Alien Barbarians' Mate Read online

  As he looked up at me, I began chuckling immediately and walked up behind him, reaching forward and grabbing his hands as I helped to pull him up.

  My mistake, as he flung his fist around and smashed it right into my right ear. I grimaced, the pain filling my head immediately.

  Enraged, I started running full speed toward him, my arms lifting from beneath him and clearing him off the ground as I lifted him over my shoulders, my hands tightening around his ankles as I allowed him to dangle off my back.

  I spun around and Maun began retching as he grew sick from the motion. I began laughing just as soon as it began and Maun’s weak voice echoed in my ears.

  “That’s enough—I give up, I give up! I will never again cheat at anything we do together, Arh! I swear! Put me down, please!” he begged.

  I slid him down to the ground and stepped back, offering my hand to him as he spat out the remnants of his stomach.

  “Is that so?” I asked.

  Maun looked up at me and slid his hand into mine as I helped him up.

  “Yes, I swear it. You’ve got me—this time anyway.” He smirked.

  “Is that so? Do you want to try that challenge again?” I asked him amusedly.

  “Not right now.”

  “It seems to me you two will have lots of opportunities to best one another—for now, Maun should come and get cleaned up. From now on, if the two of you have an issue, you should settle it yourselves unless it requires elder interference. You’re both old enough to do so on your own,” Veruka interjected.

  I chuckled—I could never know where my mother would stand on any one topic as she was a female of renown intelligence—a high healer who showed mercy where needed and no tolerance when it was necessary.

  This was why my mother had done such a great job in raising fine hunters and I knew that she wished nothing more for Maun and I than for us to be the future best hunters of the Eilahasan peoples.

  As the female came rolling over me, I turned to my side and dug my hands into the dirt, leaping from the ground and turning to make some space between the two of us. She glared at me and came rushing in my direction.

  I jutted my foot out, stepping to the side as her foot slid over mine and her full body went flying in an arc toward the ground.

  Reacting quickly, I turned to grab ahold of her ankles and lifted her from the ground, tossing her over my shoulder as I began to spin around in circles—hoping the motion would affect her just as they had my strong, proud, and somewhat ignorant cousin, Maun.

  “Crap!” the female called out as I spun around for the second time, her arms flailing in the air as I continued to whirl in circles. “Ugh, please stop! Stop, please!” she begged.

  I still couldn’t understand any of the words but from the sound of her voice, she wanted me to stop. But there was no stopping—not now. With the pesky beast she had brought along with her, I knew that I didn’t have much time to get her under control.

  I dragged her along, bouncing off my back as I moved toward my satchel and pulled out a piece of tethering rope. I typically used it to lace up my kills when I chose not to field dress them after the slaughter. It seemed they would work just as well for putting this female in bondage long enough to figure out what I should do next.

  She started hollering strangely all of a sudden. I looped the rope into a lasso and slid her from my back. I gripped her wrists quickly and looped the rope over her wrists, pulling it taut as I looked at her.

  Tears seemed to be welling in her eyes but I didn’t understand why. I hated that I had to do this to her in order to get the result I wanted, but it seemed like my hand was forced.

  I pulled her closer to me as I looked down at the yapping creature she had held so fondly—enough to be willing to sacrifice her life for it, much to my own disbelief.

  Why would anyone ever put themselves in the way of harm for an animal? It just didn’t make any sense.

  Three

  Mikaela

  I was furious with everything that was going on! How did I end up in some random ass jungle with nothing I needed to survive, only to find myself stuck with the purple equivalent of a self-entitled brute.

  I wasn’t at all happy with him staring at my ass and tits like he had, but the moment he went after Tremor all bases unloaded and the mother tigress in me came lurching forward with her claws extended and ready to strike!

  Tremor was the only family I had and there was no way in hell this purple jerkoff was going to off him right before my eyes. I would rather die trying to save him than allow that!

  But, I had miscalculated the intelligence of my opponent and now, as I stared out at the fire and the purple male collected my dog by its leash, I readied for the inevitable. I squinted as I felt the sting of my tears in the corners of my eyes.

  “Please, don’t kill my dog!” I pleaded.

  I wondered if he would try to eat him—or both of us. Would he kill us and turn us into his dinner? I wondered suddenly if he was the only one or if there were others. If there were others, what would they do to us?

  The purple male glanced at me, and for a moment, I thought I might have seen compassion reflecting in his eye. Was he even human? I’d assumed it was body paint, but the longer I looked at him, the more differences I saw: like his three fingers compared to my own five.

  I had a million questions and seemingly nowhere to turn to. Worse yet, the more I spoke to him, the more it grew apparent that he didn’t speak any English—none whatsoever.

  I coughed slightly and looked down at my bound wrists. The rope that he’d used to tie them together was strange—it almost reminded me of sinew—like it had been taken from animal parts and threaded into the rope it now was. It was wiry and I could feel that it was tough—it seemed to hold up just as well as zip ties when used for crowd control.

  I pursed my lips. If my pleas fell on deaf ears—or misunderstanding ones—it was highly likely that Tremor was about to die right before my eyes. I groaned as he knelt down and Tremor snapped at him again.

  “Stop it, Trem! NO biting,” I urged, hoping he would listen to me and cease trying to snap off the purple man’s fingers.

  I knew that it had been Tremor who first lashed out at him, but that didn’t make his behavior any more tolerable. Tremor was my best friend—my family!

  The man lifted the dog around his middle and walked over to what looked like a small satchel—opening it and dumping my barking dog inside. I watched in horror as he tied off the satchel and hung it from a nearby tree branch.

  “Hey! What the hell! He has rights! Don’t you know that animals have feelings too?” I bellowed angrily.

  The purple man turned and looked at me with an expression that I swore made me feel even crazier. All I wanted to do was rip the beads and feathers out of his dreadlocked hair and choke him out with them!

  I needed to show some relief though, I supposed. At least he hadn’t actually murdered my dog right in front of me, right?

  I sniffed and suddenly felt the urge to start sneezing. I loud sneeze escaped my lungs. Then another.

  “Oh, gosh,” I remarked as I continued sneezing, my head suddenly feeling heavier than it had when I first awoke.

  Was something I ate not sitting well with me?

  I pursed my lips and felt the sudden urge to vomit. Lurching forward, I began to spew out the contents of my belly—the few remnants of food I was able to munch on, anyway.

  The purple male walked over to me and lifted my arms suddenly, glancing up beneath them as he scanned over the hoodie sleeves. I gasped when he pushed them upward and began sliding his fingers along my flesh.

  “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

  The purple man ignored me, continuing to trace over my skin until his eyes widened and he pointed at my arm.

  “What?” I asked.

  He turned my arm slightly and I noticed a reddening spot—what appeared to be a sting mark—and furrowed my brows. I didn’t even recall being
stung. Had it happened in the midst of our fighting?

  The purple man huffed slightly and walked over to the satchel he had near the strangely shaped leaf-plate he had offered me food from earlier. He began fishing through the satchel and I felt the urge to sneeze and throw up again—both at the same time.

  I felt disgusting, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. For some strange reason, my body just wouldn’t cease the sneezing. I wondered suddenly what the sting had come from and if my body’s reaction was due to some sort of allergy I had never been aware of.

  Would I go into anaphylactic shock?

  The purple man pulled some strange herbs out of his bag and walked over to me, kneeling down as he reached for the wine bag—what I presumed was a wineskin, anyway.

  He pulled a small wooden cup from the bag and poured the herbs into it, taking a bit of the fluid from the wineskin and pouring it atop to create a mixture.

  I watched as he mixed it together with his fingers and grimaced. Did he actually expect me to drink that crap when he had mixed it with dirty hands right in front of me? Yuck!

  He pushed the cup to my lips and nodded. Something in his gaze told me that my life rested on drinking the fluid, so I sucked in a breath and opened my mouth.

  The purple man poured the fluid down my throat so quickly that I thought I’d choke from it going down the wrong pipe. I moved my head out of the way and coughed while trying to keep the mixture down, before turning back to the cup and finishing off the bits and pieces that were floating up from the bottom.

  I didn’t know what the herbs were but I had never been a fan of tea—not of any sort at all—and here I was being offered some oddball concoction of God only knew what.

  The taste was horrific, even worse than green tea, which was saying something. Dietary drinks that weren’t coffee just were not my thing and I didn’t understand those crazy hippy types who swore by them. They made zero sense to me.

  Give me freshly-squeezed lemonade or some grape juice and I am completely sold though! Too bad it looked like they were fresh out of juice around here.

  I struggled to finish off the fluid and gasped as I stuck out my tongue. “Gosh, that tastes like utter and complete shit!” I muttered in displeasure.

  The purple male frowned and shook his head as he glanced into the quarter-full wooden cup. He pushed the cup to my lips and tried to force them open with the rim of the cup.

  I leaned back and shook my head. “Hey, fuck! Do you have to be so damn pushy with it?” I asked.

  He pushed the cup toward me again and nodded—his eyes meeting with mine as he looked back at me.

  “Fine! I’ll try to drink the rest. Don’t ask so much,” I said, groaning as I mustered up the courage to lean in and polish off the rest of the terrible tasting liquid.

  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something strangely salty and effervescent about the water that made up the tea. I realized that was what I disliked the most about it.

  The purple male smiled slightly and I grimaced as I spotted two rows of largely jagged canine teeth—teeth that could rival the first set of any great white shark! I was amazed and equally terrified in the same aspect.

  “Holy shit!”

  From looking at his teeth alone, I now realized that he could have literally bitten Tremor’s head off in one bite with zero consequence.

  I stared in disbelief. If I had been thinking that this was a dream I now knew without a doubt that it was not, which sent a landslide of intrusive thoughts through my mind.

  What if he is cannibalistic? What if he does intend to eat us both and that’s why he gave me the nasty tasting brine! That’s it—brine—like he wanted me to marinate from the inside or something!

  Holy crap, what had I gotten myself into and why did my stomach suddenly feel like it was going aflame? The site where I had been stung now felt hot and started pulsating with a quickness that made me want to rip a hole in my skin to get rid of it.

  “What the hell is happening to me?” I asked, my vision suddenly beginning to swim slightly as I looked back at the purple man.

  My body felt strangely overheated and I wanted to pull the hoodie off but had no way to do so with my hands tied. I didn’t like how I was feeling though, and I didn’t think the fluid he had given me did anything to remedy it.

  I sighed as I felt the urge to vomit overtake me again. I leaned to the side, retching up the rest of whatever was left inside me—seemingly bile and nothing more at this point.

  It tasted just as nasty as the fluid had and I wondered if the purple man had any regular water that I could rinse my mouth with and drink in order to get rid of the horrendous taste.

  “Water?” I asked, coughing slightly as I pointed at my tongue.

  “Woof!”

  I heard Tremor bark slightly from inside the satchel and knew he was responding to my request—meaning, he too, needed water but I was in no position to provide it for him.

  The purple man pursed his lips and took a small vial from his satchel—removing the lid and pouring a fair amount into the wooden cup. He held it to my lips and I sniffed it.

  It smelled entirely different from the first beverage—sweeter and fragrant somehow. I wondered if it was a juice of some sort or if it was, in fact, regular water. It sure didn’t smell like any water I had ever had before.

  The purple man held it to my lips and I began to drink it slowly, at first, but then eagerly when I realized that the taste was as lovely as the scent and it was quite comforting to drink.

  I finished off the liquid and leaned forward as the male placed the cup on the ground beside him and began looking over the sting wound. He slid his large thumb over it and I grimaced.

  “Ouch! That really freaking hurts!”

  The male tightened his grip on my arm and turned it to face him as he scowled and shook his head. He shook my arm and pointed at it. I interpreted his meaning to be, ‘Keep your arm in this position!’

  So, I held my arm in the same way he had put it—as much as it pained me to do so. Given my situation, what choice did I have? I wasn’t from this forest and I had no idea what types of creatures inhabited it.

  I had likened it to the Amazon earlier, but it could have very well been the Congo! Which meant, I honestly had no clue what I was dealing with. I was a long way from Boston—I had never been any further south into the tropics than Fort Lauderdale, Florida!

  My body was beginning to feel worse for the wear and I was positive I couldn’t put up with much more of it. At that thought, my stomach began clutching tightly. I felt like something could very well birth itself from the center of my belly as I bowed over and threw up all the fluid that I had consumed.

  The purple male sighed and shook his head, bowing it slightly as he muttered something incoherent under his breath.

  I looked up at him, puzzled and wondering… Was I going to die along with my dog in this strange and foreign place?

  Arh

  I had done everything in my power to get the female under control after seeing her about to cry—something I did not understand.

  I had learned through my experience with Ella that the tears meant pain of some sort. I recognized that the female didn’t want me to terminate her animal, which was a strange thought in and of itself. Was that the cause for her tears?

  Putting her animal away was crucial, however, and once I had secured the creature in a satchel, I felt relieved to no longer hear the incessantly annoying and strange noise it made!

  I went back to the female, who seemed to be turning a reddish color—at least in the cheeks. I hadn’t struck her in the face as she had done me, so I figured that the markings couldn’t have come from our scuffle.

  That meant that something else was off with her body—something that made me both paranoid and curious. The last thing I needed was for her to take ill out here where I couldn’t attend to her needs.

  I was no healer, but I knew a thing or two about how to assist when thing
s happened on the hunt. My mother had done an excellent job in rearing me to recognize certain symptoms in others—which had saved many of my tribesmen’s lives at least once or twice.

  I pursed my lips and went to her side, checking her arms for any sort of disruption. I needed to see the source, but I knew instinctively something wasn’t right with her.

  “Ugh, I feel terrible!” the female announced, in words I didn’t dare try to translate. As she doubled over and began vomiting on the ground, I had no doubt that she was ill—but from what I was yet to learn.

  I pushed her clothing from her arms and glanced up and down them. On her left arm, just below the elbow, was a large, radiating, red bite mark. I instantly recognized it and a pang of guilt and sorrow hit me like a punch straight into my abdomen.

  The dificia beetle was one that typically came out at night and preferred to predate upon smaller creatures; mainly ants and other tiny insects. But if a person came across its path, it was known to inject a terrible sting with toxins that could kill a man within three hours if not properly treated.

  I had no idea how it would react to the female—she was female to start with and also not from Eilahas.

  I had wanted to keep the female a secret, to myself, in hopes that I might have a mate—finally. But now it seemed that I had no choice but to bring her to my mother.

  She was a healer who could help, but I also knew that my mother would reprimand me for thinking that I could keep the female a secret. She would insist that we consult with the elders regarding this new and strange female who resembled Ella in a way, but looked completely different in others.

  Then there was the fact that I now knew this female did eat meat—something I delighted in but knew would astound the other members of the tribe, just as it had myself.

  I had a dilemma and I knew it, but I also knew that trying to get as much of the toxin out as soon as possible would be critical to the female’s survival.