtlessly even more dangerous. Still I’m more relieved than scared of him right now. “Sorry. I do my best to stay safe, but sometimes it’s not enough. How did you know I was being attacked? Were you following me and keeping an eye out?—”

In a blue flash he’s right next to me, pinching my mouth shut with two fingers. “Let’s not finish that sentence, or I’d have to finish what that monster wanted to do with you. And then my efforts to chase it away would be in vain.”

“Sorry,” I try, despite his fingers. “I didn’t mean to imply?—”

“Good!” he beams and gives my lips an extra little pinch before he lets them go. “The less you imply, the better.” His gaze goes to my chest, where I’m about to pop out because he ripped the dress earlier. “Although of course some implications are more welcome than others.”

I try to remedy the situation, but it means holding one hand on the ripped part and trying to keep it together. “Sorry.”

“I’m sure you are,” he replies, voice heavy with sarcasm. “I’m sure you’re ever so sorry.”

Okay, so he’s a jerk. But he just saved my life at the last moment, and I’m genuinely relieved that he’s here again. How can I try to get him to stay?

On an impulse I regret the very next moment, I reach up to grab his neck, going up on tiptoes and placing a small, light kiss on his blue lips. They’re surprisingly warm, not icy cold the way I half expected. “Thank you. I mean it.”

He stiffens, making me think he didn’t expect it at all.

For a moment we just stand there like that. Damn, did I offend him?

“You better mean it,” Praxigor finally growls. “Because you’re playing with forces you don’t know.” With one blue hand he calmly reaches out and grabs my half-exposed breast, helping it out of the dress. His touch is rough but not painful.

I can’t hold back a gasp, partly from surprise and partly because I really like it. With an ordinary man, I would resent him taking that kind of liberty with me. But this is a dragon, perfect and impossibly strong, the closest I’ll ever get to a magical being. I want him to do this.

Hard tingles shoot down my body and end up at the very base. “I do mean it.”

He swipes his thumb across the nipple, and it immediately stiffens.

“How much do you mean it?”

I get it. He’s asking if I want to see where this might lead.

And I do.

It’s crazy, I know that. He’s much more alien and dangerous than even the cavemen. But he’s more dangerous to everyone else than to me. He completely overshadows the jungle and the planet and the murderous dinosaurs. When he’s nearby, I can safely forget all those things. It’s as if they don’t exist at all. And I never want them to return, no matter what it takes. If what it takes is having a heart-stoppingly gorgeous and hyper-confident demigod feel me up and maybe go even further, then I can’t imagine a more win-win situation. As in, I win in both ways, keeping his company and also giving in to my body’s uncontrollable insistence that I throw myself at him. If that’s what he wants.

“I mean it,” I repeat, my voice unsteady.

One big hand slides my dress up on my hip, making me shudder from the anticipation.

“Keep saying it,” he purrs.

“I mean it,” I obey, because it’s true.

His hand cups my butt outside of the primitive leather panties we’re always wearing. They’re softer than the dress itself, having been soaked in water and beaten soft with flat pieces of wood. “More obstacles.”

“Wait.” Worried that he’ll rip those the way he ripped my dress, I shimmy them down and kick the flimsy leather to the side.

His hand seeks my butt again, squeezing it. “You are remarkably soft.”

“Thank you,” I wheeze, enjoying his hands on me and flattered by what I think was a compliment.

His hand moves around my hip, the touch warm and confident on my bare skin. And gentler than I would have expected from this intensely demanding male. It makes me feel attractive, and it makes me more comfortable with this than if he’d been all rough.

With his other hand he grabs both my wrists and pin them to the bark of the tree above me. “Don’t interfere.” With his other hand he strokes up along the outside of my lower lips.

The light touch is barely there, but it makes me tighten up inside. My legs spread all by themselves, wanting him to have access. “Okay.”

His hand cups my sex, one clawed finger touching the middle. I hope he knows how sensitive that part is.

He does, running his fingers slowly up and down the sides without any hint of sharp claw. The danger so close to my center sends a hot wave through me as I clench up again, involuntarily. “Oh…”

“Not yet,” he growls and takes his fingers off me. “I decide.”

“Yes,” I breathe. “You decide.”

He rewards me by bringing one finger back, the knuckle sliding up the middle, then down, then back up. It’s a slow, soft move, teasing me and making me anticipate a firmer touch.

“Deeper,” I groan.

He smirks and adds a fraction of force, pushing the finger in between the folds with a sloppy sound. “So ready,” he muses.

“Uh-huh,” I agree because there’s no use denying it.

He’s not even in, and yet his fingertip takes all my attention as it slowly rotates and goes deeper. Other fingers slide up and rotate, there, too.

“Oh!” I exclaim again as he strokes right past the most sensitive part and sets up a slow circling motion around it.

It feels incredible, being this helpless and this turned on. It would take so little to break the magic. One wrong move with those claws, and it’s done. But I lean into the trust, wanting him to be expert at this. Another wave of heat goes through me, and I’m already getting close.

“More and more ready,” comes the deep comment. “But not yet.”

I whimper in protest as he takes his hand off me again and releases me. Instead he lifts me until I’m level with his face, easily seven feet above the ground. He holds me there and spreads me wide with my legs over his shoulders and his forearms supporting me when I lean back. I feel his spikes against my dress, but they bend away and don’t bother me. The hot jungle air feels cool on my overheated sex as I lie back, completely open for whatever he had in mind. And there can really only be one thing, unless he’s going to take a bite out of me.

The first lap up my pussy is light and makes me shiver in delight. The second goes deeper, exploring my dripping folds and forcing another exclamation from me. “Oh…”

He takes my whole pussy into his warm mouth, his tongue circling my clit softly as he feasts on me.

I reach for him, finding his head and his massive shoulders for support, to keep me at least somewhat grounded. Because this is making me dizzy. His thick hair is warm and coarse between my fingers, giving him a reassuring grain of humanity.

My body jerks in his arms as he increases the pressure on my clit. Now I’m not worried about his claws, I can enjoy it fully.

He starts to hum with his deep voice, the small vibrations running through my sex and straight into my center.

I have no defenses against this. He’s in total control of my arousal and when he wants me to come, that’s what happens. The climax washes over me, and I throw my head back, bucking in his arms as I cry out, again and again, reaching higher orbits.

Praxigor chuckles against my pussy before he leans back. “I will note that Earth females have a better taste than most.”

I can’t reply, just panting and shuddering from the mild aftershocks. I never thought I’d have an experience like this on this terrible planet. But I guess it can’t be all bad if this is possible.

He lies me down on a small patch of grass. “I assume you don’t have the use of your legs yet. Don’t worry, that’s common.”

Still breathing hard, I glance over at his bulge. “I have the use of other things.”

He just chuckles, amused. “Oh, I know. But I also know you’re unbreached. And such sentient adult females have a certain value for my kind. Entertainment value, I hasten to add.”

Oh yeah. That’s a piece of the legend I’d forgotten. The dragons like to have virgins chained up and left for them to take. But I don’t remember reading that this was what they did to them. You’d think the virgins would line up to be chained.

Still, I feel I should give something back to him. “I might be able to help you in other ways.”

“Give me gold, Astrid. That’s the help I need.” He rubs one black boot against a tree trunk, but it’s still caked in smelly grease from the outside of the dinosaur.

“May I at least help you with that?” I ask, adjusting my dress and resolving to fix it.

“I suppose you may,” he says and puts his hand on his hips, barely lifting one foot off the ground.

I rip leaves off some bushes, get my water skin out of my pack, and pour a little bit of it onto his boot. “It looks waterproof,” I tell him as I start to wipe with the leaves. “So this won’t damage it.”

The dinosaur grease is thick, but it’s not the first time I’ve dealt with it. After a couple of minutes one boot is clean and shiny again. “The other one?”

Praxigor changes his weight and lifts the other foot off the ground, letting me repeat the procedure. I marvel at how he can make every little movement look so confident and almost obscenely male. It’s as if this deadly jungle is just his playground, his sandbox. He’s not afraid of anything here, while I’m scared of everything. It makes me want to be around him more, and try to discover his secret. Maybe his powers will rub off on me.

“There,” I say when I’m finished. “What do you think?”

“I suppose it’s as good as I can expect,” he drawls as he studies the boots. “At least the stench is mostly gone. Now there’s another scent in the air.” His intense gaze goes up my legs and stops at my midsection. “One that’s strangely familiar.”

“It’s getting dark fast,” I quickly point out as my cheeks go warm. “I can’t continue walking tonight. Would you stay here with me and keep me safe? I have food and drink that I’d be happy to share.”