Chapter 5

5

- Alba -

The sun is setting, and the cave is slowly getting darker. I don’t know where Anter’az went, but this chair is comfortable enough. And the wine he gave me tastes better than any of the caveman booze I’ve had before.

I drain the mug, get out of the chair, and reach up to the shelf where he placed the pot. He can’t get mad at me for helping myself to some more of that stuff. Not only does it taste nice, it also takes the edge off all the bullshit this planet keeps dumping over my head.

Finding the pot, I pour my mug a little over half full and replace the pot on the shelf.

The fire lights up the cave in flickering amber. There must be hundreds of pots and jars and bowls.

Picking out a couple, I carefully open them. One contains a green substance that looks like herb butter, while another has a heap of small, black seeds in it. I don’t know if they’re spices or medicines, but I’m sure Anter’az knows.

“Some of them are probably both,” I tell myself as I take a sip of the frit.

But most of the room is taken up by the cages, and I’m curious about what he keeps in them.

“Couldn’t be chickens, could it?” I mutter as I tiptoe closer to one of them. It’s made from a wicker-like material, with thin twigs braided together. “Laying big eggs just like on Earth? Bronwen needs some of those for her cakes…”

Squatting down, I peer in between the bars. But I can’t see much. “It’s okay if they’re not big…”

The top of the cage is fastened with two simple loops with a wooden peg through them both.

My curiosity fueled by the booze, I slowly pull the peg out and open the lid a half inch. “Hello, little chickens…”

It’s too dark to see anything, so I take a step back to angle myself out of the way of the light from the fire.

My heel hits something hard. Losing my balance, I fall backwards with a yelp.

Crashing into something behind me, I drop to the ground while a stack of cages fall on top of me.

“Damn it!” I kick the wooden cages off me, but some of them have opened and now there’s a lot of movement everywhere. On my arms and in my hair, specifically. I see black carapaces, long tentacles, and compound eyes the size of espresso cups. Sharp limbs crawl on me and there are snapping sounds and a disharmonious buzzing.

I’m lying in a heap of big insects, creeping and crawling.

“Fuck!” Screaming in horror, I scramble to get up from the heap of wickerwork cages, furiously beating at all the movement on me and around me. They’re nibbling on my dress and pulling on my hair, and the noise is getting worse.

“Get away from meee!” I scream at the top of my lungs, panicking and knocking over more cages with my wild movements to get the insects off me. Some of them are flying too, circling me and stroking me with their antennas when they pass.

Losing the ability to make words, I just scream as I feel some of the insects crawling up my legs under my dress. Half-mad with panic and terror, I pull my dress over my head and fling it away, then run around the cave, trying to get away, slapping and beating all over myself. It feels like I’m being stung everywhere. For a split second I consider throwing myself into the fire to burn the insects off me, but instead I flee out the cave opening.

I run straight into Anter’az, coming the other way.

“What’s happening?” he rumbles as he catches me.

In desperation I keep slapping at myself. “The cages!”

“Ah. Stand still.”

But I can’t, so he lifts me off my feet while I scream and protest. “Nooo!”

“You will be all right.” He starts to quickly pick the insects off me. They’re bigger than my hands, some black and some brown and some in other colors, all horrific things with long legs and spears and spikes.

I clench my teeth together, shuddering and weeping as he gets rid of the monsters.

“Get off my guest, you terrible things,” he says. “I will not forget this rude behavior!”

His total calm helps me control the panic. “They is venomous?” I ask.

“Some of them are,” he says as he picks a centipede the size of my forearm off my bare back. “I will have to check you for stings and bites. Were you bitten?”

“I don’t know,” I sniffle. “I think so.”

“Then we have no time to lose,” he says and pulls me back into the cave. Shooing and kicking away the insects that are still crawling around, he lights two torches and places them in holders around the chair.

“Stand back,” he says and pours a white powder on the fire. It whooshes into bright flames that light up the room in a bluish hue, like daylight.

Anter’az lifts me up onto the chair. “Where do you think you were stung?”

I point to the one place I’m sure something pierced my skin. It’s high up on my thigh, so much towards the inside that it might get embarrassing. Without my dress, I’m conscious of how badly the thin leather underwear fits me and how it doesn’t give me the coverage I need. But this man is a healer, and I’d rather he got a glimpse of something interesting than having a possibly venomous insect bite go untreated.

“There it is,” he says and touches the spot with one fingertip. “Three small holes from its stinger. It was the okeran, then. It won’t kill you, but it might burn. Stay still.”

To my astonishment he ducks his head down as if to kiss the bite. His lips are warm on my skin, and very moist. Then he starts to suck, and I realize that he’s trying to suck the venom out of there.

“Yes,” he says when he stops to breathe. “That tastes of okeran venom. It has its uses, but it shouldn’t be inside the body.” He keeps going.

His touch is gentle and warm. There’s no pain, just a soreness. Looking down at his golden curls, I get the inevitable thought that he’s only a couple of inches away from somewhere I might really like to feel that tongue…

A soft tingle runs through me, ending up in my girly parts. The panic is ebbing away, and it leaves room for something very different.

“Anywhere else?” Anter’az asks, his orange eyes running up and down my body. “Turn around.”

I get up on my knees on the chair and turn around, holding onto the backrest. If that was a bite on my thigh, then I’m pretty sure something got my butt, too.

Before I can say it, Anter’az puts a finger on a sore spot. “That looks like a hekasit bite. I fear it’s too late to do much, but I’ll try. Tell me if you’re feeling dizzy or your thoughts go to strange places.”

Again I feel his mouth on me, this time on the side of my right butt cheek. There’s nothing suggestive about his work, and he makes sure to place his hands away from any sensitive area. I both appreciate it and feel a tiny sting of disappointment. I probably wouldn’t have complained if he got a little more personal. But of course he’s a healer, so he’s focused on the task and he won’t take any liberties. It probably doesn’t even cross his mind, although I suspect that the leather panties don’t hide much from his eyes.

He spits into the fire, making it hiss. “There,” he says and leans back. “It was a hekasit. It also won’t kill you, but it can make the mind feel… hot.”

“I think that’s happening right now,” I tell him. “My thoughts are not as they usually are.”

“I can see no other bites on you. Can you feel any others?”

Should I invent a sting closer to a fun place? Close to a nipple, perhaps? Or even right on one?

“Not right now,” I admit as I turn around and gingerly sit the right way on the chair. “Thank you.”

I spot a small spot of blood on his lips. It reminds me of that boy in the jungle, when I first met him. Damn. I’d forgotten about the murder. But what if…

“Anter’az.”

He examines my ankles, where I know there must be a lot of bruises and scratches after I walked through the jungle for hours today. “Mhm?”

“What did you do to that boy in the jungle? When you first saw me?”

“Tren’ax? I was doing the same I just did with you. Except he had been bitten by a voron, and they can kill. I sucked as much venom out of him as I could, but still he screamed wildly, went limp, and stayed like that for hours after.”

“Did he… is he all right?”

“You didn’t see him at the common table, serving your friends just now? He’s recovered from the bite, but he still has several days left of his penance for leaving the village. But so far, he’s not complained.”

So I was right. Not only was there no murder, Anter’az was actually trying to save the kid’s life.

On an impulse that comes from the wave of the sheer relief and probably from the booze, I lean forward in the chair, grab a handful of Anter’az’s long hair, and clumsily pull him towards me.

He allows it, but there’s puzzlement in his eyes before I touch my lips to his.

“Thank you,” I rasp. “You’ve saved me many times now.”

He stares at me, surprised. “Just once. None of these creatures could have killed you. I don’t keep deadly ones here. Well, not many, anyway.”

“Maybe venom that doesn’t kill a warrior like you can still kill a small woman like me,” I suggest, my voice hoarse because that was a good kiss and this may be my only chance. I keep my hand in his hair, so soft and with a little bit of a curl to it. It really needs a wash, but I can deal with that.

“That… is possible,” he agrees, finally breaking out of his professional mode.

“And maybe,” I gulp, “you have to check me all over.” I can barely believe the words that I’m saying. Either that booze is laced with something else, or those insect bites are making me scandalously forward. But of course it’s better to be safe than sorry. There were many giant insects on me.

“Maybe,” he agrees, his bass voice cracking when he realizes what that would mean.

Maybe I should remove all doubt about it. Because I really mean it now. “You know about The Woman, right? And Worship?”

The caveman gets up and quickly hangs a thick dinosaur skin in front of the cave opening. “The shaman taught us, many years ago. It would be interesting to try it.”

Interesting? He talks just like a science nerd. And that just happens to be one of my weaknesses. “You don’t happen wear glasses , do you?”

“ Glas? ” he repeats. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s fine,” I assure him and shift my position in the wooden chair, scooting forwards.

Anter'az stokes the fire and puts more wood it. Then he kneels on the ground in front of the chair.

The breath catches in my throat as he leans in and touches the insides of both my thighs. Unlike his touch when he examined me, this is not clinical at all. Now it's warm and searching, his fingers always moving and circling, caressing skin that for years on Xren has only known dirt, lashes from whippy saplings, burns from poisoned leaves and hard, uncaring pokes from sharp twigs when I've moved through the jungle. The contrast is amazing, and it makes hard tingles come together right where I feel it the most. Because he's moving upwards along my thighs, slowly waking up skin that's been completely neglected for far too long.

“Oh,” I moan as the anticipation gets the best of me. His fingers are soft and gentle, so incongruous with their size and strength. He can kill with those hands.

But he can also heal…

I jerk involuntarily as he places a kiss so high up on one thigh that his face nudges the edge of my leather panties. I should slide them down and off, but I don’t want to interrupt this and possibly break the magic.

“The Worship is about to begin,” Anter’az rumbles hoarsely, making the very air in my lungs tremble. “Should I continue?”

“Yes,” I wheeze, spreading my thighs more in blatant invitation. He’s making sure I’m on board with this, and that kind of care from a freaking caveman is so unexpected that it turns me on more and dissolves all my doubt. “Continue!”

With one finger, he pulls the gusset of my Stone Age panties to the side.

His deep, growly sigh as he reveals my sex drowns out my own whimper from the cool cave air on my most sensitive parts. If I can feel it this well, I must be dripping.

Anter’az lets his hands slide down my thighs, lifting my knees for better access.

The first kiss of his dry lips right in the middle of my very wet ones makes me jerk. I know these guys get special instruction in how to lick The Woman, but I wasn’t aware that their education is this good.

The first light stroke of his tongue up the middle reveals that I am indeed very wet, if the sound is anything to go by. And it reveals that his tongue has something special going on, too. There must be a texture, both soft and rough. It feels incredible, and I know then that this is the start of something special. His moves are careful and light, but also confident. I can just lie back and enjoy. He’s got this.

Interesting sounds come from my center as he intensifies his work down there, focusing on the area around the main event and getting me so tense from anticipation that when he finally slides his tongue across that over-excited part, I yelp and twitch before I catch myself and go with the flow. “Oh! Yeahh…”

He backs off the intensity, but keeps teasing me with the occasional touch of his tongue, circling and searching. He’s insistent and gentle, demanding and yielding in a mix that’s far too sophisticated for a caveman on a woman-less planet. He must have done this before. He must.

Done torturing me in the most delightful way, he spirals closer and closer before he sets up shop at my clit, circling and teasing and churning up the heat in my center.

My whimpers and moans echo from the stone walls as I sense the flood wave building. I’m being eaten out by a caveman, with fangs and everything. And he’s doing an incredible job, so much so that it moves me.

But I can’t resist the climax that’s coming now. I can’t stop it, even if I wanted to.

When Anter’az puts his whole mouth on my mound and starts to hum, making his tongue vibrate, I lose control and the bliss washes over me, starting at my center and spreading fast.

Still the caveman doesn’t let up, just keeps his mouth working on me through the whole climax while I jerk and twitch and whimper.

When I finally go limp and just lie there, breathing hard, he places a final kiss on my pussy, pulls the panties back until they almost cover me, and looks down on me with a satisfied look on his face. “I enjoy Worshipping you, Alba.”

“And I,” I pant, “ really enjoy being Worshipped.”

He lifts me up and carries me through the light dinosaur skin which covers an opening into another room. There are no cages in this one, just larger pots on the floor and a big cot by one wall.

Anter’az carries me over to it and lays me down on the dinosaur skin that covers it. “You look tired.”

I’m not sure I want to spend the night here, though. “I should talk to Dror’iz,” I mutter, already half asleep. “I’m not tired at all.”