Page 4 of Feral Tamed

I couldn’t forget how quickly this alien had dropped me to check on his pet when he realized it was with him in his bag. Even with the language barrier, I’d recognized his shock and concern when that first purring sound had broken the silence. It was hard to be scared of a guy when he so obviously cared for his pet.

Right now, I could even admit to myself what an absolutely dumb idea it had been to blindly run away. If not for this alien male, I would be dead right now. Maybe I was too stupid to live, I sure seemed to make a hash of my life when left to my own devices.

A low whining sound, followed by a soft growl had my nerves fire with another round of adrenaline. It came from above, the dark head of the hound-like creature that had accompanied the alien, sticking his head over the edge of the hole. I could see the red glow of its eyes, even from this distance. The alien male rose to his feet and started waving his hand in a stopping motion, he was yelling something too in his strange, guttural language.

Not hard to guess that he was trying to stop it from jumping down after us, something that could only result in injury or death for the animal. The dark head disappeared and I drew in a relieved breath, good, it had backed off. One look at my alien rescuer told me he was extremely tense though, even the small furry creature was sitting on his shoulder, snout pointed up in intense focus, its long sleek tail sticking out straight behind it.

The beast leaped, blotting out a good portion of the light coming down the hole as its body started plummeting. Then it twisted agilely, long sleek form coming perpendicular to the crumbling rock face we’d slid and climbed down. His huge paws gripping into the surface, grinding, scraping, but steadily slowing its descent.

The alien male was (presumably) cursing up a storm under his breath, then took hold of my shoulder and made me back up so neither of us could get caught up in the rock spray. It took only seconds for the animal to make its sliding, grinding way down that wall. It landed in a crouch in front of us, covered in debris and dust, which it shook off itself with a perfunctory look down its blunt snout at his alien buddy. I swear it was almost as if he was telling the male off for daring to tell him not to jump.

Only then did I realize that the alien still had a hand wrapped around my bicep, his fingers easily going all the way around it, warm and firm. He looked away from his beast, yellow eyes dipping from my face down to his grip on my arm. There was a warmth blooming in the pit of my stomach that I had no explanation for. His eyes flicked up to mine again, a slow grin curling his lips which was shockingly sexy. This was the adrenaline speaking, I couldn’t be attracted to this alien.

His fingers slowly loosened from around my arm, sliding down it to my wrist where I felt the rough callouses on his fingers scrape against the sensitive skin before he let go entirely. He stepped forward, running his hands over the spine and flanks of his huge hound. Then went to his knees to carefully pick up each paw and inspect it. I swear the animal’s red glowing eyes rolled in their sockets as if it was just tolerating this treatment. The way a sulky teenager might. It was such an odd thing to witness that I had to clap my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh.

The alien male was talking as he pointed at the animal’s paws and wagged a finger in front of its snout. Probably telling it off for doing something so dangerous. The little creature on the male’s shoulder jumped off, straight onto the back of the hound, who immediately flattened to his belly on the floor. The cat creature was rubbing itself between his shoulder blades, crawling up to swat at the rounded ears and the hound just took it. He even looked half besotted as it was happening, it was absolutely adorable. I definitely did laugh out loud that time.

The alien male immediately looked over his shoulder at me, a smile playing around his mouth that revealed a row of sharp teeth that were definitely not human. Now that I’d spent a bit of time around him, and his menagerie of animals, I wasn’t so scared anymore. I could recognize the amusement on that face, which despite the fangs, was not nearly so inhuman as you’d expect.

With a chiseled jawline, straight nose, and cat-shaped eyes that were not too different from my own, there was even something familiar about him. If I squinted a little in the dark, I could pretend that the white bone ridge that started at the top of his forehead like a widow’s peak, was just a white mohawk rising from between the dark strands of hair.

When he took a step my way, I didn’t back up. I made a mistake doing that last time and look how that ended for us. Now we were all trapped in this damn cave. So though he was still a little intimidating, and also kind of sexy, I waited for him to reach me.

He walked up to me until there was barely a foot separating us and I had to tilt back my head far too much to be able to look into his bright yellow eyes. He raised an arm and tapped at his chest, my eyes only too happy to follow that command and take in the thick pectoral muscles that tapered off into his wide shoulders and massive arms. “Fierce,” he growled at me, his finger dipping to tap at my sternum, the tap just hard enough to make me flinch back at the contact. Woah, I bet he doesn’t know his own strength.

“Hina,” I offered in return, I patted my own chest. Gave into temptation and stroked a finger across the skin between his pecs. “Fierce,” I repeated his name, certain that was what he’d just given me. His skin was warm and textured, like millions of tiny little bumps. He shivered in response to the touch, a rumble, almost like a purr, rising up from his wide chest.

Startled by the unexpected sound, I flicked my eyes up to his face and noticed how his eyes had gone half-mast, his chin dipped so he could watch me. I had a hunch he liked it when I touched him, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. That look on his face was far too potent. I really didn’t know how I’d gone from terrified to extremely attracted in the span of twenty minutes with this male.

Dropping my eyes again, and snatching my finger back, I spotted something strange strapped to his wrist. My mouth opened to ask a question he’d likely never understand, my eyes glued to the item he wore. Before I could think twice about it, I’d grabbed his arm and pulled the wrist com up to my face, staring at it in shock.

“How? You’ve got a com? Please tell me you can call for help so we can get off this planet!” I demanded, pointing at the com and then looking up at his face. There was that smile again, and my insides twisted up like a pretzel in response. I had the distinct feeling he’d understood me well enough when he flicked a finger against the small screen, allowing it to light up. It wasn’t a device I was familiar with exactly but recognizable enough. Not so, the strange letters that scrolled over the screen.

He growled some words, raising his wrist to bring the device closer to his mouth. There was no response, but he did suddenly turn to glare at the hound behind him. Spewing a few words in the direction of the huge animal. It sniffed haughtily and sat up on its haunches, lifted a leg, and licked at its balls in what came across as a ‘fuck you.’ That was crazy though, no way were these two actually communicating on a level like that. Anthropomorphizing animals was not my shtick.

Fierce tapped the com device on his wrist again, a look of frustration on his face before he shrugged and glanced my way. It was a little harder to tell with his skin color the same shades as the rock walls around us, all dark browns and slate gray, but I had a feeling he was embarrassed. Because he couldn’t get the com to work? I doubted that was his fault, even with that hole above our heads, we were mostly surrounded by layers and layers of rock, a signal was going to have a problem penetrating that.

He jabbed a little harder at the device and I reached out and curled my fingers around his hand. “It’s okay Fierce, you tried. It’s probably all the rock interfering.” I doubted he’d understand what I just said, but I hoped my calm tone would let him know I didn’t blame him for it not working. It was possible that when we’d fallen and climbed down into this hole, the device had gotten a good knock too, maybe something was broken.

I tried hard to ignore my disappointment that rescue wasn’t easily coming. Now I was still stranded on this planet. At least stranded was better than dead, and now I wasn’t alone. “Hina,” he said, his voice a low husky drawl that turned my name almost into a growl, much like the rest of his language sounded.

He spoke a few more words, that I obviously didn’t understand, then he sighed and tapped at his chest again, “Fierce.” His hand moved down to his ax which he tapped as well, before pointing at me and saying my name. The next world growled was in his own language and it sounded as fierce as his name did. With his yellow eyes focused intensely on my face it felt almost like he was pledging me something, he seemed so serious.

A tugging on my pants leg almost made me shriek, but a quick glance down told me it was just the tiny alien pet. The cat/otter/ferret was sitting upright next to my foot, her adorable face with expressive emerald eyes blinking up at me. I offered her a smile, I liked animals, though I’d never had any pets as they had never been allowed on any of the research stations I’d worked at.

She blinked her pretty eyes at me, definitely a she, I’d decided. Then she hooked her clawed front paws into my jeans and scampered up my leg, purring loudly when she leaped from my hip to my chest and I instinctively caught her and cuddled her slight body to me. Over her purring form, I caught Fierce smiling widely at me.

*

Fierce

I was unsure if my promise to protect her had come across, but it didn’t matter, I’d prove it to her with my actions. At least I’d made progress, she no longer seemed scared of me, and she didn’t seem too bothered by Snarl’s presence now either. I shot the Ferai beast another sharp look, “You really should have stayed up there and gone to fetch Sunder and Jakar. Now we’re all stuck down here.”

He huffed, “But then you wouldn’t have time to court your female in private! I guard, you court.” The statement was followed by a dry huffing chuckle that perfectly conveyed his amusement with the entire situation. I fought to maintain my camouflaged colors for a moment, my entire body flushing at the thought of courting Hina. Flushing so much, that my skin almost turned entirely red. That would be extremely telling, if I’d let my colors give me away.

It was nice to see her cuddle with Pet, the small juvenile Riho was purring as loudly as she would for Snarl or me. It seemed to calm Hina a little more, now her shoulders were down and she was smiling, which was beautiful to see. I loved seeing her pink mouth pulled into a happy expression, her dark eyes sparkling.

Forcing myself to look away, before my colors really did start to betray me, I bent down and picked up my bag, strapping it on again. I checked my ax blade for chips or scratches but the metal was still holding a decent edge. Good, I had a feeling I was going to need it. In the distance I could hear more than one creature moving around in the dark, the sound of scales sliding across rock clear as a bell.