Chapter 4

- Bronwen -

"There was one," Noker tells them. "It will be dead now." He points back the way we came.

The tribesmen frown as they look us up and down. "Dead? How?"

Noker holds up his spear. "A lucky strike with this."

Six alien eyebrows are arched in surprise. "Lucky indeed, if you took out an irox," one of the tribesmen says. "We shall see if its claws and skin may be saved for you."

"That all belongs to the Borok tribe," Noker states clearly. "Not to me."

"We thank you, warrior." The men quickly bow to him and walk away fast along the wall.

"Yes, we should wash this off us," I repeat as I notice many small specks of dactyl blood on the backs of my hands. I let go of Noker's shoulder strap, feeling steadier. "Come, I'll show you."

"Just a moment," he rumbles and takes the cork off the pot again. "Let us strengthen ourselves again. Only this once." He gives me the pot, and I take a couple of sips to try to wash the taste of the poison out of my mouth. The booze spreads a pleasant warmth inside me.

Noker barely touches the pot to his mouth, so his gesture was all for me. He has a caring streak, this one.

We make our way through the village to the far side, where a thick, wooden pipe comes out of the palisade from the outside. Bryar's wondrous pump is not being worked right now, which suits me fine.

"This water clean," I explain. "Look." I work the rattling handle of the primitive iron contraption a couple of times, and a thin stream of water comes out. Putting my mouth right under the spout, I gulp some down, again trying to wash away the lingering taste of the poisonous sap. "That's better."

Somehow the terror from the irox attack is already gone. I think it didn't last long enough to traumatize me — Noker dealt with it almost before it registered that I was about to die. And I suppose the euphoria that's filling me now is a normal reaction to having escaped death.

Noker gets the point of the pump and starts working the handle so I can take my hand off it.

"You jump very high," I tell him as I rinse my hands. "And then kill irox so easily!"

Noker slaps his thigh. "I'm part Big, and that comes with both a strange head and thick legs. When I was a boy, I jumped everywhere instead of walking. But Shaman Melr'ax didn't like it, so I learned to walk normally."

"May I?" Without waiting for an answer, I reach out and touch his thigh, right above the knee. It's like touching a rock clad in warm silk. "Very strong leg!"

Noker doesn't recoil from my touch, just flexes his thigh so it moves under my hand. "At least it's useful for killing irox. But it's better to avoid them altogether. We got lucky back there."

I playfully slide my hand a half inch higher up until it's just under the hem of his rough loincloth. "It was nice to see you fight it." I'm not sure where those words come from, but I realize that it's true — it was pretty cool to see this Foundling demonstrate his breathtaking ability to keep me safe from one of the worst dangers on Xren. I'm not sure how much of this feeling is because of the booze he gave me, but after years in underground tunnels with only other girls for company, it's surprisingly intoxicating to be protected by a strong and capable caveman.

"It was nice to do," he rumbles as his eyes pierce me. I swear there's a new bulge in his loincloth that moves and twitches.

I slide the hand off him and quickly look around. This spot is pretty secluded, hidden behind a grove of fruit trees and a gentle hill where the Lifegivers enclosure is located. I would be happier if there was some kind of screen around the pump area, but I'll suggest it to Bryar so that we girls can take showers here without worrying about being ogled by tribesmen. But being ogled by Noker wouldn't bother me much right now.

I quickly yank the sweatshirt off me and bend down to be under the spout of the pump. The cool water splashes off my back, and I scrub my hands and arms to get rid of the dactyl blood. Satisfied, I straighten and pretend to look away, so that the Foundling can get a look at my bare chest. I wasn't wearing a bra when I was abducted, and none of the girls have seen much reason to make them.

His eyes practically sear a track in my skin. It sends delicious little tingles to my center. I was never like this before, but here and now, with this particular male, some deliberate immodesty feels exactly right. The constant, low-level fear from the tunnel years is gone, and there is room for something else in my mind now. Something bright and life-affirming like this, maybe.

I shift my stance to make my boobs jiggle a little. It's not like I was ever particularly blessed in that area, what with my pear-shaped body, but it's also not as if Noker has a lot to compare me to.

I turn back towards him and smile. "Now you."

He averts his eyes and sticks one foot into the water stream. "That feels good."

"Good and cool," I agree and squat down to help scrub his massive foot. Yep, that booze he gave me was stronger than I thought.

I quickly work my way up the leg, trying to ignore the now quite scandalous tent he's pitching in that loincloth. "This better, yes? Irox blood gone now."

"Much better," he says, voice raspy as my hands graze the lower edge of his loincloth, gently scrubbing their way higher until they're out of sight.

But this is getting too blatant, so I let go of that leg and start on the other. When I'm done, the dactyl blood is mostly gone from his legs.

I look him over. "No blood on back, only on front."

He looks me up and down. "And on you, only the face."

I gather water in my cupped hands and splash my face with it. "Is gone?" I ask when I wipe it off.

Noker reaches over and uses his fingertips to help. His touch is so gentle and delicate that my brain can't process it — he's an eight-foot-tall caveman with scars and stripes, and it shouldn't be possible for him to be this delicate. His fingers are so warm, warmer than regular body temperature.

Hard tingles suddenly shoot down my back, making me shudder.

"Too cold?" he asks.

"No, is just… feels nice," I tell him honestly.

"Ah." His fingers follow my jawline back towards my ear. "Some more blood specks here."

"Get them."

"And here." He reaches the side of my neck, his touch feathery light but the tingly warmth preventing it from feeling ticklish.

"Good," I croak, tensing up from the expectation of where those fingers are going next.

They go exactly where I would have picked, which is towards the ear.

"Some spots here," he says softly, his bass voice like silk.

When he touches my earlobe I shudder again, and a small moan escapes me. I must have goosebumps all over.

This time he doesn't stop to ask if I'm cold. Those warm fingers continue to the back of my ear, circling lightly. I had no idea that part of me was that sensitive, but maybe he knew. Or maybe every part he touches seems that sensitive because his touch is just right. His touch is light and warm,but is there more going on? Because it feels like it is. There's a tingle like a weak electric charge wherever his fingertips touch.

"You're incredibly gifted at this," I murmur in English under my breath. "You're dangerous."

"Danjrus," he echoes, moving his fingers down from my ear to the neck, making me shiver again. "That sounds like an alien word."

"It is." I don't want to talk, just enjoy the electric sensation of his fingers on my skin.

He works his way down my neck to the shoulder.

I'm distantly aware that this might not be something a decent woman lets just happen. But hey, I'm on an alien planet and I'm just trying to make the best of it. And now, for the first time in years, I'd love to forget exactly where I am and maybe enjoy myself with no crippling feelings of guilt.

I'm mostly worried about someone catching us. Noker's touch is addictive, and I want this to continue.

I turn a fraction, so that when he moves his finger, it goes down my collar bone.

"No spots here," he reports, voice gruff. "Shall I continue?"

Because of course he's making sure I'm okay with this. That's the kind of guy he is. And that's exactly the kind of guy I want to continue.

"Yes," I rasp. "Make sure I'm clean."

He does, impossibly warm and smooth fingers circling their way downwards, until my left nipple goes stiff and hard from sheer anticipation and my breath goes irregular. Oh my, those tingles right there…

Noker lets the fingers circle my breast in a devilish spiral that gets tighter all the time. My eyes close by themselves — this will be even better if I know only the touch.

I can't be the first woman he touches. I can't. This is expert seduction stuff that any pick-up artist on Earth would kill to learn.

His warm fingers circle closer and closer. I've never known my nipple to tighten this much. The other one contracts in some kind of expectant sympathy.

I hold my breath while the spiral gets smaller and smaller. And then, the touch right at my nipple.

"Ooh…" Arrows of delight cascade from my breast and down my body. I wonder if I'm going to?—

My eyes fly open as I sense a change in the light. My head snaps around.

Two of the tribe's boys are staring at us from the top of the hill behind us.

"Fuck!" I bend to retrieve my hoodie and hold it in front of my chest.

Noker whirls around, the fan on his head suddenly all red. "Leave us!"

The boys dart out of sight.

"Terrible boys spying on us," Noker growls, picking up a rock as if to fling it at them, but then just dropping it.

I pull the sweatshirt over my head. "We in their village. Maybe just needed water. Boys like look at strange people."

He straightens his loincloth, where the bulge is bigger than ever. "At least we got clean."

I wipe the last of the water off my hands. "Yes. Very clean." I'm annoyed and frustrated that we got interrupted. But it may have been a good thing. I don't know if I would have wanted to stop what was about to happen. I'm still wearing my jeans, but my mind was toying with unzipping. Now, the spell has been broken and maybe I can act more responsibly.

"But damn, it felt good," I mutter to myself.

We walk back to the main square. The warriors we saw earlier have already brought in some parts of the dactyl and dumped them on the ground, and now they're busy cutting out the teeth and the claws.

"It's a big irox," one of them says when they see us. "You stabbed it out of the sky with one thrust of that spear? There's only one wound, but it's deep."

"Lucky thrust," Noker says with satisfaction. "Sometimes a spear is almost as good as a sword."

I'm a little puzzled about that. He didn't stab it out of the sky, the way he wants them to think — he hugged it so hard it was paralyzed for a second, and that made it crash. That seems more impressive to me than using a weapon. But I'm not a caveman, of course.

"But Foundlings don't use swords," a Borok man quips. "They are not proper tribes. Do you even have steel and forges? But of course you do. With that head, it must be your job to fan the flames!"

There's some chuckling among the tribesmen.

I see Noker's face darkening, as well as his head fan. The grip on his spear tightens. "We have better steel than you," he growls. "Because we take it from the tribers we kill in the woods. Did you lose someone in the jungle recently? I think the steel in my spear came from the sword of an orange-striped man."

The tribesmen go quiet, and some of them take hold of the hilts of their swords as they glare at Noker.

"Fair enough," the first man says loudly, trying to calm his men. "We haven't actually lost someone in the jungle since the war with the Krast tribe. We're simply admiring your skill with the spear, friend. We don't use those much. But clearly we should practice more with them, if a spearman can down even irox." He sends me a glance, as if asking for my help.

Noker's head fan is a deep crimson and he looks genuinely scary, yellow eyes shooting lightning bolts.

I grab his wrist. "Let's go, Noker. I want to show you something."

The giant caveman reluctantly lets me pull him with me until he turns his back to the Borok men. "That's no way to treat a guest who gave them an irox."

"They were just envy," I say as soothingly as I can. "They never kill irox with one thrust. Or alone."

"It is as my clansbrothers said before I came here," he frets. "The tribes hate the Foundlings, despite what their chiefs may say."

"If they hate, is only because they afraid. You very big and scary, Noker. Use spear better than they use swords."

We reach the stairs going up the Mount, and Noker stops. "Chief Korr'ax and his wife are not here today. Perhaps they won't like it if I go up."

I look up at him. "Perhaps, but I like if you go up."

He gives me the shadow of a smile. "Ah. Then everything is in order."

"Very in order." I drag him up the whole stairway until we're on the plateau.

"Noker, this is Alba," I introduce them. "And the woman in there is Astrid. Alba, meet Noker."

"Greetings," Noker rumbles and gives her a small bow.

"Greetings, Noker," Alba says. She's put on her patched sweatpants and is now busy with our precious scissors and a big piece of brown fabric. "You are man who made trap."

I cringe at her words. I'm not sure Noker needs that accusation right now.

"I did," Noker says calmly, his fan back to its normal pattern. "And I praise the stars that the trap failed to catch the phantoms."

"Also I," Alba says and gives him one of her bright smiles. "Thank you for making trap, Noker. If not made, Astrid and Bronwen and I not here now."

"Perhaps," he says smoothly, looking out at the view. "But such capable women as you three would have been doing just fine, even if I hadn't made it."

Alba mouths a quiet "wow" to me. I know what she means — he's unusually muscled. And for a caveman alien who's both Foundling and half dinosaur, it seems Noker can surprise with his sophistication. It's something we've been talking about since we came here — the tribesmen are nothing like the cavemen we imagined on Earth, who would communicate with only grunts and clubs. These guys may wear rags with shoulder straps, but they are really much more advanced than that, especially their language. It makes us wonder about where they really come from.

I look up at his massive, blue-streaked back. "Noker, won't you sit down?"