Chapter Thirty Five
From inside a Chayeene tent on the other side of the village, there was another place that was celebrating the night rather than fearing anything. Pants and moans could be heard radiating from the tent in the middle of the section where most of the tribe was sleeping but was drowned by the rain.
Inside of the tent was Xain and Janice who were touching each other under sheets with daring hands.
He had been by her side constantly for the last couple of days to make sure she was healed from the first shake when they tumbled from the hut that collapsed. He knowingly stole touches here and there, he knew that it would all build inside her. He was not as patient as the Xutashi.
After he had met with Na’Kito and tried to hook him into a wrestling match and failing he left to find another to start a fight with. To blow off steam. He found his opponent soon afterward. A young newly graduated equally hot-headed Xutashi Warrior friend called Link. They were wrestling in the middle of the village which some of the young Chayeene, Maurea, and the Xutashi Warriors watched and a few Rhuzeche's. All seeing who would win.
Xain wasn’t the one to give up so easily during a fight. He was the one who was even winning. He sure did like to win and nothing ever took his attention away from his goal. Why start fights just to lose? No, he always has the intention of winning. Even when fighting those more skilled than he was. He is an adrenaline junkie at their worst.
It happened within the time of a heart to beat once. Amidst that fight saw Zeta stroll by and ignoring the young males fighting. As long as no severe injuries were caused she did not care what stupid fights they did to pass the time. Although there were times that Kito would be amongst the group. That was only when she paid attention.
His eyes moved that way, leaving him open and led him to get pinned. He didn’t know if he looked at her or it was simply his eyes moving that way, his eyes landed on the blonde human. Color dripped. Oozed. Filled his vision around her. The Xutashi Warrior pinning him was confused when his body relaxed against his own will and he was whimpering emotionally when it overfilled him from the inside. Link had fought Xain many times before and never did he complain over any booboos.
Everyone noticed it too. They looked where his eyes were locked too, and seeing the human walking beside Zeta most of them sighed or others rolled their eyes and walked away. The youngest brown Xutashi spoke, “There goes Xain.”
Xain shoved Link off of him and stumbled to his feet. He looked around and blinked many times as the color consumed his vision and he was seeing all of his friends all at once like it was the first time. From the bronze-skinned youngest one to Link’s brownish-orange color of his hair. Everyone noticed that he blinked like he just woke up from a long nap. His eyes spun and zoned in on the blonde human walking away, to him it seems like she was unaffected.
He exposed a wolfish smirk and departs the circle. “I will meet all of you later...”
“No, he won’t,” Link looks at another Chayeene Warrior. “For a heartbeat, I thought I was winning.”
Each of them knew that they had just lost him. They were all upset that it had to be Xain, the funniest and rowdiest. It happened too quickly. Too sudden. But it still happened.
Now he was following the same path in the direction where she went. He could even smell her. He had a new goal. His whole life had changed so suddenly that his mind was buzzed when he awkwardly tripped a couple of times. His canine ears were low and his tail dropped. He watched her and Zeta walk up the steps to another hut that was mostly used for visitors. Zeta had been keeping her there.
He watched the hut closely for a while and never went too far. He waited for Zeta to step away. He planned to see her alone because he needed to without anyone around, his mind couldn’t think of any other rational thought but finding her.
Zeta did notice when she stepped out of the hut and shut the door behind her the Chayeene sitting a distance away with his eyes locked on the hut and his ears lowered. Eagerly waiting, a bit stalking. She wasn’t foolish to miss such an obvious sign.
She was relieved to see him because she honestly didn’t know what to do with the nice young girl. And the fact that it was Xain this time. So she purposely abandoned the hut and stood hidden in front of her own home to observe him scout the area and make his way there after some time passed.
She even left it unlocked for him to just walk in. She hoped that she did the right thing.
Their meeting at first was shocking as it was equally frightening. He has never been screamed at so much before and he had been screamed at a lot. It was after a while of him being calm and keeping his distance that made her comfortable to finally speak. Mostly about her wanting to go home, and demanding that he did.
He didn’t worry about that since the Xutashi’s are the only ones that knew how to take humans back to their world.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t intend on letting her leave.
Xutashi’s might have been more sympathetic but he knew he wouldn’t allow it. He told her he wouldn’t, he was very upfront with his selfish intentions. He sugar-coated nothing. She squeals at him for it and threw things around her at him, but he only smiled while she did. When he smiled, he was slapped. Hard. Then she screamed at him because he told her how that aroused him.
Until the shake came.
He had twisted his wrist during the fall and only had a couple of deep cuts and scratches. Nothing blood couldn’t heal, although the same wasn’t for her. He had used his own body to try to protect her when the whole hut fell.
After she woke up in the medicine hut she couldn’t get rid of him like an embedded parasite under her skin that could see crawl. He was always there. Which always annoyed her. After a while, they did have great conversations and there was never that awkward tension in the air that she had sometimes before with other people. She refused to admit for a time that his presence wasn’t exactly an unpleasant one.
He did have emotions other than wanting to fight. He perhaps had the most honest trait she had seen in any person. He made it much aware that he wasn’t going anywhere, or was she. And that male friend she had back in her world? A joke. A funny one. And if she said his name like he was anything more he would have no problem finding his way into that world to snap his neck, simply because she had kissed him.
Arguments weren’t new to them. He liked it when they made up, however. She secretly did too. She wouldn’t forget how irritating he can be.
The days went by and he moved closer, she opened up to him more. They would have many arguments, sometimes heated enough that he would leave the hut to cool down, but he always returned not too long after. He would step back inside and sit next to her bed with his head on it and shamelessly ask for her forgiveness. All because he didn’t want to be away from her.
He didn't expect to have the Tether backfire so strongly on him as well. It was a good feeling.
Now she was nearly healed and they spent some time alone outside the hut. Even with shakes there they still felt the growing need to spend time alone together. More touching was involved. He constantly begged to kiss her. He wanted to wipe that Ethan away that he didn’t forget. He did a lot of begging with numerous things that she found amusing and sweet, especially when he only did it with her. A parasite he was.
He knew after the third time he asked and she replied with the same answer. No. He was very determined. He would just wait for another time to ask hoping her mind would change. He would do something else that would be over the top and kind to her. Bring flowers, small gifts, outfits. She didn't understand why he was this way.
And he didn’t like it when she spoke of her boyfriend, growling each time.
He didn’t even consider the male a problem, only when she spoke fondly of him. Romantically. He has made it clear all of his intentions, which has led to many of their argument before, and who she was to him and who he was to her. There would be no other living male. Ever.
They kissed first in the quiet of a hut after he fed her some things that his kind liked to eat. Deer like creatures that thrived in the forests of where they were from, and afterward he had asked again to kiss her and she finally said a different answer. After her breathy “Yes,” there was no hesitation. He leaned over and took her lips with his and he knew she had felt it. Their connection.
He never had to worry about what she would think about that boyfriend she had in her world. He knew that fool wouldn’t -couldn’t- win over him.
In the present, her feminine cry resumes to briefly fill the atmosphere of the tent when his body slowly inched into hers. She made many cute noises that were like music to him. He didn’t have to even ask for this. It was just them laying beside each other at first in the bedroll. She was the one who ignited his needs, he was behaving himself, laying on his back by her side, and staring at the skin walls. His palm was grabbed by a smaller hand, caressing his palm with the smooth nail of her index finger. Small, deliberate circles.
First, as a small joke to make him turn his head and smile. She did enjoy the look in his eyes when she did small things like this for his attention. Small chatter led to kissing, and more kissing, until those kisses were no longer on their lips. Then the touches faded into more handsy exploration, and the more heat the fuel the desperate and needy side she turned herself into.
Yes. He won over Ethan, of course...
There were no words when he rolled over to cover her with his body like a second heated blanket. Something feminine in her liked that. She still couldn’t fathom how she willingly let him take her innocence so eagerly, like they were already experienced in such passions, and yet she could. Something she never thought she would do so soon when she had it planned for the boyfriend she had back home, and now she couldn’t even remember his name.
Under the sheets his hips pressed to thrust forward, stretching her further and enticing her cute moans and her head rolling back to expose her neck. He grins in his victory, his eyes knowing. His fangs aches.
Oh, yes. She was returning home with him and his family. The human world can exist without her. He couldn’t. He would like to meet her father however, he sounded like a good human male. Her mother had vanished on her as a child. Who could want to leave her? He couldn’t understand that.
Such a shame that the connections to the human world were just a feeble thing. Inside he understood the sacrifices these humans give up just to be here. His heart squeezed with emotions for her. This wasn’t just pleasures of the flesh... He would fight for her. He had a real reason now.
It was even thundering. With the roar came lighting that crackles through the rain. A tall dark-winged outline flashed through the thin hides of the tent outside.
Xain supported himself on his folded arms just so he could look down at her beautiful body. He halted suddenly to her dismay and his ears perked and his head pointed into the same spot the shadow appeared before, cautious. He saw nothing.
Janice let out a small whine and placed her hands lightly on his shoulders and her fingers caress upwards to his neck, her breathing was heavier than ever. Her skin is coated in sweat. Helplessly squirming against him. “W-Why did you stop?”
He looks back down at her and growls tenderly, the Chayeene attempt of a purr. “I thought I sensed something. I’m sorry,” he whispered and spoke near her ear. He rolled his hips again. “I will make up for it.”
Her hand combs her fingers in his hair and lightly hold onto it. That eerie feeling didn’t go away. He hated even more that he felt it now but it was just too demanding in him, even over her Heat, to ignore. That was what troubled him. Even over the binding words.
His ear lifts again and he turned his head. Janice was confused. Why was he stopping now? Why even start if he was going to continue to stop? He didn’t feel less interested in her. She raises her head from her pillow, still panting, to look around the inside of the tent herself. “What’s wrong, Xain? Why are you jumpy? Why now? ”
He didn’t want to stop what he was doing. This was supposed to be an important time, he wanted her to enjoy the moment she had given him something special. He was being too jumpy. Over what? He was in the center of his tribe kin not including the Xutashi, Rhuzeche, Maurea, and Kikera close by. Nothing had to concern him. Nothing dangerous should even dare come here now.
He lowered himself and kissed her apologetically. “Nothing, flower. I do not know why I am like this tonight of all nights.”
She didn’t need to answer when he finally ignored the rest of his instincts and focused solely on her. Restarting what he had stopped. He didn’t want to ruin the mood again, actually bringing her to her first release and hearing her beautiful moan while she did so. He didn’t hear the slight rip that a talon was making on the side of the tent that was drowned by the thunderstorm and rain.
The tear was vertical, incredibly slow, and patient. The line longer. Inch by slow inch.
Xain finished after her. There was no way he could hold out any longer. Janice lifted her face to kiss over his face affectionately, but the moment was shattered. Destroyed when her eyes saw the shadow with the next flash of lightning, and she screamed.
A scream that made him turn his head and snarl.
The creature outside prepared to tear through the tent and enter through the already made torn section, but a hard force knocks it back just in time into the ground. The force was hard enough that the two rolled, the creature attempted to grab the side of the tent as leverage only to tear a hole in it and knock it down with the two lovers inside.
The Chayeene all woke up to the sound and the shadows of Vaz and Agana’s battles in the heavy rain. He had been trying to find her since the moment he left and stalked around the village knowing she would come. She did too. She had set a trap he had to free himself from, but he made it in time.
His eyes were red with specs of black, like flaming charcoal. Anger flared. The Chayeene rushes outside and saw the creature with their mixture of terror and sudden hostility and need to defend. To protect themselves.
Vaz took the next opening that he saw see and lashes after he pounces, drawing blood. Agana howls, furiously taking her claws and trying to rip the determined hybrid from her. That task alone wasn’t easy when he spills her blood when he found his next exposed chance, it splatters against tents and the ground.
Its blood was thick and black. When it touched his skin he felt the warmth, the venom that tingled over his skin. His face. He was wanting to finish what he started, what he sacrificed so much for. This vile creature’s difficult death.
She pried him off and tosses him incredibly far through the air and he landed hard, tumbling over the mud until he came to a complete stop on his side. Her wings flap to add extra force to her legs when she leaps. Talons extended to slice him. He felt Shade’s power surge within him, the fire in his eyes igniting. Brightened. The shadow now within him, it’s vessel, and renewed his strength and increased it to move out of her way. She made a hard impact into the ground, spreading mud.
Vaz -now Shade- snarled and went to her wing. His intention clear to her -he wanted to rip off her wings and make her even more vulnerable.
Her crooked leg kicks him hard, ruining his idea for now.
Chayeene Warriors intruded. Attacking her with their ferocity. Daggers cutting into thick flesh, one of the talons from her dug into one Warrior, this time red blood drawn and threw him away with a cruel smile. She intended to eat one.
She was too deep within her fantasies that it was too late when she when Xain sliced into her wing, cleverly coming in from above from a tree, his dagger, and even hands pulling the thin skin apart. She screeches towards the sky, high pitched and animalistic beyond anything he heard of before.
She swipes her battered wing to slam his body against a thick tree as hard as she could. Hoping she killed him with a crushed skull or lungs. That little meat, she hoped that one died!
She tried to fly into the air but with only one untorn wing flight was impossible. She beastly snarls at her quick frustration.
Vaz growls in a voice not at all his own at all the Warriors as he ran by, “stay out of this!”
Agana’s attempt to fly forces her damaged wing to tear even further. She grabs her wing and made a sound of anguish.
She looked back to see Vaz with her dark eyes seething in hatred. Then a voice that wasn’t spoken aloud, one that tainted his mind, the beast whispers with echoes surrounding it, “You pathetic halfbreed,” Inhuman and unpleasant. Her deformed form remained still. She spoke through the mind. The language is different. “You sacrificed everything to try and kill me. Now what, thing? You made me your only will I live, and you cannot die. What if you kill me?” her laugh was meant to mock him. “What you once called family is no more. What are you even trying to protect?”
He never would humor her with an answer to her words. She was only trying to buy herself time to heal. She can heal fast if given the opportunity as he could. Wounds healing as if time was reversed. His only reply was action, striking out with force and strength. His snarl was deep enough to make anyone who thought about interfering think twice.
Their fight rampaged on into the center of the Xutashi village and disturb the sleep of many more with its unbelievable uncaring wreckage it causes. Including the Chief’s family. When Kito opens the front door of the hut and looked outside he knew instantly what he was looking at fighting in the center of the village.
Clara even saw it and she gasps, “What the-”
Caji inside hisses loud enough that he woke up Kane beside him. It wasn’t his intention, his main goal was to scare off the shadow that was near him on the wall that he was trying to get away from. The little boy rubs his eyes in drowsiness and yawned, “What’s goin’ on?”
“Go back to sleep, buddy.” Clara tried to keep her voice calm although everything around her was tragic. Who could sleep with such mayhem outside?
The shade seemed to follow Caji no matter where he went in the hut and even breaking things to get away. Kito had to at least control one problem. “Why aren’t you with him?” He pointed in the direction of Vaz as he spoke to the shadow. “I think he is more important than Caji at this moment.”
Shade’s ears lowered in agitation. His head faced Caji again, and Kito could even imagine him growling before he left. He knew he had returned to Vaz when Caji was more relaxed.
Agana was roaring and jumped towards the opened hut in the trees. Her wings only helped her get enough distance from the ground to allow her to dig her talons on the wood and pull herself up. She was desperate for food of any kind from the amount of time she starved herself underground. She also recognized someone and she zoned on him, and she went after them anyway, making her way to the opened front door after climbing with her talons rather than flying.
She was too big to go inside so only her arms could reach inside with her talons to try to grab them. Her talons tore marks on the front and inside of the hut. Digging into the wood and grabbing items that were already scattered across the ground and tossing it to the side. Those weren’t her goals. She wanted something to eat.
Kito instinctively went to Clara and Kane and covered his body over them in the further corner of the hut away from it. It reached further and further inside as it tore through the doorway and everything inside.
A hint of dark flashed through Caji’s eyes. Something that he found unexpected, something in him that still lingered even after Shade’s violation. He was the one to stand between the creature and the three in the corner and attacked with quick speeds that were even too blurry for Kito to make out.
He knocks Agana from the doorway and over the side, tumbling, her wings failing her to lift from the ground. Her talons caught on Caji’s belt and he went over the edge with her.
Mia saw this from outside of her own home that she dashed out from and screamed for him. She even tried to run from him if Kai hadn’t grabbed her and threw her inside the hut and shut the door from outside with her in it. He even put his staff on the door and a close tree in a position so she couldn’t open it again without him removing this staff. This was too serious for her to get involved with and he would not allow her to get into this in her condition. He would just deal with the aftermath later.
Everyone went to rush to Caji’s aid. The first one to get to him was Vaz, jumping onto her back in an attempt to do more damage to her wings and make her vulnerable and draw out blood.
Her attention went to him, and a broken roar and a claw hand flung the hybrid so hard into a tree that splinters scattered.
The creature struggled to fly away. Seeing the Xutashi’s and other species of tribe’s nearing her she knew that she was outnumbered, especially with the pest on her back. She didn’t remember any of the tribe’s being all together at once and there being so many more now than what she once knew, and it was overwhelming. Her wings flap once to try to lift herself from the ground. Only her untorn wing could make it and she ended up only lifting a couple of feet before she rolled and fell.
Vaz shoved Caji aside to keep him from going after it although it was his intention. He tried to keep everyone else from going near it. Especially when her long, pointy poisonous tail starting to slice around wildly. He knew that if anyone would get stung by the pointed tip there was no saving them. She was severely poisonous. Her blood, her tail, her bite. Her claws couldn’t do anything but tear. He has watched veins turn to black and rot from the inside. It was painful.
Vaz couldn’t keep Kito away when he fell from one of the trees with a long, sharp long Outsider’s sword he had stored within his hut. Agana was caught by surprise when the sharp blade sliced through the center of her long tail easily. She screams as she watched the half of her tail wither on the ground in front of her and dying. She grabs the remaining part of her tail to see the black liquid of her blood spurting everywhere on the ground.
Black eyes of rage turn to Kito who was getting up from the ground he rolled on to stop the impact of his fall. He was covered in mud that was being washed away by the hard rain. Her eyes wide and she shrieks in hatred, “I will kill you!”
He ran when she chases him on foot. She could run faster than he thought she would, the only way he could escape without her grabbing him was to use her speed against her. He jumps up and clasped a high branch leading into the Jungle and flipped his body out of the way of her claws. She couldn’t slow down in time before she rammed into a large, thick tree.
Vaz was getting tired of everyone interfering. If she was trapped in one spot for too long she could get smarter and lash out even worse and lives will be taken. Cowards do that when they feel like they are losing, and she will be much blood thirstier and savage. He couldn’t control the other Warriors who felt like they needed to help from all the other tribes.
Just like he predicted she stood up, wounded and all, and gave each of the Warriors surrounding her chalk on a blackboard screeching roar. Her wings help her out from the center and not any further, knocking Kito purposely out of the tree. The branch he was on explodes and he was thrown high in the air. She used a tree to push herself in the air to throw him into the ground. Hard. Then she landed on him.
Clara screams. A reaction came out of her quicker than she realized and Agana looks up and spotted her on the stairs. And smiles.
Kito forgot his pain in an instant. He snarls and reached to grab her but his grip didn’t stay. He moved through the air farther than even Vaz could stop. Clara knew that she was in trouble for screaming now but she would call herself stupid later. She boldly hops from the side of the stairs, the creature broke them during her impact and tried to use her long arm and talons to snatch her from her fall, marking wood.
She would have fallen in the wet mud below if it wasn’t for Kai snatching her while he jumps from one tree to another.
She wasn’t so easily deterred this time. She climbs the trees with her wings folded in tightly around her, it took a lot out of Kai to get the two of them through the thicker part of the vegetation and tangles of vines and leaves that he knew to keep her out of reach. She was even willing to snap her teeth at him, her black venom seeping out from the side of her mouth and her black eyes void of any sanity. They were cornered and the only thing he knew to do was push her out of the tree.
He knew she was fine when he spotted Shinto and the other Kikera’s waiting below to catch her. Agana nearly had her fangs on him before she fell back with a more fearful expression. Her movements were slow, like a skittish animal, and it seemed like her eyes were on Kai as she moved back like a feline on the branch she was on.
He didn’t know what was happening or what she was scared of. His eyes moved to his side where her gaze was, and in the darkness, he could even see a darker shadow. It wasn’t his, there was no light around for it to be his.
It was Shade.
Agana was well aware of the seemingly endless power it had it could give.
Now here it was standing next to the Xutashi in the darkness. Shielding him with his very presence. The shadow who was shaped like Vaz stood with his ears lowered like he was growling. His tail moving in a warning.
She attempts a cruel smile along with the ancient language, “Shade... You should let me have at least one. You have to know how ill I am when I starve. We were in that cave together. For a long time. You should know how it is like to work for another.”
Shade didn’t bother letting her continue with her silly words. The same way he had possessed Caji he sprung from the tree in a black streak of fog and soaked itself into her. She grabs her head and shrieks over the crackle of thunder across the sky that struck dangerously close to them.